Today we are excited to feature a deleted scene scene from ‘Wanted: Wife’ by Gwen Jones! ‘Wanted: Wife’ has been called a “funny, sweet, quirky, romantic, sexy, outstanding love story. ” Plus enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below!
Title: Wanted: Wife
Author: Gwen Jones
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publication Date: June 4, 2013
Event organized by: Literati Literature Lovers and Literati Author Services
Synopsis:
Andy Devine is advertising for a wife on a utility pole, and interviewing him is the last thing TV reporter Julie Knott needs. Especially after her cheating fiancé just tweeted their disengagement. Now she has got to choose: get the story—or become it?
Wanted: Wife
Landed, Financially Secure 40-Yr-Old Male
* Handsome, but with old-school communication skills and a secret past *
Seeks Healthy, Athletic Female
* Preferably a pretty reporter with a messy love life who has never spent a day in the woods *
For Marriage and Family
* What could possibly go wrong? *
If you love the humor and romance of Rachel Gibson and Susan Elizabeth Phillips, don’t miss the fabulous debut of Gwen Jones
Read below or click here for a deleted scene Deleted Scene
“Andy Devine Comes to Iron Bog”
Deleted Scene
As usual, Andy Devine had deferred to logic: he’d go back to Iron Bog. Because a shipboard life was no place for a married man, and from his considerably randy experience, no place for his wife.
But the Piney town of Iron Bog would be perfect to bring his wife and raise a family, even if it didn’t work out quite the same way for his own parents, Buck and Viviane. Twenty-six years earlier, the strapping fourteen-year-old, whose name resembled that character actor from the ‘30s and ‘40s, had hustled behind his French mother as she boarded a New Jersey Transit bus, Buck cursing a sailor’s streak and ramming it with his Ford F150.
But even in Buck’s jilted, ginned-up rage, he knew better than to tangle with his inviolable issue. Then as now, Andy was hard to miss: six-foot and upwards, hair as dark as his eyes were blue, a body honed and sculpted by frequent use rather than intent, a strong jaw and a steely gaze which said so much more than his mouth ever did. And although this recent Andy had a slight wobble to his walk as his sealegs adjusted, his intent was immediately clear. When he alighted the New Jersey Transit bus this time, his ultimate destination wasn’t Le Harve, but right back where he destined to stay.
At first glance, he didn’t think the town had changed much, not that it was ever much of a town. A crossroads, really, with Granger’s General Store still there in front of him, as was Jinks’ Gas next door, then the post office, Town Hall and Lottie’s Lunch just across, now called The Cranberry Cafe. With geraniums here and there along white picket fences, it seemed the crusty-old Pine Barrens village, deep in the heart of the South Jersey woods, had taken on a bit of a polish, like the cursory perking-up a house gets when company’s coming. Andy wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that, before he figured these were just the kind of touches his wife might like. He hoisted his duffel bag to his shoulder and made for the gas station.
A teenaged boy slouched against the pumps, a hose in his hand, watering a potted tomato crop. The mid-August afternoon was settling hot and humid, and a slight sheen collected on his freckled forehead. He straightened, his eyes widening as the big man came closer. “Need help with something?” he said.
Odd, how the boy’s speech hit Andy’s ears: intrinsically familiar yet distant from the polyglot to which he’d long become accustomed. He pushed his cap back. “Is Mr. Jinks here?”
“Grandpa?” The boy aimed the spray to the next potted plant, jutting his chin toward the office. “In there.”
Andy nodded and shifted his hip, balancing the weight of the long canvas bag on his shoulder. But as he turned toward the garage, a burly older man bounded out.
“Andy! Is that you?” he cried, his hand extended.
Andy should have noted the resemblance right away; the older man had the same freckles as his grandson. He dropped the duffel, grabbing the hand of his late father’s best friend.
“Uncle Jinks,” Andy said, grasping it, “it’s been a long time.”
“Way too long,” Jinks said, clapping the younger man’s shoulder. “C’mon inside! C’mon inside!” He beamed, eyeing him up and down. “Christ! it’s good to see you!”
Andy smiled, a left-lilt to his lips that invariably garnered a plethora of interpretations. “Good to see you, too,” he said, lifting his duffel and following. He gave the small room off the garage a quick assess: oil additives, a racy engine parts poster, a computer-cum-cash register with a grime-darkened keyboard. “Place still looks the same.”
Jinks dropped himself to a chair behind the desk. “’If you’re talking about the garage, yeah, maybe. ‘Cept I got everything computerized now. But if you’re meaning the town…” He snorted. “We just got over a ‘Blueberry Festival.’ Some Philly folks moved down here thought it would be quaint. What the hell. Sold a lot of gas, and I got two muffler jobs and a radiator replacement out of it. Anyway.” He slapped his palms to the desk. “Have a seat there, Andy. I got a few things to give you.”
Andy slid over a chair as Jinks opened the safe and pulled out a tin box. “I appreciate this, Uncle Jinks. I would’ve been here sooner, but by the time I found out—”
“Buck was already past saving. Way past before he even told me. That man was a stubborn ass. Always was.” He pulled out a small key and opened the box, rusted hinges squealing as he raised the lid. “How is that gorgeous mother of yours anyway?”
“Remarried. To a ship captain. And sailing the world.”
“Must be a cocktail party every night then.” Jinks shook his head dreamily. “Jesus…no one could wear a sparkly dress like your mom. She happy?”
Andy shrugged. “I see no reason why she wouldn’t be.”
“Good for her. No one deserves it more.” He began placing items to the desk. “Now, here’s a copy of the will. Obit from the paper.”
Andy slid the article over. There was his father, his high school grad photo from the fifties, handsome devil that he was.
“You should’ve seen the service. Line stretching down the block. Honor guard from the Coast Guard Academy, flowers all over the place. And a couple or three women looking way too mournful.” Jinks leaned in. “From three different ports, no doubt.”
Andy regarded that with the same creaky smile. “No doubt.”
“Guard spread his ashes over Delaware Bay so I’m sorry, there isn’t even an urn.” He paused before returning to the box. “Well, anyway. Here’s the keys to his truck. Can’t tell you how good it runs, but he was driving it right up to the end.” He pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Here’s the insurance policy. And his death certificate.”
Liver failure, it said under cause of death. Liver failure. Andy stared at the words a few moments, letting them sink in. He recalled a time when he was very young, during one of those spates when his father was home, watching him sleep in the Adirondack chair on front porch, when the gin bottle would slip from his fingers to crash and shatter. Andy’d jump back, figuring he’d wake up but he didn’t, not for hours. Then as now, he waited to feel something: sadness, remorse, even anger. But he couldn’t feel a thing.
“Deed, title to the truck, his bank book.” Jinks placed the tax bill atop the pile, tapping it. “It’s paid up to the next quarter.” Then he shoved all back into the tin box and dropped the lid closed. “Whatever’s left is in there.”
Andy thanked him, tucking the box under his arm. “I’m sure I need to buy some gas for the generators so I better get to them before dark. Can I bother you for a ride?”
The older man eyed him. “You sure you don’t want to stay at my house for the night?”
After five minutes in this small room he already felt cramped. “Thanks, but I’d really like to get out there and settled.”
Jinks grabbed keys off a hook. “Settled. Now that’s one word I never heard out of Buck’s mouth, and I got to tell you, kind of shocks me to hear it from yours. You really planning on staying?”
Andy tugged his ear, the brim of his cap. “More than that. I’m getting married.”
His eyes widened. “You are? Well, Jesus, Andy, why didn’t you say so!” He clasped the younger man’s hand, shaking it vigorously. “Congratulations! When am I gonna meet this brave young lady?”
Andy calculated. “Next week, if everything goes right.”
“Hell, you do have a lot a work then. Let’s go.”
A couple of gas cans and a few minutes later, Jinks was turning a corner off Main Street—also known as County Route 582—and onto Forge Road. Almost immediately, clearing and houses gave way to Piney woods and five hundred feet more macadam bumped into gravel, and not long after that into firmly-tamped sugar sand. Overhead the foliage grew denser from a clumping of cedar and Andy took in the clean scent, their tall trunks rising out of the bog on either side of a short wooden bridge.
As the forest thickened the afternoon dimmed, the swamp abuzz with gnats and dragonflies and a thousand whirling, zipping, clicking things, the air cooler yet fragrantly lush. Andy thought of the jungle from which he launched this expedition home, and how much this slice of Jersey and those far-off environs had in common, and how much they didn’t. He thought of the remoteness of the sea, of the fraternity of its denizens floating atop it, of the closeted insularity of ships. He compared all to this endless combination of flower and plant and fauna, the rivers and streams that opened to ponds and lakes, and the chokingly hot summer days when your sweat dripped like syrup, each hot breeze painting your skin with a fresh patina of mosquito.
He thought of his parents, one a boisterous, fleeting whirlwind who taught him how to tie knots and lose himself in the forest, and the other whose craving for intimacy he could never quite grasp. He thought of how the sea and these woods were so much alike, how the miles and miles of sun-flickered trees could compare to the endless ripple of the ocean, of how deadly and nurturing and elusive and familiar they both were, and how much he would alternately miss one and dread the other.
Jinks jabbered as he drove but Andy wasn’t really listening, fixed on the forest as the road narrowed and pulled them in deeper, the tall cedars replaced by pitch pines and scrub oaks, the sparse undergrowth a mix of bushes and ferns, laurel clumping near the edges. He squirmed in his seat, too-long confined by the cruise ship he had jumped, then by train and bus and now truck. He stuck his hand out the window and let it ride the current, near enough to grab a chokeberry leaf as he scanned for some kind of landmark. Twenty-six years was a long time; he would be crazy to expect things to be the same. But he knew within these woods lurked a continuity and sure enough, he spied the old chimney stack he’d played around when he was a kid. He twisted toward it.
Jinks looked over. “Some folks from Trenton were sniffing around there just last week. Never did say what for. More than likely from the State Museum, picking for relics. Ray Kendall was trailing them with his shotgun. They didn’t stay long after that.”
Andy recalled his old school friend. “So Ray’s still around.”
“Fire Service—damn!” The truck jangled as it hit a rut. “Works the tower over on Snakes’ Ridge. Had a big one near there two years ago. Burned for a week and almost four thousand acres. Ray’s the one who spotted it. Lightning, he said.” Jinks shrugged. “What you gonna do.”
They were getting nearer; Andy caught its scent. Even after all these years, he could still smell the lake, feel the moisture in the air. The road twisted, coming up on a savanna, old dried-up cranberry bogs slowly going back to nature, once fed by the lake. If Andy remembered correctly, there was an old shed just past it and sure enough, it was still there, roof caved in and covered with vines, but still standing.
Just a half-mile more to his father’s place, more than five miles out at this point. Or in, as he’d always thought of it. Not out from the town, but in where it always felt more natural. The scrub oak was abundant here; it had been years since a good fire, and just past a rise lay a narrow road to the right. Jinks swerved onto it, the dense foliage closing over them like a tunnel, shorter bushes scraping the sides of the truck. Eight hundred or so feet and the trail opened up to a weedy clearing and a small one-story house sorely in need of paint, a long shed with more than a few broken windows, several vehicles of questionable operation, an overgrown garden, and to the left, the wide expanse of lake. Jinks stopped in front of the house’s ripped screened-in porch.
“Well, here it is,” he said, shoving the truck into park. “Sure you don’t want to reconsider my offer?”
Andy grabbed his gear and climbed out of the truck. “Nope,” he said, shutting the door. “Thanks anyway.” He dropped the duffel to the sand and pulled two five-gallon jugs of gasoline from the back. “Be seeing you in town. And thanks again.”
Jinks eyed him, giving Andy the kind of look that not only tossed him a lifeline, but also that said he knew Andy wouldn’t take it. “All right then. So long.”
Andy watched as the truck got lost in the trees and a cloud of kicked up dust before he set the gas containers down, surveying the lay of things. It was much like he remembered it, even the trash: tires and bottles and crushed Salem cigarette packs. Barrels of who-knew-what against a post-and-rail fence, rusty tools hanging on nails on the side of the house, a picnic table with a broken leg near the treeline, a pock-marked and faded bulls eye painted on the shed’s door. He yanked the door to the screened porch, feeling it wobble as it creaked open.
A rusty-springed slider, buckets of bottles, a third-hand wrought-iron patio set, an old refrigerator, desiccated leaves and pine needles strewn across the scuffed planked floor, a vine of poison ivy growing through a crack, cigarette butts crushed and flicked and pinched-off everywhere. A mop handle tilted in the corner aside a holey pair of Topsiders, and hanging from the rafters, crab traps, fishing nets and dozens of dried herbs tied in bunches. Andy pushed aside what looked like basil, the papery leaves raining down to stick to his teeshirt. He flicked one from his shoulder and threw back the perforated screen door to the unlocked door to inside.
The curtains, or what served as such, were closed, and he paused as his eyes adjusted. When they did he fixed on the stone fireplace about twelve feet across and the slats of pallet wood stacked into its hearth, his feet sticking to the greasy carpet beneath as he went to the window and slid back the ancient canvas. Instantly he coughed to split a lung, a decade of dust and filth shooting up his nose, a billion motes careening into the streams of sunlight. He flailed his arms, reflexively gagging and spitting a gob to the carpet, his shoe stamping it gone a second later. He braced against the faded papered wall, flailing his arms as he surveyed what the bright light revealed. Floor-to-ceiling packed with boxes and old furniture topped with papers and magazines and twenty-six years of his absence where everything looked familiar and nothing seemed the same. The engine room in underbelly of a ship appeared a Grand Canyon next to this and he whirled around, his throat beginning to close. Andy stumbled out in to the yard, gulping as he fought for breath.
He bent over, grabbing his knees, letting his head clear. Christ. No one had to tell him how much work it’d take before he could turn this place into a convincing argument. And—his toe nudged a tiny bell-shaped teaberry bloom—before his wife would see it the way he did. But he needed her to, more than he ever wanted anything. He wanted her to share how it was when the rains washed through or the snow buried them in, when the sky took on that particular shade of gold, when the air snapped with the scents of pine and cedar and there was no place in the world he’d rather be. He closed his eyes, thinking of a woman’s smooth skin, the fall of her hair, the way she felt under him. His body ached and he sighed.
A hawk screeched and he looked up, searching for it, catching its red tail before it disappeared over the treetops past the lake. The lake. And a little over a hundred feet away, the still-sturdy looking dock to it and the float smack-dab in its middle. Andy tossed his hat aside and pulling his teeshirt over his head, kicked off everything until he was naked and catapulting himself from the dock, slicing into the water as cleanly as a machete chop.
It was nearly a minute before he surfaced, sputtering and scrubbing his face, flinging his hair back. The tea-colored water, warmed by the hot August day, felt cool to his heated body and he lay back, letting his buoyancy support him. Off in the forest a flicker pecked dead wood, a shiner jumped from the water, the sun fell beyond the trees, gilding everything into a sharpness. Then all at once the wind changed and a crispness blew past him, pebbling his bare skin. He sniffed the air, fragrant with late blooms and a freshness he knew he couldn’t find even after a mid-Atlantic gale. He flipped himself backwards into the water and when he surfaced he tread water, looking to the shore and beyond.
This place was more than special; it was worth it. And if it turned out his wife needed convincing, then he’d just have to keep proving it until she was.
And he’d start, as soon as he found out who she’d be.
© Gwen Jones 2013 – All Rights Reserved
Gwen Jones, after spending years writing several unpublishable novels, decided to learn what she was doing wrong or give it all up. So after earning an MFA in Creative Writing from Western Connecticut State University, she’s now so good they even allow her to teach there. An unabashed born-and-bred native of Southern New Jersey and the Jersey Shore, she lives with her husband, Frank, and the absolute cutest cat in the world, Gracie.
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