What the Heart Wants (4 page)

“Yes. We would visit every Wednesday after school when he came to the house for counseling with my father.”

“Do you know who my mother is?”

Back to the starting point. “Lolly, I do not know who your mother is, and I will not discuss the matter any further.” She tilted her head questioningly and lowered the boom. “Do you want me to call your father to come over now and pick you up?”

Lolly half rose from the table. “No, don't call him! I don't want to go yet! I want to stay here with you tonight! Please, I won't be a bother, I promise!” Big blue eyes shimmered across the table. “I'll go with Dad tomorrow afternoon. Just let me stay here until then.”

To her surprise, Laurel realized that she wanted Lolly to stay. Because she was Jase's daughter, of course, but also because her curls bobbed when she talked, her eyes signaled as much as her voice, and she was so intense and fearless—a breath of fresh air in a house that had been shut up much too long.

“Well, okay, if your father agrees. But we'll have to go to the den and call him to let him know you're here, safe and sound.”

Laurel rose from the table, and Lolly reached out to clasp her hand. “Thank you.” She flashed the heartbreaking Redlander smile. “This is so important to me.”

Jase rolled over on the first ring and picked up his mobile from the floor beside the bed. His hand trembled as he pushed the icon.

Please, please, please…

“Jase, this is Laurel. Lolly's here with me, and she's okay.”

A two-ton elephant lifted off his shoulders. He sat up and moved to the edge of the bed. “I'll be there in twenty minutes.”

“I think it would be best if you waited a while. She's feeling a bit—well—unsettled. I'll call you when she's ready, maybe tomorrow afternoon.”

Instantly he was all father. “There's a problem?”

“No, no—it's just that she's tired right now. She'll be fine tomorrow.”

He frowned. Laurel's answer seemed to come a little too quickly. “Be honest with me. Is Girl Child giving you trouble? There's not much traffic at this time of night, and I bet I can cut my time to fifteen minutes.”

“Trouble?” Laurel sounded surprised. “Not at all. She's charming. I'll enjoy the company, and I think I can help.”

Jase relaxed. “I'll wait till tomorrow, then.”

Like father, like daughter. Maybe Laurel could work the same miracles with Lolly that Reverend Ed had with him. His relationship with Girl Child had become particularly fractious lately. Maxie said it was because she was fifteen, but he'd been worried enough to consult a psychologist, who basically told him the same thing—that Lolly was testing her limits and asserting an adulthood she hadn't quite reached yet, that everything would be up and down for a while, but they'd both survive if he kept his cool. But it was damn hard for him to keep his cool when she wouldn't let him keep her safe.

Laurel was trying to gently hustle her guest up the stairs, but it was slow going. Lolly's eyes were overbright, and she'd gotten her second wind.

“Oh, wow! Awesome! That mirror in the foyer, and the chandelier! Like something out of
Phantom of the Opera
!”

Laurel couldn't help but glance up, even though she'd walked under the same light fixture every day of her life.

“And the grain of the wood!” Lolly caressed the banister. “Killer! Is it walnut?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Your house is like a museum—or a royal palace! Aunt Maxie and I made a tour of European castles last summer.” She did a three-sixty survey of the foyer, then looked at Laurel, two steps above her. “Everything's so old and beautiful! And these paintings…” She gestured at the ascending display of deceased Kinkaids. “You must get a total charge out of living here!” Her glance swept up the stairway. “How many bedrooms do you have?”

That one Laurel knew the answer to. “Ten in all, but the ones on the third floor have been closed off for ages. There are four on the second floor—two smaller ones and two large suites. I use one of the smaller ones, and I'm putting you in the one across the hall.”

Lolly indicated the gilt-framed portrait on the wall beside her. “Are these your grandparents?”

“No, they're my parents.” It was her favorite picture of Mama and Daddy. Somehow the artist had done a better job of capturing Daddy's intrinsic goodness and Mama's gentle warmth than any photographer ever had.

“Dad talks about your father a lot, you know. He says Reverend Ed was the kindest, wisest person he's ever known.”

Laurel tried to smile.

Lolly moved on past Grampa Dabney and Gramma Lorena's portrait, barely glanced at the picture of Grampa and his brother as children, then stopped at a pair of large oils. “Who are these people?”

“The stern-looking woman with the four little girls is my great-grandfather's first wife, Adeline Quisenberry, and the stern-looking woman in the painting one jump up from them, the one with the two boys clinging to her skirts, is his second wife, my great-grandmother, Ida Mae Benton.”

Lolly stifled a yawn, nodded, and moved up several steps to study a large, dramatic painting of four dark-haired women in low-cut gowns.

Pendleton Swaim had been interested in that picture too, Laurel remembered. He'd even made a quick sketch of it three years ago during the garden club's historic homes tour. No telling how he'd use the information.

Lolly gestured toward the painting. “Who are they? They're so pretty.”

“They're the little girls all grown up. Gramma said they were wild and that the oldest, Great-Aunt Barbara, ran off to Italy with the architect who designed the house, but I don't know about the others.”

Lolly squinted at the picture as if trying to bring it into better focus. “They're all wearing necklaces with animal things hanging from them.”

Laurel nodded. “Their father gave them the necklaces when he was in what Gramma called his ‘Chinese phase.' The animals represent the year each girl was born in.”

“Cool. I'm a rabbit.”

They'd almost reached second-floor landing, but there was one more portrait to go. Laurel made a grand gesture of introduction. “Lolly, I present to you my great-grandfather, Erasmus Galileo Kinkaid.” She nodded her head in his direction, and he twinkled back, the cheeky devil.

Lolly's eyes lit up with renewed interest. “Hey, he's sexy!” Her brow clouded over. “He didn't own slaves, though, did he?”

Laurel shook her head. “Not Erasmus. He didn't arrive in Texas till sometime in the late 1860s, but his wives' families had cotton plantations before the Civil War.”

Truth to tell, she'd always been a little uneasy around the black kids in school whose last names were Benton or Quisenberry. Emancipated slaves often took the surnames of their former masters, and the fact that the Bentons were so light that some of them had “passed” made her want to ask her mother questions she was pretty sure Mama didn't want to answer.

Lolly turned to her with a frown. “But why isn't
your
portrait here?

Laurel raised her hands in mock despair. “There wasn't room for me in the stairway, so I was exiled to the dining room. You can see me before you leave.”

She took the final step onto the landing, opened the first door on the left, and switched on the light. If Lolly liked old-fashioned, this was the mother lode: a gilt mirror over the dressing table, antique furniture, and pink-flowered dimity curtains looping over gilded Cupid hooks, then hanging down on either side of the window.

Lolly came in behind her, stood in the center of the room, and pivoted slowly to take everything in.

“It's all so beautiful—I love the Aubusson and all the pastel colors. And that pale green bed and chest and vanity table are supercool. Are they, like, French Provincial?”

“Well, yes. Not the kind you get in stores, though. My great-grandfather bought it all in France way back when.”

“Awesome. And I bet this is a feather bed.” Lolly dropped her purse and backpack to the floor, then carefully sat down on the edge of the mattress, bouncing a little to test it. “I always wondered how it would feel to sleep on a feather bed.”

Laurel laughed. “Sorry. That bed has had several mattresses through the years. The feathers have flown the coop.”

Lolly's face fell. “No feathers?”

“They tend to hatch lice. I think you'll like the inner springs better.”

Lolly yawned again, nodded a reluctant acceptance, and looked over at the half-open pocket door beside the bed. “Is that an en suite?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Cool.”

Laurel slid the door open and stepped inside the bathroom for a quick inspection to make sure no spiders had expired in the tub recently, as they had the distressing habit of doing. Score one for modern insecticides.

“There's a clean nightgown hanging on the hook behind the door, and you can use all the towels you want,” she said, returning to the bedroom. “As you'll see, we've got plenty.” Although she would have sold every one of them if there'd been any sort of market for old linens.

Lolly yawned and sat down on the bed, her head drooping toward her shoulder, and smoothed the sheet with her hand.

“Thank you.”

Laurel moved to the door. “You're welcome, honey.”

She turned on the window unit, and Lolly jerked around as the machine wheezed into action. Laurel smiled. Let Jase be the one to explain Stone Age technology to his daughter.

“Sweet dreams. I'll leave the bathroom light on in case you wake up during the night.”

Lolly nodded, yawned again, and kicked off her flip-flops. “Good night.”

“Good night, honey.”

Laurel closed the door and crossed the hall to her bedroom, a nest of warmth settling between her breasts.

Jase's daughter was sleeping across the hall in her house tonight.

L
aurel slipped off her shoes and scrunched her toes into the soft silk rug beside the bed, another vestige of Erasmus's Chinese phase.

This room would be hard to leave. It had been her own private place—her bower—since she was born. She'd store the rug and the cherrywood bedroom suite till she had a place big enough to accommodate them, but the room itself, with its high ceiling, crown molding, and wall-length closet—there was no reproducing that.

Opening the door to the connecting bathroom, she turned on the faucets of the tub. Nothing like a long, restful soak before bed. She unbuttoned her shirt and slipped it off her arms. Her bra followed next, then her slacks and panties.

What if Jase hadn't left town sixteen years ago, and if, by some miracle, they'd actually ended up getting married? He wouldn't have deserted her like Dave did.

Or would he?

She glanced at herself in the mirror and teased her nipples erect to make sure they still worked.

Get real, Laurel Elizabeth. If Jase knew what everybody else in Bosque Bend knows, he probably wouldn't even have allowed Lolly to spend the night here.
Not that it mattered. Now that his daughter had turned up, he'd come pick her up, turn that Caddie around, and hightail it right back to Dallas. Just like she would hightail herself out of town the second she had a contract on the house.

She stepped into the tub and settled down into the warm, soothing water, expecting to drift into near unconsciousness, but the second she closed her eyes, her brain began rerunning a mental tape from sixteen years ago.

News of the scandal had leapt from house to house like a shake-roof fire, but Laurel first heard about it on Thursday, during her daily hour as a student aide, when she was filing absence slips in the anteroom off the main office. Sarah's mother's voice was loud and clear as she discussed the event with the school secretary.

“What do you think, Gail? I know the Redlander boy comes from bad stock. After all, his father has that horrible beer tavern, Beat Down or whatever it's called, across the county line.” Mrs. Bridges's voice lowered a decibel or two, as if she were trying to be discreet. “Nyquist told the school board he heard Marguerite screaming for help when he dropped by her house to pick up some papers, but Odelle Schlossnagel said that Jase and Marguerite had been at it for months, that she saw him vaulting over Ms. Shelton's fence when she was putting out Christmas lights back in December.” Her voice ratcheted up a notch again. “Nyquist's story is that Jase overpowered Marguerite, but my God, Gail, how could that boy have forced himself on that woman for four months straight without her uttering a word of complaint?”

Laurel risked a quick look toward the front desk and saw Ms. Fogarty raise a carefully penciled eyebrow and glance in the direction of Mr. Nyquist's empty office. “Well, Marilyn, all I can tell you is that we've never had any trouble with Jason. He's built like an adult man, though, six two in his stocking feet and still growing, while Marguerite's only an inch or so above five feet.” She snickered through her nose. “On the other hand, she always looked
very
happy when she clocked in every morning.”

Jase and Ms. Shelton? Laurel didn't believe a word of it. And apparently Ms. Fogarty and Sarah's mother didn't either—they seemed to be more amused than shocked.

A harsh buzz drowned out the women's knowing laughter. Time for lunch.

Laurel's brain whirled as she placed the rest of the absence slips on top of the filing cabinet for the next hour's aide to finish off. She walked down the hall to the lunchroom like she was in a trance, filled her tray, handed her punch card to the monitor behind the register, then went over to the table near the window where she and her best friends always sat.

Rebecca Diaz, Saundra Schlossnagel, and Jennie Lynn Pietzsch weren't there yet, but Sarah started talking before Laurel could even set her tray down.

“Did you hear what they're saying about Jase?”

Laurel sat down on the bench across from her friend. “Yes, but I don't believe it.”

Sarah's dark eyes sparkled with excitement. “Well, the school board does. Last period in drama class, Amy Fassbinder—her father's a trustee, you know—told me Mr. Nyquist called their house at seven this morning and said he'd caught Jase in the act.”

Laurel ripped open her milk carton. “I still don't believe it.”

“Maybe Jase—” Sarah glanced across the room. “
Shh
, here comes Rebecca. Don't say a word. You know how prissy she is.”

Laurel nodded, picked up her fork, and loaded it with a chunk of meatloaf.

She had no intention of talking to Rebecca or anyone else about Jase and Ms. Shelton, but she sure was thinking about them. The whole idea was ridiculous—Ms. Shelton was far too old for him. Besides, when she'd talked to Jase yesterday, before Daddy called him into his office, he hadn't acted any different. Mr. Nyquist must have gotten it wrong—or maybe Ms. Shelton made it all up. Jenny Lynn, who had been in her class last semester, said she was a good teacher, but she spent a lot of time flirting with the football guys.

How should she act when Jase came to the house next Wednesday? What should she say to him? What
could
she say to him?

She stared at her fork.
Meatloaf?
She loathed meatloaf! She shook it off onto her plate and took a big gulp of milk straight from the carton.

Daddy would know what she should do. She'd talk to him when she got home. But how in the world do you discuss something like that with your father?

However, as usual, Daddy made it easy. As soon as she mentioned Jase's name, he nodded, took off his glasses, and gave her his full attention. “Jase is a victim and no danger to anyone but himself,” he said in his usual dry, precise tone. “You should behave normally around him and not listen to gossip.”

Which, Laurel decided, meant Jase was innocent, just as she'd thought. However, Mama, whom she always talked with after her evening prayers, was more cautious. “Ms. Shelton has been replaced by a permanent substitute because of health problems,” she said, patting Laurel's hand. “Perhaps it would be better to avoid Jason from now on, dear.”

In an instant, Jase became a tragic hero, and one whom Laurel would defend to the death.

She would be his friend, his helpmeet, his champion. With her by his side, he would be completely exonerated. Then all the petty gossipers, realizing what a terrible mistake they had made, would come to him on bended knee and beg his forgiveness for their small, dirty minds. And after she and Jase were married in the hazy distant future and had moved in with Mama and Daddy, she would be the envy of all of her friends, especially the Fassbinder twins, because Jase would tell everyone that he wouldn't be here today if it weren't for her unyielding faith in him.

And, most important of all, her father would be proud of her.

The first thing she had to do the next morning was find a way to talk to Jase. She tried the gym—that's where all the jocks hung out before classes started—but Jase wasn't there. Saundra said she'd heard he left school at lunchtime the day before, and no one had seen him since. Later in the afternoon, she looked him up in the office files and discovered the school didn't have a phone number listed for him, but there was an address.

That meant she'd have to track him down at home over the weekend, which meant prevailing upon Sarah, with her brand-new driver's license and brand-new car.

No problem. As usual, Sarah was game for anything. Besides, Sarah knew Laurel was in love with Jase. Whenever they got tired of singing along with Mariah and Madonna, and after Sarah ran out of things to say about her latest boyfriend, Laurel would talk about Jase. Not that she would be allowed to go on a real date till she was sixteen, and not that there was the slightest chance her mother would
ever
allow her to go anywhere with Growler Red's son, but she could dream.

Her courage ebbed as Sarah turned onto Jase's street.

Talk about hardscrabble. This was the kind of neighborhood she and Mama delivered church charity baskets to at Christmas. It was farther out on the long west arm of the Bosque than she'd realized, and the overcast sky made the scene look like the set of a depressing old black-and-white movie. While Jase's house wasn't any worse off than the other two shacks staggered along the dirt road, it wasn't any better either. Something had gnawed the siding as far up as it could reach, the asphalt shingle roof was a patchwork of tan, brown, and red, and Jase had parked that old rattletrap Chevy pickup of his on what should have been the lawn.

Sarah took a long look around and wrinkled her nose. “Are you sure?”

Laurel's stomach tightened, but she reminded herself that her cause was noble, like when Joan of Arc led the troops of Charles VII at Orleans.

“I'm sure.”

She opened her door, and her white flats sank immediately into the springtime gumbo. The sticky black loam was great for growing cotton, but hardened like concrete when it dried on your shoes. Mrs. Claypool, the new housekeeper, would kill her.

Sarah stuck her head out the window. “When do you want me to pick you up?”

Laurel gave her what she hoped was a confident smile. “Don't worry. I'm sure Jase will give me a ride home.”

“Well, okay. If you say so.”

The Thunderbird sped off and Laurel started across the yard, scraping her muddy shoes against the knee-deep knots of Johnsongrass as she went. A saucy April breeze riffled the hem of her skirt as she walked up the steps to the front porch. She'd decided to dress up, to wear her Easter outfit, a yellow skirt topped by a white blouse that had little yellow flowers embroidered around the neckline—after all, she was engaged in a worthy cause. Besides, Jase had never seen her dressed up before.

She paused at the top of the steps and looked around. A rusty metal chair sat on the right of the door, and on the left, a bone-thin hound sprawled across a sagging old davenport. The dog lifted an eyelid in inquiry, and Laurel remembered that Mama's older sister had died from rabies.

Better get herself inside quick.

She raised her hand to the doorbell.
Ew!
There was no way she was going to touch that thing! It was more grime than button! Maybe a gentle knock would do it. She gave the doorframe a light rat-a-tat-tat, stood back politely, rechecked the dog, and waited.

Why wasn't anyone answering the door? Jase's truck was parked in the yard, so he must be at home. She'd have to knock louder. Opening the rusty screen and holding it away from her dress, she prepared to pound on the door itself, but it swung open at first touch. After peeking into the morning shadows, she walked inside.

The smell hit her first—the rank, dank odor of stale cigarette smoke and unemptied trash cans. The visual was even worse—the place was a mess. Crusty paper plates, overflowing ashtrays, and herds of longnecks littered every available surface, including the floor. She'd heard that Jase's Aunt Maxie dropped by from time to time to keep things tidy, but circumstances, namely Growler Red, went against her. Laurel hadn't realized how badly.

She swallowed hard and moved forward boldly, like Joan of Arc would have. “Jase, are you there?”

A muffled groan answered her.

Jase!

Following his voice, she turned to the left and walked straight into his bedroom. A little thrill chased through her stomach. She'd never been alone in a boy's bedroom before. In fact, she'd never been in a boy's bedroom at all. And not only were she and Jase the only ones in the house, but Jase was still in bed.

Her mouth went dry as she stared at the ropy muscles of his arms and the masculine darkness that shaded the center of his chest between the small, brown, male paps.

What had happened to his pajama top?

Jase propped himself up on an elbow and peered at her as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Laurel definitely couldn't believe what
she
was seeing. Jase's long, dark hair, almost the length of hers, was tousled and damp, and his eyes were slits of black. Stubble shadowed the lower half of his face. She wondered for an eerie second if she'd walked into the wrong house.

Apparently he did too. “Laurel! What are you doing here?”

It
was
Jase! “I came to tell you that I believe in you.”

“What?” Shaking his head as if to clear it, he hoisted himself up a little further.

Her cheeks went red. Daddy always wore pajamas to bed—pima cotton, usually pale blue with darker blue piping—but Jase had been sleeping in his underpants. Should she look away or pretend she didn't notice?

It didn't matter. The important thing was what she had come to say, which apparently he hadn't quite comprehended. She moved forward to explain, cleared her throat, and began again. “I don't believe all the stupid stuff everyone is saying. The stuff about you and Ms. Shelton.”

Her foot knocked into a beer can that clanked across the floor and banged into another can under a leg of the bed. Nude pinups and football posters papered the wall behind him. A tuna tin full of cigarette butts sat on the rickety metal table beside the bed.

“I—I just thought you'd want to know.” Her voice was breaking, and she was trembling on the verge of nervous tears.

Maybe visiting Jase wasn't such a good idea after all. The whole scene had played out differently in her imagination. The house had been sparse but clean, and Jase had been wearing his football jersey. After she'd declared her faith in him, he'd clasped her knees in gratitude, like in the historical romance she'd been reading. Then she'd lifted him up and they'd embraced decorously, plighting their troth.

Instead, he was lying half-naked in a rumpled bed in a filthy house, looking at her like she was crazy. God help her—she'd made a complete fool of herself.