The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (14 page)

She’s in love with him,
Alice thought. She recalled Laura’s long-ago crush that only a blind man could have missed. Hector wasn’t blind, just discreet. Laura had been just a teenager, after all, even if he hadn’t been much older. Then there was Peter. She wondered if Hector would be so discreet now.

Alice was distracted by the newspaper on the table. A headline jumped out at her:
SLAIN MAN’S IDENTITY REMAINS UNKNOWN.
She scanned the article. Something about a transient found stabbed to death in the hills above Horse Creek. How ghastly. The last murder she could recall was that old booze hound, Anson Grundig, battering his poor wife to death, but that had to have been eight or nine years ago. Carson Springs wasn’t exactly a hotbed of crime.

“What do you know about this?” she asked.

“It happened last Friday,” Laura said. “No suspects yet, as far as I know. The police are still looking.”

“I can hardly sleep nights just thinking of it.” Maude’s soft little cushion of a face seemed to fold in on itself. “A stranger on the loose, out to murder innocent people.”

“It could be someone we know,” Alice said.

Maude grew visibly pale.

Laura shot Alice a warning look, saying pointedly, “Don’t you have to be somewhere?”

Alice glanced at her watch. “You’re right. We should be going.”

Laura looked about to protest, then sighed, forking a hand through hair already scrambled. “Okay, okay. Just give me a minute to throw something on.” She glanced down at her rumpled shorts and T-shirt as if just now noticing what she was wearing. “God knows what Mom would do without us to keep her in line, right?”

In the car, traveling east along Old Sorrento Road past houses much like Laura’s—most with barns and the requisite horse trailer out front—it occurred to Alice that she had no idea how serious this was. What if it was more than just sex? What if they were actually
in love
? She couldn’t picture her mother moving in with Ian. That would leave only one other option: Ian would have to move into Isla Verde.

He’d be sleeping in their bed. Sitting in Dad’s place at the table
…

Alice felt slightly sick.

The road began to slope downward as they neared Sorrento Creek. They rattled over a cattle grid, past a sunny pasture dotted with oaks in which cows grazed peacefully. Rising over the next hill were the vine-shrouded walls of Our Lady of the Wayside.

Alice recalled the time she and her sister had sneaked into the convent. She’d been ten and Laura twelve. All they knew of the nuns’ sequestered existence was what their mother’s friend Gerry had told them. Nothing could have prepared them for what lay behind those forbidden walls: the lush garden and quaint storybook buildings, the chapel from which sweet voices floated like a chorus of angels. It was just after dawn—they’d slipped away while their parents were asleep, riding their bicycles two miles in the near dark—and they were ravenous. Alice was reaching to pluck an orange from a tree when a voice rang out.

“Don’t touch that.”

A tall, stern-faced nun strode from the shadows of the chapel, a prayer book in one hand and rosary beads in the other. She cast a long blade of shadow in the rising sun.

“We…we were just looking,” Alice managed to squeak.

“Where are your parents?”

“They don’t know we’re here.” Laura, white with terror, stepped in front of Alice as if to protect her.

“I see.” The tall nun appeared to be pondering what sort of punishment they should receive. “Come with me.” She turned and began making her way down the path.

They’d had no choice but to follow her, trembling all the way, down a winding path and up a short flight of steps. After what seemed an eternity they reached a building with a cross carved in the stone arch above its stout wooden door and a statue of the Virgin Mary out front.

Inside it was cool and dark, and smelled like a church. They walked down a long corridor, their reflections shimmering ghostlike on the waxed tiles, into a large, open-beamed kitchen filled with light. A wooden table stretched along one wall. The nun sat them down, giving them each a bowl of oatmeal from the pot on the stove.

“I’m Mother Ignatius,” she said, not unkindly. She set out milk and honey. Alice saw that she was old—older than their parents—her face wreathed in lines, her blue eyes nested in crinkles. “When you’re finished with your breakfast, I’ll take you home.”

Alice shot her a startled look. “How?” Nuns, to the best of her knowledge, didn’t drive.

Mother Ignatius frowned in puzzlement, then the creases in her forehead smoothed. “Oh, the usual way. On angels’ wings.”

Alice wished they were on angels’ wings now. For she had the uneasy feeling this mission—much as it might ultimately be for their mother’s benefit—was anything but merciful. Wes’s words came back to her.
Your mother’s only human.

Yet how could she sit still while her mother dragged her father’s memory through the mud? Long after Ian was gone, the taint would remain. Alice frowned and pressed down a little harder on the gas pedal.

They turned south onto Chumash, where pastures gave way to citrus and avocado groves. Through the trees Alice caught a glimpse of a ramshackle farmhouse—the old Truesdale place. No one had seen Dick Truesdale since his wife’s death more than five years ago. It was rumored he’d taken to his bed and was now almost an invalid.

Minutes later they were pulling to a stop in front of her mother’s house—the house Alice would always think of as her grandparents’. As she climbed from the car a familiar sound greeted her: the swishing of Lupe’s broom. Alice could see her mother’s elderly housekeeper through the wrought-iron gates to the courtyard: a rawhide strip of a woman attacking its tiles with her broom as if beating a snake to death.

“Lupe! For heaven’s sake come in out of that heat,” called an exasperated voice from inside.

Alice and Laura exchanged a glance. Their mother had been nagging Lupe to slow down as long as they could remember. Nothing ever changed. Which, in light of their own task, provided little comfort. Laura lingered in the driveway.

“Are you sure we should go through with this?”

“We don’t have a choice,” Alice said.

“Remember those embarrassing talks about the birds and the bees?” Her sister groaned. “Who’d have thought we’d be having the same conversation with
her
?”

They made their way up the path, the pergola, ablaze in climbing black-eyed Susan, a cool tunnel after the hot drive. A wind chime tinkled softly amid the stubborn swishing of Lupe’s broom.

She didn’t see them at first, so intent was she on her task. Leaves from the potted citrus trees had been swept into neat little piles. A dustpan heaped with bougainvillea blossoms sat on the edge of the lily pond. Then she looked up, her wrinkled brown face breaking into a delighted grin.

“
Ay, mis hijitas.
No one told me you were coming.”

“It was sort of spur of the moment.” Laura glanced uneasily at Alice.

Lupe propped her broom against a pillar and walked over to hug them.

She playfully pinched Alice’s waist. “Marriage must agree with you. You’ve put on a few pounds.” Her brown eyes sparkled. “Unless it’s a baby on the way.”

Heat rose in Alice’s cheeks.
You’d better get used to it. You’ll be hearing it for the next ten or fifteen years.
But something kept her from setting the record straight. Never mind Lupe, how would her family take it? Her poor sister, for whom motherhood wasn’t an option. And her mother, who’d be devastated to learn there’d be no grandchildren.

“More like too many piña coladas.” Alice managed a weak laugh.

“Lupe!”
Sam called once more.

The old woman sighed as if to say,
You see what I have to put up with?
Shaking her head and muttering something in Spanish under her breath, she retrieved her broom and went on sweeping.

Just as they so often had in childhood, the two sisters wordlessly joined hands, stepping up onto the low porch and letting themselves in the door. The house was little changed from their grandparents’ day. Worn Navajo rugs were scattered over the terra-cotta-tiled floor, and in the sunny, white-walled living room the Mission oak furniture stood out in stark relief. The only real difference was the bright Mexican folk art that had replaced the gloomy old paintings of the previous era.

Sam must have heard them for she appeared just then, wearing a look of pleasant surprise. “Alice! When did you get back? You should have called to let me know you were coming.”

Alice eyed her in disbelief. Could this be their mother? Sam’s auburn hair was pulled back in a pony-tail that revealed a pair of dangly silver-and-turquoise earrings. Her cheeks were aglow and her gray-green eyes sparkled. Even the outfit she was wearing was new—a silky teal top and matching trousers that rippled like water about her slender frame.

A knot formed in Alice’s stomach.
A woman only looks that way when she’s in love.
Clearly, they had their work cut out for them.

She kissed her mother’s cheek, catching the light scent of jasmine—a scent she couldn’t remember Sam ever wearing. “Sorry,” she said. “We only got back last night.”

“Never mind. You’re here now.” Sam smiled and stepped back to look at her. “My goodness, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so brown. Was Maui as wonderful as everyone says?”

“It only rained once.” Alice was eager to get off the subject. “Did you get my postcard?”

“Yesterday.” Sam fingered a pretty silver pendant on a cord around her neck. A gift from Ian? “I can’t believe it’s been three weeks. It seems like you just left.”

“I feel like I’ve been gone forever.”
In more ways than one,
Alice thought.

“No need to rub it in,” Laura grumbled good- naturedly. “I haven’t been anywhere since that jewelry fair in Santa Fe last summer.” With a weary sigh, she plopped down on the sofa.

“I’ve been pestering her for months to take some time off,” Sam told Alice. “She always claims she’s too busy.”

Not half as busy as
you’ve
been,
Alice thought.

She took a deep breath. “Mom…”

Laura beat her to it, blurting, “She knows about Ian.”

Sam grew very still, her eyes flashing with an emotion Alice couldn’t read. But when she spoke, her voice was steady. “You’d have found out sooner or later, I suppose.”

Alice couldn’t hold back a second longer. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard. Mom, please tell me this isn’t happening!”

Once again that flash of emotion, then Sam sighed. “I suppose I owe you some sort of an explanation. All right then.” She waited until Alice was seated alongside Laura. “It wasn’t something either of us planned. It just…happened. Ian’s the first man since…” She caught herself, and said, “We enjoy each other’s company. He makes me laugh.” She shrugged. “That’s about all there is to tell.”

“Are you sleeping with him?” Under ordinary circumstances, Alice wouldn’t have dreamed of speaking so rudely to her mother.

Sam stiffened noticeably, her eyes the cool color of slate. In an equally cool voice, she said, “I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.”

Alice couldn’t believe it. How could her mother act as if it were no big deal? “This is my husband’s
son
we’re talking about,” she cried. “It’s beyond bizarre. It’s…it’s practically indecent!”

“No more so than your marrying a man twice your age.”

Alice’s cheeks burned. “If you think there’s any comparison between—”

“Mom has a point,” Laura put in.

Alice turned to glare at her. “Whose side are you on?”

“Nobody’s.” Laura’s chin tilted up. “I’m just saying that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

“Okay,” Alice said, “maybe it
is
hypocritical. But I’m not the one making the rules. People aren’t going to be as open-minded as they were about Wes and me.” She looked pleadingly at her mother, standing there in her teal pantsuit like a blade of grass stubbornly pushing its way up through a sidewalk. “Is that what you want? To have everyone whispering behind your back? To be the butt of every joke?”

Flags of red stood out on her mother’s cheeks. “If that were the case,” she said quietly, “I think it would say more about the people in this town than it does about me.”

Alice began to tremble. In some distant part of her brain she realized that perhaps she was being a bit hysterical, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She was like a train hurtling down the tracks, screaming toward its destination.

“I can’t believe you’d do this to Dad,” she said.

The color drained from her mother’s face. Slowly, she walked over to the ottoman by the fireplace and sank down. In a carefully measured voice, she said, “This has nothing to do with your father.”

“It has
everything
to do with him.” Alice shot to her feet, trembling. “It’s like a slap in his face!”

“Your father’s dead, but in case you haven’t noticed I’m not.” Sam rose, too, and walked over to the window, where she stood staring sightlessly out at the garden.

An uncomfortable silence fell, which ended with Laura saying miserably, “I never should have opened my big mouth.”

Sam turned to cast her a stern, but not unloving look. “You’re right, you shouldn’t have. Not,” she added with a small, wry smile, “that your Aunt Audrey wouldn’t have gotten wind of it eventually. She seems to have a sixth sense about such things.”

“Does this mean you plan to go on seeing him?” Alice asked in horror.

“For now,” Sam said evenly. “I don’t know about down the road.”

“So it doesn’t matter what
we
think?”

Her expression softened. “Of course, it does. You’re my daughters. But I shouldn’t have to ask your permission,” she added firmly.

Alice’s head was spinning. “I guess this means Tom is out of the picture.” Her father’s slightly boring partner seemed far more attractive all of a sudden.

Sam flashed her a keen look. “Would you be happier if he weren’t?”

Alice didn’t have an answer; anything she said would have sounded contradictory.

“Okay then, end of discussion.” Sam put on a determinedly bright smile, saying briskly, “What do you say we head into the kitchen? I have a coffee cake just out of the oven. Oatmeal pecan—your favorite.” She cast a hopeful look at her daughters.