Petals on the Pillow (15 page)

The words tumbled from Kendra as if she wanted to force them into the open before she could stop herself.

“Why would that have anything to do with me?” Kelly asked, slightly uncomfortable with what the answer might be. She and Harrison had tried to be discreet, but even in a big house it might be hard to keep a secret.

Kendra shrugged. “I’m not sure, but if she’s acting erratical
ly—and sending scones to David Clark is definitely erratic— there’s no telling on whom she might focus. I just wanted to make sure nothing untoward had happened.”

No, Kelly had assured Kendra, nothing untoward had hap
pened, but in the back of her mind the question of who had been leaving things in her room still niggled. Somehow she couldn’t quite imagine Dora lumbering around the Manor in the middle of the night, sprinkling flower petals after herself like some aged flower girl, but someone was.

Kelly pushed back through the swinging kitchen doors and sank down into the chair next to Betsy. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this tired before. Of course, she’d woken up early this morning and the night before had had almost no sleep at all. All she wanted to do was lay her head down on the table and go to sleep. But there was Betsy, slumped over on her chair and picking frantically at the ravelling edge of her sweater. “Peanut butter for lunch, kiddo? Or should we be wild and crazy and have a yogurt?”

Betsy shrugged. “I dunno.”

“You don’t know or you don’t want anything?”

“I don’t want anything. I’m not really hungry anymore.” The girl’s lips trembled slightly.

Kelly sighed. “Me neither.”

Betsy looked up at Kelly, her eyes bright with tears just beginning to spill over spiky black lashes. “I miss Uncle David.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“I miss the way things used to be.” Betsy’s voice quivered. Kelly opened her arms and Betsy rushed to her with a little whimper. She shook as sobs wracked through her body, clutching Kelly’s legs like a life preserver. Kelly stroked the fine and silky hair, breathing in the smell of baby shampoo, and hummed a little tune about mockingbirds and Billy goats that she’d forgotten she’d ever known. Eventually, the little shoulders stopped convulsing and the sobs quieted to sniffles. Betsy raised her tear-streaked face. “Did your mother used to sing you that song when you were little?”

Kelly smiled. “She must have, but I don’t really remember too much about the time before she got sick. I was only four.”

“My mama used to sing me that song whenever I was scared or when I got hurt.”

A cold lump grew in Kelly’s stomach. “She did?”

Betsy nodded. “All the time. It was her favorite. Mine, too.”

“Well, it’s a common song. I guess my mother must have sung it to me, too.” Kelly ignored the uncomfortable prickles at the back of her scalp and helped Betsy to stand. “What do we do now, partner? Lunch? Check our painting to see if it’s dried?”

Betsy’s smile was tremulous, but it still made it to her lips. “I’m kind of tired. If it’s okay with you, I think I’ll just lie down for a while.”

Kelly couldn’t stop the sigh of relief that escaped her. “Me, too, kiddo. I think that’s a great idea.”

They trooped upstairs together, separating as Betsy went into her temporary room two doors down from Kelly’s. Kelly went into her own room, grateful for some quiet. She opened the French doors and let the breeze lift the curtains.

The cheval mirror still hung empty. Jenkins had said it could be as long as a week before it could be replaced. The glass had to be custom cut and frosted to match the older piece that had shattered. It would depend on when the shop could get to the order. Kelly walked past it and through her room to look at herself in the bathroom mirror. She ran her fingers experi
mentally over the bridge of her nose and the wide plains of her cheekbones, finding comfort as her fingers explored the familiar bone structure. Then her fingers drifted to her lips, the lips Harrison said had spoken to him with another woman’s voice and kissed him with another woman’s kiss.

Who
had he expected to kiss him back in the hallway two nights ago? Had he known? Had he cared? Had he known who he was taking into his arms when he had sneaked into her room so late last night?

What about her own part in it all? There was no fooling herself, as much as she would like to. She hadn’t been seduced or forced. Kelly thought she’d known herself so well, known her own drives and desires. Where had been the harm, after all? An attractive man whose kiss had sent skyrockets off in a way she’d never experienced before on a cold and unsettling night in a lonely old house.

Nature had taken its course. Or had it? Had something more unnatural than she cared to contemplate played a role in what had happened? She felt betrayed by her own body. Or was it really her mind that had turned traitor on her? The thoughts chased around in her head leaving her dizzy and just as confused as before.

Just this morning she’d been completely convinced that she herself had wanted to see Betsy, safe and sleeping. Now she had to question whether it was totally normal to be that attached to a child she’d known for only a few days. Had another woman been looking through her eyes? Had a mother been checking on her baby in the treacherous hours right before dawn, like so many mothers the world over? Had Elizabeth been willing her to move?

At the bottom of all the confusion, one question clanged with a resonance Kelly couldn’t ignore. If she couldn’t decide where her own feelings toward Betsy ended and Elizabeth’s began, what did that say about her feelings toward Harrison? Whose needs moved her? Whose desires motivated her? Whose appetite had set her body on fire with a craving for his touch more powerful than she had ever imagined?

Could it be? Had she just made love to another woman’s husband for her?

Chapter Eleven

“Another cup of tea, Kelly?”

Kelly looked up to find Mrs. Jenkins hovering over her with a steaming pot. “No, thanks. I feel like my back teeth are floating already.” She rifled through the stack of papers in front of her. “Have you seen that list of paints I had?”

Mrs. Jenkins plucked a sheet covered with Kelly’s crabbed handwriting from another pile that had been shoved to the side. “Is this the one?”

“Thanks.” Kelly took it and read through the list, lower lip tucked between her teeth. She picked up a slick and glossy catalog from another stack. “I can’t believe these could all get here so fast.”

“Yes, well, all these express mail things do have a purpose sometimes, I suppose.” Dora sniffed, in disapproval of extrava
gance and poor planning Kelly supposed, and headed back for the stove. “Will you be able to find everything that you need in those magazines?”

“Pretty close.” Kelly marked down an item number and a price. She flipped the catalog in her hands shut and reached for another one. “It wouldn’t make any difference if they did have absolutely everything if Harrison wasn’t willing to pay for overnight shipping on top of it all.”

“’Twas the least he could do,” Dora said as she dried a pot she’d taken from the dish rack with enough energy to cause a breeze with the sleeves of her capacious housedress. “It happened in his house while you were doing a job for him, after all.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like he did it himself.”

“No.” Dora’s hands slowed and she looked out the window onto the lawn. “No, I don’t suppose he did.”

Something in her tone brought Kelly’s nose up out of her stack of price lists. “Dora,” Kelly said softly. “Do you know who did it? Do you know who smashed my brushes?”

She shook her head. “No, child. I don’t. And that’s a fact.” She clanged the pot into its cupboard and started on another, energy renewed.

“Any guesses?” Kelly probed further.

“No, miss. None I’d care to make.” Dora kept her face carefully averted from Kelly.

Exasperated, Kelly asked, “What is that supposed to mean?” But Dora only shrugged and kept drying dishes, stacking the gleaming pots on the spotless countertops in leaning piles. Kelly shrugged herself and went back to her stack of catalogs. Neither woman had spoken further when Betsy bounced into the kitchen five minutes later, wearing her standard uniform of overalls and her tattered old cardigan. The little girl sat down across the table from Kelly and picked up one of the catalogs.

“Hey, put that back, squirt. I might need that yet,” Kelly blurted out as she grabbed it back from Betsy.

“All right, already. Don’t have a cow.” Betsy leaned her chin in her hands, elbows braced on the table. “You’re going to get everything back, right? These catalogs Dad sent for have every
thing, don’t they?”

“There’s a few things I’ll need to go get myself in Seattle, but I should be able to improvise around them for awhile.” Kelly shuffled the stack of catalogs around again and pulled out another one.

“So you’ll still be able to paint my mural, right?” Betsy’s legs swung under the table, kicking at her chair.

“Right. It’ll just take a little bit longer.” Kelly’s pen jumped in her hand. “Stop kicking, Betsy.”

“Okay.” Betsy grinned. “But that’s great news as far as I’m concerned. The longer you stay, the better.” She leaped out of her chair and gave Kelly a quick hug before she skipped across the room to get a box of cereal and a bowl from the cupboard.

Kelly looked up to see Dora Jenkins watching her from the corner of her eye. The second Kelly’s gaze caught hers, howev
er, Dora looked away. Her path of vision paused momentarily on the back of Betsy’s head before returning to the sink before her.

Kelly followed Dora’s gaze and looked back at Betsy. It couldn’t be, she told herself. There was no way Betsy could be responsible for smashing her things. She couldn’t bring herself to believe that the little girl with the thousand watt smile would do something so violent and hurtful.

Kelly’s teeth bit into her lip sharply enough to draw a bead of blood. She knew all too well that there was another side to Betsy. A brooding side. One that had spent hours in a makeshift tent, poring over photos of a mother lost and gone. One that knew all the nooks and crannies of the house and where Kelly kept her supplies. Betsy had asked her to stay longer a dozen times, had been delighted that the damage to Kelly’s brushes would mean a longer stay at the Manor.

Kelly watched Betsy carefully pour her cereal and milk and then mop up the few drops of milk she’d spilled on the count
er. Kelly had been flattered by the little girl’s adoration. Palling around while she worked on the mural had been fun. It had been like spending time with the little sister she’d never had. Had the sheer pleasure of having someone look up to her like that blinded her to what Betsy St. John might be capable of?

Kelly pushed her heavy hair back off her neck and rotated her shoulders against the sudden tension that streaked down her neck straight to her spine. Was anything in this house what it seemed? Betsy slid into the chair across from her again, flash
ing her that gap-toothed grin that always made Kelly smile in response. Betsy had been sitting at the top of the stairs when Kelly and Kendra had come down the hall. The brushes must have already been smashed and lying in the pool of paints and mixers just a few doors away by then, judging by how much they’d dried when Kelly had found them after breakfast.

Could she really have sat there, looking as sweet and feck
less as a refugee from a Norman Rockwell painting, knowing all the time that Kelly’s investment in paint and wood and sable lay ruined yards away?

Of course, Betsy would have no clue to what the money Kelly had spent on supplies would mean. She was only ten, after all. It was doubtful, Kelly thought, that Elizabeth Andrea St. John would ever know what that money meant to Kelly, no matter how old she got. Chances that Betsy would ever have to choose between shoes without holes in the toes and a really good one-inch round brush were pretty slim. Kelly had never gone hungry, but there had been plenty of choices to make in the path of her life. The kind of choices Betsy St. John would never face.

She had to face it. Betsy wasn’t her little sister. Her sister would be closer to her friend Lisa Jackson’s age than Betsy’s if she’d lived. Unbidden, images of the perfect little baby who had never taken a breath seeped into her conscious thought. Kelly tried to shake them away. She didn’t want to think about the porcelain white skin or the slightly parted pink lips or the fine black hair against the satin cushion, didn’t want to think about it now or ever. Too much of her own childhood had been wasted on that image. Kelly inwardly cursed the artist’s eye she’d had ever since she could remember, the one that brought back the details of the little white coffin and its brass fittings with merciless accuracy even all these years later, but the only thing the shake of her head dislodged was a cascade of unruly hair.

“Are you okay, Kelly?”

Kelly shoved the hair back so hard that her trembling hand tangled in a lock and pulled painfully at her scalp. She looked into Betsy’s clear and guileless eyes. “I’m fine, Betsy. Just fine.”

Betsy wrinkled her pixie nose. “You looked funny there for a minute. All white and kind of pasty.”

I’ll bet,
Kelly thought.
Not half as white and pasty as I felt.
It had been years since images of the sister who never was had sneaked up on her. Grief was normal. Grief was natural. But it has its time and its place. The time for that sorrow had passed long ago and Kelly had been sure it had been left behind her in the old neighborhood in Chicago. Maybe taking on responsibility for her mother’s care now that her father was gone was bringing it all back up again. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about that bill this month. With the check from Harrison for half the mural bolstering her account, the check to Resting Arms would go through this time without a problem. At least she hoped it would. Kelly didn’t relish the thought of any more conversations with the accounts payable department at the nursing home. All of their lovely euphemisms about “clients” and “special attention” didn’t change what they were or what they did. Just thinking about the place had the awful smell of the hallways back in Kelly’s nose. She wondered if she’d ever be able to forget that place or the endless afternoons spent at her mother’s bedside as Nancy Donovan literally wasted away in front of her daughter and husband. Kelly pushed the thoughts and memories back as ruthlessly as she could to focus on making sure her orders for the art supply houses were correct. She didn’t like her old life and family entanglements intruding on the new life she was trying to build. In fact she resented them, and had since she was Betsy’s age. “Just lost in thought, kiddo,” she told Betsy. “No big deal.”

“Ladies.” Harrison strode into the room, his voice a reso
nant bell.

Kelly’s heart slammed in her chest.
The sound of Harrison’s voice set her nerve endings on fire. It was too much, she warned herself. She wanted too much from him already, and what she wanted was way more than this man had to give.

Or was it? In the dim light on the shuttered east side of the Manor, she’d seen the need in his eyes and heard it in his voice clearly enough. She knew the pain he hid from the world and wondered if he’d ever allow himself to heal. She cursed herself for wanting to be the one to remedy that pain. It was a silly foolish hope. One made from the kind of romanticism Kelly had never allowed herself to indulge in. Yet here she was, mouth dry and palms damp, just because he had walked into the room.

Kelly managed a small smile in response to Harrison’s nod to her, then watched as he pulled the chair next to Betsy’s out from the table and settled in it at an angle, facing his daughter. A tentative smile turned up the corners of his straight lips. “Good morning, Betsy.” Harrison’s gaze stayed firmly on Betsy’s face. Kelly thought she saw a muscle in his jaw flick with tension, but it passed in a second and she couldn’t be sure she’d really seen it.

“G-g-good morning, Dad.” Betsy stared back at him, eyes wide with amazement. Her fingers traveled to the cuff of her sweater and began to pick at the thread. She put her spoon in her bowl and pushed her chair back with a scrape.

When she was halfway out of her chair, Harrison placed his hand on Betsy’s arm. She faltered to a stop. “Do you have to run off right away?” he asked. “I thought we might have breakfast together.”

“You and me?” She bit her lip, staring at his hand, which still rested on her arm.

“You and I,” he corrected, his voice low and gentle.

“You and I,” she repeated automatically. “I don’t know. I’ve
been helping with the mural and . . .”

Harrison shot a glance at Kelly, who said, “It’s fine with me. I’m still working through my lists here.” She gathered up the catalogs and lists and stacked them in one pile.

“Excellent, then.” Harrison rubbed his hands together. “Sit back down. It seems like the summer is half over and we still haven’t even talked about how the school year went.”

Betsy plopped back into her chair, still staring at her father, whose smile had grown a little larger and a lot less tentative.

Kelly picked up her stack of papers and, murmuring something about checking for item numbers, slipped out of the kitchen. Dora followed closely behind her. Kelly heard the other woman sigh in unison with her quick intake of breath. They’d both turned and peered back through the swinging door at the same time. Kelly knew Dora had seen exactly what she had before the flapping door had stilled and shut off their view. Kelly gave Dora a grin that was answered with one of the only real smiles she’d seen on the older woman’s face. Then Dora swiped at her eyes with the edge of her apron and trundled off toward her own quarters behind the kitchen. Kelly stood for a moment and stared at the door’s flat white exterior. It stood still now, but it hadn’t stopped flapping and cut off their vision before both Dora and Kelly had seen Betsy sliding from her chair and into her father’s welcoming hug.

Kelly wandered up to her room with a goofy smile on her face. As pleased as she was with the progress she was making on Betsy’s mural, she knew that her best accomplishment here at Hawk Manor would be that hug she’d glimpsed. A warm glow that started in her heart spread through her whole body. She settled in on her bed with the stacks of catalogs and sorted them back into piles, humming to herself the whole time.

It took her a little more than another hour to assemble her lists, and another two before she’d placed all the phone calls to the various mail order houses. She doodled in her sketchpad and twisted the phone cord around her fingers as she languished on hold, waiting to place orders, but finally she was through with the list. The majority of her paints and brushes would be at Hawk Manor within 48 hours. Some might even arrive the next day. Until then she’d make do using some of Elizabeth’s brushes.

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that it had been hours since she’d eaten a piece of toast with jam and a banana at the kitchen table.

Kelly wound her way down the long hallway that led to the Manor’s main stairs. It no longer seemed as confusing or as daunting as it had that first day that she’d trailed after Kendra, peering into the dark corners. She also no longer caught herself shooting glances over her shoulder, looking for unseen watchers in the dim doorways that lined the Manor’s corridors. She felt curiously at home here—a strange sensation, considering the vagabond life she’d opted to live since she left Chicago eight years before.