Jilted (3 page)

Another chill skittered down my thighs. Good Lord, Dixie was right.

Clyde Felton wanted me.

Even now.

Clyde wasn't sure how he had gotten himself in this fix. When Fawn called and asked if he could babysit Nathan, he had thought she was joking. Now he stood in his living room looking down at the little guy, who watched him with suspicious eyes. It seemed to Clyde that the child had heard all the rumors in town and was contemplating whether or not they were true.

After lowering himself to the edge of the couch, Clyde leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and waited for Nathan to do something. The toddler sat on his bottom in the middle of the rug, waiting as well. It was a standoff.

“Well,” Clyde said too loudly, “what do you usually do to pass the time?”

Nathan giggled.

“You think that's funny?”

The baby clapped his chubby hands.

“Have you heard the one about the convict who caught the measles? … He broke out.”

Nathan's laughter came from deep in his chest, and Clyde chuckled.

“Okay, how about this one? A murderer, a rapist, and a drug dealer are in the same car. Who's driving?” Clyde paused for effect, but Nathan had become mesmerized by the lamp on the end table. He held his palms in the air as if he were about to push against a brick wall, then slammed them against the rug and took off crawling.

Clyde laughed at Nathan's determination, then mumbled, “A cop, that's who.” But when the child used the table leg to pull himself into a standing position, Clyde wasn't prepared.

Just before Nathan jerked the lamp cord, he squealed happily as though he were telling a joke of his own. When the lamp toppled with a crash, Nathan stared wide-eyed at the exposed lightbulb. “Uh-oh.” His voice tremored like a startled doorbell, and then he whimpered.

Clyde reached for the lamp but hesitated, wondering if he should pick up the baby first. The dilemma momentarily paralyzed him in the middle of the floor until his gaze met Nathan's. The child's eyes begged for deliverance while the electrical cord still dangled from his tightly closed fist.

“Aw, now. It ain't that bad.”

Nathan's chin quivered as Clyde put one palm on the baby's stomach and another on his rump and lifted him into a sitting position with his back hugged firmly against Clyde's chest.

“Come on up here. Things are always better at a high altitude.”

Nathan's head bumped Clyde's shoulder as he turned to peer at him.

“It'll be all right now.” Clyde walked to the back window, thinking Fawn was crazy to trust him with her baby. Even though she had been to his trailer house several times before, this morning her gaze had skimmed across the tattered furniture and lingered on the hole in the wall by the front door.

“It'll only be for an hour or so,” she had said. “Mother can pick him up when she gets out of her meeting.”

But her words hadn't eased Clyde's concern. Instead, his insides tightened at the thought of Susan coming to his house. They hadn't been alone together since before Clyde went to prison, and he sure as heck didn't want to be alone with her now.

His gaze lingered on Nathan's black curls, and he shook his head. Even without the worry of Susan, Clyde clearly wasn't fit for the task of babysitting. For crying out loud, the lamp almost landed on the kid's head.

An outdated phone hung on the wall by the dinky kitchen table, and it jangled loudly, causing Nathan to startle. Clyde shifted until his wide palm covered Nathan's stomach, and he held the child firmly while Nathan gently kicked his feet.

Clyde raised the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”

“How's he doing?” It was Fawn, checking up on him. She hadn't been gone thirty minutes.

“Not too bad.”

The baby closed his palm around the corkscrew phone cord and shoved it in his mouth. He frowned at the taste, pulled the cord out to inspect it, and then jerked his arm, sending the cord into frenzied arcs. “Mama!”

“I hear him. What's he doing?”

Clyde looked down at Nathan to see the child's face change from pink to dark red. The baby's lips pressed together as if he were choking on a softball, and panic shot through Clyde like a dose of adrenalin, but just as quickly his fear evaporated.

“He might be filling his britches at the moment.”

“Bless your heart. Mother should be there in fifteen minutes. Save it for her.”

An image of Susan Blaylock changing a crappy diaper in her high heels flitted across Clyde's mind.

“I know what you're thinking,” Fawn said, “but you'd be surprised what that woman can do under pressure.”

“If you say so.”

“Thanks again for watching him. I made it to class with time to spare, but I better go. The exam is starting soon. Oh, and …”—the hesitation in her voice caused Clyde to press the phone tighter against his ear—“Dad may be with Mother when she comes by.”

“Right.” Clyde supposed he should have muttered more than one word, but he laid the phone on its cradle and cautiously returned his palm to Nathan's bottom.

There was no love lost between Neil and Clyde, but the fact that the man didn't trust his wife—or Clyde—for something as harmless as babysitting duties made him grit his teeth.

Nathan kicked Clyde in the hip, and Clyde realized he had been standing motionless at the back door. He moved numbly into the living room and laid the toddler on the couch. “You and me need to talk.” Clyde sat and pulled the diaper bag toward him. “Why'd you go and poop your pants?”

“Poo.” Nathan's lips formed a circle around two tiny teeth, and then he scrunched his nose and giggled.

“I don't see the fun in it, kid.” Clyde fumbled with the bag, unzipping and zipping compartments. He had seen Fawn do this enough to know that the wipes were in the white plastic box.

A light tap on the front door set off a chain reaction of mixed emotions, and Clyde stood. Apparently the Blaylocks had hurried.
No problem.
They just needed the baby. They hadn't come to deliver a sentence or dredge up the past or cause problems. Besides, now he wouldn't have to change the diaper. He should be glad.

He pulled Nathan into a sitting position on the low couch before he opened the door.

Susan stood in front of him in a sequined blouse with her smile pulled so widely across her face that her teeth reminded Clyde of a denture commercial. His nerves ricocheted up and down his spine like red sand in a dust devil because he realized she didn't want to be standing in front of his house any more than he wanted her there.

“Hey, Susan.”

“Clyde.”

Neil stood behind her with his cell phone pressed against his cheek and his elbow stuck out. His other hand rested at his waist with his thumb behind his shiny belt buckle. He didn't look at Clyde or even acknowledge the door had been opened. “Where are they now, Hector?” Neil grunted in disgust. “Are you at least keeping the things locked up somewhere?”

Clyde held the door open and motioned them inside. “I'll get his bag.” He offered no other comment, and Susan offered nothing in return.

Nathan, joyously oblivious to the tension that snapped like distant firecrackers on a clear night, appeared to be doing the wave at a Panther football game.

Susan took a cautious step into the house, but her husband turned his back as he continued his phone conversation. “I'm no investigator,” Neil said, “but if the bones have no DNA left on them anyway, why would you keep up the search? Seems like a waste of time and money.”

Susan's lips pressed against each other, forming a thin, hard crack. “On the phone with the sheriff.”

Clyde bent to retrieve the items he had pulled from the bag—a thermometer, a blanket, and a small bottle of baby shampoo—and he shoved them into the diaper bag. When he turned to bid Susan a speedy exit, her head was cocked to the side as she inspected the fallen lamp, still shining brightly.

“Everything go all right?” she asked.

“Just a little mishap.” Clyde righted the lamp. “No harm done.”

“And what happened here?” She pointed to the hole in the wall.

“That was already there. The little tyke didn't damage the house yet.”

Her sigh held traces of a laugh, but then she glanced over her shoulder at Neil just as he dropped his phone in his shirt pocket.

“Thanks for tending to our little man.” Neil leaned against the doorframe and smiled as broadly—and artificially—as Susan had, but then he dropped his voice. “We should get out of the man's way, Susan. I'm sure he has plenty to keep him busy.” He strolled toward the street, leaving Susan to carry Nathan and all his equipment.

“Kid's muddy,” Clyde admitted to her. “I didn't change him.”

Her gaze bounced from her grandson to the curb. “I'll change him at the house.” She pulled the diaper bag over one shoulder and bent to pick up Nathan, who was cruising around the room, using furniture to keep his balance.

“Aw …” Clyde didn't know how to finish his thought. Neil and Susan's ranch was thirty minutes from town, and even though Clyde didn't know a lot about diapers, he was fairly certain half an hour was too long to leave the kid in a nasty one.

Susan said nothing else, and Clyde shut the door as soon as her heels cleared the threshold.

He shivered. The memories flooding his brain were as unwanted as they were haunting. Susan reminded him of his mistakes and regrets, but he figured he could ignore the memories and steer clear of his past.
Their
past.

He peeked out the front window to watch as she stuffed the kid into a car seat, and he expected Neil to greet Nathan with the syrupy smile he reserved for his grandson, but he hardly looked at the child. The rancher crouched in the driver's seat of his fancy pickup, and for a second, Clyde thought Neil was biting his fingernails. But that couldn't be. Neil Blaylock didn't bite his nails. He didn't crouch in his truck. He didn't ignore his grandson.

Clyde wished he had spoken to him. To both of them. He let the curtain flutter back down, then bent to retrieve a toy car from the floor. He should have said something to clear the air, to make all the awkwardness go away, to erase the pain he had caused for two decades. Once again, guilt washed over him like moonlight, and he reminded himself for the thousandth time that he had an obligation to the Blaylocks.

He owed them an apology.

“Lynda, I don't see why you're in such a god-awful hurry. The game doesn't start for an hour.”

As my sister pulled into the school parking lot, gravel crunched beneath the tires, producing a sleepy baritone of pops beneath the backseat floorboard. Velma drove her Chevy with the same forceful control she used when she drove the tractor, and at approximately the same speed.

“I ain't in a hurry to get to the game. Just to get moving.”

With his index finger, Ansel made a slow arc over the dash and pointed to a parking area near the entrance gate of the stadium. My brother-in-law never wasted his breath if a simple gesture would suffice.

“I see it.” Velma swatted his hand. “There's only five cars in the lot. I figure I can manage a parking spot for an ornery old man.”

“Never know,” Ansel crooned.

He sat directly in front of me, and even though I couldn't see his face, I heard a smile in his voice. He pushed his door open, and when it moaned, I found it oddly appropriate. Ansel was only seventy, but his body had weakened in the past few years until he moved like a ninety-year-old. As he climbed from the car, he slowly raised a wooden toothpick and clamped it between his teeth. Undoubtedly he carried a stash of chewing tobacco in his shirt pocket for when the toothpick wasn't enough.

“He any better?” I whispered to Velma as we followed him.

“Not a bit. And don't worry about being quiet. His hearing aids don't pick up anything behind his back.”

We paused as Ansel pulled his wallet from the hip pocket of his Wranglers. With his thumb and forefinger, he withdrew two bills from between the folds of leather and calmly handed them to the Booster Club mother manning the gate.

“What does the doctor say?” I asked Velma.

“More tests and more money.”

“But he'll be all right?”

She hefted her stadium seat to her other hand. “Doc Perkins says Ansel's too hardheaded to be down for long, and he should know. They've been friends since grade school.”

“When will you hear something?”

“Next week sometime, but I wouldn't put it past the old doc to push the tests through quicker. He's just as anxious as we are.”

I followed her into the stadium, but Ansel veered to the right, away from the bleachers and toward the fence by the concession stand. He would lean his elbows on the top rail, chew his toothpick, and nod his head to every male who passed him. By the time the game started, at least three accomplices would join him, and he wouldn't make it into the stands until close to halftime.

Velma and I climbed up the ramp and made our way to the fifty-yard line, where we had our pick of seats. “Is JohnScott still helping on the farm?”

“He tries, but football season don't leave much time.”

I nodded. As head coach of the high school football team and part-time farmer-rancher on the side, my nephew worked harder than any man I knew, but there were only so many hours in the day. “I suppose Sundays are off limits.”

“Sure enough. JohnScott generally spends Sundays with Fawn and Nathan.” JohnScott was Velma's baby, and as the youngest of nine children and the only son, he was somewhat of a pet. I knew it had been hard on Velma when he married and settled down, even though she loved Fawn as much as one of her own daughters.

As I sat down, my gaze drifted to the end zone, where a few brawny players stretched on the field. Ansel leaned on the fence near them, looking shriveled in comparison. “I can't help worrying.”

“JohnScott says God will work things out.”

I rolled my eyes, but Velma didn't pay me any mind. The two of us settled into a comfortable silence and watched the crowd gather, and when Velma noticed Ruthie and Fawn climbing toward us, she gave a satisfied chuckle.

“Momma, you want a bite?” Ruthie sat down holding an oversize soft pretzel toward me so I could pinch off a piece with my fingers.

We still had ten minutes before kickoff, and Nathan held our undivided attention. I would never admit it aloud, but I enjoyed seeing Fawn and that rascally boy of hers as much as I enjoyed seeing Ruthie. Who would have thought I would ever willingly spend time with a Blaylock? Especially Fawn. But she was a Pickett now—as good as family.

“Ruth Ann, where's Dodd?” I pointed my pinky. “He's not at his usual post near your elbow.”

“He's praying with JohnScott and the team.”

“Of course.” I blinked hard to keep from rolling my eyes again. Clyde had been making fun of me so much lately, I was trying to cut back. I bit my lip instead.

Fawn held Cheerios in her palm. “Dodd's bound and determined to get everybody in town into the church building one way or another.”

Velma wagged her head back and forth. “He's got his work cut out for him with Ansel.”

“And Momma,” Ruthie said.

I had packed a Dr Pepper in my bag, intending to save it for halftime, but to slow the conversation, I reached for it now and twisted off the cap. “Church is not for me,” I mumbled into the bottle as I took a swig.

“It could be, though,” Ruthie said.

I frowned at the field, where four players waited for the coin toss, but I didn't answer. Ruthie and I had beat that discussion so firmly into the ground, even wild devil's claw wouldn't grow in the trampled soil.

“Okay.” She sighed. “I'll drop the subject.”

Nathan was sitting calmly on Fawn's lap, but without warning, he lunged for Ruthie, and the two girls became a tangle of arms as they transferred him from one lap to the other. He faced Ruthie with one tennis shoe on each side of her hips, and with his pudgy hands, he explored her face.

Babies were cute and all, but I didn't see how people could stand all that touching with spit-sticky hands. It had been so long since I mothered Ruthie, I barely remembered the mechanics of it, but Hoby had been a natural. I sipped my Dr Pepper and let the too-warm carbonation burn the back of my throat. Sometimes it had seemed that Hoby wanted our baby girl even more than he wanted me.

Nathan's hands tangled in Ruthie's hair, and she patiently pried his fingers loose.

“Here's a safe topic,” she said. “The bones found out at the lake.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Why does everybody keep talking about that?”

“You can't be serious. It's a dead body, for goodness' sake.”

“My dad's tired of hearing about it, too,” Fawn said. “Told me and Mother to hush up.”

“It's not a dead body,” I said. “It's a couple of bones. A wild animal could've carried them from miles away.”

“Actually,” Ruthie said, “the news reported that wild animals wouldn't have dragged them very far. They said the rest of the body is most likely within fifty feet or so.”

“It's like
CSI
,” Fawn said, “only not as gross.”

Velma sniffed. “
CSI
is the most disgusting show I've ever seen.”

“And guess what?” Ruthie said. “I heard there's a crime scene investigation team looking for the rest of the body, so it really is like the TV show.”

Velma's eyes strayed from the kickoff long enough to peer at Ruthie. “Who told you that?”

“Dixie Edison.”

The fans around us briefly went into a flurry as the Panthers gained thirty yards in the first six seconds of the game, but when the sound level waned, Ruthie leaned over me and nudged Velma's shoulder.

“Know what else Dixie told me?” She paused for a millisecond. “She thinks Clyde Felton has the hots for Momma.”

“For crying out loud, Ruth Ann.” I glanced around to see if anyone had heard, but apparently the crowd was too worked up to pay attention to gossip.

Velma peered at Ruthie as though the girl had become an encyclopedia of knowledge. “You don't say.”

“I do.”

I shook my head and blurted the first thing that popped into my head. “Dixie shouldn't be pairing anyone up with a convict.” I instantly regretted my words.

“
Ex
-convict,” Fawn mumbled. “You sound like Blue and Gray.”

“I felt like slapping those old women,” Ruthie said. “Why would they insinuate that Clyde had anything to do with that dead body?”

“Once a jailbird, always a jailbird. In their eyes,” Velma said.

“But he didn't deserve to go to prison in the first place,” Ruthie countered.

“I'm not saying he did,” my sister said. “But people around here remember the prison sentence longer than they remember the details of the thing.”

Their comments rubbed a soft spot behind my lungs. “All they remember is that Clyde broke the law.”

Fawn frowned.

“But he and Susan loved each other,” Ruthie said. “Once upon a time.”

“Aw, Ruth Ann,” I said softly, “if he cared enough about Fawn's momma to have sex with her, he should've cared enough not to.”

Ruthie's face pinched, and I knew I had said the wrong thing again. I tilted my head from side to side, stretching my neck muscles. The two girls didn't mind pushing Clyde into my life—but they strongly disapproved of me pointing out that he had been convicted of statutory rape.

I looked at Fawn and exhaled. “Sorry to talk about your daddy that way, but both you girls might as well look at the big picture. Clyde and I have a lot of baggage in our past, and you fancying us together is absurd.”

“Momma …” Ruthie stared at me, screaming with her eyes. “Fawn doesn't call Clyde
Daddy
.”

“It's all right.” Fawn dug through Nathan's diaper bag. “I know Clyde's not without fault, but he's not a bad person either. He made one unwise decision that affected the rest of his life.”

“There were five of us whose lives went into a tailspin,” I corrected her. “Not that I put the responsibility entirely on him. Clyde and your momma just set it all in motion.”

We fell into a stiff silence, broken only by Nathan's giggles, but when the Panthers ran for a touchdown, we stood and cheered with the rest of the fans, our squabble temporarily forgotten.

I glanced toward the dark end of the field, on the far side of the track, to the pastureland where the scoreboard rose beyond the goalposts. If I remembered correctly, the property belonged to Wilmer Justice, who currently had it planted in cotton. Clyde's sedan was parked just over the fence.

He watched all the games from there. Most people thought he was legally forbidden to set foot on school property, since he was a registered sex offender, but really, he just didn't want to cause trouble.

Thin strands of barbed wire separated him from the festivities, and he sat on the hood of his car. He had one foot on the bumper, and he was sipping something from a can. If it turned out to be a beer, I'd lay into him, but I would be surprised if it was. He had all but sworn off alcohol, saying he had too much to lose.

He stood and craned his neck as the Panthers blocked the opposing team's drive, and when the Panthers thwarted them on the three-yard line, Clyde punched his fist in the air.

I envied him, alone on the other side of the fence, even though he had told me more than once he'd rather sit in the stands with Fawn and Nathan. But I knew that from his perch on the hood of his car, the announcer, the band, and the noise from the crowd would all be muted, and he wouldn't be able to hear the snide remarks or see the looks on people's faces.

Suddenly a shiver of anticipation vibrated through my core, and I was surprised to realize I wouldn't mind sitting over there. Where it was peaceful. I wouldn't mind sitting with Clyde. In fact, I might prefer sitting with him over just about anyone.

Even Ruthie.

Even Velma.

Even anybody.

But I couldn't do that.