Nobody's Baby but Mine (14 page)

She didn’t want to do any such thing, and she struggled to hide her dismay. “Life’s complicated. That’s a hard thing to promise.”

“ ’Course it’s hard,” she snapped. “You didn’t think bein’ married to this man was gonna be easy, did you?”

“No, but . . .”

“Do what I say. You promise me right now, gal.”

Under the force of those sharp blue eyes, Jane’s own will dissolved, and she found she couldn’t deny this old woman. “I promise that I’ll do my best.”

“That’s good enough.” Once again, her lids closed. The creak of her rocker and her wheezy breathing underscored the smooth molasses voice coming from the speakers. “Calvin, promise me you’re gonna look after Janie Bonner like a husband should and that you’ll think about her welfare before you think about your own.”

“Aw, Annie, after all these years of waitin’ for the right girl to come along, you think I wouldn’t take care of her once I found her?”

Annie opened her eyes and nodded, having failed to notice either the malevolent gaze Cal shot at Jane or the fact that he hadn’t promised a single thing.

“If I’d of made your mama and daddy do this, Calvin, maybe things would of been easier for them, but I wasn’t smart enough, then.”

“It didn’t have anything to do with being smart, you old hypocrite. You were so happy to see your daughter catch a Bonner that you didn’t care about anything else.”

Her mouth pursed and Jane saw where her crimson lipstick had bled into the age lines around her lips. “Bonners always thought they was too good for Glides, but I guess we showed them. Glide blood runnin’ true and strong in all three of my grandsons. At least it is in you and Gabriel. Ethan’s always been a sissy boy, more Bonner than Glide.”

“Just because Ethan’s a preacher doesn’t make him a sissy.” He rose from the couch. “We have to go now, but don’t you think I’ve forgotten about that front step. Now where are you hiding those damn cigarettes?”

“Somewhere you won’t find them.”

“That’s what you think.” He headed for an old bureau next to the kitchen door where he dug into the bottom drawer and pulled out a carton of Camels. “I’ll be taking these with me.”

“You just want to smoke ’em yourself.” She rose from the rocker with great difficulty. “When Calvin comes back, you come with him, Janie Bonner. You got a lot to learn ’bout bein’ married to a country boy.”

“She’s working on a real important research project,” Cal said, “so she’s not going to have much time for visiting.”

“Is that true?” Jane thought she saw a flash of hurt in the old woman’s eyes.

“I’ll come visit whenever you like.”

“Good.”

Cal’s jaw clenched, and she realized she’d displeased him.

“Now go away.” Annie shooed them toward the door. “I want to listen to my Harry without all this talk.”

Cal opened the door for Jane to slip through. They had just reached the car when Annie’s voice stopped them.

“Janie Bonner!”

She turned to see the old woman regarding them through the screen door.

“Don’t you wear nothin’ to bed, not even in the winter, you hear me, gal? You go to your husband the way your Maker made you. Stark naked. Keeps a man from strayin’.”

Jane couldn’t summon an appropriate response, so she waved and got in the car.

“That’ll be the day,” Cal muttered as they drove away from the house. “I’ll bet you wear clothes in the shower.”

“It really galls you, doesn’t it, that I didn’t strip for you?”

“The list of what you’ve done that galls me, Professor, is so long I don’t know where to start. And why did you tell her you’d come back whenever she likes? I brought you here because I had to, but that’s it. You’re not spending any more time with her.”

“I already told her I’d come back. How do you suggest I get out of it?”

“You’re the genius. I’m sure you can figure something out.”

Jane couldn’t tolerate the thick silence that had fallen between them any longer. “I haven’t seen a drive-in in years. Did you used to come here?”

Somewhat to her surprise, he answered her. “This is where all the high-school kids got together in the summer. We’d park in the back row, drink beer, and make out.”

“I’ll bet it was fun.”

Jane didn’t realize how wistful she’d sounded until he shot her a curious glance. “You never did anything like that?”

“I was in college when I was sixteen. I spent my Saturday nights in the science library.”

“No boyfriends.”

“Who was going to ask me out? I was too young for my classmates, and the few boys I knew who were my own age thought I was a freak.”

She realized too late that she’d just given him a golden opportunity to take another verbal swipe at her, but he didn’t do it. Instead he turned his attention back to the road as if he regretted having even such a short conversation with her. She noticed that the hard edges of his profile made him seem very much a part of these mountains.

They’d approached the outskirts of Salvation before he spoke again. “I’ve always stayed at my parents when I visit, but since I couldn’t do that this year, I bought a house.”

“Oh?” She waited for him to offer a few details, but he said nothing more.

The town of Salvation was small and compact, nestled in a narrow valley. The quaint downtown section held an assortment of stores, including a charmingly rustic restaurant, a shop that featured twig furniture, and the pink-and-blue caboose-shaped Petticoat Junction Cafe. They passed an Ingles grocery store, then crossed a bridge. Cal turned onto another winding, climbing road, then pulled into a lane paved with fresh gravel and came to a stop.

Jane stared at the two wrought-iron gates directly in front of them. Each held a pair of gold praying hands at its center. She swallowed, barely repressing a moan. “Please tell me this isn’t yours.”

“Home sweet home.” He got out of the car, pulled a key from his pocket, and fiddled with a control box on a stone pillar to the left. Within seconds, the gates with their praying hands swung open.

He climbed back in the car, put it into gear, and drove forward. “The gate operates electronically. The realtor left the controls inside.”

“What is this place?” she said weakly.

“My new house. It’s also the only piece of real estate in Salvation that’ll give us enough privacy to hide our nasty little secret from the world.”

He rounded a small curve, and Jane caught her first glimpse of the house. “It looks like Tara on steroids.”

The gravel drive ended in a motor court that formed a crescent in front of a white, colonial plantation house. Six massive columns stretched across the front, along with a balcony of elaborate gold grillwork. A fanlight of jeweltoned colored glass topped the double-wide front door, while three marble steps led to the veranda.

“G. Dwayne liked to do things in a big way,” Cal said.

“This was his house?” Of course it was. She’d known it the moment she’d seen the praying hands on the gates. “I can’t believe you bought the house of a crooked televangelist.”

“He’s dead, and I need privacy.” He stopped the Jeep in front, then craned his neck to look up at the ornate facade. “The realtor guaranteed I’d like it.”

“Are you saying this is the first time you’ve seen it?”

“G. Dwayne and I weren’t close, so he never put me on his guest list.”

“You bought a house without looking at it?” She thought about the car she was riding in and didn’t know why she was even surprised.

He climbed out without replying and began to unload. She got out, too, and stooped down to pick up one of her suitcases, only to have him brush her aside. “You’re in my way. Get inside. It’s unlocked.”

With that gracious invitation, she mounted the marble stairs and opened the front door. As she stepped inside and caught her first glimpse of the interior, she saw that it was even worse than the outside. The open foyer had at its center an overly grandiose fountain with a marble sculpture of a Grecian maiden pouring water from an urn balanced on her shoulder. The fountain was running, thanks, no doubt, to the realtor who had unloaded this monstrosity on Cal, and the multicolored lights hidden beneath the water gave the whole thing a certain Las Vegas look. Hanging above the foyer like an inverted wedding cake was an enormous crystal chandelier made up of hundreds of prisms and teardrops held together with gold swags and filigree.

Turning to the right, she entered a sunken living room that was furnished with fake French rococo furniture, elaborately fringed draperies, and an Italian marble fireplace complete with cavorting cupids. Perhaps the room’s most vulgar piece was the coffee table. Its round glass top was supported by a center column shaped like a kneeling blackamoor, naked except for a crimson-and-gold loincloth.

She moved on to the dining room where a pair of crystal chandeliers topped a table that could easily seat twenty. But the most oppressive of the downstairs rooms was the study, which was outfitted with Gothic arches, thick, olive green velvet drapes, and dark, heavy furniture including a massive desk and a chair that looked as if it could have belonged to Henry VIII.

She reentered the foyer just as Cal was bringing in his golf clubs. As he leaned them against the side of the fountain, she looked up toward the second floor, which was surrounded by a balcony of grillwork that was even more ornate than the balcony outside. “I’m afraid to see the upstairs.”

He straightened and regarded her with cold eyes. “You don’t like it? I’m hurt. Hillbillies like me spend our whole lives dreaming of owning a beautiful place like this.”

She barely repressed a shudder as she turned away and headed upstairs, where she wasn’t surprised to find more swags, fringe, velvet, and gilt. She opened a door at one end and stepped into the master bedroom, which was a nightmare of red, black, and gold. It held still another chandelier along with a king-size bed resting on a platform. A red-brocade canopy decorated with heavy gold-and-black tassels topped the bed. Something caught her eye, and as she walked closer, she saw that the underside of the canopy held an enormous mirror. She quickly backed away, only to realize that Cal had entered the room behind her.

He went over to the bed and looked under the canopy to see what had caught her attention. “Well, what do you know? I always wanted me one of these. This house is even better than I thought it’d be.”

“It’s awful. Nothing more than a monument to greed.”

“Doesn’t bother me none. I wasn’t the one who cheated the God-fearing.”

His narrow-mindedness maddened her. “Think of all those people sending Snopes money they squeezed out of their food budget and social security checks. I wonder how many malnourished children went into that ceiling mirror?”

“A couple dozen for sure.”

She shot him a quick look to see if he was joking, but he had wandered over to explore an elaborate ebony cabinet that held electronic equipment.

“I can’t believe how callous you’re being about this.” She didn’t even know why she was trying to make someone so self-involved and intellectually impaired see beyond his limits.

“You’d better not say that in front of G. Dwayne’s creditors. More than a few of them are finally getting paid because I bought this place.” He slid out a deep drawer in the cabinet. “He sure did have a taste for porn. There must be a couple dozen X-rated videos in here.”

“Perfect.”

“You ever see
Slumber Party Panty Pranks
?

“That does it!” She stomped over to the cabinet, dug into the drawer, and filled her arms with the cassettes. The pile was so large, she had to brace it under her chin as she headed out the door to find a garbage can. “Starting now, this house is G-rated.”

“That’s right,” he called after her. “The only use you’ve got for sex is to get yourself knocked up.”

She felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. She stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to face him.

He glared at her with those damn-the-torpedo eyes, his hands splayed on his hips, chin jutted forward, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d told her to meet him outside so they could settle this with their fists. Once again, she realized how woefully ill equipped she was to handle this man. Surely there had to be a better way than sniping.

“Is this how we want to live for the next three months?” she asked quietly. “With the two of us attacking each other?”

“Works for me.”

“But we’ll both be miserable. Please. Let’s call a truce.”

“You want a truce?”

“Yes. Let’s stop all these personal attacks and try to get along.”

“No dice, Professor.” He stared at her for a long moment, then walked forward, his steps unhurried, but still threatening. “You’re the one who started this dirty little war, and now you’re going to live with the consequences.” He brushed past her and headed down the stairs.