That Perfect Place Read online

  He hoped McGruder would follow the diet sheet and continue with a psychologist. Her little nervous system tended to act up with excitement, a side effect of her mother’s drug abuse.

  Ida, on the other hand, made sure all her neighbors knew her former foster child was the daughter of a famous musician and how much she had done for the little girl.

  That weekend Jeanine threw a birthday bash for their mother at the farmhouse, and the whole office staff helped out, vets included. The men presided over the barbeque pit, and the women congregated in the kitchen. Jill was setting some dishes on the table when she overheard some Gundersen aunts talking about Ida and the farmhouse. She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but this affected her.

  “Now that the little girl is gone maybe she will give the farmhouse to Jeanine and Sam as was promised at Nels’s funeral. It’s been two years now, and poor Jeanie deserves something nice after giving up her acting career to take over here.”

  “Ida is so selfish. She makes everybody dance for her, especially her son. She could easily move into that back apartment.”

  “Yes, but where would Jakob and his boy go? I hear the new lady vet is living in his house.”

  Having heard enough, she snuck quietly out, hoping no one had noticed her.

  Later that evening, after gifts were opened, Ida announced she was leaving in two weeks for an extended visit to Sweden. “Now that I don’t have to be here all the time for Callie. I think I’ve earned it.”

  Jill caught Jeanine looking pointedly at her brother who was brooding in the corner. Ida had a fuzzy view of things.

  On Sunday morning, Brad and his father took a trail ride, then spent the afternoon playing baseball in the area between the clinic and her front yard. There was a backstop set up near the edge of the woods. Brad was trying to keep his dad’s mind off Callie. He knew Jake was worried about her.

  Jill sat out on her porch and watched. Her brothers had all played in high school and were decent, but she was flabbergasted when she saw her boss pitch a few. He threw an amazing fastball.

  He had Brad on the mound and was working on the boy’s form when she came out with lemonade.

  “This looks like thirsty work. My God, Jake, where did you learn to pitch like that? You could have gone pro.”

  Brad was grinning ear to ear. “Dad’s pretty impressive isn’t he?”

  Jill smiled at the pride in the boy’s voice.

  “It’s harder now with the foot thing. I can’t get a good plant with the right foot so I tend to be erratic.”

  “Somehow I can’t picture you getting out of control.”

  “I’ve come close a lot lately.”

  Jill laughed, but she wasn’t sure he was joking.

  “Hey, I have a whole blueberry pie. Are either of you hungry?” she asked. They wound up on the back patio in the shade.

  “Dad was on the all-state baseball team three years in a row. He pitched two shutouts here in Jesup. Granddad always bragged about Uncle Nels and his football, but Great-Granddad left me a scrapbook of Dad’s games. Dad was Great-Granddad’s favorite. I’ll show it to you sometime.”

  Brad looked around. “This deck is so much nicer than the patio at the big house.”

  His father frowned at him and shook his head. Brad changed the subject.

  Jake closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He didn’t look as if he had had much sleep lately. Jill wondered how things were in the farmhouse, which reminded her that this should be his. All of it belonged to him, and she needed to give it back.

  Monday was Dr. Mirza’s last day. Now that Jim was up to speed and Jake would be back full time on Tuesday, a temp would no longer be needed. Jake had taken the day off to take Brad fishing on his first week of summer vacation. He stopped in before heading out to say good-bye and wish Dr. Mirza well.

  Jill tackled Jeanine at lunchtime to discuss the housing issue.

  “Can I talk to you in private?” she asked.

  Jeanine was half afraid of what Jill was going to say. The last thing they needed right now was for her to leave. She shut her office door so the two could have some privacy.

  “Jeanine, I don’t feel right living in Jake’s house, especially now that he doesn’t need to be at the big house so much. Do you know anything about the little green bungalow on the hillside? It’s maybe half a mile down the road.”

  “That’s Megan and Evan Miller’s,” she answered, much relieved. “They built it for his parents, but the old man passed away last year and the mom is in a nursing home.”

  “It says it’s for sale, but do you think they’d rent?”

  “Let me call Megan, or ask Emma. Megan is her daughter, you know.”

  Jeanine, Jill, and Emma went over to the house at lunchtime. It was certainly not as artfully done as the cabin, but everything was new and it was partially furnished. There were several nice flowerbeds front and back.

  “I think it will do nicely,” Jill said. Inside she felt a pang at leaving the cabin. It suited her tastes very well, especially the kitchen. But it was Jake’s, and she would have more privacy here.

  “Let me talk to my husband, and we’ll work something out,” Megan promised.

  By the time Jake and his son arrived home, the details had been all ironed out. Nels had come down to orchestrate the proceedings knowing that Ida might be difficult. He sat everybody down at the dining table and began.

  “Dr. Maitland should not be subjected to us twenty-four/seven, and we all know how badly Jeanine and Sam need a new place, so here’s what we’ve worked out and I hope all of you will think about it before you say anything. First, Jillian is moving into the little house of the Millers. Second, Sam and Jeanie get this house—like it was promised to them before Dad died.” He addressed this last bit pointedly at Ida. “Jake, you and Brad are in the cabin. It’s yours anyway, and Ma, you’ll move downstairs into the rooms Jake’s using now.”

  “What’s the rent on the Millers’ place? Jill should not be responsible for that. I promised her the cabin rent-free for another month,” Jake pointed out.

  “The rent is already taken care of, so you can rest easy on that, Jakob.” Nels gave his brother a sharp look that said the case was closed.

  “Are you OK with this, Jill?” Jake persisted.

  “Yes. I won’t pretend I don’t love your cabin, but the bungalow is very nice too. It’s sunny and has lots of flowers.”

  “Yippee,” came from Brad. He looked around the table to see if it was OK for him to be happy.

  “Thank you, Nels,” Ida said unenthusiastically. “While I’m gone if you could have all my things moved, and I could tell you how I want my apartment remodeled. You know, just a few changes to make it mine.”

  “Sure. You figure out what you want done, and we’ll finish it before you get back.”

  Jeanine was holding Sam’s hand. Jill could see how much this meant to them, and she wondered how bad the house they presently lived in was. She knew Sam didn’t make a ton of money at John Deere because of some health problems. Her kids were whispering about room choices in the background.

  Jill started to move on Wednesday. At lunchtime, Jeanine stopped by with a few things. They were donating some furniture since Jill really didn’t have any.

  “I just wanted to say, Jill, how much we appreciate this. Did you hear from Emma the saga of the house disasters Sam and I have suffered?” she asked as they moved a table and chairs out of the truck and into the house.

  “No, I was actually thinking of Jake when I decided to move. I always felt guilty living in that beautiful house, knowing it was supposed to be his. How did Jake wind up in the farmhouse when he returned from California?”

  “Our grandparents were living in the cabin when he first got back. They offered to move, but he wouldn’t hear of it. After all, it had been built with their money. So he moved into the apartment Dad had built way back when he had first returned from vet school. When Granddad died, he left the cabin to Jake in his will,
but Jake just stayed where he was.”

  “Do you think he feels good about moving back in? I know Brad’s excited.” She wiped the sweat off her forehead. “How about some lemonade?”

  “I wouldn’t turn it down.” Jeanine sat in one of the chairs they had placed. “I don’t know what he’s feeling. Right now, I think he’s still feeling odd about Callie. What he has against the cabin, I’m not sure of either. I do know that with you and now Jim, he finally feels like the clinic is going to make it. He’s nearly killed himself to rebuild, not just the clinic but our reputation. Another bad year would have seen the whole thing up for sale.”

  “So what happened with you and Sam? I never got that story,” she said as she handed Jeanine a glass.

  “Sam and I had a beautiful four-bedroom in Waterloo. In ’08 we had a flood that was higher than any we’d had before, and our house was condemned. None of our neighborhood had flood insurance. We had never even dreamed of needing it. The government helped us out a bit to pay off the mortgage, and we would have been fine except Sam got this weird infection that toasted his pancreas and now he is insulin dependent. We’ve been renting since then.”

  “Why didn’t you say something sooner? I wouldn’t have taken the cabin if I knew you needed it.”

  “We needed you here and happy more. Well, I’ve got to go. Just thanks, Jill. Thanks for being so great.” Jeanine gave her a quick, hard hug.

  Jill felt pretty good about things as she unpacked and spent a restful night in her new digs.

  Jake spent an hour tossing and turning on the king-sized bed in the master suite of the cabin. For some reason, being here brought up all the things he didn’t want to think about. Images of his bloody, torn boot floated through his mind. It took all his strength of will to keep from picturing what the RPG had done to the nineteen-year-old opposite him on the stricken chopper. He got up and took a sleeping pill and turned on the radio to keep the rest of that day from parading through his memory.

  hey put Ida on a plane on Friday, and by the end of the following week the moves had all been finished. Ida had a long list of renovations that everybody avoided talking about, hoping she would stay in Sweden for more than a few months.

  Tina had moved in with Jim, much to Jill’s surprise, and they both helped out with the moves. Fortunately, the clinic had a week that was slightly slower than the normal frenetic pace. It took everyone a few weeks to settle in. Work, though, was going great. For the first time, things were humming along smoothly. No one felt overworked, and the three vets got along famously.

  The only black cloud was the business of the health certificates. The dead cow had tested positive for anthrax, but its point of origin was not yet known. Donny McCaffrey had been questioned and revealed that he had merely picked up the trailer outside of Shenandoah, Iowa, and left it on an abandoned farm outside of Stanley as directed. An envelope of cash was waiting for him at the drop off point.

  He said he never looked at the cows closely but that they all seemed healthy. Four days later, he picked up the cow that was sold in Walker and took it to the sale barn as ordered. The farm where the cows had been dropped off was checked. There were no longer any cows there, but the area did test positive for anthrax spores. The only other piece of information Donny had was the number of a disposable cell phone.

  The clinic got an official slap on the wrist for allowing regulated documents out of their possession, and everyone put the incident out of their thoughts.

  On a Friday near the end of June, Tina and the vets were gathered on the deck of the cabin having a beer while Jake barbecued some steaks. They were celebrating the end of Jill’s three-month trial and agreeing to stay on.

  “So are you going to keep calling the place Gundersen and Murdoch’s or what?” Tina asked.

  “I’m open to something better,” Jake answered. “You’ve got to come up with something good though.”

  “How about GMC: Gundersen, Maitland, and Cullen? Or three J’s?” Tina put forward.

  “It would have to be four J’s. Jeanine has been here longer than I have,” he pointed out.

  “Maybe Wapsie River vets?” Jim suggested. “That’s the nearest river,” he said for Tina’s benefit. Everything he did these days was for her; in fact, his life was now revolving around time spent together. He wondered at the change in himself and how easily it had come about.

  “We could always call it Dumb Doggy,” Jill said laughing. “Every time a dog comes in, the big green parrot says, ‘Hi, dumb doggy,’” she explained to Tina.

  “Sven can say other things,” Jake defended his grandfather’s parrot.

  “Yes, he insults people in Swedish.”

  “He tells them they are ugly or have big feet, nothing terrible. Granddad had a strange sense of humor.”

  Nothing was decided upon except that Jeanine would come up with something and that the steaks, which were a gift from a happy client, were great.

  Monday they all descended on Jeanine for a solution.

  “That’s easy. Jakob, tell us the name of the creek that runs through our property.”

  “Havecare?”

  “Have a Care Veterinary,” Jim tried it out first.

  “Why is it called Have a Care Creek?” Jill wanted to know.

  “Flash floods. It’s notorious for swamping the road in seconds. That’s why the orange gate at each end,” Jeanine explained.

  “Do we spell it like the map, h-a-v-e-c-a-r-e, or Have-a-Care?” Jake wanted to know.

  “Havecare.” Jill and Jim said it together and laughed.

  “Granddad would be pleased. He was always trying to get Dad to call it that,” Jeanine commented.

  “Make it happen, General,” Jake said and headed off to start the day’s work.

  “Certainly, Big Jake,” Jeanine called loudly after him as she leaned over the counter. “I don’t know where he got that from, but it’s annoying.”

  Jill quickly headed for the exam room to have a laugh in private.

  After a busy morning of vaccinations and spays, she had lunch with Jeanine and Stephanie. Emma worked mornings and then went home to Dave who was still convalescing. SJ and Brad were helping out at Deale’s farm.

  “So how does this farm thing work? The Gundersens own part of the land but Ed farms it?” Jill asked.

  “Ed owns five hundred acres of his own and he crops another three hundred fifty for us. We share the income down the middle after costs, and he pays the boys directly for their labor. We’re making SJ put half of what he earns toward college, but he still has plenty of spending money,” Jeanine explained.

  “I’m telling you, between what we’re saving on the rent and my commute and the fact that I’m not so exhausted from running around, Sam and I are getting along better than we have in the last four years. You’ll never know what a lifesaver you’ve been, Jill, for all of us.”

  “Even Celia,” Steph added. “She’s only working one morning at the farmhouse and one for Jake. Last Sunday at church, she was saying how she was getting around to things she hadn’t done in years.”

  Jill’s cell rang about that time. It was her lawyer.

  He got right to the point. “Tom has decided not to contest the divorce anymore. I think he finally realizes he can’t win in court. Can you be out here next Thursday so we can finalize the dissolution?”

  Jill was stunned. She took several beats to reply. “You mean we could finish this once and for all?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Hold on just a minute, please.” She said to Jeanine, “Tom’s agreed to end our marriage. Can I have Thursday and Friday off next week?”

  “Of course.”

  Jill spoke into the phone: “What time and where?”

  After she hung up, she said to her companions, “I don’t know if I’m ecstatic at being free of him or sad for being such a loser at relationships.”

  Jeanine had to restrain herself from saying anything about the fact that she could have a great r
elationship with Jake if she would just give him some kind of a sign. Steph looked at her knowingly. Everybody else could see Jake was nuts about her. They also knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t make a move unless she indicated she was willing.

  Tina went to Ohio with her sister to give her moral support. It was all over in less than an hour. Tom, handsome and perfectly groomed as always, had a smug looking woman hanging on his arm and refused to even speak to her. The sisters stopped at the Maitland’s’ farm until Saturday. Jill’s parents were very unhappy about the divorce, especially since Tina had never married.

  “You guys already have five grandkids. Give Jill and me a break,” Tina groaned.

  “I’d just like to see my girls settled and happy before I die,” their mother said.

  “You’re just going to have to hang on a bit longer, Mom.”

  “Well, for my part I’m really happy in Iowa,” Jill said. “Jakob Gundersen is an outstanding vet and very reasonable to work for.”

  “Yes, and he has gorgeous brown eyes that only see Jill when she’s in the room,” Tina teased.

  Their mother was all over that immediately.

  “Mom, I’ve been divorced for two days—cut me some slack,” Jill said, throwing a towel at her sister. “I am not falling for my boss again. Besides, he doesn’t play golf.”

  The two women drove back to Iowa on Sunday and arrived around dinnertime. Jill went to Tina and Jim’s place for dinner, and they sat and talked for hours. She could see Tina having a very long-term relationship with Jim. The two seemed to be on some kind of psychic wavelength, finishing each other’s sentences and laughing at the same things. Jill was delighted that her dear sister would be close at least for a while. She had sorely missed her sharp wit when she was in Ohio. Tina never could stand to be near Tom for long.