Tempting Eden (14 page)

Though small, the house was tastefully decorated with fine antiques and canvases. Some of the paintings caught my eye with their melancholy shades or the use of brush strokes to create movement. She was quite a collector, it seemed.

A delicious aroma flavored the air.

“Please, have a seat.” She motioned to a dining table surrounded by ladderback chairs. She had already laid two place settings for us. I took the proffered seat as she bustled about, setting cornbread, roasted vegetables, and a pot roast onto the table.

“Can I help?”

“Oh, no, no. Guests in my house don’t do any of the cooking, cleaning, or serving.” She smiled, the lines next to her mouth and eyes showing that she did so often.

She was warm, motherly. If a woman like this had no problems with Jack, then how could I?

Once she’d poured our tumblers full of sweet tea, she took her seat across from me. “Please, dig in.”

The smells were mouth-watering, so I didn’t hesitate to follow her instructions. I had never been much of a cook, but I could eat with the best of them. The first bite of pot roast was heaven, rosemary and basil flavoring the meat to perfection. Fairfax hadn’t been lying when he said the woman knew how to cook.

We ate in silence for a while, interrupted only by the sounds of knives and forks and the distant whir of a lawn mower.

“This is delicious, Maria.”

“Thank you.”

I’d stuffed myself as if I hadn’t eaten in days. I’d skipped breakfast, too nervous to even look at food. Somehow, Maria put me at ease enough to go cavewoman on the feast she’d prepared. I wondered how she knew my mother. Mother had never mentioned a Maria or a Ms. Temple.

I was about to ask her when she placed her knife and fork along the sides of her plate and met my eyes. “So you want to know about Jack?”

I took a large swallow of sweet tea. “Yes, I do.”

“How about we sit out on the sun porch.”

“Can I help clean up?”

She swatted her hand at me. “Oh, the dishes will be here when we get back. At least, in my experience, they always are. They can wait a bit.” She grabbed both our teas and led me toward the back of the house, her dark hair swinging down her back. She wore a maxi skirt and a tank top with a cardigan, perfect fall attire in the South.

We entered a room with a glass ceiling and many windows. Maria clearly had a green thumb—plants lined the walls of the room, and I spotted a little winter garden out in the yard. At the far back of her property was a carriage house with an apartment above it.

We sat on her sofa, sinking into the feathered cushions as the sunlight poured into the room, making it pleasantly warm. A painting hung opposite us, blocking the light from one of the windows. It seemed out of place, as if it were brand new. Art appreciation was never my thing, but I could tell this piece was special.

It was the sea, but not. Yellow light played along the top of the water as the sun rose in the background, but beneath the waves and the foamy surf was darkness, darker than such shallow water could ever be. It was as if the sun’s brightness wasn’t allowed to reach the depths.

I realized Maria was watching me study the painting. Her dark eyes were attentive, intelligent.

“This is beautiful. What a great room. And you seem to have a knack for gardening. My thumb is a shade of herbicide.”

She laughed at my lame joke, which made me like her more. “Thank you. I tend to let the plants get a little too wild sometimes, but then again, sometimes that’s what they need.” She surveyed the indoor garden. “To get out of hand a bit so I can trim them into a more pleasing form, one that helps them grow stronger.”

“Is that what you did with Jack?”

She tapped the side of her nose with her forefinger and nodded. “Smart cookie. But not exactly. Jack is like the trunk of the tree. I can work with branches, trim them, bend them, steer them, but the trunk isn’t quite as easily guided. No, Jack had to decide for himself which way he wanted to grow.”

“And which way was that?”

“Straight—and—narrow.” She punctuated each word with pride. “But not at first. When he first came to the detention center where I volunteered, he’d already spent six months in Elmore County. That’s where the worst of the worst state criminals go. He didn’t have an easy time of it, especially being so young.”

I’d heard about Elmore, about the state and federal investigations of alleged inmate fights set up by the wardens and guards. It was a brutal place.

“So, when he came to me, he had no trust left in him. It had been beaten out of him, you see?”

I nodded. Her words were making some of my worst fears come to life. Maybe Jack had been conning me this whole time. But could he con a woman like Maria Temple? One look into her sharp eyes affirmed that such a thing wasn’t possible.

“I ran a volunteer program where former educators like myself would work with the juvenile inmates to give them an education—so they could get out of the system for good. Jack, though, he didn’t want my help, told me he didn’t need it. He didn’t care about getting his GED or getting an education. He just wanted to get out of the facility. No plan, no future. He was so stubborn.” She laughed and shook her head. “So stubborn that I began to doubt I’d ever get him to open up. And he was
angry
. So many emotions bubbled inside him and erupted on the surface like an over-active volcano. But I came to understand the emotions—all negative—came from a place of hurt, more than anything else. If that makes sense?”

“It does I think. He told me about what happened to Helen.” I’d hugged Adele extra hard when I’d gotten home the night before. Then I’d lain awake, wishing I could protect her from the world, hoping that what I was doing was enough to keep her safe. I never knew Helen, but her death haunted me.

“That wonderful little girl was his anchor, his world. After what happened to her and then what he did to reconcile it, well, he didn’t see his life as having value. He was a lost cause by the time I began seeing him.”

I laughed nervously. “I thought you were supposed to convince me he’s okay now.”

She folded her hands in her lap and shook her head slightly. “I don’t think he’ll ever get over what happened to Helen. On some level, that will always be a thorn in his paw.”

I forced myself to think about it from his point of view. To think about what I’d do if, God forbid, something so horrible ever happened to Adele. What would I do if I had the chance to kill the perpetrator of such a horrendous crime? The answer took no time to pop up in my mind.
I’d pull the trigger.

“Though that hurt will always be there, it was ultimately what saved him. After I’d been trying for months to get him to open up to me, I was on the verge of giving up. And, mind you, giving up isn’t something I do lightly! Every child in that facility is a hard case.” She took a fierce gulp of tea. “It’s always a fight. Jack was the toughest fighter I’ve ever had. He cussed me, spat on me, threatened me. Anything and everything to get me to leave him alone.”

It was nearly impossible for me to square the person Maria described with the well put-together, stoic man I knew. “So, what happened? How did you get to him?”

“Helen.” She smiled when she said the name, the same as Jack did. “I went through the storage box of items they took from him when he first went into the system. Inside I found the key. A photo of Helen. One of those wallet sized school photo proofs they send home. Her smile was a jolt of joy. She truly was a beautiful soul. If only I could have taught her, she’d be done with college now and probably in law school or medical school. And Jack loved her more than life itself. God, did he love that child!”

She wiped at her eyes. The bridge of my nose stung with unspent tears for the little girl who was gone too soon.

“Anyway, I took that photo to Jack. He held it in his hands and shook as if he were freezing to death. He collapsed at my feet and cried for her. It was the most gut-wrenching thing I’ve ever witnessed. He wailed. You know how in the Bible they talk about wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes? I never knew what it really meant until I saw him. The depth of his sorrow was too much for him to bear.”

The stinging grew as tears welled in my eyes.

“He let me comfort him then. He clung to me. He’s been my son ever since. After that, every time I asked him to do something, to learn something, to read something, every time he told me he couldn’t, I pointed to the picture pinned above his bed. ‘Do it for her,’ I would tell him. And he did. He was no longer the rude, violent boy who first came to the facility. He grew straight and tall, strong and proud.”

Her gaze wandered to the hardy plants along the walls of the room. “He read on a third-grade level at best when we first started working. By the time he left lockup, he’d read all the classics, plenty of contemporary, and even written a few things himself. Most of all, he loved to paint, loved to put the images of his dreams onto canvas. You may have noticed some of them throughout my house.”

“This one?” I gestured toward the ocean scene.

She laughed mischievously. “He’s going to be none-too-pleased that I took that one and hung it. He did it when he was with you at the beach. Said it was only a draft, not good enough to hang, but I love it.”

“So do I.” I stood and walked closer to it, studying the brush strokes as if they were a decoder ring to Jack’s heart and mind.

“He took his creativity with him to the university. I’m good friends with several of the uppity-ups there because I went to school with them at Paramont.”

“Is that how you know my mother?” Paramont was the boarding school where all the wealthy Birmingham families—old money, mostly—sent their girls. It was one of the few things my mother remembered fondly, it seemed, though she only spoke of it in broad strokes. Georgianna Rochester definitely wasn’t one for detail.

“Yes, we were very close for a time.” She sounded almost wistful. “But then we grew up, grew apart.”

“So, you two were best friends?” I looked at her over my shoulder.

She regarded the tile floor, the first time she’d let her chin drop during our conversation. “We were. We had…” She waved her hand in the air, as if scooting the past away, and met my gaze again. “That was a long time ago. And you came here to find out about Jack, not about some schoolgirl days long gone by.”

I let her change the subject, though I was dying to know about her and my mother. Georgiana had no true close friends I could think of, just the crones from the country club and a few others who lived high above the city. To have what I suspected was her closest childhood confidant in my presence was like a window into my mother’s past. I was desperate to look through the panes and get some semblance of an understanding, but Maria changed the subject.

“Anyway, Jack’s SAT scores were pretty darn good for a kid who’d studied for it while under lock and key. Smart boy. He got out and made a fresh start. His record’s been wiped clean because of his juvenile status. So, on paper, when he got out, he was stainless.”

I turned back to her. The whir of the lawnmower from earlier grew louder, intruding on my thoughts and our conversation. “So he came to live with you?”

She pointed to the carriage house. “Right up there. I’d let him stay here in the house with me, but I suspect he’s more comfortable in his own space. Of course, he could move out now that he has a good job. I think he stays because he knows I like having him around. Him being up there makes me feel like he’s my guardian angel watching over me.”

I took a deep breath and let the question in my heart rise to my mouth. “Do you think it’s safe? I have a daughter. I can’t—I mean—is he safe?”

She quirked her head to the side. “Don’t take this the wrong way, because you seem like a lovely woman, and I’m pleased as punch that Jack is working for you. But, I trust him more than I trust you, and likely more than I will ever trust anyone else ever again. He is, in every sense of the word, solid. I’m sure you’ve noticed how he keeps his emotions in check, maintains a steady temper even when things get hairy?”

“Yes. That’s always sort of intrigued me.”

“He does that because he believes Helen would want him to. He controls himself. He tries to be a good man. He has a reason. And,” she walked to me, and we studied the painting together, “I think he may have yet another reason to be a good man, and she’s standing right next to me.”

My cheeks heated. Jack’s mom just called me out for getting frisky with her son.

Maria put her arm around me and gave a friendly squeeze. “Give him a chance. You won’t regret it. But I do have to warn you, he’s my son just as if he were my own flesh and blood. Despite his past, he’s far more susceptible to being hurt than he is to hurting others. Don’t hurt him.” Her grip on my shoulder tightened and then relaxed again.

“I don’t intend—”

The whirring noise of the lawnmower grew to a crescendo, ended in a clanging sound of metal on metal, then silence, and finally, a string of curses. We turned to look out the wide glass panes and saw Jack about ten feet away glaring down with disgust at a push mower.

My mouth hung open. He was shirtless, his perfect V-shape on display in the afternoon sun. Beautiful, flawless brown skin. Broad shoulders and rippling abs, made even more pronounced by his exertions. He was tattooed, dark ink marking his chest and upper arms. He put his hands on his hips in a pose of frustration. He huffed out a breath, though I couldn’t hear it through the glass, and leaned his head back, looking up to the sky. His Adam’s apple stood out against the long line of his neck. I followed the dark hair that curled at his chest, down his tight abs to where it ended at the top of his shorts.

Maria cleared her throat. I snapped my head around and found her watching me, a coy smile playing at the corner of her lips.

“Well, if you’re satisfied with my rundown of Jack’s character, why don’t you go on out and say hi? He’d love it, I’m sure.”

I very much doubted he would love an impromptu drop-in by me, but her tone—though warm—suggested an order more than a request. I was beginning to see how she was able to mold delinquents into fine upstanding members of society. The finest one was standing on her lawn at that very moment, smoldering hot and now looking right at me through the glass.