Something must be wrong with ol’ Dave. Back in high school, he’d been a lazy sonuvabitch, always looking for the main chance, and in Bosque Bend, with her mother’s money and her father’s reputation, Laurel Harlow would’ve been it.
So—what was the divorce all about? Jase himself would never have let go of Laurel, and not just because of her father. He shifted uncomfortably as he remembered the curve of her breasts against the thin fabric of her shirt when she answered the door this evening, her moist red lips opening in surprise at the sight of him, the sway of her hips as she led him to the front room.
Taking in a deep breath of air and exhaling strongly, he tried to make himself relax.
Cut it out, Redlander. You don’t stand a chance.
*
Laurel woke up happy and lay in bed for a few minutes longer just to savor the new day. Jase Redlander had visited her yesterday, and he would visit her again today. That smile, his voice, those dark eyes that seemed to absorb her into their depths—dear God, had she ever gotten over her a crush on him? How did he feel about her? Was there…a possibility?
But why was she lying around? She shouldn’t let one precious moment of this precious day go to waste. Humming a kindergarten tune about sunshiny faces, she made up her bed and laid out her clothes, tan chinos and a blue-checked shirt—simple, comfortable, and practical—one of her favorite teaching outfits. Chalk smudges, stray ballpoint marks, playground dirt, you name it—this shirt had swallowed them all and washed clean.
She stared at it for a moment. As happy as she was, she wanted to put on something new, something different, something she’d never worn before, and she knew just where to find it. Kneeling on the floor, she opened the bottom drawer of her bureau, where she stored all the tees her students had given her that Dave had considered inappropriate for the wife of a banker to wear.
Yes, there it was, right on top—an orange shirt decorated with a fat, yellow happy face. She pulled it over her head, swiped on some lipstick, inserted tiny gold hoops through her earlobes, and tied her hair up in a scraggly ponytail, then checked herself out in the long cheval mirror in the corner of the room.
Now she looked the way she should.
Stepping across the hall, she opened the door carefully and peeked into the room. Sometime during the night, Lolly had straightened herself out and pushed the sheet to the foot of the bed, but she was still sound asleep. Let her rest, poor baby. She’d had quite an adventure yesterday.
Humming again, Laurel walked downstairs and went outside to search for the Retriever—for once, without first making sure no one was around. Lord help her, she was downright giddy. Would Lolly want to read the paper? Probably not. She was a teenager. All she’d be interested in was food.
Food. Laurel froze in her tracks. She’d need to fix some kind of breakfast for Lolly.
“Miss Harlow? Are you okay?”
She whirled around, half expecting to get something thrown in her face, but it was Bosque Bend’s least favorite author, Pendleton Swaim. Every now and then, he left his Spanish-style stucco castle on the corner and took a turn up and down the block.
Laurel stiffened.
The Kinkaids had not escaped their neighbor’s sharp pen. Pen had portrayed Great-Grampa Erasmus—“Benjamin Franklin Chapman”—as the disinherited son of Quakers, who never looked back once he hit Texas. Instead, he married the daughter of a wealthy family in Waco and bought land up cheap from cotton farmers who couldn’t pay labor costs for newly freed slaves. And when the first wife died, he married into an even wealthier family in “Garner’s Crossing,” the whole time enjoying a string of mistresses, even financing the brothel one of them set up down near the tracks of the K-T Railroad he’d helped bring through town.
Mama was indignant, but Daddy shrugged it off, saying who knew what was research, what was rumor, and what Pen Swaim had made up out of the back of his head to titillate readers. Besides, having a colorful ancestor gave Mama bragging rights.
Laurel was embarrassed. She’d learned far too much about her heritage.
“Yes, thank you. I was—was just thinking about something.”
He gave her an understanding nod. “I was coming to see you anyway. I have a visitor, and I wonder if you would be kind enough to receive him.”
“Receive him?”
“Allow him to come in and soak up the atmosphere in Kinkaid House.”
“This has to do with the movie that’s going to be made of Garner’s Crossing, doesn’t it? The one with the all-star cast?”
Art Sawyer had ballyhooed the news more than a month ago, and the town still hadn’t decided whether to be thrilled or horrified. Sure, all the “fictional” characters being portrayed were long dead, but a lot of the dirty laundry that the town had rinsed out white as snow over the past hundred or so years would be hung out for everyone to see.
Swaim nodded. “Yes. And I do so want them to get it right.”
“I don’t know—”
“I’ll send him over and you can decide at the door.”
“Well, I—”