"I don't deserve her," he muttered as he picked up the bag containing his damp clothes.
"So do something about it."
Marcus put a hand in his pocket and felt the pamphlet Dita Petrini had given him. If he still had a marriage to save, then he'd call her tomorrow.
Marcus felt his heart jump when he saw Jocelyn and the children lined up on the veranda. He held out a hand to Estes. "Thanks."
Estes griped his hand firmly. "No, thank you. But for you we might have lost Officer Schulze."
"I hate to disillusion you, Estes, but everything I did out there I did for me."
"Sure, I understand that. But if you hadn't been there Schulze might be dead."
Marcus climbed out of the car, with his bag of clothes held to his chest. He waited for Estes to back out and go wherever he was supposed to be going. Jocelyn and the children hadn't moved. Scared of his reception, he crossed the drive and walked up to them, stopping just short of them. "Hi."
Suddenly he had three warm bodies slammed into him.
"I was so worried about you," Jocelyn said.
"The man on TV said you're a hero, daddy," Britney said.
That made him feel guilty. He gently pushed Jocelyn away so he could crouch down. He dropped his bag of clothes and laid a hand on each of her shoulders. "Heroes don't terrify their own families, Britney. I'm sorry I scared you back on the bus." He turned to Bailey, who hadn't said a word yet. "And I'm sorry I scared you, too." He felt in his coverall pocket for the pamphlet and held it up for Jocelyn. "I'm going to call her tomorrow."
Jocelyn looked at the pamphlet and tears started to well in her eyes. "Let's go inside."
The House on Gray's Run
Dina Frost sat with the rest of the household watching the latest news on TV. They'd just announced the identity of the two men killed in a shootout with police. Marcus Acton, Bailey Acton's dad, had once again been proclaimed a hero. She sighed. Bailey was going to be unbearable at school on Monday. Still, it had been good to hear that Bruno's brothers would never hurt him again. She glanced over to see how he'd taken the news.
She had to smile. Bruno, with his one track mind, was every cat's favorite person. Right now he was carefully running a comb through the long fur of the household's catriarch. He'd been doing it for the last half hour, and it didn't look like Queenie was going to tire of his ministrations any time soon. Bruno didn't seem to care that his bullying brothers were dead, but she was glad they'd received their comeuppance. There was still the third man, but Dina was sure the police were doing everything they could to catch him.
Cadence: A Continuation of the Euterpe Stories
Grantville
March 1635
The doorbell rang. Elizabeth Jordan looked up from the sink where she was peeling carrots. "One of you get that," she called out.
She heard Leah's feet go running across the floor. For a small girl, she had such a heavy tread that her steps were unmistakable.
The door squeaked on its hinges, and she heard seven-year-old Leah squeal, "Mr. Giacomo!"
Elizabeth's heart first jumped, then sank. Memories unreeled themselves in her mind.
August, 1633
Elizabeth had been sight-reading two of Erik Satie's Tres Gymnopedies at the piano in the high school auditorium. The music had demanded the sound and touch of the grand. And as usual, she had been so focused on the music that she hadn't heard the door at the rear of the auditorium, nor the steps down the aisles. Consequently, the applause that sounded when she finished the second piece took her by surprise, and she almost gave herself whiplash when her head whipped around to see who was clapping.
It was Victor Saluzzo, the high school principal, and two men dressed in down-timer clothing of a style she hadn't seen before.
"Gentlemen, may I introduce you to Mrs. Elizabeth Jordan, our music teacher?" Victor had said.
That was her introduction to Girolamo Zenti and Giacomo Carissimi. Zenti was obviously a man's man; bold, strutting a little, and with sufficient charm and charisma to woo the Venus de Milo, missing arms and all. But Carissimi had intrigued her. In both appearance and manner, he had reminded her of Douglas Drake, the Ohio farm boy who had been in most of her college classes; quiet, tongue-tied most of the time, and usually shy, though he had a baritone voice to die for. He had stared at her in every class they were in, and whenever she looked at him, he would blush and look away. But he wasn't creepy; just somehow oddly sweet.
Doug never managed to ask her for a date before she started going with Fred. From time to time, she regretted that.
Somehow, even at the very moment their eyes first met, this Carissimi fellow had the same effect on her that Doug had had.
That was where it began.
March 1635
"Mom," nine-year-old Daniel appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, "it's Mr. Carissimi."
Fall 1633
Before long, Elizabeth had found herself acting as Giacomo's mentor and teacher in the arts of music as the twentieth century had known them. She was amazed at him. He was like a musical sponge. It didn't seem to matter to him, if it had something to do with music, he wanted to know it. Music theory, music history, form and analysis; lives of composers, it didn't matter. Even the concentrated notes that Marla Linder had made available from her sessions with her band of German musicians didn't slow him down.
But his greatest passion was for the piano, the single instrument that came back from the future that the down-timers would be most affected by. Giacomo certainly was. He would spend hours every day working on it, playing scales and etudes, building technique and muscle memory.
Then, at some point, he started improvising. And that was where she was caught.
March 1635
Elizabeth very gently laid the carrot and the peeler down on the cabinet by the sink, rinsed her hands off under the faucet, and dried them carefully. She placed the dish towel back on the rack, then stood facing the window over the sink.
Fall 1633
The library resources and her own college textbooks had given Elizabeth a sketch of Carissimi's life in the future that would never be. And it was impressive. She resolved in her own heart that his biography in this new future would be even more impressive. Yeah, she had to admit to herself, that perhaps this second chance at Doug Drake meant something to her. In any event, she began to spend more and more time with Giacomo, pushing him harder and harder, giving him more and more to learn and less time to learn it. He had become her challenge.
March 1635
"Mom?"
She took a deep breath, then turned and followed Daniel toward the front door.
Fall 1633
And so the time passed. Elizabeth didn't neglect her family or her children. But every so often her husband Fred, the deputy sheriff who had become the West VirginiaCounty's expert liaison with outside the Ring of Fire law enforcement organizations, would ask her why she was spending so much extra time at the school.