Laurel drew a circle on his shoulder with her finger, wondering how far she could explore the subject of Lolly’s maternity. “I’m—I’m not sure it’s any of my business, but did her birth mother name her?”
Jase’s mouth twisted and his voice hardened. “She never bothered to give her a name. And she didn’t use her own name on the birth certificate either, although she had no compunctions about giving my name out. The midwife tracked me down in Dallas, presented me with the baby, and disappeared. We had to get a DNA test to be sure Girl Child was mine.” He turned to Laurel again. “Lolly didn’t have a very good start in life, so I wanted her to have the very best name I could think of, sort of like a magic amulet.”
Laurel sat up, pulling the sheet up around her breasts. It was hard to have a serious discussion with her nipples on high alert. “Wouldn’t it be easier to tell Lolly the truth about her mother, whatever she did?”
He sighed, rolled to the side of the bed, and sat up. “It would be easier for me, but harder for her. I’ve got to wait till she’s older.”
She decided to push it a little further. “Jase, who was Lolly’s mother? Did I know her? Was it…Betty Jean Powell?”
Betty Jean, who always sat in the back of the class and tried to copy other people’s tests. Laurel’s crowd ignored her like she was wallpaper, but, looking back, Laurel had a dim memory of a small, narrow-faced girl, thin as a rail, who never had enough lunch money and frequently came to school with purple bruises on her arms.
A pang of guilt swept through her. If she’d seen marks like that on any of her students, she would have suspected parental abuse. Maybe there was a reason Betty Jean was an easy mark for every guy who bought her a burger.
Jase swung his head around. “Betty Jean? Hell, no!” His eyes drilled into hers. “Haven’t you guessed?” His voice turned ugly and grating. “It was Marguerite Shelton! Who else? Apparently in her never-ending quest for new and different experiences, she decided to try motherhood—until after the baby was born!”
“I never—I mean—” She wasn’t sure what she meant. No wonder Ms. Shelton had disappeared so quickly.
Jase stood up and stalked to the window, opened the blinds, and looked out on the side yard below. Laurel deserved an explanation, the full, sordid story, but he didn’t want to see the expression on her face when he told it.
“It all started when I was mowing her lawn.” He frowned and corrected himself. “No, actually, it began the first day she walked into school and I wound up in her class. By the end of the week, she was all the guys talked about in the locker room—the way her boobs moved every time she took a breath, how she smiled with her eyelids half-closed, how she talked in a throaty purr that made you uncomfortable if you were sitting down and embarrassed if you had to stand up.”
Laurel dropped the sheet and joined him at the window, putting her arm around his waist.
In for a penny, in for a pound. She hoped Pendleton Swaim wasn’t out walking today. A naked Laurel Harlow embracing her equally naked lover in full view of anyone passing by would really spice up his next book.
Jase stared out the window, into the past.
“All the guys speculated about what she’d be like in the hay, but none of us would’ve made a move on her. She was off limits, an adult, a teacher.”
He might not want to get up from his desk after she’d swayed down the row to hand out papers, but Marguerite had to be the one to make the first overture. And she did.
She called it “special help,” just the two of them sitting close together in the deserted classroom during lunch period, the warmth of her breasts or thighs “accidentally” rubbing against him, the “friendly” touching, her scent wafting into his consciousness. Hell, the smell of gardenias still gave him an instant erection. Her conversation was witty, sophisticated, and just a tad naughty. And her eyes—those sherry eyes…
Then came the compliments. “You’re so mature for your age, Jase,” she would purr, running the edge of her fingernail down his arm. “You’ve really got a build on you—I noticed it the first day you walked into my class. I bet half the girls in school are crazy about you. They must keep you busy. I’m surprised you even have the strength left to come to school in the morning.”
Damn, he’d loved it. He’d laughed nervously and been embarrassed and flattered and confused and excited, but he loved it. In reality, the girls avoided him, at least the nice girls. He was too tall, too muscular, too dark. His father always claimed Indian blood, but Jase doubted if he really knew. Ol’ Growler’s parentage had probably been as haphazard as his own.