Sunshine and the Shadowmaster (11 page)

He repeated, “Unless.”

“I...what?”

“Mark and I will leave right after Candace does, unless you give me a reason to stay on.”

What reason?
she almost asked. But she held it back. She knew exactly what he wanted from her. And, right at that moment, she wanted nothing so much as to give him what he wanted.

She yearned to throw herself into his arms, to sigh,
Yes, Lucas. Stay with me. Make love to me. All through this night. And the next night. And the night after that...

But how could she say such an impossible thing? Nothing good could come of it. She was a small-town girl who waited tables to make ends meet, a woman who wanted the most basic things: a man to stand beside her and children to raise.

Lucas was an international celebrity. His name was a household word. He moved in the kinds of circles Heather read about in the dog-eared magazines at Santino's Barber, Beauty and Variety while she was waiting to get her monthly cut and blow-dry.

What was between them now was purely physical. Consuming. Delicious. And as fleeting as the tiny bloodred wild roses that bloomed on the trail up to Sweetbriar Summit in the early days of June.

It would not last. They had so little in common. And he had told her two nights before that he was not the marrying kind.

And beyond that, in the deepest part of her heart, there remained Jason Lee, and the promise she'd made him, when they weren't much older than Marnie and Mark.

“Aw, Heather. I can't picture a world without you and me together. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes, Jason Lee. I know exactly. I do.”

“So then, are you saying that we'll always be together, you and me?”

“Yes, Jason Lee. You know we will. For always and forever. Until the end of time....”

Heather knew that Jason Lee's dying changed the meaning of forever. She knew it in her mind. But her heart hadn't quite caught on yet.

“All right,” Lucas muttered, though Heather hadn't said a word.

She drew herself up and made herself regard him levelly. “All right, what?”

“I see your answer in your eyes. Mark and I will be out of here before you get home from work this afternoon.”

H
eather said a fond goodbye to Mark before she left for work. The boy came into the living room, grabbed her and hugged her tight.

“I'll miss you, Aunt Heather.”

“And I'll miss you.”

He gazed up at her, smiling. Heather smiled back, thinking that he seemed subdued and honestly contrite about all the trouble he'd caused.

But also, beneath the regret, there was a quiet contentment. He'd gone about it all wrong, but in the end he'd found what he so desperately needed: his father.

* * *

As Lucas had predicted, Mark appeared at Lily's with his mother in the early afternoon. Candace, who was tall and model slim with ash blond hair, bought her son a huge banana split and watched, wearing an expression of bemused wonderment, as he ate every bit of it. She thanked Heather profusely for all she'd done. Heather replied that she'd been glad to help, then pointed out that she'd readied the spare room upstairs so that Candace could spend the night. But Candace said she had to get back to Phoenix right away.

Mark showed Heather his Swiss army knife before he left. “Deputy Jack gave it back to me. I'll be more careful of it from now on.”

“See that you are.”

He threw his arms around her in a final hug, causing all the regulars at the café to burst into spontaneous applause.

At a little after five, Lily told Heather she could call it quits for the day. Heather walked home, where the first thing she noticed was that Lucas's big car no longer waited beneath the dappled shade of the locust tree in front of the house. No reporters milled on the sidewalk either, jostling each other in their eagerness to hear any tiny tidbit Heather might be willing to toss them concerning the Shadowmaster and his son. Heather trudged up her front walk unobstructed, let herself in the door and confronted an empty house.

It was awful, that emptiness. It was lonely and sad and completely forlorn. It was the emptiness she'd learned to live with—until the past few tumultuous days.

Now, somehow, she was going to have to learn to live with it all over again.

In the kitchen, Heather saw that Lucas had left her the answering machine, which was blinking as usual. On the table, between the salt and pepper shakers, a white envelope had been propped up, bearing her name.

Heather played the few messages first. They were for Lucas, from three different reporters. None of them seemed that important, so she cleared the machine and forgot about them.

Next, she sat at the table and confronted the envelope. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest. If he had dared to leave her money, she didn't know what she would do. She was born a Jones, after all. And a Jones had pride, if nothing else.

She ripped the thing open with stiff, awkward fingers.

A check fell out, along with a note in Lucas's bold, slanting scrawl.

This is to cover the phone bill—and nothing else. Believe me, if I was going to try to pay you off, it would have been a hell of a lot more money than this. So be smart. Don't send it back. And don't tear it up. Cash it. If you don't, you'll have to deal with me.

And I meant what I said that last night. You did keep me sane while Mark was gone.

My brother was a lucky man. Lucas

Like the fool that she knew she was, Heather ran the pad of her forefinger over his name, as if it might still hold a little of him in the dry scratch of ink. She was smiling, though tears burned her throat.

He'd understood her exactly. He'd known she couldn't have borne it if he'd tried to give her money. So he hadn't; he'd only taken care of the phone bill as he'd always said he would. She was ridiculously glad.

After a while, Heather got up and put the check in her purse to deposit the next time she went to the bank. She tossed the note in a wastebasket in the living room, then went to have a bath. When she was through with the bath, she put on clean clothes and made dinner, then watched some TV. She went to bed at nine.

But at midnight, she crept from her bed and tiptoed downstairs to the dark living room. She rescued the crumpled note from the wastebasket, smoothed it out and took it back upstairs, where she folded it carefully and tucked it inside the purple velvet jewelry case that had once been her mother's.

Then she climbed back into bed, curled up on her side and managed, eventually, to drop off to sleep.

* * *

In the weeks that followed, the nights were the worst. Heather would lie staring at the ceiling, longing for sleep and instead reliving the few forbidden hours she and Lucas had shared—experiencing all over again the drugging heat of his lips against her mouth, recalling the precise taste and texture of his skin, remembering the way his hands had felt on her breasts.

Days were more manageable. She kept them full of activity so she had no time for loneliness or regrets.

Whenever there was a community project to help out with, Heather was there. She threw herself into the final preparations for the community church's Fourth of July picnic in Sweetbriar Park. She baked pies for the Pioneer Daughters' bake sale and manned one of the tables for the Volunteer Fire Department's annual rummage sale. And every day after work, she'd put on old jeans and a tattered shirt and head back to Main Street, where the Mercantile Grill and the Hole in the Wall Tavern, burned out nine months before, were under reconstruction.

Her uncle Patrick was overseeing the job. They'd raised the walls of the Hole in the Wall. The Mercantile Grill, which was made of brick and thus had merely been gutted rather than burned to the ground, now boasted a new roof. Heather knew how to handle a hammer, so she often pitched in, nailing down floorboards or even helping to fetch and carry if that was all that was needed that day.

She felt better, she kept telling herself. The vivid carnal memories haunted her a little less frequently. Every day dawned just a little brighter, she was sure of it. She was managing it, getting over this new siege of loneliness—getting over her single night with Lucas Drury. She reminded herself constantly that she would forget all about him soon.

Until the third week in July, when she could no longer deny the fact that her period hadn't come.

Heather went two weeks past her due date before she let herself even think that she might be carrying Lucas's child. By then, her breasts felt swollen and tender. And she'd developed a sensitive, queasy stomach.

On her day off, she drove to Grass Valley and bought a test, which she took the minute she got home again.

It was positive.

Heather couldn't believe it, even with all the physical signs. The whole time she'd been married to Jason Lee, they had never used anything. They'd wanted a houseful of babies. But in four years of marriage, she'd only managed to get pregnant that one time. She'd assumed she wasn't very fertile. And that night with Lucas had been during her safe time. Or so she had thought.

No. That was a lie. She hadn't thought at all, not really. There had been Lucas's need. And her need. And the awful, aching necessity to find oblivion from the possibility that Mark might be gone forever.

She had behaved like an irresponsible fool. And now she was pregnant, with absolutely no idea what she was going to do.

It was too much. One catastrophe too many.

Heather couldn't cope. She went numb. She moved through the next few weeks in a daze.

And people noticed. How could they help it? Heather just wasn't her usual sunshiny self. She rarely smiled and her skin seemed to lose its luster.

She did her job by rote, saved only because she'd worked at Lily's so long that half the time she could just
look
at her customers and know what they were going to order.

And if she didn't know, it didn't matter. She gave them what she thought they
ought
to order—and if they complained, she didn't hear them anyway. She was lost in her numbness.

“What in the world is wrong with you, dear?” Nellie Anderson sniffed on a Friday afternoon three weeks after Heather had taken the pregnancy test. “I asked for extra mayo. I always ask for extra mayo. But lately, you just never bring it. My goodness, are you ill?”

“No, Mrs. Anderson. I'm fine. And your mustard is coming right up.”

Then later, Rocky Collins started in on her. “Sunshine, what is it?” he complained in that sad voice of his that was always slurred by lunchtime from one too many shots of the tequila he loved. “You ain't smilin'. What's the world comin' to if Sunshine ain't got a smile?”

“It's nothing, Rocky. I'm fine.”

“Aw, no you ain't.”

And Tim Brown had to toss his two cents in. “Yeah, come off it, Sunshine, give us a smile.”

“Yeah, what's up with you, anyway?” Roger McCleb, who made up in brawn what he lacked in brains, demanded. “You look like somethin' the cat dug up in the yard and drug in the house and left on the rug. Somethin' still wigglin' just a little, but not much. As good as dead, is what I'm sayin', covered in blood and dirt, with its guts spillin' out. Somethin' that's just lyin' there, barely breathin', starin' with eyes that can't see anymore.” Roger wrapped a beefy hand around his own massive throat and imitated the final gasps of the pitiful creature he'd just described.

Rocky turned to gaze at Roger through unfocused eyes. “God, Roger. That's really disgusting.”

And Roger lifted his beer and saluted them all with it. “Thank you very much.” He drank, then put his beer down hard on the counter and flexed one of his biceps slowly and meaningfully. “So this is a warnin', Sunshine. You start smilin', or else...”

“Aw, leave ‘er alone,” Rocky whined.

“Yeah, back off, Roger,” Tim Brown commanded. Then he braced his hands on the counter and craned toward Heather, squinting. “You sure you're all right?”

“I told you, I'm just fine,” she said, while inside all she felt was numbness—and the vague longing for her Uncle Patrick to hurry up and get the Hole in the Wall into operation again, so that Rocky, Tim and Roger could go back to hanging out at the bar where they belonged.

About then, Rocky slid off his stool and tottered to the men's room. Heather suspected he planned to enjoy another nip from the flask he kept in his hip pocket while he was back there. Lily's didn't serve hard liquor, and tequila was all Rocky would drink. He'd already paid several visits to the men's room today. Heather knew that she should probably try to get him to eat something when he returned this time.

For years, everyone had counted on her to take care of things like that. To cajole drunks into eating a decent meal. To insist that single men remember their vegetables and children drink their milk.

But Heather just wasn't up to cajoling and insisting lately. It was about all she could do to show up at work on time and deal with getting out the food people actually asked for.

A half an hour later, Eden came in with baby Sally. Sally reached out her arms and Heather took her for a moment.

Heather managed a smile for the plump little darling. And when Sally grinned back and stuck her fingers into Heather's mouth, Heather chuckled.

“Come to dinner,” Eden said. “Tonight. Six sharp.”

“Oh, Eden...” Sally started squirming. Heather passed her back to her mother. “I don't think so.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I've got a million things to do.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I—”

“Save the excuses. Be there.”

“I—”

“Not another word.”

* * *

“You're not lookin' good, Sunshine,” Jared said. “To tell the truth, we're all a little worried about you.”

“I'm all right, Dad, really. Would you pass the bread, please?”

Her father handed her the basket with the rolls in it, then he picked up the gravy boat and shoved it under her nose. “Put some gravy on those potatoes.”

Heather shook her head and tried not to breathe in the rich, savory smell. Lately, gravies and sauces made her faintly nauseated. “No, thanks.”

“You love gravy.”

“Jared,” Eden murmured with a tiny shake of her head.

Jared grumbled something unintelligible under his breath, but he did retract the gravy boat.

Heather took a bite of bread and a sip of water. Her father looked at her, grunted in disapproval at her minuscule appetite, and spooned a second helping of mashed potatoes onto his own plate.

“Heather, how about driving down to Grass Valley with me tomorrow?” Eden suggested. “You
are
still off on Saturdays, aren't you?”

“Yes, I'm off,” Heather said, watching Sally, in her high chair, eating potatoes with her own baby-size spoon.

Sally shoveled in a bite so big that only a third of it actually made it to her mouth. The rest plopped to the tray in front of her. She looked down. “Uh-oh,” she said and dropped her spoon to grab at the fallen hunk of white goo with her hand. She brought the glob quickly to her mouth and shoved it in, smearing half of it across her chin in the process.

“You little barbarian,” Eden chided. She wiped Sally's chin, then took her pudgy hand and wrapped it around the spoon. “Use the spoon.”

Good-naturedly, Sally did as she was told—until the next bite got away from her.

“Well, what do you say?” Eden asked as she serenely handed her daughter the spoon once again.

Heather took a small bite of her own potatoes and tried to remember what Eden was talking about. “About what?”

Patiently Eden reminded her, “Driving to Grass Valley with me tomorrow. I want to start picking out some things for the bar and restaurant. We'll have lunch, of course. And then Sally needs new p.j.'s. And I thought I'd stop in on the way home for groceries. You know, the usual. We'll shop till we drop.”

Heather smiled at Eden to show she appreciated the offer, but she said, “I don't think so. Like I told you today, I've just got a million things to do around the house.”