Leave a Mark (10 page)

“Wait. Please."

Wren stopped and watched him over her car. He raised his foot, dug out the thorn, and took one hobbled step. When she saw that he was unhurt, Wren opened her car door.

“I’m sorry. I have to go." In an instant, she ducked inside, and the engine roared to life.

Then she was gone.

Lee stared at the empty curb a whole five seconds, unable to process the last unbelievable minute of his day. He finally turned and headed back to his front porch where Marcelle waited, seething.

“Who. Was. That?”

Lee limped up the steps and walked through the screen door. “I told you. She’s a patient.”

“Oh,
really.”
Marcelle leaned against the doorframe, her scowl turning her gray eyes into daggers.

Lee stopped in front of her. “Yeah, really. She had a hemorrhaging cyst rupture, and I operated on her.”

Marcelle’s face relaxed a fraction. “If that’s all, why was she here?”

Lee looked down at the bag in his hand. “She said this was a ‘thank you.’”

He knew it was more than a thank you. She’d already thanked him. This was something else. Something he wanted to shield.

“It seems kind of weird,” Marcelle said with a toss of her head. “And she looks like a ho-bag.”

“She’s not a ho-bag,” Lee snapped.

Marcelle’s eyes widened.

“She’s my patient.”

“Well, excuse me, but you’ve never had a patient pay you a visit or bring you gifts before.”

Memories flickered through his mind.

“I remember patients bringing my dad baskets of watermelons.”

Marcelle blinked. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. And one guy brought firewood.” Lee remembered a man and his sons unloading it on their back patio.

“But your dad had a private practice. He didn’t work at a charity hospital.”

“That doesn’t mean he never took charity cases,” Lee said truthfully. “Sometimes, patients pay with what they have. And sometimes they want to say thank you. Wren might have died without that surgery.”

Even as he said the words, Lee wanted to wipe them out of his mouth. And not just because he was hiding something. The truth was Wren could have died, and the thought gnawed at him.

“Well, what did she give you, anyway?" Marcelle frowned at the lumpy bag he held. “It looks greasy.”

“It’s fried peach pies. Want one?” He opened the bag and reached inside. The warm, sweet aroma grew, and he drew out one golden, hand-sized pie.

“
Fried pie?
That’s disgusting.” She eyed him in horror. “You aren’t really going to eat that, are you?”

“Hell, yes. They’re still warm.”

Marcelle turned on her heel. “Too bad you don’t have a side of cracklin’ and blood sausage to go along with it. I’m making myself a salad. Enjoy your dinner.” Then she disappeared inside.

Even though Lee knew Marcelle’s words had been meant to prick him, he couldn’t blame her. Wren’s inexplicable visit had threatened her, and his girlfriend always turned mean when threatened. He’d have to reassure her later, but now, he needed a minute.

Lee crossed the porch and settled himself onto the cypress swing. The pastry in his hand looked just like the ones his mom had made when he was a kid. Even the fork ridges on the seam were the same.

He brought the pie to his nose, closed his eyes, and inhaled memories of their old house on Roselawn. Thanksgiving… his mom’s blue apron with the yellow daisies… King, their golden retriever, napping in front of the stove…

Despite the knot in his throat, Lee took a bite of the pie with his eyes still closed.

“Mmm… Mama.”

The word fell from his lips without warning, wrecking him. Hot tears followed. The taste was exactly the same. The buttery crispness. The tart bite of peach softened with syrup. The warmth. It tasted like home.

Lee hadn’t savored anything like it in twenty-one years.

He cleared his throat, swallowed the bite, and wiped his eyes, letting the moment pass. He took another bite, coming back to the present. It was damn good pie.

Enjoying another bite, he looked down at the bag and noticed the drawing for the first time. Lee stilled. A tawny brown and white bird carried a peach in its beak. The fruit almost outweighed the little wren, who seemed to pump her wings furiously to stay aloft.

She flew toward a tree in the distance. But it wasn’t an oak or a pine or even a peach tree. Lee was pretty sure it was a hawthorn.

“Oh wow,” he said around a mouthful.

Chills broke out over his chest and down his arms. It wasn’t because he sat outside in the evening breeze without a shirt, his hair still damp from the shower.

He’d heard the knock on his front door as he’d pulled on his jeans after his shower, and he’d sent Marcelle to answer it. And then the sound of her voice had teased him. Lee had recognized it, but he hadn’t imagined for a second that Wren would turn up on his doorstep. He’d rushed across the house for reasons he didn’t want to name.

Now, sitting on his porch swing, he examined the confluence of feelings. He didn’t know which was more unsettling: that he’d raced to the door to see her again, or that he’d raced there to protect her from Marcelle. His girlfriend would never welcome someone who looked like Wren.

Either way, he’d been too late. By the time he reached the door, Wren’s face had been a mask of misery, and she’d fled as soon as she laid eyes on him.

And by the looks of it, she’d cooked for him all afternoon. As if that weren’t enough, she’d made for him something so personal, so precious that he’d been brought to tears. In a chance encounter in the grocery store, Wren had listened to him utter only two sentences about his childhood, yet she’d heard everything.

Lee rested his elbows on his knees so he could cradle the stirring he felt in his chest. He’d have to set it aside later, but for now, he let himself feel it. Feel her.

He couldn’t remember a time when someone had given him such a gift. So unexpected. So sweet. The warm ache it gave him spread throughout his body.

But what was
she
feeling now?

Lee pressed a hand to his chest. The look she’d worn when she’d apologized —
apologized —
for her gift pierced him. It told him so much. The shame in her eyes spoke of rejection. And, as kind as her gift was, there was more behind it than kindness. Did it mean attraction?

The thought made his skin flame.

He wanted to go to her. It was impossible, but he wanted to.
He
wanted to apologize. He wanted to thank
her.
And, more than anything, he wanted to pull her into his arms. Lee only had a hint of what it was like to know Wren Blanchard, but a hint was enough. She didn’t deserve this.

And he didn’t lie to himself. He would have liked the chance to tell her that she wasn’t alone. That he felt it, too. That if he were free, things would be very, very different.

But he wasn’t free. Lee and Marcelle had been together for more than a year. They were in a committed relationship. They’d talked about getting married and raising a family. Even if this… this… whatever it was with Wren had addled his brain, he couldn’t turn his back on that.

Lee traced his finger over the drawing. He knew that whatever this was, it would fade with time. For both of them.

“
LET’S GET A
dog.”

Lee had just shut off his five a.m. alarm and pulled Marcelle into his embrace.

“What?” she murmured into her pillow.

“I think we should get a dog,” he said again.

Marcelle rolled onto her back. He could tell she was still half-asleep by the way she breathed, but she’d usually get up and head to the gym when he left the house.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, coming around. “Where did this come from?”

He wasn’t about to admit it, but Lee had fallen asleep thinking about Wren and her pies and the onslaught of memories the taste of peach unleashed. His father had put King down when Lee was sixteen. They’d had the golden retriever for as long as he could remember, but, by the end, the old boy had been blind and riddled with arthritis.

Lee had understood that it was time. After watching what his mom had gone through, he hadn’t wanted his dog to suffer. And his father had promised that they’d get another dog one day, but they never did. Tom met Barbara a short time later, and within a year, they were married. Barbara was allergic, and Lee had been headed for LSU.

“Did I ever tell you about my dog, King?” Lee asked, running his right hand over Marcelle’s hip.

She placed a hand over his to stop him. “Not now. I didn’t sleep well.”

Lee chuckled. “I’m not trying to get into your panties, Marce. I’m just trying to talk to you.”

“Sorry. Why do you want a dog?”

“Well, they’re fun and sweet and playful. And we could take him for walks at night.”

“And at five in the morning and midnight and seven times in between.” She was arguing with her eyes closed, but even half-asleep, Marcelle had her objections ready. “Puppies take a lot of work. Do you have time for that? I certainly don’t.”

“I’ve already thought of that. We could get a pet service to take care of him while we are at work. Or a doggy daycare. And when he’s older, we could just install a doggy door and let him run around in the back yard.”

“A doggy door? So he could get muddy and then just come inside and jump on the furniture whenever he wanted?" Marcelle wasn’t half-asleep anymore. She sounded wide awake.

“Okay, then, doggy daycare. Just think about it. It’ll be great. We could play fetch and walk him down to The Filling Station, and he could sleep in bed with us—”

Marcelle bolted up. “Are you out of your mind? Sleep in bed with a
dog?
”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. I used to sleep with King every night." The memory of the dog’s warm, silky body pressed against his feet came back to him. After his mom died, there were times when King was the only company he could stand.

“I can’t believe we’re talking about this. Go shave. I need fifteen more minutes.”

Lee rolled out of bed and let his girlfriend have some peace. He closed the door to his bathroom so the light wouldn’t bother her.

What he couldn’t bring himself to say was that he hoped a dog would make the house feel more like home. Lee hadn’t really thought about it in those terms, but that urge was why he’d bought the house on Dunreath in the first place. Because it seemed like the kind of house that could feel like home. It was nothing like the house he’d grown up in on Roselawn — a brick house on a slab with a pool in the back yard — but it was a house that seemed to have roots, and he wanted a place where he could take hold.

But even though he loved the house and felt
at
home
in it, something integral was missing.

It was getting a mouthful of a homemade peach pie that had made Lee wonder if what he really sought was a family. It wasn’t the right time to begin a family — not for him or Marcelle, who was busy most days building her interior-design business, but maybe a dog would be the right place to start.

Marcelle might be against it at first, but chances were she’d come around if he kept at it. Most of his ideas took her a little time to accept. So far, he’d been able to talk her into going kayaking at Lake Fausse Point; she’d been terrified of the alligators at first, but they ended up having a great day. Despite her resistance, he’d convinced her to dress retro for Downtown Alive, Lafayette’s spring and fall concert series, the last time The Molly Ringwalds played. He couldn’t believe how fantastic she’d looked as Lucky Star Madonna. And even though she still insisted it was hideous, he occasionally caught her playing Simon & Garfunkel on the Wurlitzer jukebox he’d bought on eBay just months after he moved into his house.

If he brought home a puppy, Marcelle would fall in love — eventually.

ON TUESDAY, WREN
went to the studio and stayed until closing even though she wasn’t scheduled to work. She did the same on Wednesday. Working was really the only thing that kept Lee Hawthorne and Monday’s stinging humiliation off her mind.

But on Thursday afternoon, business was slow, and when Wren started reorganizing Rocky’s sample albums, her boss put his foot down.

“Stop doing that. What is wrong with you?” Rocky snapped, pulling his gun away from Angel Delacroix’s angel wings.

Wren sighed and stepped away from the table of albums Rocky kept for clients to browse. “I’m restless. I need something to keep me busy.”

“You need a boyfriend,” her boss muttered, and Wren shot him a glare. She thought she saw Angel’s mouth curl in a tiny smile, and she aimed her glare at him, too. Even with a flattened nose, the boxer had a baby face that matched his personality. He looked away. The ring was the only place he was scary.

“I
do not
need a boyfriend,” she told them both. “I need a project. Let me organize your albums. They’re all chronological. Let me group them by category.”

“No!” Rocky barked. “I let you clean up my desk
one time
, and I still can’t find everything.”

Wren rolled her eyes.