Love Just Happens

         I'm sure Johnny Jacobs didn't mean to fall in love with his neighbor's wife. I suppose no ever sets out to fall in love with another person. Love just happens, doesn't it?

         I was rocking on my porch that spring day when Johnny pulled into the driveway of the empty house across the street. Johnny's parents had been killed while he was at college. Now he was back with a sheepskin and his whole life ahead of him.

         Two months earlier, old man Simon Slade had moved next door with his sexy young wife, Lucy. She was a sweet thing, always doing for folks. Lucy brought my mail in from the street every day, which was a blessing since my hip started bothering me. She even did my grocery shopping.

         It was no surprise to see her bound, barefoot, out of her house wearing that little polka dot sundress to help Johnny carry boxes into his house. Everything was unloaded in two trips, but it must have taken quite awhile organize things.

         Johnny's parents had put in a pool a few years earlier. As spring turned to summer I saw Lucy slipping through the back yard in her bikini and return home late in the afternoon before Simon got home from work. I didn't mean to snoop, but in the afternoons I sometimes saw figures moving in the upstairs window across the street.

         One evening I heard Simon shouting "We've been through this before. Don't start that again." The next day Lucy had a bruise on her face when she brought me the mail, then she brazenly walked across the street and through the front door of Johnny's house.

         At 5:15 Simon rolled up in his pickup and charged into Johnny's house carrying a shotgun. There were two blasts.