Chapter 1

I guess no place is perfect but I had fallen in love with this house; so a few negatives were overlooked, like the price; but hey, you gotta live somewhere. I also did not like where it was; too many neighbors, too close together and too many spiders, snakes and what not slithering about. I made one change to the house, adding a large deck adjacent to the indoor saltwater pool; snakes just love outdoor pools so I had cut back trees, shrubs and bushes near it too; clearing almost an acre, just in case they liked indoor ones too. That caused more of a stir in the ‘Association’ than I thought doing it had warranted.

Mine was the only house like it, a big ‘Texas Ranch’ smack dab in the middle of this mixed community. I say mixed because there were small vacation size tree-type homes mixed in with full size ones. Some were bigger than the one I bought but as I said, mine was the only one of its type here; we were not in Texas and we get snow in Virginia, thank you very much, another dislike of mine.

I’m a private person; not a recluse although some may call me that. I worked hard in making certain that thought crosses their mind though. So far I have been successful, no visitors or ‘Welcome Wagon’ were ringing the doorbell.

Isn’t there a saying that ‘all good things must come to an end’ or something like that. Well! When mine did, it ended up not a bad as you might think. For one, my wife, ex-wife rather, found another source of comfort other than me. That was not the only thing that changed; number two occurred a little after I moved into my new house.

The doorbell rang, actually it was a chime; I had never heard it before today. I just ignored it. Again it sounded; ‘persistent bugger’ I thought. I got out of the pool, wrapped a towel around my waist and dripped across the floor to answer the damn door.

After a peek to see if, it was the law or not, I opened the door and said “Yes, I already gave at the office”.

“Please excuse me I’m your neighbor Peggy. I’m so sorry that I have not been over to welcome you but I, I ... have had some problems. Is there anyway you or your wife could just watch my daughter a few hours? The babysitter I hired did not show and I need to find a lawyer to handle my divorce from that ‘Rat Bastard’ hopefully my soon to be ex.”

“Hello, Peggy Sue, how are you? Ah, sorry your name just reminded me of an old song. C’mon in Peggy, I might be able to help you out with some of your problem. My ex is a lawyer’, actually we used to have a law firm together but almost parted friends, well sort of.

I left for a few minutes then returned. “Here is her card, call, ask for her, tell the secretary you are Sam’s neighbor and need some legal help “As she turned and walked out she was clutching the card like it was made of gold. The look on her face had changed from a frantic panic to something much calmer.

It was now 9:15 am and both the phone and doorbell were ringing. I took the wireless to the door and looked at the caller Id. It was my Ex, so I could guess it was Peggy at the door.

As I opened it I answered, “Sam’s home for wayward girls, are you picking up or dropping off?”

As I thought, it was Peggy at the door but she was not alone.

“Nice technique Stud, I’m glad you finally got a hobby. My opinion of you changed a little today. That woman you referred me too was in a bad state. I think I spent most of the call just trying to calm her down. For some strange reason she thinks you’re a good guy, she should only know but you did the right thing for her. I’m seeing her later myself, although you are ‘the enemy’ I think what you are doing for her is points for you, she told me you are watching her kid so she can come in.”

“She is here now, let me speak with her. Help her if you can Hon, if you need costs covered let me know or just deduct it from my share of the house or business. My opinion of you went up too; I might not automatically kill, maim and mutilate your ‘lover’ on sight when I see her now. Bye and thanks.”

Today gave me the feeling that our divorce was the right thing to do. I recalled that song to ‘know when to hold em and know when to fold em’. I had thought she and I were no longer even friends.

I turned to the two still standing in the doorway.

“Come in Peggy Sue, bring your shadow with you, and is she another neighbor or a gift for my new ‘Wayward Girls’ endeavor?”

“I need to thank you, so much. I’m seeing your wife, err, ex wife later. She just listened while I rambled on. I feel so much better though, it feels like I have you and her on my side and it’s not me alone against the world now. I don’t care if she is the right one for me or not but I do trust her, and you too. In my book that means everything.”

“Well Peggy Sue, if she can’t help you no one can. Lee and Jefferson have over 200 lawyers pushing pencils. Her Maiden name is Lee, as in Robert E. and mine is Jefferson, Sam Jefferson. Those names still mean something around these parts so unless your soon to be ex husband wants to start another war, you won’t be without some clout. Sorry, Hon to speak ill of your Daddy but I sort of don’t know his side.”

The look the tall, thin, blonde gave me might have come from a corpse. I went over and extended my hand. “Hi, I’m Sam and you are?”

“Sorry Sam this is Tara, my daughter. She is not taking the break up with her father well. I try not to say anything, Hell; I don’t know anything, just got served some papers and am being hounded to sign them. I’m seeing Bonnie later and...”

“Yep, that was her on the phone.” I took the girl’s hand. “C’mon Tara. I just moved into this house recently and, I don’t know what but feel it just needs something. Maybe while your Mom does what she needs you and I could look around and advise me what I might do to make this house more a home, OK?”

I at least got a nod and she let me take her hand. As I led her away to see the house, I made a ‘shooing’ motion to Peggy to go and do her thing.

Now Bonnie and I never had kids, we were always too busy then our interests changed hers especially so I will not pretend to know what I was doing walking hand in hand with Tara. I could however feel her hand tighten up from time to time. When we got to, what I called the ‘meditation room’, she put a ‘death grip’ on my hand. We stopped.

“This is one of my favorite parts of the house,” I said. “Let’s sit down and I’ll tell you a story I was told when I was buying this place. This set of rooms were a combination solarium, greenhouse and ‘Japanese sand garden’. It had three attached sections with sliding glass doors and on the far side another door that leads to the pool.”

It was a big house, 7,600 square feet not counting the indoor pool, sauna, hot tub and changing room. The house sat on 12 acres with 3 being mostly flat land and the rest covered with dense trees, tall bushes, ferns and a stream running through it.

“Tara, when I saw this room I sat down like we are doing now and just looked around me. The Realtor let me be and sat down next to me. She let me be for a while. I don’t remember how long we sat there but it was a bit. I do know that when I got up all the things that had me bothered; my divorce, all my business concerns, some personal devils, and my own doubts seemed to have disappeared. I felt like a new man. The Realtor lady told me the man who built this place had a gardener from Japan and had him design this place when he had the house built so he could just sit and relax in it.”

I got a look from her that seemed to beg me to go on. She was still holding my hand but now was facing towards me, listening. The damn phone was ringing again. “Stay right here and relax while I get the phone Hon, then we can continue on and see the rest of the house, even have a walk through the garden room.”

Her response of ‘Yes Sir!’ worried me a bit. When I came back here, we would have to do something about getting her to feel better about herself.

“Yes, this is Sam’s home for wayward girls; currently we are not accepting any new lovelies!”

“Hello Sam, this is Peggy, I got your number from Bonnie. I am so sorry again, I never even asked you about keeping Tara. Is she all right with you? I can take her with me if I have to or...”

“Relax Peggy Sue, Tara is fine, we are still looking around the house before I put her to work fixing up the place or have her join ‘me cache of lovelies; Grr-harr.”

“You know when I told Bonnie what you had done, her main comment was, and I quote, ‘I can’t believe the ‘SOB’ did that!’ She also told me that Tara probably filled a missing piece of your life since Bonnie and you never had children.”

How do admit to something like that, when I never realized it myself. “Nah, things were just slow today, nobody else called to drop off any new wayward girls, so I have time to tease and harass your daughter.” I gave her my best Snidely Whiplash (A US Cartoon Villain) scowl.

“Wait a sec, ‘a vast yee, I think I see ‘me lovely now’ (Changed to a Pirate voice again); how she got out of those chains I’ll never know! (Voice changed back now with), Tara, here for you, your Mom’s on the phone.”

She took it and I exited the hallway to give her some privacy. When she came back to the ‘Meditation Room’, I asked her if she was staying or was her Mom coming for her. It was the first smile I had seen on her face when she said. “Mom told me since I was a ‘Wayward girl’ that you would have to fix that. What did she mean by me being a ‘Wayward Girl”?

“Hon, I would have to guess about that. Did you have any thoughts about things that were bothering you when we were sitting down before?” She nodded her head.

“Well, maybe your Mom is worried about you and blames herself about those things. I know a divorce is not easy for us older folks so I can imagine that it is much more difficult for any children. How old are you Tara?”

“I’m still 13.”

“I would think you feel abandoned by your dad, probably changing schools this fall.” She nodded. “Maybe wondering what you could or should do to keep the family together even thinking the divorce is ‘all your fault, if only you... ‘ Right?”

Again, a nod, then head down and tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Hell girl, I don’t know how you could blame yourself. When I practiced Law, the few divorces I handled always were harder on the kids than the parents, especially if it was a contested one. I also never saw that the children were the reason they were splitting. Oh sure, some were so jaded or blamed themselves for what was going on, in one or two instances there were sexual advances made between them and the parents, usually as some attempt to try to keep the family together but it was never the main reason for the split. Hey, I’m paying you those ‘Big Bucks’ so we have more of the house to see then you need to get working on some ideas for the place. Think of this house as yours and tell me what should be done with it. No purple walls or ‘Jello’ in the pool though.”

By the look on her face, I must have said the right thing; then again maybe not she might have liked purple walls. She got up and took my hand in hers. ‘Jello in the pool’ I thought, ‘might be interesting!’

“Okay, ready; let’s see the rest of our house.”

Holding her hand made me realize, just maybe my ex was correct in what she said. Tara was filling a void in my life today, one I never realized I had. When we got to the pool, her hand gave me another ‘Death Grip”. To me there was nothing special here, but beyond the glass walls to the deck one could see all around just about every animal we had locally, the big ones that is. I had put a few salt licks and bins of food out in various places so it seemed that even natural enemies feed without any fighting. I heard her mumbling the names of our various visitors.

“You need some bird feeders and things for the small guys to eat at.”

“Yes Ma’am, as you command. Maybe we can got get some when your Mom gets back?”

That got me a funny look on her face. She saw the large BBQ Pit on the left side of the new deck. “Do you BBQ there Sam?”

‘Whoa’ I thought, ‘she called me Sam, not Sir, we were making progress’. “No not yet, this is sort of new territory for a newly single guy.”

“I know how to BBQ, you want me to cook something?”

“We sort of will need a few things, maybe when Peggy Sue gets back we can add food shopping to the list, then yes, get whatever you like; you can make dinner for us.”

I am not certain if the magic word was food, shopping or what but now there was a glow on the face of my ‘Wayward’ girl.

Peggy Sue, my name for her which she tried to correct me on several times, came back just after noon.

Sam, I gave Bonnie the divorce papers I received. She read them, laughed then had her secretary call the other lawyer. She merely told him to be in her office at 9 AM or we would see him later in court. Guess which option he chose?”

“So you’re going to be there too?”

“If I can get you to watch Tara again, I know it is an impo...”

“Should not be a problem I’ll have to check with my ‘BBQ cook and decorator Tara’ if that is agreeable. We also need to get some things today; she is making us dinner tonight.”

Now Peggy Sue was looking at me strangely. She started crying. “What have you done to my baby, in 6 months I could hardly get her to even eat anything, that’s why she is so thin.”

“I just told her she was in-charge here and if you agreed, we would buy whatever she needed for a BBQ. She seemed to like that idea. Oh, we need to stop for food for the animals too. Do you know what bears and foxes eat?”

“Bonnie said this was going to happen. She warned me that once Tara wormed her way into your home she would not stop there. She needs a male influence, God knows her father was never one and since he filed for a divorce she blames herself and maybe me for everything wrong in the world.”

(As she walked in) “Speak of the Devil! Tara, Peggy thinks I need to raise your salary if you intend to cook and decorate for me. What do you think is fair Hon?”

“All my favorite foods and to let me use the pool all the time, and ... and...”

“A hard bargain, let me think about it, I might have to check around if some other ‘Wayward Girl’ will clean the pool and hot tub too.”

“I’ll do that too.”

“Then if Peggy Sue says it’s OK, we have a deal Hon.”

I got a hit on the arm. “You’re spoiling her.”

“Hey that hurt, wait until she sees the kitchen stuff, she’ll want to cook and bake too.”

“Where’s the kitchen, we never got there before!”

“See. I might get a housekeeper out of this too. This way my dear, just add to the list of supplies we need, you’re in-charge of cooking any food I can’t microwave for myself.”

We drove to go shopping in my car. The Mercedes had a larger trunk Tara said. We would need it for all the ‘stuff’, ‘we’ just had to have for meals. I had a feeling her thin girl look would soon be outdated.

That summer, not only was Peggy Sue a free woman, but it seemed I now had an almost daily visitor to cook, clean and take charge of turning my ever changing house into a home. By now Tara even had her own key to use if I was not there. Yes, she was making my house into a home all right.

Peggy Sue and Bonnie along with ‘Whatshername’ who broke up our un-happy home went out to celebrate her new lot in life. I got a call from what sounded like three very happy people, slightly, no, greatly inebriated people that Peggy Sue was not in any shape to go home, in fact no one was. I broke the news to Tara.

“Sam, can we talk?”

“As long as you keep feeding me and not tell me you have fallen in love and want to know where babies come from, OK.”

“Sam, I already had that talk with Mom; I know the ‘stork’ brings them.”

The smirk on her face was plain to see she was having fun with me, at least I think she was.

“Sam, in a way Yes, I do have those kinds of feelings for you, but, I don’t know what they all mean yet, you have been there for me all summer. What will happen when school soon starts?”

“What, easy, our food bill goes down; I eat more ‘Lean Cuisine’ and my pool turns green from neglect?”

“No, silly, but maybe a few more microwave meals, but can I still come over? Can I think of you as my other Daddy sometimes? I am so scared of what’s going to happen to Mom and me now. I think I need you in my life.”

“What’s wrong Hon?”

“Can’t say, I promised.”

“What did your Mom tell you that you can’t tell your sweet, wonderful and handsome ‘other’ dad?”

“Money, house, school, car, bills those sorts of things. The money from my father just is so far behind that, she does not know what to do. She is trying to get a job but no luck yet. She said we have to sell the house soon just to pay the bills.”

“OK, those kinds of problems we know how to fix. My ex can get blood out of a turnip, you just need to concentrate on school and don’t worry your pretty little head about anything else; you got that?”

“Do you really think I’m pretty?”

‘Oh boy, now I am in trouble. How do you answer something like that without sounding like a... ‘.

“I think you will be the prettiest girl in school. I will curse the day you come over and tell me about so and so that is so good looking and asked you to be his girlfriend. I guess that is part of growing up though. Remember your Mom and I will be there for you to answer any questions you have.”

“I have one now, where does the stork get the babies from?”

I tried to swat her butt, but she was too quick for me. “Next time I’ll get you twerp.” Bullet dodged for now.

About the problem. I could call Bonnie but Peggy should call her. I gently, (sure) nudged Peggy to ask Bonnie what she should do to get what she was due. I think I mentioned before that the name Lee still had some influence in these parts. Not all were in the legal profession. Between the owners of the place Fred, her ex worked at and a couple ‘family’ type associates the options given him made paying up the lesser evil and less painful solution to solve Peggy’s problem. Bonnie went further. She offered Peggy a job.

Now that those problems seemed to be on the way to being solved, we had a new one. Yes, I said we, because in solving the one problem, Tara going to a private high school and no school bus created a challenge on how to be at work about the same time Tara needed to be at school. Her ‘other’ Daddy, me, became the solution. That day one of school was a lot easier than what followed.

Peggy, Bonnie and I prepared for that first day as if we were going to war. Pictures, phone numbers, addresses, POA’s and a dozen other consent forms were signed, sealed and delivered ready for the ‘powers to be’ at The Rollins School for Young Ladies. Peggy, myself and in an emergency, Bonnie were the only authorized people to drop off or pick up Tara. That my address was almost the same as Peggy and Bonnie’s card and mine both showed Esq. and were from Lee and Jefferson Law Firm did not go unnoticed.

Everything was just going fine for the first month or two then one fateful day the doorbell rang. Tara had her own key; Peggy never rang anymore but would call ahead then just walked in. I looked and froze up a might. It was Bonnie, my ex. She had never been to the house before, so why now I wondered.

I opened up. “I’m sorry, Sam’s home for wayward girls has an age restriction, I’m not certain you are old enough for staying here?”

“Hi sport, real nice welcome, you make a girl feel tingly inside ‘Daddy’.”

“Shu’nuff Honey, with looks like that I think I need to marry you!”

“Sam I’m sorry things worked out the way they did between us. I have some good news and maybe some that might be something we need to talk about?”

“Well, if you promise no blood will be spilled come in and if you’re hungry I think Tara left some food for breakfast, I’ll share it with you.”

“Sam, Honey, stop, please, you’ll make me cry. I still love you; you damn fool, just not enough to stay married to you. Peggy has been telling me what a Godsend you have been to her and Tara too. I have a check for you for your half of our old house; if you will accept my half of the house for your share of the business, I will gladly do that now. I’m not sure when I can sell the business for what it is worth and don’t have enough to pay you for your half of it. I do appreciate the way you have been about all this, not badgering me about what I owe you.”