Good Wood (2 page)

“Hey there, big boy, I wasn’t expecting you home for hours. What a pleasant surprise.” Setting the bags aside, I swept her gently up into my arms and smothered her in gentle kisses. I saved my last kiss for the protruding baby bump peeking out of the hem of her t-shirt.

“Hey, Sunshine, I got tired of all the crazy and decided you deserved a little pampering tonight. I brought dinner.”

Glancing down at the bags on the floor, her eyes went wide. “You’re making me spaghetti?” The last word transformed into a squeal of joy. Jumping into my arms, she proceeded to kiss me long and hard. As she released me, she looked at me with a mock scowl. “I’m already way too fat!” I shot her a grin and shook my head.

“No, Jack’s fat. You still have a boney ass.” I pinched her on the aforementioned ass and her green eyes twinkled in a naughty manner. It was a good thing that the meat was packed with dry ice, because it was a while before I made it back to the kitchen. By the time the sauce was simmering, she had showered and was perched on a stool watching me work.

“Mmmmmm, there’s really nothing sexier than a half-naked man cooking dinner.” She delivered this proclamation with a distractingly sexy drawl and I slipped between her legs for several more tantalizing kisses. Then the timer went off signaling the food was done and I sat down to enjoy a wonderful meal with the woman I loved. It was a simple, but glorious moment stolen from time.

After our early dinner, Jessica told me that her friend Bethany was on her way over for a visit. One of the few “issues” that she and I had was Bethany. Beth was a spoiled rotten rich girl who always seemed to find a backhanded way of insulting me every time she saw me. Jessica knew that I thought spending time with her friend was right up there with me putting a nail through my own hand. Seeing the look of annoyance in my eye she laughed and threw her arms around my neck.

“Don’t pout, Joe! I think you should try and finish up your projects at the shop this evening. Didn’t you say you needed to put a last coat of varnish on the crib or something?” I smirked down at her. She blinked innocently up at me from under her blonde bangs, but she knew me better than I did. I’d always been transparent to her, and she was always so good at reading me.

“Yes, I need to put on several layers of oil and beeswax. It is a lot safer for the baby than a toxic varnish.” I snuck a kiss and then nuzzled her neck. “Yeah, I should try and get that done. How long is she going to be here?”

“Probably late. I figured we would have our last big girl talk before the baby gets here. You know how she is, if I don’t put in the time now she’ll be a pain in the ass later.” I laughed and nodded. I’d never understood why someone as together as Jess would be friends with a neurotic mess like Bethany, the martini luncheon queen. But they’d been together since grade school, so maybe she’d slowly gotten worse with age.

“Well, that should give me plenty of time. There are a few things besides the crib I could work on.” The knowing eye roll she gave me made me smile. The last time she came to the workshop, I’d shown her a toddler bed I had designed. Six separate wood blocks hollowed out and shaped just so. Once I had them primed and painted, they would fit together into the coolest red racecar. I had a few things I had to tweak to make sure that everything was balanced so they fit together correctly.

“My sexy work-a-holic. I figured that you’d find something to keep yourself busy.” She smiled her sweet all-American girl smile and planted kiss after kiss on me. I thought we might be headed back to the bedroom again, but we were interrupted by a curt knock on the door. I made my escape giving the ice queen Bethany my best fake smile on the way out.

The crib took no time at all to finish. When I pulled out the racecar bed, I had an epiphany. Shaving a few bits here and there it slid together perfectly. I touched up the paint and left everything to dry figuring I could sneak back in the following week and do another full coat. Traffic was unusually light and I pulled into our driveway just in time to see Jessica locking the door as if on her way out. She looked up in surprise as I slipped out of the truck.

“Hey hon. I didn’t expect you back so soon.” Jess was normally calm and together, but she seemed a bit agitated. I cocked my head sideways and looked at her curiously.

“I figured things out faster than I thought I would. Did Bethany leave early?” Jessica flushed and fumbled her keys, dropping them to the ground.

“Yeah, she ended up getting a call and had to go into work.”

“Oh. So where were you going?” I picked up the keys and handed them back to her. She placed a hand on her naval and turned away from me. She paused for a second jingling through her keys before replying

“Nowhere special. I was just going to go out to Amy’s for some ice cream. I had a craving.” Sliding my hands under her arms I hugged her from behind and nuzzled her neck.

“I can drive you over if you like. Or I could go get it.” Turning the key in the lock she reached back and pulled me by the belt.

“Something sounds a little more appetizing than ice cream right now,” she growled as she pulled me into the dark house. An hour later, I lay completely exhausted on our mussed bed with her head resting on my shoulder and my hand on her baby bump. Between long hours and our blissful exertions, I was hovering at the edge of sleep. I drifted off to Jessica’s slow heartbeat and the wiggling of little Jack under my hand.

The bed was cold when I woke sometime later. Groggy, I reached for Jessica and my hand closed on an empty bed sheet. Jolting awake, I snapped on the lamp. I was alone in the room. Stumbling to my feet I checked the bathroom first. She wasn’t there. An unsettling feeling of panic began to bloom inside my chest. As I rushed through the house, each empty room caused my anxiety to climb. I nearly fell down the stairs on my way to the ground floor. Her car wasn’t in the driveway. I stood there for a few minutes like an idiot staring out the window at her empty parking space.

Bethany
. The thought crossed my mind and I nearly flew back up the stairs to grab my cell phone. I had to call that bitch four times before she finally deigned to answer her phone.

“Hello?”

“Bethany. It’s Joe. Is Jessica over there?”

“Jess? No. What? Why would she be here?” I burned a few thousand gallon barrels of patience not screaming into the phone.

“I just woke up and she isn’t here. Do you know where she is? Did she mention anything about going anywhere when you two talked earlier?” I hated the way my voice sounded. It was border line crazy man. But I couldn’t help it.

“She said she was going out before you got back.” Before I could respond, my phone beeped. Looking at it I saw an incoming call from Jessica.

“She’s calling. I have to go.” Without another word I hung up on her stupid ass. Clicking the answer icon, I tried to keep my voice calm. “Jess, baby? Where are you?” There was a pause on the other end and then a male voice answered me.

“Sir? This is James Simms. I’m a flight medic with Austin-Travis County EMS. You are listed as the emergency contact in my patient’s phone.”

“Why do you have my wife’s phone? A flight medic? What the hell is going on?” My worry blossomed into full blown dread.

“Mr. Jensen, I’m here with your wife. She’s been in a car accident. We are en route by air transport to UMC at Breckenridge. I need you to tell me if your wife is allergic to anything or has any medications that she cannot take.” Something inside me snapped and I started rattling off information to him like a robot. Without warning, he hung up on me. I stared at the phone like it was the devil himself. Turning, I ran out of the house to my truck, not even stopping to put on shoes or a shirt.

As I tore down the road, I dialed my phone one handed. The second person programmed into my speed dial, was my sister, Tamryn. She picked up on the first ring.

“Joe! What’s wrong?” That was Tamryn-so together that even woken out of a dead sleep she was ready for anything. I whipped around a car that was doing the speed limit and barely missed clipping a Yellow Cab as I fishtailed back into my lane.

“Tamz,” I used my childhood nickname for her-something I hadn’t done since we were still living with our parents. “Jess….she was in an accident. They are airlifting her to Breckenridge. I’m on my way there.” My voice broke and I couldn’t say another word. A sob snuck out of my throat and I heard her sharp intake of breath.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She was gone before I could think to reply. I hung the phone up and dropped it as I ripped the wheel to the right. I barely missed mowing down a motorcycle cop. I ignored the flashing lights and set a new land speed record across town. Halfway to my destination, two cop cars tried to block my way. I drove around them, through an empty parking lot and was back on the road without slowing.

When I pulled into the emergency room entrance, I didn’t even bother with the keys; I just left the engine running and jumped out. I saw a helicopter in the sky getting closer. Racing into the building I slipped through a security door trailing two doctors. They stopped at a bank of elevators. To their right I saw a door for stairs and went through it without stopping. Taking the stairs two and three at a time I charged up toward the roof. My lungs burned as I worked my legs like the pistons of an engine.

By the time I reached the top floor, I was going on pure adrenaline. A painful stitch had started a few floors below the top and I was having trouble breathing. When I got to the roof access, I found a locked door. Grabbing it, I yanked with all my strength and felt the metal bend in the frame. It popped loose just as I felt a muscle in my arm begin to give. Running out onto the roof, I saw the helicopter just touching down. A crowd with a gurney rushed toward it. Three cops and two security guards came out of another doorway and barreled toward me.

“Freeze! Get down on the ground! Down on the ground!”

“Show me your hands! Down, down, down. Get on the ground!”

Their shouts seemed like they were coming from another world. The doors to the helicopter opened and a bloodstained figure was loaded onto the waiting gurney. In a flurry of activity, they raced back towards the building entrance. One of the officers grabbed my right arm. I shook him off and started towards the figure on the gurney. The other two officers grabbed me hard. With effort, I managed to move forward, their shouts ringing in my ears.

Several faces in the team surrounding the gurney glanced up, registering concern and alarm. The third officer, this one much stronger, dug in his heels and tried to take me down from behind. Between the three of them they couldn’t drop me and with them hanging on to me they couldn’t taser me. My forward momentum halted, I fought hard, throwing one of them off. At that moment, the crowd parted and I saw her face. Jessica. Up until that instant, some small part of me had been hoping against all reason that this was all just some huge mistake. But seeing her bruised and bloodied face shattered that illusion like a pane of glass. The officers wrestled with me, fighting to take me down. Muscles straining, I lifted my body with the three officers bearing down on me.

“Jessica! Let me go! That’s my wife! Let me go! She’s pregnant! Jess!” The officers finally wrestled me down and slammed my head into the concrete.

As they manhandled me into the cuffs, the punishment they inflicted was meaningless. Nothing they did to me could’ve held a candle to the ache in my chest. Just like that, in twenty four hours, I had gone from bliss to hell. I felt like everything that meant anything was slipping through my fingers. A sound finally broke through my haze. It was Tamryn, barking in her full on lawyer’s voice.

“I swear to God; if you don’t get your hands off him right now I will have your badge. When I am done, none of you will even be able to get security guard jobs at the mall!”

“Lady! I don’t care if you’re the Attorney General! This man is a clear and present danger to the public. He’s out of control and we’re taking him into custody.” I blinked through the water clouding my vision and saw my older sister, all five feet of her, standing in the face of one of the officers.

“You have three seconds to reconsider, officer! Then I dial this number and your life as you know it ends. As it happens, I
do
know the Attorney General. What do you think he’ll say when I wake him up and tell him what you’re doing to an upstanding member of the community, who is distraught because his
pregnant
wife was hurt in a car accident? Release him into my custody. I’ll take full responsibility for him. Impound his vehicle and write him all the tickets you want.” The hands holding me began to loosen their grip.

“Please.” She continued raw emotion weighty in her voice. “Step away from your ego for five seconds and act like a human being! What if it was your wife in there?”

A minute later they stood me up and uncuffed my wrists. I slipped to the ground like boneless meat. Tamryn’s arms came around me and I found myself clinging to her, sobbing into her shoulder. I held on to my sister-the one solid piece of my world that wasn’t imploding.