The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (6 page)

For the longest moment Finch didn’t speak. She just sat there, hunched over her plate, staring off into the distance. When at last she turned to Laura, it was with the clenched cautiousness of someone used to being lied to…or worse. “I guess it’d be okay.” Almost as an afterthought, she muttered, “Uh, thanks.”

“Listen, it’s no big deal, okay?” Laura stood up, brushing the back of her dress, which was now hopelessly stained. But who cared? It wasn’t as if she had any intention of ever wearing it again. A dress that made her look, she knew, like a rose-colored hitching post. “By the way, my name’s Laura. Laura Kiley.” She stuck out her hand.

After a moment of hesitation the girl reached up to take it. “Hi.” Shy fingers slipped through Laura’s like cool water.

“Listen, it’ll be a couple more hours,” she said. “If you don’t feel like hanging around there’s room in my car to curl up. The green Explorer.”

The girl nodded distractedly, as if holding open her options. If she’d been a stray puppy or kitten, Laura would have tucked Finch under her arm to keep her from taking off.

The rest of the afternoon seemed to crawl by. Laura was glad to see her sister so happy, but the day had brought too many unwelcome reminders of Peter. She wanted nothing more than to be home, in her oldest pair of jeans, kicking back with Maude and Hector. When the cake was finally cut, and the bridal bouquet tossed pointedly in Laura’s direction (which she just as pointedly ignored), she wasted no time rounding up Maude. The girl, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen.

Laura found her fast asleep in the Explorer, curled up in back on a quilted saddle blanket, her filthy canvas backpack as a pillow.

Maude peered in the window. “Oh, the poor thing. She reminds me of Napoleon when we first got him. Do you think she’ll let us keep her?”

Laura remembered how tenderly she’d nursed their tomcat back to health after he turned up on their doorstep, near dead and missing half an ear.
If only people were that uncomplicated,
she thought. “It’s just for a day or two,” she said firmly, more to convince herself than Maude. “I’m sure she has a family. They’re probably looking for her as we speak.”

“I wonder.” Maude’s blue eyes were troubled. Was she thinking of her own family? The son and daughter-in-law who’d forced her to run off in the middle of the night, suitcase in hand. “Suppose she has good reason not to go back?”

“One step at a time, okay?” Laura dug into her purse, rummaging for her keys. “To start with, she could use a change of clothes. I’ll check my closet when we get home.” She’d kept a few things from when she’d been a size smaller, before lonely nights with only Ben & Jerry as consolation had gotten the better of her.

The girl didn’t wake up when she started the car, and was still dead to the world when they pulled into the driveway fifteen minutes later. Crunching to a stop in the graveled yard, Laura saw the house as Finch would: in need of paint, the porch—onto which an old cat-scratched sofa had been dragged—listing slightly to starboard. Not exactly luxurious digs, though Laura wouldn’t have had it any other way.

With Maude’s help she managed to rouse the girl and steer her up the front path into the house, where Finch tottered groggily down the hall to Maude’s room. Within seconds she was once again fast asleep.

Laura covered her with the quilted afghan Maude had crocheted and tiptoed out into the hall, easing the door shut.

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Maude whispered. “I know you’re just itching to get out of that dress.”

Laura thought longingly of a horseback ride. There was just enough daylight left. “I should turn the horses out.” She hadn’t seen them in the corral; Hector must not have gotten around to it.

“Take your time.” Maude said. “From the looks of it she’ll sleep straight through till morning.”

The old woman slipped out of her satin pumps with a sigh of relief—all that dancing, no doubt; Laura had never seen old Uncle Pernell so red-faced—holding them out in front of her like a pair of naughty puppies by the scruffs of their necks.

Laura gave her a quick squeeze. “Thanks. You read my mind.”

In her sun-splashed bedroom at the other end of the house, a rectangular patch stood out on the wall over the bureau, darker than the faded blue wallpaper around it, where a photo of Peter and her, taken six years ago at their own wedding, had been removed. She gazed at it as if through a window onto a bleak, wintry landscape.

Oh, Peter, was it just the baby I couldn’t give you…or would we have drifted apart anyway?

What hurt even more was that his new wife was expecting. Six months along and reportedly big as a house. The only good thing was that they’d moved to Santa Barbara, so at least she didn’t have to worry about bumping into them on the street. If only she could find a way to move on, too. Not from this house, but from all its memories. A tear slipped down her cheek. Laura brushed it away angrily. No more wallowing in self-pity. She’d done enough of that to last a lifetime.

She peeled her dress off and tossed it onto the bed. No sense hanging it up; it was going straight into the box of old clothes destined for Lupe’s relatives in Ecuador. Pulling on worn Levi’s and an equally worn chambray shirt, she padded barefoot into the living room to retrieve her boots from the hearth. The room’s scuffed floorboards and nicked walls, its chairs liberally sprinkled with pet hairs, seemed to leap out at her as she plopped onto the ottoman. An old chenille bedspread had been thrown over the sofa, clawed to bare wood in places, and the cattails in the painted milk can by the fireplace ought to have been replaced long ago. No place her sister would ever deign to live in, for sure, but it suited Laura like the well-worn boots she was tugging on.

In the kitchen, the dogs climbed from their boxes by the stove, yawning and stretching: Pearl, the golden Lab she’d had since she was a teenager, arthritic and blind in one eye, and the scruffy little black mutt named Rocky from Lost Paws. He trotted over to lick Laura’s hand, his stub of tail flickering furiously, while Pearl’s thumped like a kangaroo’s against the cabinet behind her. Laura tossed them each a milk bone from the cookie jar.

“Behave yourselves, guys. We have company.”

On the screened porch in back, a path had been carved through the jumble of mud-caked Wellingtons, old bicycles, folded lawn chairs, and chewed Frisbees. As she stepped down into the yard, she noticed yesterday’s laundry still pinned to the clothesline. She smiled and shook her head in fond exasperation. The dryer worked just fine, but Maude insisted on doing things the old-fashioned way…even if it meant sleeping on sheets stiff as tarp.

Laura ambled toward the barn, thumbs hooked through the belt loops of her jeans. The sun hung low in the sky, winking through the outstretched arms of the white oak ahead, and sending shadows trickling like runoff across the yard. In the far-off distance the mountains rose, dusky purple with paler stripes along their highest peaks. At sunset there’d be a brief spell, known as the pink moment, when the mountains to the east would glow with reflected light. If she hurried, she could make it to the top of the hill in time.

Inside the barn, she found the horses straining over their stalls, nickering at her approach: Punch, a seven-year-old Appaloosa, and Judy, the old mare she’d had since she was a child.

“Hi, guys. Miss me?” She reached into her shirt pocket for the lumps of sugar she was seldom without. Punch nuzzled her palm while Judy patiently waited her turn.

She heard a rustling in the hayloft, and looked up. A toe-sprung cowboy boot dropped onto the ladder, followed by a pair of sturdy, blue-jeaned legs. Then a muscled body leaped to the floor, agile as a cat.

“Didn’t expect you back so soon.” Hector grinned, brushing bits of hay from his T-shirt.

She offered him a crooked smile. “High heels make my feet hurt.”

“Everything go okay?”

“The picture-perfect wedding. I’m sure they’ll have the picture-perfect honeymoon as well.” A note of sarcasm crept into her voice and she felt instantly ashamed. When had she become so bitter? Just because it hadn’t worked out with Peter was no reason to take it out on her sister. She brought her cheek to rest against her Appaloosa’s dappled neck, tilting her head to give Hector a sheepish look. “I’m happy for them. Really.”

“That so?”

Hector approached her slowly as he might have a skittish mare: a dark-haired man in dust-streaked Levi’s and a white T-shirt worn nearly transparent in spots. He was broad across the chest and arms, with a long waist that tapered into short, muscular legs slightly bowed from years in the saddle. The silver conch buckle on his belt glittered in the sunlight that fell in dusty slats across the barn’s hay-littered floor. For a dreamy instant she thought about running her thumb over its polished surface, how cool and smooth it would feel.

Annoyed with herself, she straightened, pushing open the latch on Punch’s stall. “Okay, I’m feeling sorry for myself. But I should be over it by now. A year and a half is long enough.” She tossed a halter over the horse’s head and led him to the tacking area. “Besides, the wedding wasn’t a complete wash. I met someone interesting.”

She thought she saw something flicker in Hector’s depthless eyes as he waited for her to fill him in. He never hurried such things, which was partly why she liked being around him, but which also drove her crazy at times. Watching him saunter over to fetch a blanket and saddle, she felt an urge to shake him like a piggy bank into coughing up his two cents.

“A girl crashed the wedding. A runaway.” Laura grabbed a hoof pick from its peg on the wall and bent over to hoist one of Punch’s hind legs. “I brought her home with me.”

“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” Hector paused in the doorway to the tack room, a saddle slung over one arm.

“Why don’t you saddle up Judy? I’ll tell you all about it on the way.”

Hector regarded her curiously, then nodded and said, “She could use the exercise. I didn’t get around to it today. Fan belt went out again on the truck.”

Through the open barn door she could see his battered blue Chevy pickup in the yard. He was overdue for a new one, and God knew he’d be able to afford it working someplace else. The only reason he stuck around, she knew, was out of a sense of duty—two women all alone, who would look after them?
I ought to cut him loose,
she told herself. But Hector had been with her for years, and with her family before that. How
would
she manage without him?

She remembered the day he’d appeared at their house, broke and hungry, speaking only a few words of English. Not the first illegal alien to show up at their door…but there had been something different about Hector. When her mother brought him a bowl of stew he’d eyed it longingly, then shook his head, indicating mostly through gestures that it was work he was after, not a handout. An hour later he was at the door again, the grass raked and the driveway swept. Laura, sixteen at the time, would never forget watching him wolf down his food, long since gone cold. A familiar lesson brought home to her in a profound way: not everyone was as fortunate as she was. She had made up her mind then and there never to turn a blind eye to those in need.

Hector had been with her family ever since, working days and attending night school, where he’d learned to speak English before going on to earn his GED. Nowadays he juggled college courses with his part-time job here, occasionally lending Guillermo a hand with some of the heavier work at Isla Verde.

As they headed up the hill on horseback, Laura turned to him. “It wouldn’t have hurt you to come, you know. I think Alice was a little offended that you didn’t.”

“Fan belts don’t fix themselves,” he said.

“That’s not the reason, and you know it.”

He shrugged. “I’m not against weddings. I just don’t like going.”

She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. Maybe the fact that he was thirty-two and still unmarried spoke for itself. Not, she reminded herself, that he hadn’t had his share of opportunities. “Give me one good reason why not,” she said, more to needle him than anything else.

“Maybe because most marriages don’t last.”

A reference to Peter, no doubt. “Not everyone gets divorced,” she said a bit huffily. “Look at my parents.” The words brought a pang of sorrow. Her father should have been there to walk Alice down the aisle.

“Being together isn’t always the same as being happy.” He drew ahead of her as the trail narrowed.

Watching his swaying back she wondered if he knew something she didn’t. “What exactly are you implying?”

Hector twisted around in his saddle, the brim of his straw hat throwing a wedge of shadow over his face. “Nothing,” he said. “Look, it’s none of my business.”

“My parents
adored
one other. In fact, I doubt Mom will ever remarry.” Laura was brought up short by the conviction with which she spoke. Hector hadn’t said anything to suggest otherwise, not really. Why was she so defensive? “Anyway what about yours?”

He flashed her a grin over his shoulder. “With ten kids I can’t remember the last time those two sat down and had a conversation, much less argued.”

Laura felt a pang of envy at the thought of all those children. Women, she thought, were divided into two groups: those who could have babies and those who couldn’t. She’d go weeks without thinking about it…then there were days, like today, when she was constantly reminded of the fact.

The brush along the trail grew thicker as they climbed. The dry, brown grass fell away, replaced by a sea of sage and creosote punctuated by tall spears of yucca and agave. Bright splashes of color dotted the ground below—wildflowers flourishing against all odds. Johnny-jump-ups and shooting stars, Indian paintbrush and wild licorice; the air was fragrant with their scent. She caught a trace of old campfires as well: illegal aliens in search of the promised land, as Hector once had been. They usually found work in the orange groves, at half the wages paid to those with green cards.

The only sound was the hollow clacking of hooves against dirt worn to the smooth hardness of stone. Little gouts of dust spiraled up into the golden sunlight that slanted through the trees. Shadows had slipped out from under boulders and clumps of chaparral. Hector sat sharply etched against the deepening sky, a Remington bronze. She could see the muscles in his back straining against the worn fabric of his T-shirt.