What the Heart Wants (17 page)

If she closed her eyes, she could imagine him still working at his desk with the door always open in case his daughter needed him—except, of course, when he was counseling.

Her eyelids prickled at the memory—for herself and for Daddy.

The air in the small room was musty and close, but as soon as Jase walked in, a feeling of peace came over him. His eyes swept across the collection of recognitions, awards, and plaques on the far wall, then focused on the adjacent wall, its tall bookcases crammed full to overflowing. Over the desk hung a large photo of the family wearing their best smiles—Reverend Ed, Mrs. Harlow, and Laurel.

Everything was the same as it had always been. In fact, he had the eerie feeling that any second now his mentor would come walking through the door. As if in a trance, he took the chair opposite the desk to wait for him.

There was a sound behind him, a stifled sob. He whirled the chair around and stood up.

Silent tears were running down Laurel's cheeks.

She wiped her face with her hand. “I—I loved him so much.”

He went to her immediately. What a jerk he was, getting her to let him in the study just so he could indulge himself with a trip down memory lane. Putting an arm around her waist, he walked her out of the room and closed the door behind them, as if he could shut away the sorrow.

“It's exactly how he left it,” she said in between sniffles. “His reading glasses are still there on the desk, ready for when he needs them. Mama and I didn't have the heart to go through his drawers, so Mr. Bridges did it for us before we locked up the room.”

Jase looked back at the closed door in silent tribute. “He was my hero.”

Laurel strolled out into the backyard to be alone for a while, finally taking a seat in the rose arbor, the one she'd posed in so many years ago. The roses still climbed riotously all over the arched wooden trellis, just like they had ever since she could remember.

Of course, Daddy was Jase's hero. He was everybody's hero—the Reverend Edward Harlow didn't leap tall buildings in a single bound, but he did advocate equal rights for all, feed the poor, promote education, and participate in whatever other good cause came along. No wonder Jase admired Daddy so much that he even drove the same kind of car.

She rested back against the slatted swing.

She'd thought she had come to peace with her father's death, but being in his study brought all the old pain back to her. That little room, which had always been the private retreat of the man of the house, was the only room that had been totally and entirely Daddy's. She wasn't sure what Erasmus had used it for, but Grampa had stored his liquor in it to escape Gramma's Baptist eagle eye. After his father-in-law's death, Daddy had claimed the room and fitted it out to his own specifications. In hindsight, Laurel wished all he had been doing in there was swilling Jack Daniel's.

She closed her eyes and inhaled the sweet scent of the rich red blossoms twining around the white-painted slats surrounding her.

She'd never been able to reconcile the two sides of her father's personality—the patient, caring man of God and the man with the dark appetites he kept hidden from everyone. How could he have done it? Daddy was so sensitive to people's feelings—hers, her mother's, everyone's—how could he have taken advantage of those boys who came to him for guidance, who trusted him to help them?

He did help most of them, she knew. That was the only thing that saved him from being hauled off to jail. Of all the youths her father had had access to through the years, he'd abused only six of them. But that was six too many.

None of the boys had told on him. Apparently, Daddy himself had decided enough was enough, and, one fine summer day, he'd crossed the street and confessed all to his best friend, the district attorney. Arrangements for the various settlements were already under way when Daddy called Laurel and her mother into his study to explain what was happening.

She remembered how he sat them down on the two chairs while he remained standing, his hands clasped behind his back. They'd just come back from church where, at the end of the service, he'd shocked everyone by announcing that he was leaving the pulpit. Sitting with her mother and Dave in the front pew, she'd been gripped by an ice-cold fear that her father had terminal cancer.

But it was worse.

Once Mama and she were seated, Daddy had cleared his throat several times before beginning. He was nervous, Laurel realized, which made her nervous too.

“Dovie, Laurel,” he'd begun, as if taking roll of those present—Dave had a one o'clock tee time and couldn't make it. “I have committed grievous wrongs, and you, unfortunately, will be the ones to suffer for them.” He swallowed, cleared his throat yet again, and, in the same carefully articulated accents in which he'd delivered a sermon on God's unfailing love that morning, her wonderful daddy began confessing his sins of the flesh.

“I have long had an attraction to young men, which I never indulged. Marriage to my wonderful Dovie fulfilled me completely.” He dipped his head toward his wife. “However, in the past several years, this unwanted—uh—
desire
has grown stronger, sometimes so overwhelming that I acted on it. My victims were six young men whom I was counseling in my study.”

Her mother's face went white. “No, no! Those nasty boys…”

“It wasn't the boys, Dovie.” Daddy compressed his lips as if he was in pain and lowered his head.

Laurel's ears rang with disbelief, and her brain was running riot.
My father sexually
involved with
boys?
She shook her head in denial. “Daddy, perhaps you don't understand what—”

His eyes squeezed shut, he swallowed hard, and his mouth turned into a grim, down-turned line. “I knew what I was doing and I knew it was wrong. I am so sorry. I cannot apologize enough to you, your mother, the boys, and their families.”

Mama started sobbing quietly into the antique lace-edged handkerchief she carried just for show.

Daddy wiped his eyes and regained the same dry, crisp, matter-of-fact tone he used when discussing the comparative merits of altar flowers.

“Charles Bridges is making financial arrangements that will protect the boys from having to testify in open court and preclude my incarceration, but, in the meantime, I have resigned not only from the pastorate, but also from all my clubs and committees. My public life is over.”

Laurel remembered staring at the large family photo over the desk, the photo which had witnessed her father doing—whatever he did—to six teenage boys.

No, this wasn't real. It was a bizarre nightmare. She'd wake up any second now, Sunday would start all over again, and she'd laugh at her ridiculous dream.

But it wasn't a dream.

The next month was a whirlwind of negotiations. Daddy was allowed to resign without public censure, but without any retirement pay, and he had to make the church the beneficiary of his life insurance policy. Kinkaid money paid for immediate settlements with the boys and their families, but the counseling costs were an ongoing expense. Erasmus's fortune, which had shrunk considerably in recent years, was almost entirely depleted.

Of course, Dave had bailed as soon as he realized being married to Laurel Harlow was no longer an asset.

It was still hard for her to think about that day in Daddy's office. She leaned against the arbor, careful not to crush the roses. She'd always been so proud of her father, proud to be identified as his daughter, secretly glad she looked so much like him—tall, gray-eyed, and dark-haired.

From then on, everything changed.

They were all under a strain, and within a year, Daddy had been rushed to the hospital for his first heart attack. The second one apparently gave no warning—he'd just walked into the backyard, sat down in one of the lawn chairs, and fallen asleep. Laurel couldn't help but wonder if he'd recognized the symptoms and decided he didn't want to be resuscitated this time. Then her mother had taken the pills—Laurel wasn't quite sure which ones did the job, because Mama had emptied every one of Daddy's leftovers that were still in the medicine cabinet and added all of her own to the mix.

Strangely, Laurel realized, her parents' deaths didn't affect her as much as they would have before Daddy's revelation. She grieved for Mama and Daddy, but from a weird sort of emotional distance, as if she were a distant observer rather than their only child, like she was floating on a cloud and looking down, seeing, but not participating.

She'd had to move on, to forge her own identity. Not as Dave Carson's wife or Pastor Harlow's daughter or Dovie Kinkaid Harlow's heir, but as herself—independent, resourceful, and self-sufficient.

That fateful day in Daddy's study had been the worst day of her life, but she had the feeling there was an even darker reckoning to come.

J
ase took himself off to the den after lunch to make a long, involved conference call about a San Antonio parcel he wanted to buy, then received and returned several faxes from his Dallas office, followed by a strategic communication with a particularly garrulous state representative he'd been courting.

After resting his ear for a few moments, he decided to make his daily call home to check up on Lolly. She'd been unreachable yesterday, which bothered him. Was she avoiding him on purpose?

Maybe he should talk to Maxie first.

“I doubt if Lolly even looked at her cell yesterday,” she reassured him. “There was some sort of cheerleader camp, and she came home exhausted. I sent her to bed right after supper.”

“Cheerleader camp? What about tennis?”

“That's where she is today, out playing tennis with Chloe Ginsberg. The cheerleader camp was just one day long. She's thinking of trying out next year.”

“I'll call again this evening, then. Take care.”

Jase drew a long, deep breath after he placed the phone back in its cradle. He never knew what Girl Child would be into next, and it was all-or-nothing with her—once she'd decided on something, there was no changing her mind. She'd always been headstrong, even as a toddler. Maybe she got her persistence from his own mother who, according to Maxie, was as stubborn as a mule.

He leaned back in the recliner and tented his fingers. Lolly…Every time he talked to her now, she hammered at him about marrying Laurel. For years he'd done his best to instill in her the idea that love meant more than sex, and now she was tossing it right back at him.

And she had a good point.

He'd planned to give Laurel more time, but, on the other hand, time was a commodity he didn't have much of—he'd already overstayed the two days he'd allotted for his visit to Bosque Bend. Trying to run his business long-distance was a bummer. He needed to get back to Dallas.

He heaved himself out of the recliner, stretched a little, and glanced at his watch. Better get a move on so he could make it to the bank before it closed. Craig, who'd proved to be a real find, was negotiating the purchase of a prime piece of acreage for him a mile to the north of Lynnwood, near the McAllister ranch. It was a test. If the young banker handled it well, he'd hire him away from First. If he dropped the ball, it was no big loss—Jase never let too much hinge on a single deal.

He walked down the hall and opened the front room doors into an extravaganza of melody. Laurel was playing the piano. She'd said it was out of tune, but he couldn't hear any sour notes, which didn't mean anything. Last year's lover, an aspiring country-western singer, had told him that he had a hard heart and a tin ear. Of course, that was after he'd refused to bankroll her planned takeover of Nashville.

Walking quietly into the front room, he waited till the last chord had died away, and rested his hands on her shoulders.

“It was beautiful, like sparkling colors.” He bent down to kiss the side of her neck.

She leaned her head back against him and reached up to clasp his hand. “Thank you. And Ludwig thanks you too. It's ‘Gertrude's Dream Waltz.' Beethoven wrote it for one of his students. It was my recital piece when I was seven.” She smiled and ran a couple of arpeggios up the scale. “I had to roll the chords back then.”

Jase nodded, but didn't understand. He enjoyed music, but only as a listener, like a restaurant patron who likes what he eats, but has no comprehension of all the slicing and dicing that went on in the kitchen. To him, Laurel's playing was sheer magic, wonderful and unexplainable.

Most of the kids he'd gone to high school with had been into music big-time. A few of them even played the guitar or sang, which he thought was great, but not for him. His activities had to put money in his pocket. Football had been the only exception, and he figured the physical competition had been what made him sign up year after year. That, and the attention the coaches gave him. It was nice to be valued. Who knows? Maybe he even saw them as father figures.

His stomach rumbled and Laurel laughed, removing her hand and standing up to face him. “Sounds like someone needs a snack.”

“No time now. But what's for dinner?”

She went rigid, and her eyes widened with alarm. “I—I really haven't thought about it yet.”

He tried not to smile. She looked like Lolly when he was confronting her about some harebrained escapade she'd tried to keep secret from him.

“Com'ere, hon.” His voice softened with tender amusement as he drew her out from behind the piano bench and into his arms. “You don't have to pretend anymore. I spotted the shrimp boxes in the trash can when I threw away the newspaper this morning.” He massaged her shoulders gently. “Tell you what. We'll go out to eat tonight. I'll be back about six to change clothes so I won't disgrace you. I've got a guest card for the Bosque Club.”

He kissed her hard on the mouth, and, before she'd registered what he'd said, he was out the back door.

Laurel's knees buckled and she sat down hard on the bench. Her eyes wandered sightlessly around the room. If ever in her life she was going to have a stroke, this was it. She'd known Jase's visit had to end sometime. Dear God, she'd had much more time with him than she'd asked for, but she'd hoped…well, she'd hoped for a miracle, maybe that he'd tell her he'd known about Daddy all along, but didn't want to distress her by discussing the situation. Or maybe that he'd take her back to Dallas with him, at least for a visit.

She braced her hands on the piano bench. His escorting her to the Bosque Club would be like throwing herself to the wolves—and him too. How could she get out of it? She'd already played the sex card.

With a sudden rush of energy, she rose and began prowling the room, touching a lampshade here and the back of a couch there, as if searching for advice from the furniture. She even peeked out to see if Sarah was in the front yard with one of her kids.

No Sarah. And it wasn't as if her former friend would have cared anyway.

Letting the curtain drop, she walked back to the piano and played a restless one-handed scale to the top of the keyboard, then glanced over at the door to her father's study. The key was still in the lock. She walked over to the door and, on sudden impulse, pushed it open and went inside the room.

She didn't know what she'd expected—the study looked the same as it had yesterday, which was the same as always. Sinking into her father's swivel chair, she glanced up at the family portrait above the desk.

“What should I do, Daddy?”

But no dry, kindly tones echoed answered her from the great beyond. She was all alone and talking to a stupid photograph. She pushed herself up from the chair and walked out, locking the door behind her. Nothing to do but retreat to her bedroom.

The afternoon heat was gathering, but she didn't turn on the window unit—she didn't deserve to be comfortable. Picking up an old paperback, she sprawled across the bed and tried to read, but couldn't make herself care about the beautiful blond heroine's problems with her handsome rapscallion of an Italian
conte
.

Blondie would have a happy ending, but Laurel wouldn't. She'd made her bed and now she had to lie in it, but it would be a bed of nails rather than the one she wanted to be in. Resigned to her fate, Laurel laid her head on the pillow, turned off her brain, and slept.

Hours later she heard a masculine voice calling her name. Still half dreaming of an Italian
conte
who inexplicably preferred so-so brunettes to drop-dead-gorgeous blondes, she managed to sit up on the side of the bed as Jase came rushing into the room.

“Wake up, sleepyhead. You've got half an hour to get ready for the Bosque Club.”

“I'm not going,” she heard herself say as she stood up to confront him.

She hadn't planned to say that, but that's what came out, without excuse or explanation. Maybe it was her subconscious taking over and fighting to prolong Jase's visit. Maybe it was heroine's voice from the romance she'd been reading. Whatever the source or intent, she was standing by it.

He gave her a long, level look, and she knew he was going to ask her the question she didn't want to hear.

“Why?”

Refusing even to try to answer, she stared back at him, her lips pressed together.

His face hardened, and his left eyebrow lifted. “Don't tell me you don't have anything to wear, because I've seen your closet. If you want, you can even wear that sexy red number again—if you put something on under it.”

“I have a headache.” It was true. She did have a headache, but she always got one when she took an afternoon nap in the heat of the day.

“So? Take an aspirin.”

She could feel her defiance crumbling under his steady gaze and tried wheedling. “I don't like the Bosque Club. It's too crowded. Couldn't we go somewhere else where we could be more private?”

Jase's eyes narrowed to slits of jet. “Somewhere people won't recognize me?” He spoke slowly, enunciating each word with care, like a death sentence.

Laurel was startled at his misinterpretation. “No, no, that isn't it at all! I'm proud to be seen with you—anywhere!” Her words tumbled over each other into a near incoherency. “It's not you…that was sixteen years ago…even Bosque Bend doesn't have that long a memory—oh, maybe a few old fuddy-duddies…but it wouldn't matter if everyone did. I love you…I always have—”

“Then, what's the problem?”

Her shoulders slumped as she suddenly understood the unrelenting tenacity and determination that had enabled Jase to rise in the business world. Did she actually think she could withhold Daddy's downfall from him in perpetuity? She probably should have told him when he first appeared at her front door, but now she'd waited too long. Besides, what would she have said? She didn't have the words. She'd never discussed it before, not even with her mother.

The end of her idyll was in sight, but maybe she could delay it one day longer.

“Okay, I'll go, but not tonight.” She tossed her head. “Tomorrow night.”

Jase studied her face for a moment, then nodded his assent and held out his hand. “Promise?”

She clasped his hand and even managed a smile. “Promise.”

He sealed their bargain with a long kiss before relaxing his embrace so they could talk. “I'll cancel the reservations, then. And about dinner—don't worry about it. I put in a stint as a short-order cook and can rustle up edible grub in two shakes of a lamb's tail.”

After a dinner of chicken tenders and fries, they watched an old Michael Douglas movie and made love on the leather couch in the den before trailing upstairs to bed.

Her last night with him. She tried to absorb every moment of it to warm herself during the cold, lonely nights to come.

Thursday morning dawned bright and clear, auguring another sweltering afternoon. Laurel's dreams had been troubled, but she decided to suck it up and think positively.

Maybe everything would turn out just fine. Maybe the club would be stuffed to the gills with new members, people who'd moved into town so recently that they wouldn't know who she was. And maybe the old-timers would keep their mouths shut, as Ray apparently had.

The other side of the bed was empty, but she could hear Jase's heavy tread on the stairs, accompanied by a rhythmic clinking. She sat up in bed to greet him as he came through the door, holding a small tray.

He put it down on the edge of her nightstand. Coffee and toast.

“Breakfast in bed, milady, but you'll have to take care of yourself for lunch.” He pulled up a chair to sit with her while she ate. “I'll be out till later in the afternoon. Got a hot deal I need to handle personally.”

“It sounds like you're buying up the whole town.”

He laughed. “It's a numbers game. Most of the prospects don't pan out, so I've got to keep a lot of them coming in. Perseverance is what it's all about.”

Perseverance.
Laurel rolled the word around in her head.
Perseverance
—that was the key. Her spine straightened.
Perseverance.
She'd make it through tonight, come hell or high water.

It was cleaning day. After Jase left, she dressed in her old gym shorts and a Lynnwood Elementary tee, then went through the whole house, room by room.

If Mama could see her now, bucket and mop in hand, she'd be horrified, but Laurel wasn't leading her mother's untroubled, leisurely existence. Dovie Elizabeth Kinkaid Harlow had lived all but the last two years of her life in a cocoon, insulated from anything the least bit unpleasant. Would she have been strong enough to handle bad times if she'd had more challenges earlier in her life?

By noon, she needed a break and some fresh air. Boldly opening the front door without first checking if someone was waiting in ambush, she walked out onto the sidewalk and took several deep, cleansing breaths.

She looked up and down Austin Avenue. She'd always been proud of where she lived. All six houses on this block had been built in the late 1800s, when cotton was king of the blackland prairie. Most of them had changed hands through the years as old-time fortunes ebbed or their owners aged. The house next door had been sold four years ago when old Colonel Kraft, whose family had been in residence there since the place was built, had to be hauled off to a nursing home when he began flashing the housekeeper. The Carrolls—a young couple who drove off to their jobs in Waco at six every morning and returned at eight every evening—lived there now. Laurel had never met them and doubted anyone else on the block had either.

Kinkaid House, though, had stayed in the family, and Laurel had grown up assuming she would inherit it and fill it with a brood of noisy, happy children, enough to keep the Kinkaid heritage going for generations to come.