Forbidden Dreams (19 page)

“Oh, Mom!” Shell took the paper and tore it in two, then in two again, tossing it to the floor in disgust. “We knew this would happen. Lord, how I hate them!” She shoved her hands into her hair. “Why can’t they leave us alone?”

“Because I was public property for so long, dear. But is that what’s bothering you, or is it this?” This time Lil held out a book—
the
book—and Shell crumpled. “Honey, are you afraid for me? Do you think Jase would try to make money on me?”

Shell buried her face in her mother’s lap. “Why not?” she moaned. “He’s willing to make money on anybody else he can exploit. He’s a reporter! It’s his nature. He can’t change that.”

“No. And you’re paranoid about newspapers, but I believe we can change that.” Shell heard her mother breathe in long and deep and looked up. “Jase knows who I am, Shirl. I told him.”

She sat back on her heels and stared, horrified, at Lil. “You did what?”

“I told him. He has my written permission to tell the world.”

“No! Good Lord, no! You know what will happen! They’ll be here in hordes. They’ll never let you rest! We’ll be inundated! Oh, Lil, why?”

“Because you gave him up out of fear, Shirl.”

“No. Out of necessity.”

“Fear.” Lil was quietly adamant. “It’s a fear that I should have taken from you, darling. This is all my fault. But when I first became ill, having the truth come out seemed worse to me, a crueler fate than the ugly speculation I had to suffer. I thought I couldn’t bear seeing pity where once there had been adoration.

“But now …” she smoothed Shell’s hair. “Now I’m much older, much wiser, and so very much stronger.”

Shell shook her head, unable to release the fears and beliefs she’d lived with for more than twenty years. “No! No, you’re not. The stress of having them hound you would be bad, Mom. What does Kathleen say? She can’t want you to do this any more than I do.”

“That’s right, she doesn’t.”

“Then don’t.”

“But I have to. You’ll never go to the man you love unless you can do it without fear of exposing me.”

Shell was heartsick. “Then you’d be doing it for me and not for yourself.”

Lil smiled sweetly. “Why not, darling? I’ve remained hidden for you for all these years.”

Shell sat back. “For me? No, Lil.” She shook her head again. “No.”

“Oh, I’m not blaming you,” Lil said. “I remember how it was. I remember falling down and not being able to get up. I remember the slurred speech, the failing vision that made me stumble and run into things, the collapsing limbs that everyone believed meant I had turned into a drunk. I remember how bad it was, for both of us. But it was worse for you because you were a little child and didn’t understand. When the disease began to progress more quickly shortly before your tenth birthday, I asked your father to help me disappear with you, and to care for you if I … got worse and died. You were his child as much as mine and he had that right. Of course he agreed. He’s a good man, even though I realized very soon after I got pregnant with you that I could never love him.

“You’re not a child now, though, my darling. You’re a grown woman, and you must face the world. If it spits on you, you have to get up and spit back. You can’t cower the way I did. And I taught you to do that by my actions. Don’t you see how wrong that was? I’m not going to hide any longer, and I won’t let you, either. That’s why I gave Jase my story. He was supposed to print it today on the anniversary of our disappearance. I expected to see it in all the major papers.”

She smiled wryly and indicated the torn paper on the floor. “That, surprisingly, was the only article of note dealing with my disappearance. I guess I’m not as important as I thought.”

Shell rose wearily to her feet. She paced across the room and looked out onto the fresh, unstained boards and railings of her new sun deck. “If Jase had given your story to his editor, to any editor in the world, it would have been published.”

“Then where do you suppose it is, Shirl? Why do you think it isn’t in print?”

Shell turned, and she could scarcely speak for the tears clogging her throat. “Because he didn’t give it to his editor.”

“Do you have to ask why he didn’t?”

“Oh, Mom.” Shell sank to the couch, clutching fistfuls of the afghan that lay folded there. “I think I’m going to have to go to Los Angeles.”

Lil smiled. “Your father’s got your tickets. Your flight leaves at nine. If you hurry, you’ll make the next ferry.”

Shell gathered her mother close. “I love you, Lilianne.”

“Good. Then be a big, brave girl and make your mama proud.”

Jase took a bite, then set his sandwich down. It wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t hungry. He hadn’t been hungry for a long time. He ate because he had to, because when he didn’t, he got so grumpy nobody wanted to be around him. That wasn’t so bad, really, because he didn’t want to be around other people. But when he chose to, it would be nice if they’d be a bit sympathetic, instead of snarling at him because he snarled at them.

He took another bite and snarled at his sandwich when the doorbell rang. He wasn’t expecting anyone. Maybe if he ignored whoever it was, he’d go away. But no. The last time he’d tried that, his buddy Ace had gotten the super to unlock the door. Jase’s car was in the lot, and Ace had figured he’d done himself in.

Hah!
Jase thought. The day he did himself in over a woman! That’d be the day! “Hah!” he said aloud as he snatched the door open.

“Hah?”

“Haaah …” He backed up several steps, not noticing that he had let his sandwich fall to the floor from a suddenly nerveless hand. He stepped on it, smearing a messy red splotch across the cream-colored carpet. He didn’t notice until Shell said, “What in the world are you eating?”

He glanced down and wiped his bare foot on a clean area of the carpet. “Oh. That. A spaghetti sauce sandwich.”

She stared at him. “Why?”

“To … see what they’re like. In case …” He frowned. “Nothing.” He looked at her, at the bag she had slung over her shoulder, at the tears sliding down her face. “Why are you here?”

“Because I love you. Because I’m miserable without you. Because Lil … my mother, Lilianne, the former beauty queen and movie star whom Max Elkford did not murder twenty years ago, regardless of what his ghost says, told me I had to quit crying, but I can’t stop, Jase, no matter how hard I try, and I do try and try, but the tears just keep leaking out, and pretty soon I’m going to dehydrate so bad I’ll shrivel up and die, and I won’t have even one little child to weep over my grave.”

He looked at her for a long time, frowning. “Is any of that supposed to make sense?”

She sniffled. “Didn’t it?”

He shook his head.

“Do I need to try again?”

He shook his head once more. “I don’t think so. You and I … Well, maybe we’re not supposed to make sense.” He took a step toward her and walked in the squashed sandwich again. He wiped his foot off, dirtying another section of carpet.

“What—what are we supposed to make?” she asked fearfully.

“Love,” he said, drawing her into his arms. “Just love.”

Moments later he lifted his head and smiled at her. “Much as I’d like to continue kissing you, Shell, maybe that’s where we’ve gone wrong. It feels so good to hold you, I don’t want to think, don’t want to talk. I just want to love you.”

“I know. But there are things we have to discuss. Such as why you didn’t sell Lil’s story.”

He led her to his sofa and sat down, still holding her, his right hand pulling her hair free from its ponytail and spreading it over her shoulders. Grinning wickedly, he said, “Now why would I want to do that? Lilianne’s not a nasty secret. Jason Calhoun’s readers wouldn’t be interested in her unless she had some deep, dark, dirty secrets to impart, the juicier the better, the more ghastly and grisly the merrier, the more—”

“Stop. You’ve made your point.” Shell toyed with a button on his shirt, staring at that rather than look at him. “Is it enough to say that I’m sorry? That I was wrong? I read your book, on the plane down here, Jase. And I’ve looked up some of your columns. What you’re doing isn’t much different from what my dad did when he exposed that money-laundering scheme.”

She glanced up for a second. “I’ll grovel if that’ll help.”

“Hey.” He tilted her chin up, sliding his hand around her throat, gently, tenderly. “You’re here. That’s all that matters. I could have told you the truth, but by the time I was ready to mention my column, I knew how you felt about newspapers and journalists.” He looked ashamed for a moment as he went on. “I didn’t tell you about the book because, well, this is going to sound conceited as hell, but it’s gotten a fair bit of local publicity with advance reading copies going out to all the media, and I’ve learned that there are people who … collect writers, people who didn’t want to bother with me until they’d seen me on a talk show or two. That’s actually how I got invited to that big affair in Palm Springs where I heard about your grandmother. I’m not comfortable with it. I prefer to be loved for who I am, not what I do.”

She smiled and linked her hands behind his neck. “No kidding. Those people must be related to the ones who collect movie stars.”

He nodded. “And their children. Lil told me how bad it was for you, sweetheart. And for her at the end. I don’t blame you both for going into hiding.” He rested his forehead against hers. “How ’bout we protect each other from the hounds?”

“I’m not going to hide anymore, Jase. And neither is Lil. She wanted you to publish your account of meeting her. She’s ready to face the public again.”

He leaned back and shook his head. “No. That story’s not mine to tell. Or to sell. It’s hers, and I hope to persuade her to make a book out of it. Don’t you think it would be appropriate, the book appearing on the twenty-first anniversary of her mysterious disappearance? Sort of a coming-of-age time for the new Lilianne?”

Shell sighed softly. “And a new maturity for little Shirley Elizabeth.”

He pulled her close. “I think she’s found that already.”

“Jase?” Shell asked several minutes later. “Have we talked enough yet?”

“Hmm … yeah.” He looked pained. “I guess that means I have to make love with you now?”

She smiled. “And babies.”

He shrugged. “A man’s gotta do …”

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1992 by Judy Gill

cover design by Connie Gabbert

978-1-4532-8081-2

This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

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