Plum Gone: A Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mystery (Sonoma Wine Country Cozy Mysteries Book 2) by A. J. Carton

meant it , Emma thought, staring at Jack’s determined profile maneuvering the car around the old magnolia and down the driveway to the street. Like a man still capable of desire.
    He wasn’t a handsome man, she reminded herself. His face was too beat up for that. Too many broken noses, dislocated jawbones and black eyes playing hockey. But she had to admit the man was attractive. At least the women of Blissburg thought so. Maybe it was because all that damage somehow proved he was a survivor. W omen like survivors , she mused.
    As for what the men of Blissburg thought of Jack? Emma had learned that what you heard about Jack Russo depended on whom you spoke to. Those who’d had a run in with Jack offered grudging respect. Those who hadn’t – or those like her son-in-law who worked for him – treated him gingerly, like an unexploded hand grenade.
    One thing was certain, however. Men trusted Jack Russo. They trusted him to be an enormous pain until he got his way. Which he usually did.
    “How was the Stroll?” Jack asked as Emma buckled her seatbelt. “What’s new with Luther Burbank?”
    “The Stroll was interesting,” Emma answered. “And a little bit sad. It seems the man who knew how to make everything else increase and multiply never had any children of his own.”
    “So he left us Santa Rosa plums instead,” Jack replied. “They were his children.” He stopped talking for a few seconds before adding with a sigh, “And I’ll bet those plums never broke his heart.”
    Emma waited for Jack to continue. When she determined that he would not, she decided there was no use prodding him. She changed the subject.
    “How was hockey?” she asked. Talking about his grandsons always brought a smile to Jack’s face.
    “You know, Emma,” he replied, his voice recapturing all the enthusiasm it had lacked a moment before. “I was just thinkin’ about that driving over to your place tonight. Why the heck do I get such a kick out of being with those boys? There is very little, in fact, that I enjoy more than their company. I’m ashamed to say it, honestly, I don’t remember having so much…fun…with my own…”
    “Do you think it’s because now you have boys?” Emma asked.
    For a few moments Jack seemed lost in thought. Then he shook his head.
    “No,” he finally said, decisively.
    He didn’t look at Emma, which was unusual because he frequently took his eyes off the road to glance at her when he spoke.
    “I really don’t think it’s that,” he continued. “See Cara was always very athletic. She even joined an ice hockey team – I think she was around eleven. Looking back, I guess the poor kid was tryin’ to get my attention. I traveled a lot,” he shrugged. “Always chasing a deal.”
    “It’s a pretty common story, Jack,” Emma said.
    “Yeah,” he answered. “But that’s water under the bridge, isn’t it?” He shook his head, “Anyway, what I figured out is that grandchildren are different. I don’t mean that cliché about how grandparents get to have fun and then drop the little buggers off with the parents when they’re tired and cranky. I’m talkin’ about how the whole thing is different.”
    He stopped for a moment as if to collect his thoughts. Then he continued. “At the rink today, Emma, it was like hockey practice when I was a kid. I never wanted to get off the ice. I looked at my grandsons skating around the rink – Josh skates backwards great, by the way. Mikey junior – not so good. I wasn’t lookin’ at my watch wondering when it would end. I wasn’t checkin’ email. I was there. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. And the best part is, the kids knew it. That there was nowhere else their granddad would rather be than with them. Havin’ fun.”
    Emma felt a surge of something when Jack stopped talking. It was warm, and crept over her in places she hadn’t felt in years. She hoped it wasn’t love. That would complicate things. She liked their friendship