The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (21 page)

“Or the last.”

He grinned. Dust had collected in the creases at the corners of his eyes, and half moons of sweat stood out under the arms of his tank top. She had a sudden, insane urge to scoop the battered straw cowboy hat from his head and plop it down on her own.

Once, when she was sixteen, she’d sneaked into his room over the garage at their old house on Blossom Drive. She could vividly recall the guilty flush she’d felt trying on his hat and boots, burying her face in his sweater. As though she’d crawled inside him somehow. At the time Hector had at least one girlfriend that she knew of; she’d spotted him in town once, an arm looped casually around her shoulders—a pretty young woman named Theresa. And as she’d stood there in his room, the thought of them together naked on his bed had burned in a part of her that’d never before known fire. She’d imagined being naked with him, too. His blunt, brown hands stroking her skin. His mouth on hers…

Laura found herself blushing now at the memory. “I’d better check on Punch,” she said, starting toward the barn. “Is he still limping?”

“Not too bad.” Hector fell into step with her. “Doc Henry stopped by again while you were out.”

She could hear the horses nickering in the barn. They knew the sound of her car and always waited a polite minute or two for her to appear, but they were growing impatient. Laura scooped a handful of alfalfa sweetened with molasses from the bucket by the door—their favorite treat.

The barn’s hay-scented coolness was blessed relief from the heat. She could see Punch and Judy dancing in their stalls, and called, “Relax, guys. The marines have landed.” She gave them each a small handful of alfalfa. Wouldn’t it be nice, she thought, if her life were as uncomplicated as theirs? No ex-husband. No pregnant mother.

Her throat tightened, and her eyes filled with tears. Hector, coming up alongside her, shot her a curious look, then wordlessly drew her into his arms. She didn’t pull away.
He’s always been there for me,
she thought, burying her face in his shoulder, taking in his smell of horses and dust and hard-earned sweat. Would her neediness one day drive him away?

But if Hector was fed up, he showed no sign of it. He drew back to pull a clean, folded handkerchief from his pocket. Handing it to her, he rocked back on his heels to study her, waiting for her to tell him what was wrong.

“I’m sorry,” she said with an embarrassed little laugh.

“No need to apologize.”

She blew into the handkerchief with an unladylike honk. “It’s my mother.”

“You two have a fight?”

“It’s worse than that.” Laura drew in a deep breath. “She’s having a baby.”

Hector let out a long, low whistle. “That
is
something.”

“Needless to say, none of us is too thrilled about it.” She didn’t know if Aunt Audrey had been told yet. When she got the word the shit would
really
hit the fan.

“What about the father?”

“Ian?” She gave a disdainful little laugh. “I’m not even sure he knows. He’s still in New York. When he finds out maybe he’ll decide to stay there permanently.”

Hector frowned. “What makes you say that?”

“I don’t exactly see him as father material.”

“You don’t know.”

“I know enough.”

He looked as if he wanted to defend Ian but all he said was, “It’s the baby, isn’t it? That’s what’s really bothering you.”

“I wish it were mine.” The words slipped out, a sob rising in her throat.

Hector drew her into his arms once more, stroking her head, and murmuring,
“Ay, pobrecita. Está bien.”

His voice was like the Spanish music she often heard drifting across the yard. “You don’t know,” she said thickly.

“I know what it’s like to want something.”

Do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted
you? The thought seemed to come out of nowhere. A low, trembling excitement swept through her…only to be met by a bruising wall of despair. What good would come of it? If Hector had been remotely interested, wouldn’t she know by now?

She lifted her head. “What do you want, Hec?”

“What everyone does, I guess—to be happy.” He regarded her tenderly, squinting slightly in the half light. Motes of dust spun lazily in the rays of sunlight that had found their way through the barn’s uneven slats.

Laura closed her eyes and felt her heart turn a slow cartwheel. If this were a dream he would kiss her—as he so often had in her dreams. A kiss that would tell her she was special—not like the women she’d occasionally seen slipping from his room in the wee hours of the morning. Her eyes shut, swaying slightly on the balls of her feet, she leaned into him, bringing her forehead to rest against his. Hector didn’t move.

They stood that way for an interminable second or two, Laura scarcely breathing, her heart lodged like a dry-swallowed aspirin in her throat. Then just when she thought she’d die if he didn’t kiss her, she felt his hand under her chin and the gentle pressure of his mouth against hers. A quick brush of lips, no more. He drew back to smile at her. They didn’t speak. The moment was endless, a seesaw hovering between earth and sky. She searched his face, yearning for him to say something,
do
something, to tip the balance. How could she could go on not knowing what it had meant? Suppose Hector only felt sorry for her?

Then the moment passed and he was turning away, going about his business as if nothing were out of the ordinary. She watched him fork hay into the horses’ stalls, whistling as he worked. Clearly, he wasn’t thinking about her—not
that
way. Laura felt unreasonably let down.

She started toward the door, her heart beating much too fast. Addressing the barn wall hung with tack, much of it old and worn but well oiled with Need’s, she said softly, “Thanks, Hec.”

“Anytime,” he replied pleasantly.

She was crossing the yard when she heard the crunch of tires on the drive. The dogs must have heard it, too; she could hear them barking inside the house. She looked around to see a light blue Cadillac Seville pull to a stop behind her Explorer. Its dusty vanity plate read: IM4NRA.

A heavyset man in khaki trousers and a short-sleeved plaid shirt climbed from the driver’s seat, hitching up his belt. Laura put him in his midfifties, with gray hair shorn like a marine’s through which patches of pink scalp shone. He glanced about, not seeing her, then set off along the front path.

Tiny hairs prickled on the back of Laura’s neck. Occasionally a lost traveler would pull in to ask for directions, but some instinct told her this man was no stranger. She was about to call out to him when he bounded onto the porch and began hammering on the door.

“Mama! It’s me, Elroy!”

Laura broke into a run, Hector bringing up the rear. They were nearing the house when the front door swung open. Maude appeared in the doorway, looking distraught.

“I can hear perfectly well without your shouting,” she said.

Elroy backed off, glowering. In his rounded chin and cupid’s bow mouth, ridiculously dainty in a man his size, Laura could see the faint ghost of a resemblance. “Then why the hell haven’t you returned my calls?”

Maude eyed him sternly. “You came all this way to ask me that?”

“You know damn well why I’m here.” Elroy looked more than put out; he looked like a man whose entire life was a frayed thread about to snap. His hands curled into fists. “Go pack up your things, Mama. Verna’s waiting back at the house.”

But Maude only shook her head, and said firmly, “I’m afraid I can’t do that, son. I’m sure you mean well, but I’m happy where I am.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re just doing this to get back at me, aren’t you?”

She shook her head sadly. “Is that what you think? Well then, I’m sorry for you.”

She’d clearly struck a nerve. Elroy’s shoulders drooped, and his fists unfurled. “Oh hell, Mama,” he wheedled. “You belong with me, and you know it. Your own flesh and blood.”

“No one would know it from the way you act.”

Maude began to tremble, a tiny woman who seemed to teeter beneath her untidy bundle of hair.

Elroy shifted from one foot to the other like a guilty schoolboy. “Now, Mama, nobody asked you to leave.”

“With you and Verna lording it over me every minute of the day, what choice did I have?”

Elroy had the decency to look ashamed. “Well, now, Mama, I’m not gonna pretend it was all hunky-dory. We’re family, after all. Families have their differences.”

“It was more than just differences.”

“Mama, if you’d just let me make it up to you—”

“Thank you, I’ve had quite enough.”

Laura climbed onto the porch. “So have I.”

Elroy swung around clumsily, a hectic flush swimming up into his jowly cheeks. He bared his teeth in a cold grin. “Well, well, if it isn’t the famous Laura Kiley I’ve heard so much about.”

Hector, standing just below, hoisted a boot onto the steps. “I think you’d better be on your way, mister.” Laura had seen that expression only once before—when Peter was leaving.

Elroy looked at him as if Hector were something nasty that had just crawled out from under the porch. “I wasn’t talking to
you.
”

Before Hector could make a move, Maude said wearily, “Go home, son. Just…go.”

It was more than Elroy could take. He lunged at her with a growl, meaty fingers curled. “You crazy old woman—”

A slender figure darted past Maude onto the porch. Finch. In her hand was a butcher knife that caught the sunlight, flaring like a struck match.

“Get away from her.” Her dark eyes were fixed on Elroy, but they appeared to be not so much looking at him as through him. The knife quivered in her grasp.

Elroy’s face went slack, and he took a jerky step back. A foot shod in a cheap tan loafer skidded onto the step below. His arms pinwheeled before he lost his balance, coming down hard on his hands and knees. The sight of him with his hind end sticking up like Pearl’s when she wanted it scratched, an inch or so of hairy crack showing above the straining seat of his trousers, was so comical that a startled laugh escaped Laura.

The moment hung suspended.

After what seemed an eternity the girl’s hand sank to her side. She blinked, staring down at the knife as if not quite sure how it had gotten there, then with a low cry flung it into the bushes below, and fled past them down the steps.

S
HE HADN’T GOTTEN
very far when she heard the car engine. The girl dove into a tangle of greenery along the shoulder peering out just as Laura’s dark green Explorer flashed by. Her heart was knocking in her chest; she felt almost sick with fear. Not so much that she’d be caught—but that she wouldn’t. Maybe worse than jail would be years of hiding, of looking over her shoulder. It would be so easy to turn back. All she had to do was retrace her steps—a few dozen yards at most. She eyed the road longingly where it curved like a beckoning finger toward Laura’s. A pale cloud of dust from the Explorer hovered like a held breath.

You can trust her. She’ll help you.

But what if she didn’t? What if Laura turned her over to the police instead? They’ll think I’m the one who killed that homeless guy. No, she couldn’t take that risk. If the cops didn’t arrest her, there’d be questions, phone calls, a trail leading back to Brooklyn—and to Lyle.

Fragmented images flashed through her head in bright, strobelike flashes. Red lines creeping down a ribbed undershirt. Eyes rolling to white. A foot stuttering against the floor in the final throes of death. She brought her hands to her temples, squeezing until it hurt, trying to force the images from her head. Another car, a big blue Cadillac, swooshed past in a sputter of gravel. She caught a glimpse of Maude’s son at the wheel, face red and clenched like a fist. She waited until she could no longer hear its engine then crept cautiously out into the open.

Where to now?

She looked about. Grassy hills—hills she’d come to know on horseback—stretched as far as she could see on either side. She wouldn’t be so easy to track up there. There was just one problem: She didn’t know which direction to go in. The road to the highway was that way, wasn’t it? She looked to the west, shading her eyes against the setting sun. Either way she supposed she’d get to it eventually.

A short distance up the road she found a spot where a fairly large animal had burrowed under the fence. Just enough room for her to crawl under. She tasted dust, and felt the back of her T-shirt catch on the wire—then she was home free.

She emerged into a rolling pasture dotted with oaks and scrub, and started up the slope, wincing as rocks and twigs dug into her soles through her rubber flip-flops. Halfway up the hill she brought her foot down on something sharp. With a cry, she stumbled and fell, landing on all fours amid the tall stickery grass. For several long seconds she remained where she was, a dry sob caught in her throat, until the throbbing in her hands and knees subsided. Trembling, she drew herself upright. Now a heavy despair set in.

Don’t think about it.

If she let herself think about what she was doing she wouldn’t be able to go on. It was all her fault anyway. She’d screwed up. Let her guard down, let herself care. About Laura and Maude. Even Hector. She’d begun to think of them as…

Home.

Oh, she’d known plenty of the other kind. Placements, they were called, which was just a fancy word for when no one wanted you. They never lasted very long. People like the St. Clairs, who happily cashed the county’s checks but begrudged you an extra chicken wing. Shirlee and Lyle hadn’t been the worst. Just the last.

With Laura she’d found something she’d known only from longing glances into lighted windows: a place where people wanted you just because. She would miss the creak of Maude’s bed as she rolled over in her sleep. Laura in the center of the ring, calling, “Heels down, toes out! Thattagirl!” She saw them seated around the table in the big, sunny kitchen, reaching across each other for the salt and pepper, everyone talking at once.

Right about now she’d be treating the horses to their evening carrots. Punch first; he was the greediest. Then Judy, more ladylike, nickering softly as she waited her turn. She thought of their velvety noses against her palm, the earthy coolness of the barn. She would miss riding, too—the snug curve of the saddle, the reins in her hand, the wonderful knowledge that here, finally, was something she was good at. Tears welled, spilling down the girl’s cheeks.