Sand Castles by Antoinette Stockenberg Read Free Book Online

musical cars, after which the contractor finally left. Two minutes later another car, this one a five-year-old Taurus, rolled down the street and pulled alongside the house, and this time Zack felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
    ****
    Wendy was still standing in the middle of her family-room- to-be, marveling at how quickly the framework had gone up, thrilled by the realization that she'd finally have room for a three-cushion sofa.
    "Thanks for picking up my car, Jim. You can take your SUV back; I was getting a nosebleed up in that driver's seat. You just missed Pete, by the way," she added, still smiling as her husband walked around to the front of the site.
    "I know; I saw his truck turn the corner. No big deal," Jim answered with a shrug. "I didn't have anything to go over with him, anyway." He ascended the four-rung ladder and looked around cursorily.
    "How can you not have anything to go over with him? I had a list as long as my arm. I never did get through it; only the most important things. Pete hates to be bothered when he's working, and then he hates to be held up when he's done. It's maddening. I keep wanting to throw a net around him."
    "You wanted to hire him as much as I did," Jim said quickly.
    "I know. And he's good. He's great. But he drives me a little crazy. Oh, well; I'll get used to it," she said happily. "As long as they keep making progress. Just look, Jim," she said, throwing her arms out and whirling in place. "We have walls! We have a family room! Isn't it wonderful?"
    Jim didn't seem to be nearly as impressed. "The framework always goes fast," he said knowingly, the way men do. "Once the studs are up, that's when it starts slowing down. And keeps slowing down."
    Wendy shook her head. "Nope, you're wrong. Pete was just telling me that he has way more work than he can handle; he's trying to hire more help, in fact. With or without more help, he's going to have to work like a maniac to get our addition done, otherwise he won't be able to go on to the next job."
    Jim threw his head back in a loud, good-natured laugh and then took her in his arms. "You really believe that? Wendy. Everyone's not like you, you know—keeping at something until it's done. Definitely not contractors; it's just not how they operate. They're jugglers, Wen, better at it than anyone out of a circus."
    "We'll see," she said, but she felt a little less smug than before.
    They stood in their embrace in the middle of their family-room-to-be, each of them caught up in his own thoughts, savoring the last warm rays of the afternoon sun. Wendy decided—for the first time, really, since the night that Jim found out that he'd won the lottery—that she was truly, unreservedly happy.   She was more convinced than ever that she didn't need a mansion, she didn't need a boat. All she needed, all she wanted, was room for a three-cushion couch. They could take all of the money back, but if she had her husband and her son and the rest of her family—and that little bit of extra room—then Wendy could honestly say she had everything her heart desired.
    "Honey?" Jim murmured in her hair.
    "H mm ?"
    In a soft, sober whisper he said, "Quitting that job was the best thing I ever did."
    "You don't miss it," she murmured, stating the obvious.
    "Miss it? In retrospect, I hated it. Now I can figure out what I really want out of life."
    "Isn't that funny?" she asked in a dreamy voice. "I think I already have."
    ****
    Twelve years. It could have been twelve days. He was sporting a few more pounds, a little less hair, but holy cow , it was Jimmy Hayward. Jim Hodene was Jimmy Hayward. Zina was right, poor kid; as right as rain. After all those years and all those red herrings, she'd actually stumbled across the man of her dreams, the bum who'd left her eight months pregnant and disappeared in broad daylight.
    Zack wanted to jump out of his truck, throw the guy in a bamboo cage, and parade him through the streets for everyone to see. And then