After Dark (15 page)

    "You and Lillie Mae are singing
the same song," Will told her. "What is it about this guy that makes
both of you defend him? He got Lillie Mae's daughter pregnant and deserted
her, but she tells me he's not a bad man. And he strung you along and had you
madly in love with him, so in love with him that you ruined your whole life
by marrying Kent just so you could adopt me. But you tell me you want me to
like him. Do you like him, Mama? Is that what this is all about? Are you
still in love with him?"

    Lane picked up a brush from her vanity,
gave her hair a few strokes and tossed the brush aside. "For your information,
Will Graham, you're the best thing that ever happened to me. And as for liking
Johnny Mack… I don't know him. Not now. He's a stranger. Did I like the
Johnny Mack I knew fifteen years ago? Yes, I liked him, despite his less
than sterling reputation. And as for loving him now… No, Will, I don't love
him. But to be totally honest, I'm not absolutely sure that I hate him
either."

    There were fresh flowers on Kent
Graham's grave. Every day the florist delivered blood red roses. Half a
dozen. Per Edith Graham's instructions. Damn shame. Waste of good money.

    In the distance, the mowers had
begun their day's work at the other side of the cemetery. But they were
too far away to notice, to see who was paying an early

    morning visit to a man who should
have been put six feet under years ago.

    Kent had been a monster. He had
preyed on the weak. He had used and abused those who had loved him. He had
destroyed everything he had touched. His life had been like an insidious
cancer that wound its malignant evil around healthy minds and bodies
and slowly but surely devoured them.

    He hadn't deserved to live. It
was a pity that a man could die only once. If only Kent could have suffered
more. Suffered for days. For weeks. For years. Suffered the way his victims
had suffered.

    Johnny Mack Cahill sat in the upholstered
chair at the banquet-size, eighteenth century pedestal table in the
dining room of the Noble mansion on Magnolia Avenue. An impressive
breakfront china cabinet, filled with heirloom treasures, soared
from floor to ceiling and spanned half a wall behind him. He had never been
in this room before today. Actually, until his brief recuperative
period of three days and nights, fifteen years ago, he had never set foot
in any room other than the kitchen. And even during that brief stay, he
had gone no farther than Lillie Mae's bedroom and bath.

    In Houston, he was welcome in
the homes of the wealthiest, most privileged citizens and had dined
at finer tables than this. So why the hell did he feel like an intruder,
someone who had forgotten to wipe the mud off his feet before he walked
on the polished parquet floors and the priceless Persian rugs?

    Because this was Noble's Crossing,
and in this town he was and always would be the bastard son of a trailer
trash whore.

    "Don't you like your salad?"
Lane asked.

    "No. I mean yes. The salad is
fine. Thanks." What was wrong with him? He was stammering around like
some insecure teenager who had no idea which fork to use. But he was no
teenager. He sure as hell wasn't insecure. And Judge Brown had drilled
table manners into him the first month he had lived on the old man's ranch.

    He forced himself to take a bite
of the salad. Usually he enjoyed a good meal. But at this precise moment,
he wished he hadn't invited himself to lunch. Why hadn't he told Lane that
he would just stop by today? If he had, he could have spared all three of
them this nerve-wracking experience. Sitting here with Lane, who obviously
was forcing herself to be pleasant to him, and with Will Graham, who had neither
spoken to nor looked at him, was absolute torture.

    But what had he expected? That
Will would call him Dad and welcome him into his life with open arms?

    Moments ticked by in which no one
spoke, then Lane commented on the weather and how hot it had been this
summer. Lillie Mae removed their salad plates and served the main course.
She hesitated in the doorway, then huffed loudly, the disgust evident
in her expression.

    "Will, why don't you ask Johnny
Mack to play a game of chess with you after lunch?" Lillie Mae suggested.
"You know, your mama taught him how to play a long time ago."

    Johnny Mack glanced at the boy, who
kept his head bowed over his plate, but suddenly shot Johnny Mack a sharp,
quick look of pure anger. His son hated him, that was plain to see.

    ''Actually, you turned out to be a
much better player than I ever was," Lane said, stepping in to fill
the void that her son's silence created. "Daddy taught me when I was
a little girl, but I was no match for him."

    "Actually, I haven't played
chess in years." Johnny Mack lifted his glass of iced tea. "I used
to play with Judge Brown. But I never could beat that wily old fox."

    "Who was Judge Brown?"
Lillie Mae asked.

    "He was the man who plucked me
out of jail fifteen years ago and gave me a chance to prove that I was
more than a worthless, white trash bastard."

    Lane's mouth formed a silent
gasp. Lillie Mae cleared her throat. When Johnny Mack glanced at her, she
nodded toward Will, who for the first time since Johnny Mack's arrival
met his gaze head-on.

    "They think I'm a kid,"
Will said. "They don't talk vulgar around me, even though I've told
them a hundred times that I hear a lot worse every day at school and all
the kids use language that would make their hair stand on end."

    "Regardless of those facts,
I'd rather you didn't hear such language from me or Lillie Mae." Lane
looked directly at Johnny Mack. "Please, tell us more about Judge
Brown, but I'd appreciate it if you'd use less colorful language."

    "Sorry. I'm not used to being
around a… an impressionable young man." Johnny Mack grinned at his
son, who simply continued staring at him. "But I want to be honest
with Will about who I was and who I am."

    ''You were explaining who Judge
Brown was,'' Lane said, her gaze quickly darting back and forth from Will
to Johnny Mack.

    ''Yeah, so I was. Judge Brown was
an old man when I knew him, and he retired from the bench a couple of years
after I met him. He'd made it his mission in life to try to save as many
young men as he could from a life of crime."

    "What were you in jail
for?" Will asked.

    "Will, that isn't polite,"
Lane said.

    "Ah, Mama."

    "It's all right, Lane. Will
has a right to ask me why I was in jail." Johnny Mack would rather not
have to tell his son about his sordid past, but he figured the boy had already
heard an earful about him. About what a hell-raiser he had been when he
was growing up in Noble's Crossing. And if Will deserved anything from
him, he deserved the truth. The boy's life had been built on lies, one
stacked on top of another.

    Lane nodded. Lillie Mae crossed
her arms over her waist as she stood in the doorway.

    "When I left Noble's Crossing,
Lane and Lillie Mae gave me two hundred dollars, but by the time I'd been
in Texas a couple of weeks, I didn't have a dime in my pocket. I'd picked
up an odd job here and there, enough to eat on, but one night when I didn't
have the money for a place to stay, I got picked up for vagrancy and
thrown in jail. That's the only crime I've ever been convicted of. Vagrancy."

    "But you committed a lot of crimes
that you've never been convicted of, haven't you?" Will smirked, like
someone who knew he had inflicted a wound and was damn proud of his accomplishment.

    "John William Graham!"
Lane scolded.

    "No, don't be upset with
him." Johnny Mack lifted his napkin from his lap and tossed it on the
table.

    He's right and we all know it."
Johnny Mack scooted back his chair and rose to his feet. "I don't know
Where you got your information, Will, but somebody obviously has filled
you in on what a rounder I was back in the old days." He glanced at Lane's
housekeeper. "I wasn't worth a damn, was I, Lillie Mae?'

    "You were always worth something.
At least Mi-Lane thought so," Lillie Mae said, then turned and walked
out of the dining room.

    Johnny Mack focused his attention
on Will. "You don't like me very much, do you, son?"

    "Don't call me son. You don't
have the right. And, as for not liking you-I hate your guts." Will jumped
up out of his chair so quickly that he knocked it over onto the floor.
"We don't want you here. We don't need you. Not now." Will's eyes
narrowed to slits. His nostrils flared. Color stained his high, sharply
chiseled cheekbones. "Where were you when we really needed you?
Tell me that! When Kent was making life hell for Mama. And where were you
the day-Kent told me who my real daddy was and what a sorry no good son of a
bitch you were?"

    Will ran from the dining room, like
an animal being, chased by hunters. Lane rose slowly, her napkin falling
from her lap onto the floor as she stood. She looked at Johnny Mack, and
the pain and sorrow he saw in her eyes tortured him far more than the
angry words Will had hurled at him.

    "Should you go after
him?" Johnny Mack asked.

    "No," Lane replied.
"Lillie Mae twisted his arm to get him to agree to have lunch with you
today. She told him to do it for me." Lane lifted her head, tilting
it upward just slightly in a show of strength and determination. ''You
see, my son is very protective of me. The first time he heard Kent demeaning
me, degrading me, Will lashed out at Kent. And each time Kent got drunk and
took his frustration out on me, Will came to my defense. Finally, I
realized that, for Will's sake as much as my own, I had to divorce Kent By
that time, Will's feelings for his father-for the man he thought of as his
father-had changed drastically. He still loved Kent, but he no longer
respected him."

    "I'm sorry that I pushed my
way in here today. I should have waited until you were ready. Until
Will was ready. I have a tendency to be too aggressive. But in my own defense,
I should tell you that all I want is to find a way to make things right. For
you. For Will. Whatever you want… whatever you need, is yours for the asking.
Please, Lane, let me help you."

    "Will was right. You really
are too late to help us. Perhaps, before Kent was murdered-"

    Johnny Mack slammed his fist down
on the antique table, the jarring effect clanging china against crystal
and bouncing the pieces of silverware together. "Damn Kent! I should
have stayed here fifteen years ago and gotten rid of him myself. If a
man ever deserved killing, it was Kent Graham. And if I'd known you were
married to him and he was abusing you, I'd have ripped him apart with my
bare hands. God, why didn't Lillie Mae send for me sooner?"

    "She was helping me perpetuate
the lie that Kent was Will's father. She and I both did what we thought was
best for Will. And I'm sure Lillie Mae wasn't certain that you would come
to our rescue. After all, you'd never exactly been the reliable type,
had you?"

    "Hmph. Maybe y'all thought it
preferable for Will to be Kent's son rather than mine. After all, Kent
was the heir to the Graham fortune and his place in local society was
far superior to mine. Y’all probably thought that I didn't have anything
to offer a child. Absolutely nothing. No money. No prestigious name.
No family lineage."

    Lane glowered at Johnny Mack, her
expression one of angry disbelief. "Do you honestly believe
that's the reason Lillie Mae didn't contact you?"

    "I don't know, but it makes
sense." It made tool much sense. And the truth hurt like hell.
"Kent Graham was your kind, wasn't he? You were both Alabama blue bloods
with pedigrees back to Adam. Maybe you thought Will deserved to be a
part of all that-to truly belong to the Graham family."

    Lane rushed him, her eyes wild with
pain and rage. Skidding to a halt a foot in front of him, she jabbed her
index finger on his chest. "I thought Will deserved a chance to live,
instead of being aborted by the girl you'd gotten pregnant. If I'd known
where you were and if for one minute I'd thought you would've wanted
Will and me, I'd have paid off Sharon and come running to you with your
baby. You were the one I loved." She stabbed his chest with her finger.
"You were the one I wanted. Not Kent. But you were too blind, too stupid,
to realize that I would have given up everything to have been with
you."

    "Lane…" When he reached
for her, she sidestepped him, the look in her eyes daring him to touch
her.

    Dear God, she was right. He had been
too blind to see the truth. He had thought her feelings ran no deeper than a
teenage crush on the town bad boy. How wrong he had been! A girl with a
silly crush didn't throw away her own life in order to save a man's baby.
But a woman who truly loved a man might. If that woman was Lane Noble.

    But it was apparent that the love
she had once felt for him had died long ago. He saw no evidence of it now.
If Lane felt anything for him, it was contempt

    ''I got over my girlish infatuation
years ago, so don' think that…" Turning her back on him, Lane took a
deep breath. "Your presence here isn't helping me, and it certainly
isn't helping Will. Why don't you just go back to Texas and leave us alone?"