Turner's Rainbow 2 - The Rainbow Promise (19 page)

L
uke stiffened. His lips curled with distaste. "You think I'm an idiot? You didn't have a clue who the father of that baby was."

"I didn't back then. But when he got older, I knew. Cal looks just like you."

Luke's heart picked up its beat. His son? No, it was impossible. With all the men Tessa had lain with, anyone could have been the father. "I don't believe you. What is it, Tess? You need a little cash?"

Tessa's eyes hardened. "No. That ain't why I come here. I make good money in Fort Worth. I don't need to beg from you. But I—it ain't a good life for the boy. I kept him with me some at first, but it's hard."

"I can imagine a child would cramp your style."

She shot him an angry look. "You didn't use to be so mean."

"It's something you learn in Huntsville."

"I'm sorry." Tessa's lower lip quivered, and she pressed her lips together to stop it.

Luke felt a flash of pity. "All right. What's this favor?"

"I want you to take Cal."

"Your son?"

"He's your son, too. I swear it. My life ain't a decent one for a kid. He sees things he shouldn't; he gets into trouble. So most of the time I've left him at home."

"At your father's?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I didn't want to, but I didn't have nowhere else. He's been living there all the time for a couple of years. I just see him now and then, when I can get home—and when Daddy'll let me in. The thing is, well, you know how Daddy is."

"Yeah, I know." Every time Luke had visited Tessa when they were young, her father had launched into a long diatribe about how worthless and godless Luke was. George Jackson was a brutal, sanctimonious man with puritanical beliefs. He believed that he was the absolute ruler of his house, and he beat any family member who didn't conform to his rigid ideas of right and wrong. Most of his children had left his house as soon as they were old enough, and generally they had turned out to be the opposite of what he had tried to make of them. Tessa had turned whore; one of her brothers had died in a knife fight in Dallas; and another brother was in Huntsville for armed robbery.

"He's mean to Cal. He's worse than he was with me and Rachel and the boys. Ma's not there anymore to calm him down. He says that Cal's full of sin 'cause he was born out of sin."

Luke sighed. "Poor little bastard."

Tears spilled out of Tessa's eyes, streaking her cheeks with black. "Cal ain't bad, Luke. Not deep down. But he's like Bobby always was; he defies Daddy, and then Daddy's even harder on him. Cal hates me; he'll hardly talk to me. Who can blame him? But I can't take him out of there; he can't live with me. It's just no life for him. I saw him this weekend, and it broke my heart. And I thought—maybe you would take him. He could grow up here; you could teach him bow to act. And he'd have a—a good woman for a ma. I promise, Luke, if you'd take Cal in, I wouldn't ever bother you. I swear it. I wouldn't try to come see him or anything. I'd stay clean out of your lives."

"Tessa. I'm sorry for the boy, but..."

"You don't think he's your kid."

"I don't know how you could tell."

"Go look at him." Tessa grabbed his arm with both hands. "Then you'll know. He's yours, Luke. I ain't lying. Just go over to Daddy's place tomorrow and look at him. You'll see."

Luke sighed. "All right. I'll ride over to see him tomorrow morning."

A smile burst across Tessa's face. "Oh, thank you! Thank you." She squeezed his arm and let out a giggle. "I know you'll do the right thing. Then I won't have to worry about him being there anymore."

"Tessa, I didn't say I'd take him in."

"I know, but once you see him, you'll believe that he's yours. And you won't leave your own son with Daddy."

She wiped the tears from her face with her hands and climbed into the buggy. She picked up the reins, then paused and looked down at him. "You know, Luke," she began, her voice low and almost shy, "you was always the best. You was the only one who didn't treat me like dirt."

She slapped the reins and the horse started forward. Luke watched her turn the buggy and drive out onto the road. He walked over to the steps and sat down heavily.

It couldn't be true. It just couldn't. Tessa had to be lying—or else she wanted to believe it so much that she had convinced herself that it was true. She knew that he, of all the boys she'd given her favors to, now had the means to take care of a child well. She knew that he would do the right thing. So she told herself that the child looked like Luke, that he was Luke's child.

And yet... what if it was true? What if the boy was his son? It was possible, of course. God knows, he'd visited Tessa often enough when he was young. It could have been his seed, and not some other man's, that had taken hold inside her.

A son. What if he had a son? Had had a son all these years and never even known it? How old must the boy be now? Nine? Was his son growing up in poverty and hate, just as Luke himself had done?

Luke closed his eyes. He couldn't bear the thought. He had sworn that his children would never be touched by the hunger and anger that had haunted his life. The thought of a child of his flesh being in George Jackson's hands made him ill.

And what was he to do if he couldn't tell for sure whether Cal was his? How could he leave the boy if there was even a possibility it was his son? How could he leave any child with that man?

He heard the kitchen door open behind htm, and he turned, flooded with relief. Sarah would know what was right. She would show him the way; she always had.

"Luke?" Sarah stood in the doorway, her face puzzled. "What is it? Why did she come here?"

He rose. "She wanted to ask me a favor."

"A favor! You're joking." Sarah came down the steps to him.

"I wouldn't do it as a favor for her, of course. But if what she said is true ..." He paused. "She wants me to go to the Jackson place tomorrow to see her boy. The child she was carrying when she testified against me."

"Why?"

"Because she says he's mine. My son."

"What? No!" Sarah backed up. "He couldn't be. How could she know?"

"She says he looks like me."

"There are other blond men around."

"I know. At first I figured she was lying, too. But she was so sure. I think she believes it."

"If it were true, why didn't she come to you before? Surely she needed money then, too."

"I was in prison until four years ago."

"And since then?"

"I don't know. Maybe it took her awhile to get the courage to do it."

"It took nerve, all right. She's trying to use you. What does she want? Money?"

"No. She wants me to take him in. She's a, well, you could see what she must do for a living. She can't have the boy with her, and she doesn't want to leave him at her father's any longer. George Jackson is a brute; I'm sure he makes the boy's life hell."

Sarah's stomach turned to ice. "She wants you to bring him here to live?"

"Yeah. I'll go see him tomorrow. If I can tell that he's mine, there won't be a problem. I'll bring him home. But if he doesn't look like me, I don't know what to do. He—"

"No!" Sarah interrupted fiercely. Panic rose in her throat. Her son had just died; Luke couldn't mean to bring in another boy in his place. He couldn't be that callous and unfeeling. "He's not yours!"

"But I don't know that. He could be mine. Even if he doesn't look like me much, he could still be mine."

Sarah's hands knotted together. "You aren't going to bring him home. Luke, tell me you're not."

He frowned. What was wrong with Sarah? "Well, of course I'd bring him home if he's my son."

His son
. The words cut like a knife through her. Luke thought he had a son—the son she had failed to give him.

"No. Please, I couldn't bear it."

"What do you mean?"

"My son is dead! I won't have you trying to put another child in his place."

Luke went still. "I would have thought you would like it. That you'd want a child here, someone you could love and care for."

Sarah's face was deathly white, the faint sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks standing out starkly. "You think that I can replace my baby with some other woman's child? Do you think his death means that little to me?"

"Of course not." Luke reached out to her, but Sarah jerked away from him.

"Does it mean that little to you? Does it? My son, Tessa's son, what's the difference? Is that how you feel?"

"Sarah, you're being hysterical." Her reaction amazed him. He would never have dreamed that Sarah, of all people, would show so little concern for the child. The Sarah he knew would have cried at the thought of a poor little boy in Jackson's house. His Sarah would have been urging him to bring the child home, no matter whose it was.

"I am not!" Sarah's hands clenched in her skirts. She couldn't believe that Luke could be so cold and callous to her. Did he really believe that she would want to take in a strange boy when her own son had died only weeks ago? How could he think that Tessa Jackson's son by God-knows-whom could take the place of her own child? "How can you ask that of me? How can you do it yourself?"

"If he's my son, I don't know what else I can do,"

"He's not your son! I won't have you bringing that boy in my house!"

Luke stared at her for a long moment , his eyes cold and blank. "I never would have believed that you could turn so hard."

He wheeled and walked off. Sarah sat down on the steps. She felt stiff and cold. She wanted to cry—she ached to cry. But she couldn't.

❧

Julia settled in at her new house quickly. She and the children didn't have enough possessions to make unpacking a time-consuming chore, and James's housekeeper had left the place so spotless that there was no cleaning to do. It seemed as if she spent most of the time walking around the house, admiring it.

Saturday afternoon Julia walked to the grocery store— what luxury to live only five blocks from the stores!—and purchased their supplies with the salary James had insisted on giving her in advance. Sunday at noon, her family sat down to their first real meal in their new home. Looking at Bonnie and Vance on either side of the table, Julia felt more at peace than she could ever remember. At last she was able to give her children a lovely, peaceful home and ample food on the table. She couldn't forget that it was James who had made it possible.

Bright and early Monday morning Julia walked to James's office. The front door was unlocked, and she stepped inside tentatively. The waiting room was unlit, the shades closed. "Dr. Banks?"

She walked down the hall leading off the waiting room. Dark rooms lay on either side. She almost tiptoed, feeling like an intruder and unsure what she should do. A stream of light fell across the hall from the room at the end. Julia went up to the door and peeked inside.

It was James's office, and he sat behind his desk, a stack of files and a tray of food before him. He ate as he read through a file. He glanced up at the sound of Julia's footsteps, and broke into a smile. "Ju—I mean, Mrs. Dobson."

"Dr. Banks. I hope I'm not disturbing you. Am I too early?"

"No, of course not. Come in. Here, have a seat." He rose and pulled a chair up to the side of his desk. "I'm sorry that you find me so—" He cast a glance down at himself. His jacket and tie were off, and his vest hung open. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. His shirt front was open one button down. His hair was mussed, and a black stubble covered his jaw. He looked like a man barely out of bed. "—so informal. I was called out in the middle of the night, and I've just now gotten in. I decided to eat a quick breakfast while I caught up on my files."

Julia sat down in the chair he offered. It made her a little uneasy to be here with him. There was an intimacy about the scene, as if they were a husband and wife at the breakfast table together. She glanced at his arms, bared by the rolled-up sleeves. His arms were very masculine—brown, with prominent tendons and silky black hairs. His hands were long, competent, and strong. She had lain with this man. His hands had stroked her breasts. She had nestled against his chest.

Julia swallowed nervously and looked down at her hands. This was no way to start off her employment. She and James were merely acquaintances now. He was her employer; she worked for him. There was no intimacy between them. There couldn't be.

"I didn't realize what time it was," James went on. "I've been at Joe Miller's place since four this morning. His wife Margaret had a baby."

"Really?" Julia smiled. "Boy or girl?"

"A boy. Their third. I think poor Mrs. Miller was sorry not to have a girl, but Joe was pleased. He says he needs the farmhands." He grinned and picked up a piece of buttered toast. "Would you like something to eat?"

Julia shook her head.

"A cup of coffee, at least. Lurleen gave me a whole pot."

"Well, all right."

He poured a cup of coffee and handed it to her. He, too, was very aware of the casual state of his clothes, the suggestion of intimacy. If Julia had been his wife, he thought, they would have sat together just this way. She would have waited up for him until he returned this morning and made him a pot of rich black coffee. She would have fixed him a big breakfast and perhaps rubbed his tired shoulders and neck while he ate it. And he would have been happy and content, loving the way she took care of him.

"Was the baby all right?" Julia asked, sipping her coffee.

"Perfect. There weren't any problems. I'm probably just lucky she let me have a part in it."

Julia smiled.

If she were his wife, she would have asked him questions like this while she rubbed his shoulders, James thought. She would have known he needed to release the built-up excitement and energy within him. Maybe later they would have gone upstairs and celebrated the joy of new life in their bed.

James set down the cup so hard it rattled against the saucer. This wasn't a good way to start. Julia was his assistant, not his wife.

"Are you settled in?" he asked, trying to instill some formality into his voice.

"Oh yes."

"You needn't work today, if you'd like more time to unpack."

"No. I've done it, really. I'd like to begin today, if you don't mind."

"Good." He gave her a perfunctory smile and rose, picking up the tray. "I'll take this back into the house and, uh, get ready for the day."

Julia watched him leave, then walked back down the hall to the waiting room. She opened the shades to let in the early morning light. The glare of daylight revealed the sorry condition of James's waiting room. Dust gathered on the furniture, and the chairs were scattered around the floor in haphazard fashion, their cushions flattened and worn. However good a doctor James was, he obviously wasn't adept at keeping his office in order. Julia quickly straightened the chairs and arranged them so that there was more space in the room. She turned over the cushions and plumped them up. Then she searched until she found some rags in one of the examination rooms, and she started dusting.

She had finished the waiting room and was working on his office by the time James returned from the house. When he saw her busily wiping off the glass-fronted bookshelves, he said, "There's no need for you to do that. I didn't hire you as a maid."

Julia turned, smiling. "I don't mind. And it needs it desperately. The examination rooms are all spick-and-span, but obviously you don't lavish the same sort of care on the rest of your office."

He shrugged. "I never think about the rest of it"

He went to the reception room and looked around. Julia followed him, waiting anxiously for his opinion. He turned, surprised. "Why, it looks ten times better. What did you do?"

"Just a little simple housekeeping."

He smiled. "Thank you. Obviously, I needed help in areas I didn't even know. You ready for some more?"

Julia nodded.

"All right. First, the files..." He pulled open the top drawer of an oak filing cabinet. "Whenever a patient I've seen before comes in, I want to review his file. They're alphabetized, as you can see." He gave her a rueful smile and opened the bottom drawer. "But these are the patients I've seen the past couple of months. I haven't had time to put the files back where they belonged."

Julia looked down at the drawerful of jumbled files. She pursed her lips to hide a smile. "I'll get them in order."

"Would you?" He seemed vastly relieved.

"Yes, of course."

"It would also be helpful if you could keep the patients in some sort of order as they come in."

"I'll enter them on a roster."

"You're a jewel. Now let me show you around the office."

He gave her a tour of the place, starting in the examination room. He pointed out the location of his instruments, explaining their use. Seeing the panic beginning in Julia's eyes, he reassured her, "Don't expect to remember it all at once. As we go along, I'll try to explain everything to you, so you'll learn gradually what I use and when."

Their tour was interrupted by the first patient of the day, and after that, there was little rest for either of them. Julia greeted the patients as they arrived and took down their names, then dug each one's file out of the cabinet. While James examined the patients, she busied herself with straightening the files. Twice James called her into one of the examination rooms to help him, once to calm a small boy as he checked out his ear and another time to help him set a broken leg.

Julia soon had the patients moving in an orderly procession, placing one into an examination room to wait while James saw another patient in the second room. By mid-afternoon James wondered how he had gotten along without her for so long. His office had never run so smoothly, and she had added precious minutes to his busy schedule. For the first time in ages, he actually had time to lunch, and by four-thirty, the last of the patients was gone.

James gazed around the waiting area, unable to believe that it was empty. He looked over at Julia. She was on her knees, straightening files in the bottom drawer. The day had been warm, even for the beginning of June. Several stray hairs had come loose from Julia's neat bun and clung damply to her neck. A faint sheen of perspiration lay across her forehead. It made him think of the way she had looked when they had made love in the hot summer evenings, the sweat darkening her hairline and clinging to her translucent skin. He thought of her eyes closed in passion, her mouth opening beneath his.

He tore his eyes away. "Well," he said with all the heartiness he could muster. "You've certainly worked wonders in just one day."

Julia looked up at him, smiling. "Thank you. I haven't really done that much."

"It seems like a great deal to me. You've made it all easier."

"I was terribly clumsy, helping you."

"You did fine. With a little practice, you'll probably run the place without me."

"I doubt that." She rose to her feet in a smooth motion. James enjoyed seeing it.

"Do you have a few minutes?"

"Yes."

"Good. I wanted to take you inside the house and introduce you to my mother."

"What?" Julia's hands flew to her hair. "I can't. I must look a mess."

"You look fine. She'll enjoy meeting you."

Julia knew she wouldn't. Mrs. Banks would think her messy and common. She would wonder why her son had chosen someone like Julia Turner to work in his office. What if she had a suspicion about what had happened between them eleven years ago?

James took Julia's arm and gently pulled her forward. "Come on. She doesn't bite."

She had no choice but to go with him, though her stomach was twisted into knots. James led her through the office into the house. Nothing she saw there calmed her fears. She had never been in a home that was so large and elegantly furnished. It seemed as if everywhere she looked there were silks and damasks and heavy, carved furniture. In the foyer a wide mahogany-railed staircase curved up to the second floor. A crystal chandelier dangled from the high ceiling, and the floor was a black and white checkerboard of marble. The rugs on the smooth wooden floors were thick and richly designed.

They walked down the hall to the back parlor. Past the stairs a rectangular wooden box with a mouthpiece jutting out from it hung on the wall. Julia recognized it from pictures she'd seen in one of Sarah's magazines. "James!" she gasped. "Look! Is that a—"

He smiled down at her, enjoying her obvious delight. "Yes. It's a telephone. A doctor needs one, or at least that's the excuse I used. Several people in town have one now," He took the earpiece from its hook. "Would you like to talk to anyone? The operator, perhaps. It's Red Pierson."

"Oh, no." Julia backed up quickly, shaking her head.

James chuckled and waggled the earpiece at her. "Come on now, it doesn't bite either."

Julia giggled, but she continued to shake her head. "Oh, no, you don't. I'm not making a fool of myself."

"Don't be silly." James reached out and pulled her over to the telephone.

"James!" she protested, but took the earpiece he held up to her. He turned the handle on the side of the box. It made a tinny ringing sound. Suddenly a voice spoke in her ear, and she jumped.

James leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching her and grinning. "Say something."

"Hello?" she said cautiously, stretching up to put her lips close to the mouthpiece. She felt like an idiot, talking into a box, but there was James, grinning at her, making her giggly and excited.

"James?" An older woman's voice came from the doorway behind them.

Julia jumped and whirled, the earpiece falling from her hand and thumping against the wall.

A white-haired woman stood in the doorway. She was dressed all in black silk. Jet earrings dangled from her earlobes, and a matching jet brooch closed the collar of her dress. Her hands were gnarled, but soft and well kept. A large diamond flashed on her left hand. She looked as elegant and wealthy as the house. Julia was very aware of her simple white cotton shirtwaist and dark skirt and the stray hairs that had come loose and straggled down the back of her neck.

"Oh, hello. Mother." James turned and smiled. He picked up the earpiece Julia had let drop and set it back on its hook. "We were coming in to see you.

"How pleasant." Anthea smiled at Julia, only her bright brown eyes giving away any of her curiosity.

"I wanted you to meet my new assistant, Mother, this is Julia Turner. I mean, Dobson. Mrs. Dobson, this is my mother. Anthea Banks."

"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Dobson." Anthea said politely,

"Thank you. It's an honor to meet you, Mrs. Banks."

Anthea smiled and cast James a loving, playful glance. "I hope my son hasn't been too hard a taskmaster"