Darkling I Listen (13 page)

All eyes came back to her, perhaps not
so
friendly as before. The subtle message was
If
you have any plans to do the dirty on Brandon Carlyle, you can take a hike off a tall cliff.
She tried to ignore the spear of guilt that stabbed at her conscience, then mentally reminded herself that her reasons for being here might be a lie, but that didn't necessarily mean her slant on Carlyle's story would be anything but positive.

"Of course this is
Brandon
's story," she replied. "I'm just here to get the details on paper and put it all into some kind of order that people can follow easily."

Satisfied with her answer, Henry refocused on his food, Betty dropped the frying pan into a sink of soapy water, and
Brandon
put his coffee cup down and stood up. For the first time Alyson allowed
herself
to look at him directly. He looked tired, eyes a bit droopy and red. Hungover was what he looked. Like he'd spent the night on a real bender. Not the case, of course, unless he'd tied one on after she'd left him beside the road. When he'd called her at two that morning, he'd sounded sober.

He glanced at Betty. "Is Bernie ready to get up?"

Betty nodded and dried her hands on a dish towel, her green eyes drifting back to Alyson. "Fed and bathed. I'll do her hair once she's situated. The room is cold, so you might want to put that plaid lap blanket over her legs."

"I'll get a fire going in the fireplace soon as I finish up here," Henry announced, then smiled at Alyson. "I'll get one started in the den as well. I guess you kids will want some privacy while you talk. Den's a good place for that."

"We'll talk after I finish chores,"
Brandon
declared as he disappeared into a room off the kitchen.

"I'll be happy to feed for you this morning," Henry called.

"Nope."

Henry chuckled and shook his head. "Boy spoils me rotten. Since he moved home, he's taken over the running of this place like it was the most natural thing in the world for him. Does him good, I guess. Keeps his mind off other things. He was never one to sit around idle, even when he was a youngster. His mother would let the boy come home frequently, but there was hell to pay when he did. She was on the phone three, four times a day, checking on him. God forbid that something should happen to him. Then her source of income would dry up and she'd be forced to get her lazy tail out there and earn her own keep."

"Henry
!"
Brandon
barked from the other room. "Behave."

He forked a sizable chunk of turkey sausage and pointed it at Alyson, lowered his voice. "Woman's a witch. Spawn of the devil. I use to tell John,
Brandon
's father, that Cara was going to blow his chances for a baseball career. John had one of the best pitching arms in the country. There wasn't a major university that wasn't prepared to finance his education if he'd play ball for them. Problem with John was he was just too damn good-looking. Women wouldn't leave him alone. You can't expect a man to concentrate on baseball when gals like Cara are shaking their
fannies
at him every chance they get."

"Henry!"

"It's the truth, and you know it," Henry shouted, the chunk of sausage bulging his cheek. "You've got the same problem. Too damn good-looking for your own good."

Brandon
stepped into the room and glared at his uncle. Alyson tried to hide her smile behind her coffee cup as Henry sat back in his chair and chewed, not in the least affected by
Brandon
's visual warning. "Remember when you used to come home and Cara'd send a list of things you weren't allowed to do: no mowing, something might get cut off; no swimming, you might drown; no fishing, you might drown or hook an eye or something; no biking, you might get hit by a car; no horseback riding, you might get thrown and bust your head. She'd even send a list of foods he couldn't eat. No fried foods or desserts. No colas or Kool-Aid. No candy." Turning his eyes back to Alyson, he said, "You remember that movie
Boy in the Plastic Bubble?
Well, it might as well have been about
Brandon
. He wasn't ever allowed to be a kid."

"So I take it you always followed Cara's orders." Alyson suspected she knew the answer before Henry swallowed his sausage and replied with a wide grin:
"
Me
and Bernie stuffed
Brandon
so full of fried chicken, pie and ice cream, and cherry Kool-Aid it was a wonder he survived it without rupturing."

Alyson laughed, as did Betty. They looked at
Brandon
, leaning his left shoulder against the doorjamb, fingers slid into his jeans pockets, mouth curled up on one side as he watched Henry bounce up and down with laughter. Something in the way the two men looked at one another made Alyson feel as if she were trespassing into sacred territory—the same way she'd felt stepping into this kitchen. The package was one of comfort, safety, and stability, not to mention love as deep as an ocean. Henry Carlyle and this house were
Brandon
's port in a storm, and she, the outsider, was invading it. In truth, the atmosphere disoriented her. Family wasn't something she had ever known outside reruns of
The Waltons
and
Ozzie and Harriet.
Being suddenly dumped into the midst of such warm, loving energy made her breathless and dizzy.

Henry finished his food and shoved his plate back. His face looked serene as he rubbed his belly and regarded Alyson with a smile. "You're from around here, Al?"

She was warned by his familiarity, as if his calling her Al was a form of acceptance. Somehow acceptance by this man felt inordinately important to her. "
Longview
," she replied.

"What school?"

"Pine Tree."

"Go to college?"

"Briefly. Two years at Stephen F. Austin."

"And then?"

"I moved to
California
."

"
L.A.
?"

"For, a while."

"Acting?"

She smiled and shook her head. "No."

Silence filled the room as Henry watched her, waiting.

"I waitressed for a while. Freelanced with my writing. Took night courses in photography. This and that." She glanced at Betty, who leaned back against the sink with her arms crossed over her chest. Her face was emotionless. Her eyes, however, looked hard as jade.

"You still have family in
Longview
?" Henry asked as he removed his glasses and cleaned them with his napkin.

"No."

"Are your parents living?" He replaced the glasses on his nose.

The room closed in on her suddenly. The air felt hot and difficult to breathe. She got the impression that the kindly man staring at her through the thick lenses of his glasses would somehow know if she lied. Though she had become adept at keeping her life a closed book to the world, something about Henry Carlyle invited her confidence. She wanted to crawl into his lap, lay her head on his shoulder, and
spend
the next hours revealing her greatest fears and secrets. She realized in that moment that the farm and its peaceful solitude weren't what had lured
Brandon
back to Ticky Creek. It was the old man with his ruddy cheeks and twinkling blue eyes that had the ability to turn a person's insides to butter.

"My grandmother raised me, actually." She glanced over her shoulder, straight at Brandon, who continued to watch her with his sleepy eyes and a lazy curl on his lips. Wrapping her fingers around her coffee cup for security, she took a deep breath. "My mom took off for better places when I was six. Last time my grandmother heard from her, she was living in Vegas, had just married some gambler named Bill or Bob or something, and was relocating to
L.A.
I was thirteen at the time. And my dad…
"
She shrugged. "I never knew him."

Henry pursed his lips thoughtfully. "And your grandmother?"

"Died my first year in college."

"So you went to
L.A.
to find your mother. Did you find her?"

"No."

He smiled. "Well, you seem to have done all right for yourself, Al. You're pretty, intelligent, and ambitious. And honest for the most part, although I sense you're holding a lot back. Understandable. You don't know me from Jack Adam. Are you married?" His eyebrows lifted as he waited for her reply.

"No."

Smile stretching, he shoved back his chair and stood. "Would you like to meet my better half, Al?" He offered her his hand. She took it, and he helped her out of her chair, directed her toward the door where
Brandon
had earlier been standing. Reaching the threshold, she stopped while Henry moved ahead. He moved the empty wheelchair beside the bed where
Brandon
stood, holding a woman's gray hand.

Like the kitchen, the room held a certain kind of magic that evoked security in Alyson. The air smelled of jasmine potpourri. The walls were dusty rose; the hardwood floor, covered with an Oriental carpet.
Boston
ferns crowded the corners, Victorian knickknacks cluttered every square inch of the antiques hugging the walls. There were stacks of old paperbacks piled on a short table near the television.

"This is my wife," Henry declared. "Bernice. We call her Bernie." He locked the chair and smiled at his wife. "Bernie with laughter like birdsong. Isn't that right, Brandon? When Bernie laughed, anyone in earshot would stop and listen."

Brandon
gently shifted Bernie to the chair. He moved carefully because there were tubes attached to her nose from an oxygen tank by the bed. Henry wrapped a shawl around her frail shoulders while
Brandon
covered her lap with the plaid blanket. His movements were achingly gentle, and the fondness in his eyes as he regarded the tiny woman made emotion rise up inside Alyson so that she was forced to look away, toward the collection of framed photographs crowding the top of the fireplace mantel.

There were images of Brandon smiling back at her—not black-and-white glossy head shots, but life moments frozen in time: a child lazily sunning on the steps of Henry's front porch, another of Brandon and Henry carving a jack-o'-lantern from a massive pumpkin, both child and adult covered with pumpkin slime and seeds. Still another showed a much younger Bernice with flowing brown hair and sparkling eyes perched atop a big, shaggy plow horse, young
Brandon
sitting behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist and his cheek pressed against her back. He looked sublimely content.

Henry bent over and smiled into his wife's eyes. "We have a guest this morning, Bernie. A young woman is here to see
Brandon
. She intends to help him write his autobiography." Henry looked up and smiled at Alyson. "Come here, dear, so she can see you."

Alyson moved to stand beside Henry while
Brandon
backed away just enough to allow her room. She felt him at her back. The scent of him made her heart do a queer miss-beat that was beginning to annoy her. The last thing she needed was to become emotionally involved with Brandon Carlyle and his family. Then she reminded herself that the stirring going on inside her had nothing whatsoever to do with emotion. It was physical, pure and simple. There wasn't a woman born who could stand in the man's proximity and not feel her body heat up. There was something to Henry's observations about women and good-looking men.
It's all chemical,
she repeated to herself.
The heart has nothing whatsoever
to do with it.

A.J., just continue to remind yourself that the last time chemicals and chemistry entered into the love equation, you married a jerk you didn't love any more than he loved you.

The woman's pale blue eyes stared up at Alyson from a slack, expressionless face that had once been beautiful. The laugh lines bracketing her mouth were evidence that once she had been the vibrant, smiling woman in the photographs. Although the hair was gray instead of brown, the natural waves were still there, soft around her cheeks that looked as delicate as a flower petal. A sense of loss tugged at Alyson, yet she couldn't help but smile into the blue eyes that looked into her own in a way that unbalanced her. There was emotion there—warm and convivial. Or was there? Whatever, it was gone as swiftly as the brief brightness of a firefly's flicker.

She reached out and placed her hand on Bernie's, which felt cold and lifeless. "Hello, Bernie. I'm very pleased to meet you."

Henry turned on the television while
Brandon
moved to the fireplace and began stacking wood inside. Betty entered, collected a silver-backed hairbrush from the dresser top, and moved up behind Bernie. She rested her hands on the chair grips, and focused on Alyson, who was still smiling down at Bernice.

"It's time to do her hair," Betty explained, allowing Alyson a tight smile.

It was there again, the flicker of emotion in Bernie's eyes. Only not so warm this time. But
…
something else—gone too quickly to interpret it.