What the Heart Wants (6 page)

“Cool. That'd be great. This shirt feels pretty grungy.”

After helping Lolly with the tub, Laurel went through her wardrobe for appropriate teenage attire. Her bottom drawer yielded up a sequined and star-spangled tee, but Lolly would have to wear the same shorts she had on yesterday.

She deposited the shirt on Lolly's bed, then rapped on the bathroom door. “Breakfast will be ready when you are.”

Now to get rid of the evidence. Grabbing the annual from her bed, she hurried downstairs and dropped it in the den before returning to the kitchen to set the table with bright yellow paper plates on top of woven turquoise-colored placemats. Then, after reclaiming Mama's apron, she waited. The burner went on at the sound of the sound of Lolly's foot on the stairs.

“Hey, something smells good.”

Lolly entering the room was like the sun coming out all over again. It wasn't just the color of her hair. There was something about her, a glow of energy that seemed to make the air sparkle around her.

Laurel couldn't help but smile at the twin ponytails bouncing on either sides of her face. “You've got doggie ears.”

Lolly touched one of the masses of curls. “Yeah. I change my hair around a lot.”

“Take a seat. I've poured you some orange juice, and breakfast will be ready in a minute. Hope you like French toast.”

Lolly's face clouded. “I've never tried it. Aunt Maxie and I always have Cheerios at home.” She took a seat at the big table.

Laurel was glad the old table was getting some use. It had been here since Kinkaid House was built, but it was yet another item that would be up for sale if she didn't get a buyer for the house soon. She'd never need anything that large for herself, and oak tables were scoring good prices these days.

Wielding a spatula, she lifted the eggy toast onto a serving plate and brought it to the table. Lolly eyed the concoction suspiciously. “It's sort of soggy.”

“You eat it with a fork. Try it.” Sitting down next to her with her own plate, Laurel demonstrated the technique.

Lolly, still looking doubtful, cut the toast and speared a small piece. She glanced at her hostess for encouragement, then grimaced as she lifted it into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

Her expression cleared. “Gosh, it's good!”

Laurel laughed, enjoying Lolly's surprise.

What a sweetheart—she'd been willing to try her cooking just to please her.

After cleaning up the remains of breakfast, they moved to the den again, where Lolly made a tour of the room, peering at all the photographs and reading aloud the inscriptions on all the plaques and trophies.

“This looks like the oldest picture,” she said, pointing to a dingy tintype in the bookshelf. “He's the guy at the head of the stairs, isn't he?”

Laurel nodded. “You have a good eye. That's Erasmus Kinkaid again, when he first came to Texas.”

“Cool. He must have really been something.”

Laurel laughed. “Gramma always referred to him as ‘that rascal,' and I don't think she meant it lovingly.”

Lolly's eyes widened with interest. Obviously she liked rascals. Jase must really have his hands full.

Lolly reached for a picture of Erasmus and his two sons. “What about your grandfather? Was he a rascal too?”

“A little bit, or at least a sharp businessman. He diversified the family holdings, and we made it through the Great Depression so well that he could fund a major renovation on the house in the 1930s and another one in the 1960s.” That one had cost almost a million dollars. Mama had planned on putting in central air and renovating the kitchen three years ago, until suddenly there was no money for anything.

“And your father? I know he was a pastor, but did he also make investments?”

Laurel managed to keep her smile in place. “Daddy wasn't interested in investments, and Mama didn't see it as her place to get involved.”

Daddy thought money grew on trees, and Mama was oblivious.

Lolly replaced the picture of Erasmus and looked at a large photograph of Laurel and her parents on the shelf above them. “What sort of family did your dad come from? Was his father a preacher? Did it run in the family?”

Laurel shook her head. “I don't know. Daddy was raised in the Methodist Home in Waco. His father gave him up when he was about ten, and I got the feeling his life was a lot better at the orphanage than it had been with his parents.”

Daddy had speculated once that her musical talent came from his mother, but never elaborated. She'd known from the look on his face that the subject was closed.

“Poor guy,” Lolly said, sitting down on the overstuffed leather chair across from Laurel. Her eyes moved around the room in assessment.

“Why are you leaving all this? There's a
FOR SALE
sign in your yard.”

“The upkeep on a house this large is more than I can handle by myself.” It was the same pat answer she'd given the real estate agent and what she would tell any prospective buyers.

“But do you, like,
want
to leave?”

Laurel paused a minute because she wasn't sure of the answer herself. She wanted to leave Bosque Bend, yes, but did she really want to leave Kinkaid House? Jase's daughter deserved an honest answer. “I don't know. All of my life is here, which can be very comforting, but it's also very confining. I don't want to spend the rest of my life as a caretaker.”

“Where will you go?”

Laurel shrugged. “Probably south, to the Rio Grande Valley.”

“You could come to Dallas and live with us.”

Laurel laughed to cover the heat wave which swept through her. “You'd better check with your father before you make that kind of offer.”

Lolly's head tilted to one side, as if sizing up the situation. “Aunt Maxie said he loved you. She said he used to talk about you all the time.”

“Lolly, you really shouldn't tell me things like that. They're personal.” Her brain cautioned her not to be an idiot, to chalk anything Maxie might have said up to a few passing remarks, but the tentacles of her heart embraced Lolly's every golden word.

As if on cue, the phone rang. It was Jase. Laurel handed the phone to Lolly.

“Hi, Dad.” Lolly smiled winningly into the phone. “I'm okay. Sorry I ran off like that.” There was a pause, and her face began crumple as she held back tears. “I love you too, Daddy.”

A few more minutes of silence, after which Lolly nodded and turned from the phone to address Laurel. “Dad's about to leave to pick up Aunt Maxie at the airport in Waco and wants to know when he should come get me.” She covered the receiver with her hand. “Let me stay longer, Laurel, please,
please
.”

“Well, uh, yes, okay, if you want to and it's okay with your dad.”

She really would like Lolly to stay a while, although she knew that a lengthier stay would make the house seem even more empty when she was alone again. “We could invite your father and aunt over for dinner this evening.”

“Dad, did you hear? Did you hear? Laurel says you and Aunt Maxie can come for dinner. Say yes, Dad! Say yes!”

She listened for a moment and turned back to Laurel. “He says that instead of causing you to all that bother, he'd like all of us, him and Aunt Maxie and me, to take
you
out to dinner somewhere. You know—so you won't be put to any more extra work and to thank you for taking care of me.”

Laurel smiled thinly and took the phone from Lolly. “Let's eat here, Jase. It's been a while since I had dinner guests, and it would be so much fun,” she said in her most dulcet tones. “And I think it might he easier for both you and Lolly if your reunion is here rather than in a public restaurant.”

Most of what she said was true, but the real reason she didn't want to appear in a public restaurant involved her life, not theirs.
Please God, just let me have these few hours with Jase, just a short interlude without the past intruding, and I won't ask for anything more.

“Well, okay,” he agreed. “If it wouldn't be too much trouble for you.”

“No trouble at all. And I'll look forward to seeing your aunt again.”

“Thanks.”

“Maybe you should wait until you've eaten to say that,” she returned, striving for a lighter tone. “I'm not much of a cook.”

“I'm not talking about food, Laurel. I'm talking about everything. You've been a far better friend to me than I deserve.”

“That's kind of you to say, Jase. See you about six? We dine early here in the boondocks.”

“Whenever you say.”

Laurel put down the phone with blood ringing in her ears and a faint flush spreading across her cheeks.

I
n the meantime, she, whose height of culinary achievement was French toast, had to plan a dinner for four.

After opening up the dining room, which hadn't been used since Mama died, Laurel unlatched the French windows to let in some early morning air. Then, throwing caution to the wind, she packed Lolly in the Escort and drove down the street to the neighborhood Piggly Wiggly. While she'd never had a confrontation in the store, probably because there were so many people around, she knew she was taking a chance.

As it turned out, they caught a few gimlet stares and a couple of middle-aged sniffs, but she didn't think Lolly noticed. Teenagers were accustomed to being disapproved of. Of course, there was a possibility the check she wrote to cover the groceries might bounce, but she was relatively confident she could reach the pawnbroker and the bank in time Monday morning. One of her newly developed skills was estimating how long it would take checks to clear.

If this were three years ago, she would have used a credit card, but she'd cut up all her plastic when finally paying off the last balance after her mother died. No more living beyond her means. The interest and late fees were killing her.

With the groceries packed in the back of the Escort, she decided to pick up a late lunch at G&G Chicken. The drive-thru's speaker emitted an annoying buzz when she tried to talk into it, so she drove up to the window, where a teenage boy greeted them with a metallic smile and a tilt of G&G's trademark yellow cap emblazoned with a crowing red rooster. Laurel placed the order and sat back to wait, but the boy lingered at the window.

“You live around here?”

Startled, she stared at him, then realized she wasn't even on his radar. He was talking to Lolly, who was leaning around her and giving him the full radiance of the Redlander smile.

Lolly's doggie ears bobbed as she shook her head
no
. “I'm visiting from North Plano, near Dallas.”

The teen flashed his orthodontics again and winked. “Make it a long visit.”

Laurel waited till he left the window, then turned toward Lolly. “I think you've made a conquest.”

“Yeah, guys usually like me. I think it's the hair.” She twisted a yellow curl around her hand.

Laurel was hard put to keep her mouth shut, but didn't Lolly realize the power of that smile?

Rooster Cap returned and handed over the chicken, keeping his eyes glued on Lolly the whole time. Laurel paid him with the last of her ready cash, which he didn't bother to count.

Good grief—she could have given him Monopoly money and he'd never have noticed!

He winked at Lolly again. “Tell your mother you want to stay the rest of the summer.”

Laurel's foot, which had been poised above the gas pedal, nearly shoved it to the floor. How old did that kid think she was? Somehow she managed to get the Escort down the drive without crashing into the large plastic rooster that crowed farewell as they left.

Of course, a mother was exactly what she'd been acting like for the past twelve hours, but did she really look old enough to be the mother of a fifteen-year-old? She paused at the street and angled the rearview mirror so she could make a quick check for wrinkles and sagging flesh.

Lolly was watching her every move. “Did it bother you that he thought you were my mother?”

Laurel poked at her hair. The ponytail was a real loser, but she didn't notice anything different about her face. “A little bit. I don't think of myself as old enough to be the mother of a teenager.”

Lolly trained her eyes straight ahead. “A teenager with a bastard baby. It must have been hard for…for my mother.”

Laurel froze. She'd accidently set Lolly off again. Putting on a schoolteacher face, she used the voice that had let rambunctious fifth graders know she meant business. “As I told you, I know nothing about your mother, but I'm sure it was difficult for her, whatever her age.” Her tone grew even more brittle. “And for your father too.” Ramming her foot down on the accelerator a lot harder than was necessary, she moved into the traffic flow.

A curtain of silence hung between them the rest of the way back to the house. Lolly cast several sideways glances in her direction, but Laurel kept her eyes on the car in front of her.

Maybe she was just testing the waters. Pray God that she wouldn't force the matter. She wanted her time with Lolly to be a pleasant interlude—no drama, no conflicts.

But what was it about her mother that Jase didn't want Lolly to know? It had to be some girl from school. Why didn't he at least tell Lolly her name?

The atmosphere began to thaw as they carried the groceries in from the car. Lolly seemed to realize she'd overstepped a boundary and, eager to reestablish herself in Laurel's good graces, smiled a lot, chattered nonstop, and insisted on carrying the heavier bag. After stowing the food in the refrigerator and pantry, Laurel set the kitchen table with paper plates, and they did G&G proud, then retired to the den again. Lolly, still on her best behavior, embarked on a detailed recounting of her most recent trip to Disney World.

Laurel was fascinated. Apparently the place had changed a lot since Mama and Daddy had taken her there the summer after middle school, and she'd thought it was perfect back then. In fact, she remembered, the trip was all she could talk about when she'd met Jase for the first time. Since Mama spent Wednesday afternoons at the Ladies' Aid society, and Mrs. Claypool, the new housekeeper, needed Wednesday afternoons off, she was Daddy's official greeter.

Odd. She and Jase had been only a grade apart at school, but she'd never exchanged a single word with him until he showed up at the front door. Of course, they'd run in completely different crowds. She was the daughter of the saintly Edward Harlow, revered for his good works, and Jase's father was—well—Growler Red.

Following the usual procedure with “Daddy's boys,” Laurel had ushered him into the drawing room. “Pastor Harlow will call you soon,” she'd said, gesturing toward the sofa. Most of the boys, cocky and full of bravado, sauntered into the room like they owned the place, but Jase didn't move. He just stood in the doorway, staring.

“We can talk while you wait.” She sat down and patted the place next to her to put him at ease.

He'd walked over toward her very slowly, as if afraid she would cut and run any second. When he finally did sit down and she began to make polite conversation, as Mama had taught her to do in strained social situations, he looked at her like she'd just gotten off a shuttle from Mars.

Laurel winced at the memory of her fifteen-year-old self. He must have considered her a complete idiot—all she could think of to talk about was going round and round in the stupid teacups.

Lolly spotted Laurel's annual on the footstool and picked it up. “Oh, look, Dad has one of these. Your father sent it to him after he moved to Dallas. That's where I saw your picture.” Flipping open the book, she turned immediately to the center section and gazed admiringly at Laurel's full-page photo. “You were real popular—sophomore favorite and everything. Everybody loved you. Dad said it was like you were a princess—the princess of Bosque Bend.”

“Not really.” Laurel glanced over Lolly's shoulder. “I think the kids voted for me because of my family.”

The next year, of course, after Jase had left town, it had been different. She didn't feel much like socializing, and even being the daughter of the senior pastor of the biggest church in town hadn't been enough to maintain her popularity. Her self-isolation had been good for her grades, though—in fact, she'd ended up as class salutatorian. Then, after college, she'd returned to Bosque Bend and done all the right things—moved back in with her parents, attended the garden club with her mother, accompanied the children's choir at church, married a local boy, and signed a contract to teach at the new elementary school across the eastern arm of the Bosque.

And if her marriage didn't fulfill her, her students did.

Until her world turned upside down, and the town that she'd tried to reject had ended up rejecting her. Not that she was going to explain any of that to Lolly, who was reading all the idiotic tributes her classmates had written in her annual.

“Wow, cool! Someone wrote you a really nice letter. She made a rhyme with the letters of your name too!” Lifting the book closer to her eyes, Lolly read the verse aloud:

Lolly looked up at Laurel. “It's signed, ‘Always, Your Own
Fri
- without -
end
, Sarah.' Who's she?”

“Sarah Bridges, a rather bad poet,” Laurel replied, trying to keep her smile in place. “She was my best friend since second grade, but we're out of touch now. She used to live in Bosque Bend, but then she married a doctor and moved to Austin.”

“Tough luck. You must miss her.”

Laurel nodded, surprised to realize she missed Sarah more than she missed Dave. But then, Sarah had more personality. “It's odd how things work out. Her family had just moved into town, and I remember the day when the elementary school principal walked her into the classroom. I didn't like her.”

Flame-haired and brash, Sarah Bridges was the new girl, an outsider without a single connection to Bosque Bend, not even a second cousin three times removed.

“Her family lived across the street from us, but my grandfather told me to ignore them. He didn't like the way they'd remodeled the house, didn't approve of the red Jaguar convertible Mrs. Bridges drove, and never responded when she gave him a friendly wave while she was waiting for Sarah after school and he was waiting for me.”

Lolly's eyes glowed with interest. “How did you and Sarah get to be friends, then?”

Laurel took a strengthening breath. All these years later, and the scene was still vivid in her mind.

It was the week before Halloween, and she'd run to the car to tell Grampa that she'd been chosen to narrate the class pumpkin play, but Grampa was slumped down against the door, his jaw agape, a thin line of drool oozing out if the corner of his mouth. When she'd jerked the door open, he fell to the pavement.

“Grampa had a stroke while he was waiting for me, and Mrs. Bridges called an ambulance for him, then took me home with her. My parents were at MD Anderson in Houston because my grandmother had cancer, so I stayed with Sarah and her family till they came home.”

By the time Mama and Daddy came home, Laurel and Sarah had bonded for life. Or at least she'd thought so, but Sarah had proved to be as faithless as Dave.

Dave—good ol' Dave. He was a late development. She'd dated Tucker Beebe all through college. Tuck—tall, dark, handsome—another classic hero straight off a book cover—was in the ministerial program. Maybe Daddy would hire him as an assistant pastor when he got his degree, and they could marry and move into Kinkaid House. Or maybe they'd have a big wedding in Daddy's church, then go off somewhere nearby and start their own church. Independent congregations were getting to be a big thing. She'd play the organ and direct the choir while Tuck preached and counseled, but eventually they'd return to Bosque Bend and live with Mama and Daddy, just like her parents had lived with Gramma and Grampa.

But the day after they graduated, Tuck took her out to dinner, apologized, and told her he'd fallen in love with a wonderful man he met in Christian Scriptures class. Laurel was more dumbfounded than heartbroken. How had she been so blind? And here she thought he'd never made the final move on her because of his high moral values.

She'd stuck around Baylor for two more years to nurse her injured pride and pick up a master's degree before heading home.

Enter Dave. He and Karen Fassbinder had been an item ever since middle school, but she eloped with Ted Menefee three days before their wedding. Suddenly Laurel was running into Dave everywhere—at Piggly Wiggly, Overton's, and the Bosque Club. Soon he was calling her on the phone just to talk, inviting her out, sending flowers. It was a whirlwind courtship, and it worked. Laurel thought she had found her soul mate, her mother approved of Dave's family connections, and her father noted Dave was gainfully employed.

Looking back, she realized she'd been ripe for marriage. All the girls she'd grown up with were married—some of them even had a couple of kids—and she didn't want to end up like her mother, who remained single till she was in her midthirties, and then produced only one child. Besides, she wanted sex. Dave had taken her halfway there a couple of times, but never gone all the way until their wedding night—after all, she was Pastor Harlow's virgin daughter.

But that was past history, like the high school annual Lolly was poring over so intently. Laurel was amused to notice her guest had skipped to the front and begun a page-by-page critique of the faculty members' photos. Apparently her major categories were “ick,” “gross,” “gnarly” or “has funny hair.” Looking over her shoulder, Laurel was surprised to hear that sexy Marguerite Shelton garnered a unique “sly-faced.”

Tiring of her game, Lolly dropped the annual back on the footstool and turned to Laurel. “What next?”

“We'll get dinner ready. Let's start by setting the table.” As soon as they entered the large dining room, she closed the French windows and turned on the window unit. The room was heating up fast.

Lolly ran her hand down the smooth wood of the table. “This is mahogany, isn't it? Our table at home is mahogany, but it's not a curvy one like this one, and the chairs are really plain—no carvings at all.”