Loving Laura (The Cantrelle Family Trilogy) (4 page)

Neil started to comply.

“Please,” Laura begged. “Let him tell me the rest. I have to know the rest.” She ignored the pain in her temples, in her lip, in her chest.

“There’s time enough to worry about that,” the nurse soothed, smoothing her hand across Laura’s forehead. “You just get yourself well.”

“Please.”

Mrs. Peres glared at Neil, while her hand continued soothing and comforting. Then she shrugged. “All right. I guess she won’t rest until she knows.”

Laura turned her head away from the angry nurse. She looked at Norman’s brother. Neil’s eyes were filled with disturbing glints, like shards of glass floating in a dark pool. “Is that all? Or is there more?”

“There’s more.”

“Tell me,” she whispered.

Very softly, he said, “Now the problem is that several bones were crushed in his left leg. He may lose it, as well.”

“Dear God,” Laura whispered. She stared at Neil. Her heart thumped wildly. Norman. He was losing one leg. He might lose another. Her fault. It was all her fault.

“Okay, Mr. Cantrelle. You’ve done enough damage for one day,” Mrs. Peres said firmly. “I want you to leave now.” She pressed the call button at Laura’s side. “I’m going to get the doctor to order a sedative for you. You need to rest so you can get well.”

“Rest? How can I rest?” Laura tried to lift her head and roll over. Oh, if only she could turn the clock back.

“Can I—” Neil said.

“Please leave, Mr. Cantrelle,” the nurse said. It sounded as if her teeth were gritted together.

They were taking Norman’s leg. His leg. And they might take the other one.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“Now!” Mrs. Peres ordered.

And then he was gone, leaving Laura with her chaotic thoughts, with misery and guilt churning around in her mind like a miniature tornado. Norman loved to hunt and fish. He loved to dance. He was the best roofer they had, the one with the surest step, the one who could clamber about for ten or twelve hours at a stretch. He had big, strong legs with thick thighs. He lived outdoors. He’d never liked sedentary activities like reading or listening to music or going to the movies.

This would change his life.

It would also change hers.

“Neil! Wake up.”

Neil jumped. “What? Something happen?” He shook his head to clear out the cobwebs. He must have fallen asleep.

“Nothing’s happened,” Denise said. “But the nurse wants to talk to us.”

A skinny, redheaded nurse stood a couple of feet away. “I just came out to tell you that if you’d like to go home for a while, we’ll call you if there’s any change.”

Neil rubbed his eyes as he tried to focus. His head throbbed. “What time is it?”

His father answered. “Almost eight o’clock.”

Neil’s stomach grumbled. No wonder, he thought. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast on the flight in this morning.

“Why don’t you give me a phone number where I can reach you?” the nurse offered. “That way, if your brother should regain consciousness before you come back, I can call you.”

“What do you think, Papa?” His father looked exhausted. “Sounds like a good idea to go to the house for a while. We can get something to eat—you can rest a little. We can see how Mama’s feeling.”

His father wearily agreed.

“I’ll take Papa in my car,” Denise said.

“Okay. I shouldn’t be far behind you.” Neil gave the nurse the phone number, then straightened his clothes and quickly ran a comb through his hair. His throat felt dry, and his mouth tasted like cotton. There was a kink in his neck, too. He must have been sleeping in an awkward position. He felt like hell.

He picked up his jacket and took off. He couldn’t wait to shower and shave. Maybe then he’d feel more like a human being. But as he rode down on the elevator, he was smitten with the image of Laura Sebastian as she’d looked earlier, stricken by the news he’d had to give her. Impulsively, he stopped on the second floor.

The plump nurse who’d been on duty earlier was gone. In her place was a tall, rawboned woman with kinky gray hair. “Yes?” she said as he approached the nurses’ station.

“I just wondered how Miss Sebastian is doing,” Neil said.

“She’s resting comfortably. Did you want to see her?”

“No. No, I just wanted to check on her.” Neil walked away wondering why he’d felt compelled to ask about Laura. Guilty conscience, he told himself.

During the forty-minute drive to his parents’ home in Patinville, Neil’s thoughts centered on Laura Sebastian. He knew that if Norman were to survive this experience, the woman he loved would play a key role in that survival. Would Laura be up to it? Was she strong enough to face the arduous times ahead? Would she even want to?

From what Denise told him, Laura and Norman weren’t officially engaged yet. Did Laura love Norman? Neil hoped this time Denise’s instincts were wrong. How much bad luck could Norman stand at once?

But there were no answers to these questions. As soon as Laura was strong enough, though, Neil intended to ask her. If she
didn’t
love Norman, if she wasn’t going to stick by him, Neil would need to know. They’d all need to know. Because then they’d have to work doubly hard to help Norman.

Neil wished he knew more about Laura. That Norman had chosen her didn’t necessarily mean she had the qualities Neil knew she’d need in these changed circumstances. As much as he loved his brother, he wasn’t blind to his shortcomings. Norman tended toward the casual approach to life, rarely wasting any of his time worrying about anything. His attitude was that most problems would take care of themselves.

Neil wasn’t sure what he thought of Laura. When he’d first seen her lying there with her eyes closed, she had looked so commonplace and unexceptional. She’d also looked pale and vulnerable—not at all like a woman who would be able to face much adversity.

But then she’d opened her eyes. Their color was the same startling shade of aquamarine as the water he gazed at each day from his porch, and they were filled with intelligence. And when she spoke, there had been a quiet strength in her soft voice. He’d had to revise his initial impression of her. How a woman could seem both vulnerable and strong at the same time, Neil wasn’t sure, but Laura Sebastian did.

One point in her favor—she had certainly seemed to care about Norman. There had been shock and concern and real grief in her reaction to the news about his injuries.

As he drove down the narrow lane that dead-ended at the driveway leading to his parents’ home, he put aside his thoughts about Laura. Parked haphazardly in front of the house and in the driveway were several cars. Neil recognized his father’s pickup and his mother’s old Plymouth station wagon. One he didn’t know was a big, black Cadillac.

Disgust swept over him as he stared at the license plate of the Cadillac illuminated in his headlights.

Willis.

The car belonged to Willis Fontenot.

Neil grimaced. Good old Willis. His cousin and good buddy. The buddy who had testified against him to Internal Affairs. The buddy who had coveted not only Neil’s wife but the position as a departmental supervisor he and Neil were both competing for.

Neil headed toward the back of the house. He was in no mood to see Willis or anybody else except the immediate family. What was Willis doing there, anyway? Had he continued to come around after Neil moved to the Keys? You’d think the opportunist would be too embarrassed to show his face.

The spotlight mounted over the back door was turned on. It bathed the backyard in artificial brightness. Neil took a deep breath of the cool December air and looked around at the familiar surroundings before climbing the steps to the back porch. There was a smell of wood smoke in the air, a smell that instantly transported him to his boyhood. A raccoon raced across the winter grass and disappeared into the woods at the back of the property. The woods looked dark and mysterious. Sadness rippled through him—sadness for the days that were gone and could never be recaptured. He and Norman . . . and Willis . . . had spent so many carefree summer days playing in those same woods. If he closed his eyes, he could still see their fresh young faces and hear their eager voices shouting and laughing.

Shaking off the memory, he opened the back door. Nothing would bring back yesterday. And he couldn’t put off facing today any longer.

The smell of fresh coffee hit him the moment he stepped ' into the steamy kitchen. Angela DiCiccio, one of his mother’s friends from the Altar Society, was removing a pan of cornbread from the oven. She looked up as he entered.

Her plump face creased into a smile. “Neil! It’s been a long time!”

“Hello, Mrs. DiCiccio. How are you?”

“Oh, I’m doin’ just fine. But oh, this is a terrible thing that’s happened to your brother.”

Neil’s chest tightened. He nodded.

“You go on into the livin’ room, Neil. They’re waitin’ for you. Do you want some coffee? How about somethin’ to eat?” She gestured to a big pot of gumbo simmering on the stove.

“In a little while, Mrs. DiCiccio. I want to get cleaned up first.” He mentally girded himself before he walked down the hall.

There were six people in the living room. His sisters Nicole and Denise; Denise’s husband, Jett Hebert; his father; Willis Fontenot; and a blonde Neil did not recognize. Nicole’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and Jett, a nice down-to-earth hometown boy who Neil liked, looked sad as he sat with his arm around Denise. Neil’s father stood staring out the big picture window, shoulders slumped. He turned at Neil’s approach, and the others looked his way, too. Willis, a big-boned handsome man who looked older than his thirty-nine years—perhaps due to the fact that his brown hair had already started graying—-had been sitting hunched forward in the armchair next to the fireplace. He stood, an uncertain smile on his face and a wary look in his dark eyes as he watched Neil’s approach.

I’d look wary if I were you, too, thought Neil. He could feel his insides balling into a hard knot, and if he hadn’t known how it would upset his parents, he would have told Willis he wasn’t welcome there.

“Neil, it’s been a long time,” Willis said as he stepped forward, right hand extended.

Neil ignored the hand. “Willis,” he acknowledged curtly. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

Willis’s face flushed.

No one said anything as the two men stared at each other. Finally Neil’s father said, “Willis, he came to pay his respects and ask about Norman.”

“Really?” Neil said.

Willis made a visible effort to put a smile on his face, but the smile was strained. “This is my wife, Regina,” he said. He gestured toward the blonde who was sitting in Neil’s mother’s favorite chair, an old porch rocker.

Regina Fontenot smiled slightly, a knowing look in her shrewd blue eyes. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Neil,” she said, her voice smooth and silky as butter. “I understand you and Willis used to be real tight.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Neil extended his hand. “Nice to meet you.” He had no quarrel with Willis’s wife. After they shook hands, Neil turned to his sisters, saying, “Where’s Mama?”

Nicole stood, pushing her thick, dark hair away from her face. “I forced her to go lie down.” She smiled slightly. “She fought me all the way, but she finally gave in. She was exhausted. I hope she’s asleep.”

“Good.” Neil addressed his father. “Papa, after I get cleaned up and eat something, I’m going to go back to the hospital. I want you to get some sleep before you come back.”

“Now, you stop worryin’ about me, you hear?” his father sputtered. “I’m not dead yet, you know.”

As tense and stressed out as Neil felt, he had to smother a smile. His father took such pride in his physical stamina. At family gatherings he’d outdance any of the men. His energy and enthusiasm were boundless. Norman was very like him. Had been very like him, Neil amended, sobering immediately.

“Regina, it’s time for us to be going,” Willis said. “These folks have things to do.” His stiff stance told Neil exactly how offended he was by Neil’s attitude toward him.

“Neil, I’m ashamed of you, the way you acted. Cain’t you forget about what happened three years ago, no?” his father said as the front door closed on the Fontenots. “I know Willis, he wishes he never had to take no part in what happened.”

“Papa, Willis took advantage of what happened to further his own career. Now if you want to pretend he only did what he had to do, that’s your privilege.”

No one said anything, but all eyes watched him.

Neil sighed wearily. “I don’t blame Willis for what happened that night. After all, it was my wife and my responsibility. I know that. And believe me, I’ll never forget it. I have to live with it the rest of my life—knowing that if Erica hadn’t shown up that night, if I hadn’t left, Jimmy would still be alive.” He took a deep breath, willing himself to speak calmly, to force away the image of Jimmy lying in the street... “But what I
do
blame Willis for is the way he jumped at the chance to cast doubt on my ability as a cop, the way he twisted that argument we’d had into something more than a personal matter... used it to make it seem as if the only thing on my mind that night was Erica.
That’s
what I can’t forget. Or forgive.”

“But Neil,” Nicole said, “you were absolved of any wrongdoing.”

“I know that, but it’s no thanks to Willis.” A wry smile twisted his mouth. “His strategy worked, too. Even though I was cleared, I was no longer any threat to him. He got his promotion.” Neil laughed cynically. “But he didn’t get the girl.”

“I don’ think his testifyin’ like he did had anything to do with Erica, no,” his father insisted. “He was just doin’ his job. Why, Willis, he’s fam’ly. You was friends all of your lives. How can you turn your back on that?”

“The same way he turned his back on me.” As far as Neil was concerned, Willis Fontenot wasn’t important enough to warrant any of his time or energy. Especially now, when all their efforts and thoughts should be concentrated on Norman.

“Son,” his father said as he put his arm around Neil’s shoulders. “It’s not good to carry such bitterness around inside you. It’s like a cancer, you know?”