Home Before Dark (25 page)

“Oh, Luz. This is not the sort of thing you get mad about.”

“True. It's the sort of thing that calls for permanent disfigurement. Got it.”

“Oh, yeah, you get every fucking thing right, Luz,” Jessie exploded. “You always do, you with your perfect family and your perfect life.”

Luz was too stunned to do anything but gape in disbelief. Jessie was blowing up at her? Then the true impact of the accusations slammed into her, and she buried her face in her hands, howling with laughter. “My perfect life,” she gasped, feeling the tears flow.

“You have it all, you're always right, and I'm the flake, gallivanting around the world like a loose cannon.”

“My wonderful falling-down house, my husband who's
never home. My tattooed daughter, my learning-disabled son.” Catching Jessie's expression, she laughed again, verging on hysteria. “Owen,” she explained. “And that's only one of the things you don't know about my perfect life.” She stole a sip from Jessie's mug. “God, do you know what I'd give to gallivant? To have a career, a life outside of Edenville, Texas? To see the things you've seen?”

“Luz. You don't want what I've got. Believe me, you don't.”

“How would you even know what I want or don't want?” She stood and paced in agitation. Her heart pounded and she realized deep down what was going on. “You're making me compete with you for her.”

“What?”

“For Lila. You gave her to me, and now you're taking her away. I had no idea she was on loan.”

“Oh, for Chrissake, Luz—”

“You're dazzling her. Sweeping her off her feet. I'm grounding her and making her clean her room while you're taking her to day spas and getting tattoos. Christ, Jessie, don't you think it's hard enough on me to keep her in line without you waltzing in and doing the Auntie Mame thing?”

“Funny you should mention Auntie Mame. Isn't she the one who took her nephew traveling the world?”

“Jess, if you think for one minute you're going to take that girl away, you're dead wrong.” Luz planted her feet. She realized that she would sacrifice anything for the sake of Lila. Even her sister. That struck her hard. She would do battle with Jessie if it came down to that.

“Don't even think what you're thinking, Luz. I'm not here to take Lila anywhere.”

“You don't have to. For you it's enough to know that she wants to follow you, that she's willing to. She worships you.”

“She worships Dave Matthews, too, but that doesn't mean
she wants to follow him all over the world. Look, you're her mother. That's the way it's supposed to be. But sometimes— Damn it, Luz, you're so busy being the mother that you forget to be anything else.”

“What the hell else is there? It's all I know, Jess. It's not like we were raised by June and Ward Cleaver. I'm making it up as I go along.”

“Textbook, Luz. You're forever the mom, and I'm the screwup kid sister.”

“Hey, if the shoe fits.”

“You know, in your quest to control every possible situation, you're overlooking something, Luz.”

“What's that?”

“Lila.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You're so busy regulating her life, tracking her grades, monitoring her every move and worrying about her that you forget she's a unique individual.”

“That's not true. I resent you coming here, fifteen years after the fact, telling me how to raise my daughter.”

“What's her favorite rock group? Her favorite teacher? What stresses her out? Did you know Heath broke up with her and found Jesus?”

That stopped her. “What?”

“That's why she couldn't stay at school. That's why she needed a day away.”

“Is that why she needed a tattoo?”

“Maybe
I
needed the tattoo.”

“For the love of God, Jess. You already have one.”

“Three. I already had three. Now I have four.”

“Did you think disfiguring my child would force me to tell her she's adopted?” Luz demanded.

“Nobody's forcing you to do a thing, Luz.” Jessie stood
and gave the blinds a twist, shutting out the afternoon light. “Coming here was a bad idea.”

“Don't you dare say that.” Luz hated this feeling—that the foundations of her world were cracking under her feet, and she had to figure out where to jump for safety. “Ah, Jess. I don't want to fight with you. I just wish you'd check with me before doing anything permanent to my kids.”

The sound of tires crunching on gravel interrupted them. Luz frowned. “We weren't expecting anyone.”

“I was.” Jessie put a nervous hand to her hair.

Luz looked out to see Dusty Matlock heading toward the house. When she glanced back at Jessie, she saw something in her sister's face that she'd never seen before, ever. It was a stark, naked emotion so powerful and private that Luz looked away.

Finally,
she thought, feeling some of her anger at Jessie slip away.

Finally.
Her little sister was falling in love. It seemed rash to conclude that so early on, but Luz knew she wasn't mistaken. As Jessie watched Dusty coming up the walk, Luz recognized herself watching Ian come home to her. At such moments, a woman's heart filled so full that her expression could not hide what she was feeling.

She liked everything about Dusty Matlock—his mannerisms, his looks, his kid and especially the way he treated her sister. Yet her anger didn't dissipate because Dusty showed up. Luz was finally working to a full head of steam. Jessie's having a date didn't dampen it. The fight stayed open and she fully expected a hangover of emotion and guilt. “So we'll talk about everything later.”

“Whatever.”

Lila's favorite expression. It was so perfect for people who wanted to be vague and noncommittal. She wasn't through
with her sister or this conversation, but it was pointless to pursue it now. She pushed Jessie to the door and opened it.

“My mother wants to meet you,” Dusty said, emerging from a veil of shadows cast by the live oaks.

Jessie grabbed Luz's arm. “Oh God, you don't think he's got her with him, do you?”

“Let's go see.”

All that had passed between them shimmered briefly and then slid away, burying itself beneath a new moment with a new problem.

“Your mother?” Jessie inquired as Dusty bent to kiss her cheek. “That sounds ominous.” Her voice was light, and Luz sensed her sister's profound pleasure at his nearness and familiarity.

“Hey, Luz.” He doffed his Matlock Aviation baseball cap in a curiously old-fashioned gesture.

“What's this about your mother?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“She wants to meet Jessie.”

This was getting better and better. “Really. Why?”

“Because Jessie is all I can talk about or think about these days. My mother and I even hunted down back issues of
World Explorer
magazine to see more of her work.”

“You're crazy, Matlock,” Jessie said.

“Could be,” he said. “A little.”

She clung to Luz's hand, and Luz suspected she was only half pretending terror. “Don't make me go with him. Don't make me go with the bad man.”

“Nonsense.” Luz propelled her toward the truck. “You're good at being bad.”

“I like that in a woman.”

“The other day, you said you liked your women bossy,” Luz reminded him.

“Bossy and bad.” He winked at Luz.

Jessie made a sign against evil, though she edged closer to the truck. Even as Luz laughed at Jessie's display, she felt a small twist in her heart. This was all in fun, sure, but when a relationship stopped being fun and started feeling like hard work, Jessie tended to disappear.

Don't blow it this time, Jess.

“Where are you going?” Luz asked Dusty. “Are you really taking her to meet your mother?”

“I think I'll save that for another time, when we can spend more time with the old girl.”

“Oh, I'm all for that,” Jessie said. Then, unexpectedly, she touched Luz on the shoulder. “Are we still fighting?”

Luz hesitated. The Lila issue was not a fight, it was much deeper, more complicated than that. So complicated that she did what she did best—put it aside to worry about later. She answered Jessie's question with one of her own. “Are we still breathing?” She pushed her toward Dusty. “Go. I'll see you later.”

Dusty opened the door of his truck for Jessie. “Do you like Mexican food?”

She looked faint with relief. “I adore Mexican food.”

“Vaya con dios,”
said Luz, then stepped back to watch them go.

Jessie fastened her seat belt. She noticed Amber's car seat had been removed. Walking around the truck, Dusty said something else to Luz, but Jessie couldn't make out the words. She couldn't stand having Luz mad at her. What had she been thinking?

She hadn't been thinking. It was always that way with her. She'd always been governed by impulse rather than caution. Particularly yesterday. She'd been given a glimpse of a future she didn't want to face, and had needed to do something crazy that didn't involve firearms or strong narcotics. So she'd tattooed Lila.

And then she'd been surprised to discover Luz disapproved.

As Luz went to the main house, Dusty got in the driver's side. Instead of starting the engine, he slid over on the seat, passing one arm behind her and lowering his mouth to hers, his manner brisk, almost businesslike, but at the same time absurdly sexy.

His kiss was a long indulgence, the feel and taste of him so good that she nearly wept with the pleasure of it. He had a
way of putting everything into his kiss—unspoken promises, unvoiced feelings, maybe even dreams. His hand stole inside her blouse. At length he pulled back, leaving her reeling, on fire, aching.

“I've wanted to do that since the first moment I laid eyes on you,” he said.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Put you in my truck and feel you up.”

“You're such a pervert, Matlock.”

“And that's one of my better qualities.” With exaggerated reluctance, he disengaged himself from her and slid behind the wheel. Resting his hand at the top of the steering wheel, he said, “Damn. I missed you.”

A shiver passed over her. No one had ever spoken to her like this before—directly, honestly. She'd never met anyone like him. He was completely free of pretense. He had survived an unspeakable tragedy and was prepared to go on from there. And when he held her in his arms, he made her feel like the center of the world.

He started the engine and headed up the hill. “I practically had to hog-tie my mother to keep her from coming back here with me to check you out.”

“I'm having trouble picturing you hog-tying your mother,” she said.

“To tell you the truth, it can't be done. Louisa Tate Matlock is a force of nature. She's dying to meet you.”

“Why?”

He reached over and touched her cheek. “You know why, honey.”

The possibility that she actually did know why struck her speechless. This was too bizarre. She had managed to live half her life without ever feeling this way, this tumbling glorious, magical way, and now all of a sudden, she did. It was as
frightening and as exhilarating as a roller-coaster ride. Except that when you were on a roller coaster, you knew it would be over soon.

Ah, she wanted this. It had taken her half a lifetime to find a man like this, but he'd come along at the wrong time.

He passed the turnoff for his house and kept going. She stayed silent, perversely enjoying the uncertainty of it all. Even when he rolled to a halt at the County Airpark, she didn't allow herself to question him.

“Do you want to know where we're going?” he asked.

“There's no point in my asking,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because my answer is the same no matter what.”

“Yeah? What's your answer?”

She placed her hand in his. “Yes.”

“I can't believe you brought me to Mexico,” Jessie said.

Dusty savored a gulp of his Tecate, the top of the cold can flavored with a squeeze of lime and a shake of salt. “You said you wanted Mexican food for dinner.”

Across the round enameled metal table, Jessie looked beautiful, with the night breeze playing with her hair as they shared a meal at the outdoor café. She was excited and maybe a bit sad, and Dusty wondered why. He was glad he'd brought her here. The lone immigration official at the airfield didn't require a passport so long as you had ID and a twenty-dollar bill, but as it turned out, Jessie was in the habit of keeping her passport in her handbag.

It was a perfect Mexican night, the air cool and clear enough to make a roof of stars, the smells and sounds both familiar and foreign.

She squeezed a lime wedge over the top of her beer can. “I love Mexican food. I love Mexico.”

I love you.
He leaned back in the flimsy folding chair and felt the truth of it in his whole body and soul. No matter how
he tried to rationalize or tell himself it was too soon, the fact was as clear to him as the stars in the night sky. There was a certainty within him that he had learned, perhaps with his pilot's instincts, to trust. The rightness of it settled in his heart. She was the one. They were going to be together. He couldn't imagine life without her.

But he didn't want to tell her right now. She'd think he was nuts for bringing it up so early in their relationship. For the time being, he kept the words tucked in his heart like a gift he'd bought and was waiting for the right moment to give her.

And then there was the small matter of whether or not she loved him. He figured she did but didn't know it yet. She was going to, though. That was something else he knew with unapologetic arrogance.

There were a few practical considerations, he reflected. She had to want to be Amber's mother. If she didn't, well, that was a deal breaker. But when he saw the way Jessie was around the baby—caught up in wonder and caring—his hopes soared.

“You're awfully quiet,” Jessie pointed out.

“Just enjoying the atmosphere. Candela is one of my favorite towns. I come here a few times a year, just because I can.”

She held out her arms as if to embrace the zocalo, a collection of colorful shops and restaurants clustered around the colonial heart of the town. “It's fabulous. How did you discover it?”

“One of Arnufo's nephews works at the air tower over at the landing strip. He makes sure I get a warm welcome every time I head down here.”

“Good to know. So no one thinks you're a drug dealer.”

“Not that I know of. Who needs drugs?” The proprietors of the café, whom he'd known since he started coming here, tried not to hover and stare, but Felix and Yolanda Molina
were too old and cheerful to be subtle. This was the first time he'd brought a woman here, and they were treating Jessie like visiting royalty.

Yolanda had created a feast of roasted peppers stuffed with spicy rice and piñones, chiles rellenos that made him want to howl at the moon and enchiladas sizzling on a hot plate. They ended with sopapillas drenched in honey and cinnamon. Jessie shut her eyes and offered a blissful smile. “I'm going to have to go to confession after that.”

“I didn't know you were Catholic.”

“I'm not, but I have plenty to confess.”

He sensed a solemnity deep beneath the words. “Yeah?”

“You don't want to know.”

“Sure I do.”

“No, I mean you
really
don't want to know.”

“Now you're going to have to tell me for sure.”

She shivered a little, pressed her palms flat on the surface of the table. “I don't think so.”

He suspected that this was her routine, refusing to share or surrender or open herself to vulnerability. He was about to ask her to dance, to sweep her away and, he hoped, chase the troubled shadows from her face, but something stopped him. “Think again, senorita. I'm your ride home, and if you don't say what's on your mind, I'll leave you to help Yolanda wash the dishes. So spill. Tell me your deepest, darkest secret.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You first.”

He hesitated. Maybe he shouldn't have brought this up.

“Come on, Matlock,” she said. “You started this. Spill.”

He took another drink of his beer. What the hell. If they were going to be in love, they had to share the hard stuff, the things you confess only to the people you trust. “I'm scared of my own daughter.”

Dusty felt as shocked as Jessie looked. He hadn't expected it
to be so easy to admit. Maybe it was the beer, the atmosphere or the fact that he was falling in love, but he was finding it impossible to hold anything back from her. “What I mean is, I'm scared something bad is going to happen to her. Every minute. I've been her only parent, and I feel totally out of my depth. If not for Arnufo, I might've done something nuts…handed her over to my sisters or my mom to raise.”

“How is that nuts?”

He grinned ruefully. “You haven't met my sisters or my mom. Anyway, when a baby comes along, you do what's best for the kid, not for yourself. I'm raising her because it's the right thing to do.”

“Do you disapprove of people who give their babies away?”

“Hell, no. Sometimes it's the best possible choice. But it wasn't for me and Amber. And you're stalling. Come on, Jess. Deepest, darkest. Your turn.”

“I had a baby, once, too.” The words exploded from Jessie like bubbles from a champagne bottle.

Damn. Maybe she was right. Maybe he really didn't want to know.

She smiled with false sweetness. “Aren't you glad you asked?”

Okay, he thought. This was a test. How bad did he want to love her? Bad enough to take on her burden of sadness? “You feel like talking about it?” he asked.

“It's not mine to tell.”

“It's yours, honey. It happened to you.” He took her hand in his, stared at their entwined fingers on the chipped enamel table. He felt such tenderness for this woman. She moved him and aroused his finest instincts to comfort and cherish.

She pressed her lips together, then took a deep breath. “I was twenty-one, a senior in college. Gave birth to a baby girl. She was premature, and no one thought she would make it,
least of all me. I walked out of the hospital that day and never looked back. I had this weird notion that if I interfered in any way I'd put her chance of survival in jeopardy.”

“And she survived,” he concluded, not even needing confirmation. “Then what?”

“I can't say any more. This is private stuff.”

She drew her hand away and tucked it in her lap. And then, Dusty knew. He reeled, picturing the sullen teenaged girl who'd been giving her family hell. “Damn. Lila.”

A single tear tracked down her cheek. “Dusty, you can't say a word.”

He frowned. “You mean it's a secret?”

She nodded, tightening her hands into fists in her lap. “When she—when it first happened, I thought…my baby would be better off not knowing about me.”

He couldn't imagine not telling Amber about Karen one day. “What do you think now?”

“I don't know.” She sipped her beer. “I came home wanting to see her, but my reasons were selfish. I have to figure out what's best for Lila. If we tell her I gave birth to her, she's going to want to know who fathered her, and no one but me knows that.”

“Double damn and holy shit, woman. You do have a few issues in your life.”

She brushed at her cheek. “You don't know the half of it.”

“So tell me the other half.”

She hesitated, shifting her gaze away. “I can't. People will be hurt by this.”

“You're hurting now, Jess. Talk to me. It helps, I swear it. Those things I told you about Karen—I kept them inside me too long. And after I leveled with you—even with Blair—it didn't seem so bad.”

A long inhalation shuddered through her. “It's not like I
planned it. I knew Ian before he met Luz. It was nothing. A fling. We had a few laughs, and then we parted ways and forgot the whole thing.”

He kept his expression neutral, but it took an effort. “I reckon a fling with you would amount to more than a few laughs, but maybe that's just me.”

“It's just you. A few weeks after we parted ways, he met Luz. God, Luz was so happy. I'd never seen her in love before. When we were growing up, she was always the worrier. Our mom wasn't around much, so Luz pretty much gave up being a kid and devoted herself to taking care of us. Then when Ian came along, he made all that go away. It was a magical thing to see. Luz in love was an entirely new person. It was the first time I actually saw the power of love transform a person.”

Her breath caught. “Ian and I never mentioned the past. He and Luz made wedding plans right away, and I was accepted for a photography fellowship overseas.” She smiled with self-deprecation. “For about five whole minutes, it appeared both Luz and I were finally getting the lives we wanted. Then I found out I was pregnant. I went into a sort of controlled panic. And the guilt knocked me over. Here I was, twenty-one and pregnant by the guy my sister was about to marry. I had always been a wild child, but this surpassed even my standards.”

For a moment, Dusty wondered if this meant she wouldn't accept Amber. But he knew instantly there was no chance of that. He could imagine her heartache and confusion back then. She was a different person now, with a heart so ready to love that she had turned her back on the only life she knew in order to come home to her family.

“Trust me, other twenty-one-year-olds have done worse,” he said.

She pulled her hand out from under his and took a quick
sip of her beer. “As always, Luz came to the rescue. She offered to adopt the baby and Ian agreed. Going by the calendar, he knew there was a possibility it was his. He asked me, and I denied it.” She aimed a challenging glare at Dusty. “Nice, huh?”

“I figure you had your reasons.”

“If I named him as the father, Luz would have given him up. He would have done the right thing by me and we would have spent the last sixteen years making each other—and our daughter—miserable. Telling the truth would have shattered my sister's world.”

“Then you shouldn't have any regrets, Jess. Luz and Ian are great, from what I can tell. Lila's with her natural father and has a stable, loving family.”

“I know. I couldn't be more thankful, couldn't have given my baby a better life. But I should have stayed away. I've never been anything but trouble, and this stuff with Lila proves it. When I was young, being a free spirit was fun. Now it's getting old.
I'm
getting old. But Lila… Seeing her again is the only thing that makes sense to me these days. I gave her life, then gave her up. Never let myself think about what I flung into the world, what I let go of sixteen years ago. Now it's all I think about. When you showed up this afternoon, Luz and I were arguing about her. I took Lila out for a day in the city, spoiled her rotten.” She touched her midsection, covered by a blue-green dress. “We got tattoos. I wanted to have something in common with her.”

He tried to picture Amber at sixteen, getting a tattoo on her belly. “Probably not the best choice for a souvenir.”

“I know.” She finished her Tecate. “So, Dr. Matlock,” she said in an exaggerated German accent. “The patient is a hopeless case, no?”

“You're all going to be fine. You and your sister and Lila.”

“Right.” She set her empty can on the edge of the table. He caught it before it fell.

“You know what's scary?” she asked him. “I made a point of staying away from Lila for as long as I could. Until I showed up, she'd never met me and hardly knew a thing about me. I was colorful, globe-trotting Aunt Jessie who sent her postcards with exotic postmarks and the occasional e-mail from Internet cafés in Kathmandu or Kuala Lumpur. But even so, she's like me in a lot of ways. It's creepy.”

“The kid didn't sneak out and get into a wreck because she's related to you, or because you came to see her. Believe me, that was something that had been brewing for a long time.”

“How would you know?”

“Vivid memories of my own misspent youth. Look, whatever's bugging that girl didn't happen overnight. It's not your fault, it's not your sister's fault. It's the fault of hormones and youth.”

“Actually,” she said, “it's more like brain damage.”

“Say what?”

“It turns out that one of the reasons a teenager is so reckless is that her brain—the prefrontal cortex, to be exact—is still immature. The part that controls judgment, emotional moderation, organization and planning is not fully developed. Which explains why teenagers do the crazy things they do. The good news is, if they survive adolescence, the brain matures and they're likely to settle down. I found that out when I was researching an article about the wreck for Blair LaBorde.”

“So you're a writer, too?” he asked, impressed.

“Lately.”

“Good. I'll be your number one fan.” He saw new depths in her now. She'd had a child—Lila—and yet she had never been a mother. That aspect of her both fascinated and touched him. And not once did he doubt that she had the capacity to
love a child. She'd just never had the chance. “Look, I don't see the conflict here. You did a selfless thing, keeping Ian in the dark so he wouldn't have to choose between you and your sister. Luz did a selfless thing, adopting your baby. You're both trying to do right and you love each other. That doesn't mean it's going to be easy. You've made mistakes and you'll have to live with them, like everyone else.”

She propped her chin in her hand and let out an exaggerated sigh. “Will you marry me?”

He grinned. “Tomorrow.”