Page 5 of Jake

“I’ll wait if you wait with me. Or perhaps you and I could live together, and we could be our own little pride.” She shook her head. “You don’t think we’d make a perfect couple?”

“I think—and this could just be me—but I think you’re full of shit.” Forrest had laughed hard, harder than he had in a long while. “But as for living with me, should you like to do that, you’d have to be very careful of the men I bring in. I may be nearing eighty, but I still like a good romp in the bed on occasion.”

Forrest thought of her every time he had a bad thought enter his head about this thing with Thomas. He thought of her and what she’d say whenever he was having some difficulty about a case or just life in general. She was a good balm for his otherwise bad day. As he looked over the emails, most of which he deleted, he wondered if Jenna’s grandson would be anything like her. For some reason he doubted it. There could only be one Jenna Winslow.

~~~

Carol was sick of waiting on someone to help her, especially Jake. And she had to be out of the hotel in the morning. Who made a person vacate a room by eleven in the morning when there were more important things to do than that? She wanted all day to lounge around, soak in the huge tub, and be pampered while she plotted and planned what she was going to do when she got back to her home. But her mother had told her this was her last night, and not even talking to her dad had helped her extend her stay. He’d told her that she was costing them too much money.

“But Daddy, you have no idea how I’ve suffered. And why do you care how much this is costing? You have a lot of money.” He asked her about the bugs, and it took her a moment to think of what he was talking about. “There were some.”

“No there weren’t, Carol. I had those men go there and check each piece out, and there was nothing there. You lied to me. And you know what I think of liars. After all I’ve done for you, this is how you treat me? No, I will not gainsay your mother on this. You’re out by tomorrow first thing or they’ll come to you for the rest.” She asked him why he was taking her mom’s side. “I’m taking the side of the right way this should have been done. Your mother and I talked it over, and we’ve decided that you’ve done this all on your own. Jake might not be the best husband for you, but he’s what you wanted and I made sure you had him. At a great cost to myself. Work this out, or so help me, Carol, I will be done with you.”

Hanging up on him had been hard as her daddy meant the world to her. Everyone was against her. And damn it, Jake wasn’t playing right either. He should have been devastated by now and begging her to return home. But she’d not heard a word from him, only that attorney who kept calling and asking for an appointment. She thought of what she’d seen last night when she’d taken a cab by her house.

There had been a big moving van out front, and the things they were unloading didn’t look a thing like anything she would approve of. And she was pretty sure that Jake knew that too. Why, just the couch alone was as ugly as sin. Not a bit of style; just a dreadful brown color that made her think of poop.

She asked the driver what was going on. “Lady, in the event you don’t know this, I’m a cabbie, not a clairvoyant. Why don’t you get on over there and ask them? I just conveyed your butt here. I’m not doing any kind of prophesying for you.”

Carol didn’t care for the way he spoke to her and told him that. The man laughed and told her tough shit, then he took her back to her hotel at breakneck speed and told her to get out. She thought about not paying him—he’d treated her with no respect—but he put out his big beefy hand and told her that if she didn’t pay in money, he’d take it from her in other ways. Carol had had to fork over the last of her cash she’d managed to take from her mother’s purse when she’d not been looking.

Picking up the phone for the tenth time in as many minutes, she tried to think what she’d say to Jake when he answered. Crying hard was going to have to be the first thing he heard. Then telling him that she felt so abused by him. She was going to sob at just the right time when she explained to him how she hated the way he was treating her by taking her money. Also, she was going to have to mention that furniture. That was going to have to go. Pulling her notes to her, she went over each point as she pressed the buttons to put the call through. She was going to have to tell Jake that her phone was no longer working as well. The cell service, she’d been informed, had been cut off.

“Winslow residence.” Carol thought she might have dialed the wrong number, because she had no idea who the voice belonged to except for the last name being said. “Winslow residence. May I help you?”

“I was looking for Jake. Jake Winslow, my husband. Who is this?” She was told that he was the new butler. “We don’t have a butler. Are you there robbing the place? I’ll call the police right now.”

“I don’t believe that a robber would answer the phone, do you? Nor do I think I’d get very far in my work if I did. Now, you say that you’re the wife? Mr. Winslow has assured me that he is the only one that lives here. He had a wife, I suppose, but she left him for something better.” She told the man that she’d left, but only temporarily. “I see. Well, actually I don’t. But if you’d like to leave a message for Mr. Winslow, I can do that for you. I don’t expect him home until later today.”

“I need to speak to him now. Tell him that I’m coming over there so that we can talk.” He told her again that Jake wasn’t home. “Of course he is. It’s Sunday. Even he takes that day off. Tell him that I want him to sit down and listen to what I have to say to him so we can get this cleared up.”

“It’s Tuesday.” She wasn’t sure he was right, but assumed, for now, that he was. “Mr. Winslow will be returning at five-thirty this evening. If you would like, I can give him a message. But I’m not telling him all that other stuff. Just that you called and your number. Is there one that I can give him?”

Carol wanted to scream. Jake wasn’t doing anything in the order she wanted, not a single thing. After giving the number to the butler, she asked him to repeat it back to her twice so she knew he had it right. After hanging up, she thought about calling back just to ask his name, but decided he wouldn’t be there long enough after she returned to learn it. Things were going to take a nice change when she got back to her home, and then Jake was going to explain a lot of things to her. Like how come he had a butler there now when she’d been begging for one for years.

Next, she called the furniture store whose name had been imprinted across the back of the truck delivering the furniture when she’d been there. She wanted answers and they were going to give them to her. Like what the hell were they doing delivering furniture to her home without her approval? And she wanted to know how many other things had been brought in. Was there anything with color on it? She needed to know just how much she was going to have to work to get things back to the way she wanted them. Jake was going to pay for doing this while she was out.

The phone was answered just as she was writing down some more things to talk to Jake about. “Yes, hello. I’d like to speak to your manager. There has been a dreadful mistake and I want it taken care of today.” She was put on hold as she thought of what she was going to do first when she got home. After tossing out the other things, she was going to go on a shopping spree like none other. She might even go all the way to New York this time. When the line was opened, she told him who she was and why she was calling him. Before she could get into what she needed for him to do, he spoke.

“Mr. Winslow placed the order and had us deliver it to his home yesterday. I do believe he was quite happy with his things.” She told him that wouldn’t do. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand. What won’t do?”

“That monstrosity that you took there. I want you to go back and get it. It’s not at all my taste. I would have thought that a person who owns a furniture store wouldn’t sell such things, unless you cater mostly to the homeless. Is that it? No matter. You’ll have to go out there and pick those things back up and take them away. I’ll be out sometime over the next day or two to replace them. But only if you get there today. I cannot stand the thought that you’ve ruined my home with that monstrosity.” Carol had heard that word used a couple of days ago and was glad that she was able to use it twice now in the same sentence.Monstrosity. It has a nice ring to it, she thought. As she waited for the groveling, the apologies that were due her, she decided to get her nails done as well. “Did you hear me? I said that you have to take care to make this right. Today. I am most upset, and you know as well as I that the customer is always right.”

“In most cases, I would say that’s correct, but not this one. It is my understanding, Ms. Lane, that you are no longer able to purchase for the Winslow household as you are not a resident there any longer. We were told that several times, not only by Mr. Winslow himself, but by his attorney.” She opened her mouth to tell him that she would be taking care of that as well, but he continued before she could. “Mr. Winslow called here just an hour ago, telling me what excellent choices he’d made in his purchases. He said that it was not only the most comfortable thing he’d ever sat in since living in his home, but also that he wanted to get the rest of the set. Two chairs, as well as end tables and coffee tables. He is a man of good taste. So my advice to you is that, if you’re going to be throwing around your weight, you should really check the facts first and foremost.”

“I’m his wife.” He didn’t say anything and she had to think about how to salvage this. She needed this man to understand, but she had questions of her own. “You called me Ms. Lane. Why did you say that? I’m his wife. I’m still a Winslow until I say differently. And you can’t talk to me this way. I’ll have Jake own you for how you’re treating me. He’ll be really pissed off.”

“As you wish, Ms. Lane.” Carol wanted to scream at him to call her by her married name, but she hung up on him instead.

Jake wasn’t playing by any of her rules, and worse yet, she had no idea how to make him understand that he needed to. She knew that he was missing her, he had to be. And she knew that he was doing this because he was lonely or depressed. That was it, her mind told her; he was depressed and lashing out the only way he knew how. Carol was going to have him eating out of her hand soon, and she couldn’t have been happier about it. She was going to be able to get whatever she wanted from him because of this thing he was going through right now.

Going to the door when someone knocked, she was too happy and excited to check to see who it might have been. More than likely Jake, she told herself. She opened the door and stared at the man standing before her for a full minute before she realized he was speaking. Christ, he looked good enough to eat and fuck.

“Are you Carol Lane Winslow?” She nodded. “Good. I thought I had the wrong room again. Here you go.”

The thick envelope was shoved at her before she could figure out who he was. And when he put a pen in her hand and told her to sign on line ten, she did that as well. He smiled at her as he said she’d been served and just walked away. Carol wasn’t sure what to think when he started laughing all the way to the elevator. People were very strange, she thought.

Taking the big blue envelope to her bed, she opened it up. Carol read the first line of it four times before she understood what she had been handed. Divorce papers? Jake was suing her for a divorce? She read it once more, and just to be sure, she read it aloud.