A Father's Quest (6 page)

“All Jessie and I could afford was Nashville.”

Yeah, he’d been irked when he returned from Europe and found the twins had moved. Although it wasn’t fair necessarily, he’d always assumed Jessie coerced Remy into moving with her and was pissed with her for that. He’d worried about Remy—a small-town girl in the big city. He’d even made a couple of trips north to watch the sisters perform in the smoky gloom of the trashy, downscale bars they worked. He’d had to stop because he started to feel like a degenerate stalker. After all, she was hot, sexy and desirable, and he was her half brother.

Although the sadness in her tone now was unmistakable, he got the impression she wasn’t still mad at him, so he told her the rest. “In hindsight, I think the trip was as much for her mental health as my life experience.”

Remy looked thoughtful. “You’re lucky to have those memories. Especially now.”

Now that his mother was almost as lost to him as Birdie was. “Remy, I apologize for coming on so strong before. I had no right to demand your help. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re under a lot of stress.”

She didn’t know the half of it. The feeling of hopelessness, of turning into the same kind of failure as a father as his dad had been. Never there when his son needed him.

“I wish I could tell you that knowing you saw a girl with red hair in one of your dreams didn’t give me hope, but I can’t. It’s the closest thing to a lead I’ve had in weeks.” He took a chance. “Do you think you might pick up on something—subconsciously—if I told you about Birdie?”

She didn’t look thrilled by the idea. “I have no idea, but I am curious about your daughter. We’re old friends—I’d like to know about your life, if you want to tell me.”

Her smile was so Remy. The Remy he’d loved forever.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Not here. No offense, but I have bad memories of this house—lack of furniture or not. Let’s go get tested then I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and tell you all about my amazing, highly gifted daughter.”

Remy smiled. “You’ve got a deal.”

“I—I—found ’em, mister.” He was one of the drivers. Not a father. Or even a brother, like Brother Thom. He hung around, watching the GoodFriends. Birdie had seen him before. He was the one who stared too much at her mom.

“And what you think you’re gonna do here? Start a bonfire? Send some kind of smoke signals to somebody?”

Birdie felt her face turn hot. She was a terrible liar. Her skin always gave her away, but maybe he’d think she was red in the face because of the smoke. She’d gotten a few sticks to burn, for a minute or two. Not enough to send a signal to her dad, though.

He cuffed the side of her head, making her stumble toward the fire. She’d stolen the matches from the cook tent where her mother was mixing corn bread. Or trying to. Mostly, she was crying. The sadness in her head was getting worse, but nobody seemed to care except for Birdie. That was why it was so important to get word to her father. He’d know what to do. He’d rescue them.

“You’re a homely little thing, aren’t you? And not too bright, either. Thom ain’t gonna be happy when I tell him about this fire. You’re gonna be in deep shit, missy.”

“I just wanted to practice, mister. Survivin’ skills. We all gotta know ’em, right? I was just practicing.”

“Survival skills,” he repeated. His mean-looking eyes got smaller and his lip curled back so she could see a few of his brown teeth. “Well, you aren’t gonna survive long if you start your clothes on fire.” He laughed at his joke then gave her a shove. “Get lost, kid. And don’t ever try this again or I will tell Thom. And your ass will be grass.”

Birdie had no idea what that meant but she didn’t stop to think about it. She ran as fast as she could toward the cooking tent, straight for her mother. She wrapped her arms tightly around Mommy’s legs and cried, her fear and hopelessness soaking the material of her mother’s equally ugly dress.

“Damn,” she muttered softly, as she entered the kitchen where Jessie, Cade and Shiloh were standing together talking.
Talking about me.
You didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that.

“Is the testing place open?” she asked her sister.

“Yes. Do you want Cade to drive you?”

Remy rolled her eyes. “Stop it, Jessie. Just plain stop. A person who crashes cars for a living has no business—nada, zip, none—questioning my decision to ride in a car with an old friend. Across town. In broad daylight.” She looked at Shiloh. “Am I right?”

The twelve-year-old nodded. “Sorry, Jessie, but she’s got you there. And he’s got a real sweet ride. Huh, Dad?”

“Oh, no, I’m not getting pulled into this one.” Cade gave Remy a quick hug then headed toward the door. “We are going to be on the road by noon, agreed?”

Jessie heaved a vast sigh of capitulation. “Yes.”

“Perfect. Remy, if you’re not back before we take off, I’ll see you in South Dakota for an official barn warming. If not before.”

Remy waved. “Sounds great. Thanks for everything, Cade. Take good care of my sister.”

He touched the brim of the cowboy hat he’d donned as soon as he stepped outside. “Come on, Shiloh. We’ve got work to do.”

Remy hugged the young girl she’d grown to love. “I’ll miss you, kiddo. Maybe they’ll let you come to spend a week this summer.”

“Cool,” Shiloh said. “I like it here.”

Jessie and Remy faced each other. “The test only takes a few seconds. You’ll be back before we leave.”

Remy motioned her closer. “In case we’re not, let’s hug goodbye now.”

Jessie muttered a low curse. “I hate goodbyes. You know that.”

Remy did. Beneath her sister’s rough-and-tough exterior beat the heart of a real softy. Cade knew and respected that, too, which was the only reason Remy felt comfortable letting her sister return to the north without her.

“Then, how ’bout we call each other at a set time every day?”

Jessie laughed. “Yeah, like what you did when I spent all that time in the hospital. Did I ever tell you how much that meant? It was lonely and boring between treatments and your daily calls made it better. I didn’t feel so cut off from the family.” She squeezed Remy so hard she let out a peep. “I love you, Rem. And tell Jonas I hope he finds his daughter ASAP. I mean that. But,” she said, a mischievous glint in her eyes, “if he hurts you again, I will track him down and fry one or both of his balls in hot oil.”

She boasted the threat in a voice loud enough anyone in the house could hear.

Remy laughed. She couldn’t help it. “You are such a big talker.”

“I could do it. I know I could.”

They looked at each and grinned because they both knew differently. But Remy was willing to let the threat stand because what the underlying message said was “I love you, and I want you to be as happy as I am.”

“I’ll call you soon. Bye.”

Remy was still smiling when she rejoined Jonas in the entry.

“Do you find it amusing that your twin is plotting my demise?”

“Eavesdropping?”

“She practically shouted it.”

“Yeah, well, if this test turns out positive, then she’s your sister, too. Are you prepared for that reality?”

He didn’t move.

“What?”

“I—I’m suddenly paralyzed with fear.”

She couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not, so she grabbed his arm and tugged him along. “Oh, she’s not so bad. Really. She grows on you. I’ve known her for almost thirty-three years and—”

He leaned around her to open the door—still the gentleman his mother raised him to be, she noticed. “I wasn’t talking about Jessie. I’ve been in limbo—no, purgatory—since I got back from Iraq. You are the first positive step forward I’ve taken in three months. What if…?”

The part of her that loved him as only a girl with her first crush can ached—yearned—to comfort him. The woman who was determined to change her life and stop being everybody’s caregiver squeezed his upper arm. His massive, muscular, manly biceps.

She cleared her throat and let her hand fall to her side. “Let’s not assume anything, Jonas. All anyone—including you—can do is try. Okay?”

He swallowed hard and nodded. “Let’s go.”

“I hear you are a sweet ride. I mean, I hear you
have
a sweet ride.” She was so flustered, she nearly tumbled down the steps into his arms. He caught her but kept the contact to a minimum. Thank goodness. Because, technically, until proven otherwise, he was her half brother.

If he’d been bored, he’d done a good job of hiding his feelings. Something, she realized, he’d always been good at.

“I don’t know about you, but I need beignets.”

Jonas snickered. “Fried dough and powdered sugar always was your cure-all, wasn’t it?”

He remembered. She tried to keep her response casual, even though she was melting inside. He remembered. “I figure if something works, why change it?”

“Well, you won’t get me into N’Awlins on a Saturday. Too many tourists. But Catfish Haven still has the best pie in town. Would that do ya?”

She nodded, surprised to hear him name a local diner that had become popular several years after they broke up. If the current owners had been operating it back then, the small, riverside café would have been her and Jonas’s favorite spot.

“Wouldn’t Jonas love this place?” she’d thought the first time she went there. She’d immediately scolded herself—the way Jessie would have for being a sentimental dope.

He clicked his remote to unlock the snazzy, still new-smelling car and opened the door for her. “I like your car,” she said.

“Thanks. I bought it before I left on deployment. Probably sounds stupid, but I wanted to know it was waiting for me when I came home. I kept a photo of the car right beside the one of Birdie. I even made arrangements with a friend to put the thing on blocks and store it until Birdie turned seventeen, if I didn’t make it back.”

She slid across the fine leather seat and pulled in her legs. The interior was a creamy ivory with gleaming wood accents. Rich and luxurious. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. As soon as he was seated, she said, “My first thought was this is way too elegant for a teenager, but then I noticed the small backseat. Smart dad.”

She’d been thinking about her older sisters’ ongoing fears about their teens’ budding sexuality when she made the remark, but the serious look on Jonas’s face told her he’d read her comment differently.

“Yeah, we came pretty close to breaking all the laws of man, society and God in the backseat of my mom’s old Thunderbird, didn’t we?”

His tone sounded haunted.

“We were kids, Jonas. Kids make out in the backseats of cars. It’s like a job requirement. A rite of passage.”

He put the key in the ignition and touched his foot to the gas, making the engine roar impressively. As it idled a moment, he said, “Well, all I can say is it’s a good thing we didn’t start dating until we were seniors.”

She’d thought the same thing many times, although a part of her secretly regretted not doing that most evil of deeds. She honestly did even though she knew how terribly wrong it was.

“You were shy.”

“You were too beautiful. All the guys were intimidated by you. I’ve heard that sometimes the most beautiful girls sit home for prom because nobody dares to ask them out.”

She felt her cheeks heat up. She knew she was attractive, but beautiful? Hardly. She preferred to blend in—or, at least, hang out in the background. Jessie was the gorgeous one—bold, flamboyant, stylish. She’d always been comfortable in the spotlight—even before her big break in Hollywood.

“That’s very sweet of you to say. I always figured your friends kept their distance because of my, um,
gift.
” She made air quotes and said the word with as much scorn as possible to let him know she didn’t consider herself gifted in any way.

“I might have avoided you when we were younger—in say, junior high—because my male ego didn’t like to be reminded that a girl saved my life, but I never believed any of the things people said about you. That you were spooky or weird or you could put a hex on people you didn’t like.”

She’d heard every insult imaginable over the years, but she’d learned to laugh them off. “Did you know Serena Sedgwick once offered to pay me a hundred bucks to make Lilly Smiley fail a math test? Apparently the two were in hot competition for some sort of award. Talk about weird.”

He put the car in gear and pulled onto the street. “Did you do it?”

He was kidding. She could hear the teasing quality in his voice. She relaxed into the seat and adjusted her sunglasses on her nose. “I thought about it, but, honestly, I didn’t want either one of those girls to win the thing. They were stuck-up brainiacs, who talked down to everybody they considered less intelligent…which was probably everybody.”

His low, wonderfully masculine chuckle filled the car and settled quite uncomfortably in her low belly. That old attraction—the one Jessie was worried about—blossomed to life like one of those dormant diseases that never truly left your body. Her chicken pox of love had returned as shingles of lust.

She wiggled to alleviate an itch that lacked one single focal point. Jonas probably noticed her squirming but was too polite to comment. Instead, he pointed out the window. “Hey, isn’t that your mom’s beauty shop? Looks different. New owners?”

“My sister, Rita Jean, and her husband took it over and gave it a face-lift last year when Mama got sick. It looks nice, doesn’t it? Fresh and pretty. Mama would have liked the changes.”

They exited Baylorville a few minutes later, pulling onto the highway with a powerful but muted roar of the engine. The car definitely suited him.

“I saw my first naked breast in Marlene’s House of Beauty,” he said, his tone wistful.

She turned in the seat to face him. “I beg your pardon?”

His smirk told her she’d misconstrued his words. He’d probably intended that. “Your mom had more magazines than the library. Including quite a few copies of
National
Geographic.
Do you have any idea how many young boys offered to accompany their moms to the hairdresser simply because of the August 1986 issue?”

Remy laughed. “I don’t know. One?”

“Okay. Maybe. But it was a life lesson I’ve never forgotten.”

Neither spoke for a few miles, until Jonas said, “Your mom was quite a bit younger than my mom, wasn’t she? How’d she die? Cancer?”

“E. coli. By the time she saw a specialist, the damage to her kidneys was irreversible.”

“Was she a candidate for a transplant?”

She nodded. “Yes, but not a great one. She had high blood pressure and diabetes and some chronic arthritis issues she’d never mentioned to any of us. Apparently she had a very high tolerance for pain. Like Jessie.”

“So, I guess they weren’t able to find a match?”

“Jessie and I were the closest, but I’d picked up a topical infection at work that would have killed Mama like that.” She snapped her fingers. “And Jessie had all those blood transfusions and skin grafts after the fire. They told us the antibodies she’d developed would have been lethal in Mama’s body. We both felt pretty useless, let me tell you.”

“That’s too bad.”

She sighed. “The worst part was the timing. Jessie was in Japan with her stunt team, doing an extreme-sports competition when Mama’s condition worsened. The Bullies were calling and texting her every few hours pushing her to get tested. Jessie didn’t want to risk doing something that might weaken her body when everyone on her team was working so hard to win.”

“Bummer. Tough call.”

She looked at him sharply. “Listen, Mr. Judgmental, everyone came down on Jess for not selflessly dropping everything and rushing to Mama’s side, but the fact is Mama ordered her to stay in Japan and finish the competition. Ordered. I was in the hospital room. I heard the whole conversation.”

“Sorry. But, I always got the impression Jessie and your mom didn’t get along.”

She relaxed a tiny bit, her temper passing. “That’s true, but, in the end, love trumps old grievances. Jessie came as soon as she could. Some people even accused her of throwing the contest so she could leave Japan, but I think she was so in tune to my pain, she lost focus. I saw the video. It wasn’t pretty.”

She felt the car begin to slow. Sure enough, she’d been so busy talking she forgot where they were going: Catfish Haven. She’d brought a date here once for breakfast, but he’d balked. “I’m not eating fish for breakfast. That’s disgusting.” That was the last time they went out, actually.

“I love this place,” she said. “How’d you hear about it? Mostly only locals come here.”

He looked hurt. “I’m local. I stay in Mom’s house whenever I come for a visit. For a while, I’d sign her out of Shadybrook for a week or two, so she could spend more time with her granddaughter. But there came a point when that wasn’t doing anybody any good.”

She blew out a low whistle. “I know exactly what you mean. Convincing family members of that is another thing.”

“Did you interact directly with patients while you worked there?”

“My official title was Activities Director. But I wore a lot of different hats. The job was never boring, I’ll tell you that much.”

He got out, opened her door and didn’t speak again until they were seated at a tiny table with two mismatched chairs and a Red Stripe bottle filled with sweet peas on it. He looked over the small menu that every diner was handed when they walked in the door. The availability of certain choices changed, depending on who caught what and when.

“Sweet tea and a crawfish po’boy, Suzie,” Remy told the waitress, who arrived a few seconds later. “I missed breakfast,” she added for Jonas’s benefit.

“I’ll have the same,” he said, then turned his attention entirely on Remy.

She fiddled with the thick, hand-stitched cotton napkin. The place might lack decor, but it had its values straight: good food and nice, big napkins for wiping your hands and mouth. Very little went to waste here.

Suzie delivered their drinks, along with a plastic basket filled with a golden mound of onion rings and hush puppies. Remy’s favorite. “We didn’t—”

“On the house,” Suzie said. “We missed you, girlfriend. Where you been?”

“In South Dakota, actually. With Jessie.”

Suzie made a horrified face. “At least she brought you home in one piece. Did you see the video of her rolling an SUV?” The waitress, who had been a year or two ahead of the twins in school, shivered. “Holy moly, that girl’s got balls of steel.”

Remy grinned. “I’ll tell her fiancé you said so.”

Suzie’s eyes went wide and she squealed loudly. “Fiancé? No way. Do you have any idea how many people in the Bouchard Twins Wedding Pool are going to lose their asses if she gets married before you? You’ve always had better odds. Even after you and—” She looked at Jonas, her eyes widening in recognition. “I’ll shut up, now.”

Remy reached for an onion ring. “Small towns, what can I say?”

He didn’t reply. In fact, he wasn’t even looking at her. His attention seemed stalled on her chest. She looked down, wondering if some crumbs had caught in her cleavage or something.

“Oh,” she said with a small peep.

He wasn’t studying her breasts like some sort of lecher. He’d noticed her necklace. Or more to the point, the small, oval medallion hanging from her necklace.

She wiped her greasy fingers on her napkin and caught the medal in her fingers, holding it out so she could see it, too.

“You still have it.”

“I never take it off.”

He seemed surprised, maybe a little perplexed. She didn’t know why. “You gave this to me the day your mother brought you over to say thank you. You told me it was your father’s.”

He nodded. “I was tossing it down the well when I fell,” he said. “I didn’t mention that part because Mom would have asked why.”

She waited, hoping he’d tell her why.

“Dad gave it to me a few months earlier in exchange for my not mentioning to Mom that Dad visited a woman in Morgan City.”

“A client?” she said, trying to keep her tone neutral.

He gave her a look.

“Dad said she needed his advice about buying a new car. He went into great detail about how she was a divorcée, trying to get her life back together after her lowlife husband took off with all their savings.”

“But you didn’t believe him.”

“I believed him…until he gave me his St. Christopher and made me promise not to say anything to Mom. He said this lady was proud and didn’t want people gossiping about her at Marlene’s House of Beauty.”

He reached across the table and very carefully took the medal in his fingers. “Even at age eight, I knew that was a lie. I knew this woman was the reason my parents fought, and he made me feel guilty, like I was part of this grand deception.”

She looked down again, frowning. “Darn. I thought of it as my only link to the father I never got to meet, but now I’m not sure I want to wear it anymore. How come you didn’t tell me that when we were dating?”

He let it drop, but his fingers accidentally brushed her bare skin, and an electrical charge that she remembered all too clearly from their youth passed straight through her chest and down her spine.

He rolled his neck as if to release any built-up tension. “Ironically, I didn’t want you to think less of me because my father cheated on my mother—and yours.” He gave a harsh, dry laugh, then took a drink of his iced tea.