The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (38 page)

“You could say that. He’s buying land out in Montana. That’s what he drove all this way to talk to me about. He wants me to go in with him.” Hector might have been discussing the weather.

Laura felt as if she’d been punched in the gut. “What did you tell him?”

“That I’d think about it.”

She felt angry all of a sudden. “What’s stopping you?”

“This place, for one thing.”

“You shouldn’t let that hold you back.” She stopped short of saying what was on the tip of her tongue,
We’d manage just fine without you.
It wouldn’t have been true; they’d be lost without Hector.

“You’d better give me that before you spill it.” He reached for her mug.

Laura looked down and saw that her hands were trembling. She was flooded with shame. “I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing why she was apologizing.

She handed him the mug and watched him place it on the table along with his. He wore what he jokingly called his uniform: jeans and T-shirt—tonight’s was green with a denim jacket thrown over it—and a pair of toe-sprung cowboy boots. His shiny black hair fell in thick, straight layers to just below his ears. Even his smile was the same as always.

Yet everything had changed.

“Sorry for what?” he asked.

“That you’re leaving.”

“I didn’t say I was.”

“It’s your life. Do what you want.” Laura dropped her gaze, staring at the worn hooked rug on which he stood. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just…well, after a while you get used to things being a certain way. It’s selfish, I know. I have no right.”

He sank onto his haunches before her. “Laura.” Just that, her name. Yet she’d never heard him speak it so tenderly. He cupped her chin, lifting her head to meet his gaze.

She blinked, and felt the wet kiss of tears against her lower lashes. “Don’t go.” The words slipped out, soft as a sigh.

In a single motion he rose, pulling her to her feet and into his arms. He held her tightly, saying her name again, “Laura.” Gently, as if consoling her.

She brought her head to rest against his shoulder, acutely aware of his muscles pressing against her ribs. He smelled of smoky taverns and aftershave. When they kissed it was as natural as taking the next breath. Hector’s mouth, warm and sweet, tasting faintly of coffee. Her own parting in response. Not like before; this time for real. She could feel the edge of his teeth and the sharp point of his belt buckle. Hungry. Wanting her,
needing
her, as much as she wanted and needed him.

He slipped a hand up the back of her neck, pushing his fingers into her hair, gripping it hard. “How could I leave you?”

It was like music, the way he said it. “I thought—”

He drew back to place a finger against her lips. “We go from here.”

Later, Laura wouldn’t recall who undressed whom. It seemed one minute they were clothed…and the next naked, their bodies glowing in the moonlight.

Hector led her over to the bed, which smelled of him and brought a wealth of images: his clothes drying on the line, his worn boots, his saddle polished to the smoothness of wood.

I’m dreaming,
she thought. Like the dreams from which she awoke in a tangle of sheets, sweating and ashamed. Only now there was no shame. Just the quiet knowledge that he wanted her. She closed her eyes, letting her head fall back against the pillow. She could feel the calluses on his hands and shivered as he touched her there…and there. Then he was on his knees, straddling her. Not ashamed to let her see how aroused he was.

She wrapped her fingers around him and felt him shudder in response. He pulled her hand away and brought it to his mouth, running the tip of his tongue over her palm.

“Was I doing it wrong?” she asked.

“Just the opposite.” He smiled lazily.

“Tell me what to do.”

“Just relax.”

He cupped her breast, running his thumb lightly over her nipple. The sensation brought a tug of pleasure that traveled all the way down between her legs. Laura let go, let herself sink as if into a warm bath. Had it ever been this good with Peter? She couldn’t recall. There was only this: Hector’s mouth taking up where his hands left off, his tongue raising goose bumps, his flesh gliding warm against hers.

She opened her legs, crying out a little as he entered her. Not just because it had been so long, but because it felt so good. So right.

Hector made love the way he rode—with the assuredness of someone born to it, pausing every so often to stroke her cheek, or run the tip of his tongue along her neck. Murmuring endearments as he rocked against her.

They came together. Crying out, arching into one another. As if there had never been any doubt that this would take place, as if the past twelve years had been but a prelude, an inevitable progression of events leading to this moment. She brought her legs up, wrapping them tightly about his hips, losing all sense of where he left off and she began. Aware only of the warm wave that rose, crested, then rose again.

When it was over, he rolled onto his side, and she felt a rush of cool air against her sweat-slick skin. Gently, he kissed her temple, then the moist hollow of her neck. “We’ll take it slow next time.”

“Will there be a next time?” She spoke lightly, but the uncertainty must have shown in her face.

Hector smiled. “That’s up to you.”

Laura felt giddy, a laugh bubbling to the surface. She pushed herself up onto her elbow so that they were facing one another. “Oh Hector. You still don’t get it, do you? I’m crazy about you. I have been for years… even when I didn’t know it.”

He traced the slope of her breast. “I was sort of hoping you’d say that.”

She didn’t dare ask it: Did that mean he’d stay? The question trembled like a leaf about to fall. “There’s just one thing,” she said. “I’m not very good about writing.”

He cocked his head, looking puzzled. “Is there something I’m not getting here?”

“Montana’s a long way off.”

He grinned. “That’s what I told Eddie.”

“You bastard.” She took a playful swipe at him.

“If you’d known my mind was made up, you wouldn’t have asked me to stay.” His logic was, as always, irrefutable.

“You could’ve just told me how you felt.”

He caught her wrist and held it to his mouth. She could feel his breath, warm against her palm. A sweet shiver coursed through her. “You had to trust me first.”

“Trust was never an issue.”

“Not just to look after this place. You had to know I’d never hurt you.”

Laura smiled, shaking her head. “You’re nothing like Peter.”

He looked at her long and hard, then asked, “Does that mean you’d consider getting married again someday?”

She felt more than heard his words: an electrical jolt that shot straight down through the pit of her stomach. Then a strange calm descended over her. Like the time she’d been rear-ended and the woman who’d hit her had asked if she was okay, and she’d answered, “I’m fine,” as if it’d been nothing more than a polite exchange in passing.

In exactly the same tone she said to Hector, “I haven’t ruled it out.”

He didn’t say anything. He just smiled.

They made love again, and this time took it slowly. When they drew apart at last, Laura was glowing, not just with contentment, but with the sweet knowledge that this was only the beginning. There would be a next time, and a time after that—days and nights strung together like links on a chain.

She fell into a sound sleep with her head tucked into the warm curve of Hector’s arm. For once she slept without dreaming, with only the occasional hoot of an owl or distant howl of a dog nipping at the outer edge of consciousness. She didn’t hear a car pull into her driveway shortly before two or see a shadowy figure climb from it.

It wasn’t until she was jerked from sleep by the dogs’ frantic barking that she tumbled out of bed to peer out the window. All she could see was a corner of the house, where a red light pulsed in strobelike flashes, washing the weathered clapboard in crimson.

T
HIS TIME
it was for real. No going back.

There was just this: putting one foot in front of the other.

For weeks now her backpack had lain in readiness under the bed. Maude was the only one who’d known, but she hadn’t said a word. It was an understanding they shared: that the world, like the moon, was divided into two halves. The sunny half where people like Laura lived and the dark half, where the sidewalks were cold and every escalator you went up was going down.

Like the cop she’d caught a glimpse of as she sneaked past the living room. She’d barely noticed what he looked like. What difference did it make? He was all cops rolled into one: short, tall, fat, thin, young, old. The cops taking her to a new mommy and daddy, or social worker, or judge. The cops responding to a domestic or searching for drugs. And worst of all: the ones who had her whole story written at a glance.

No notebook this time. Only the faint sizzle of a walkie-talkie over the anxious fluting of Maude’s voice. The girl felt a burst of love that nearly eclipsed her fear. Maude would stall him. She would lie outright if she had to.
That’s what people who love you do.
The thought was like something warm tucked inside her sweatshirt as she slipped out the back door, easing the screen door noiselessly shut.

The cruiser was parked in the driveway behind Hector’s truck, its light flashing. Incredibly, the keys were still in the ignition and the door, when she tried it, unlocked. She reached in and snatched them, thinking,
The cops back home wouldn’t be this stupid.
A flick of her arm and they went sailing out over the front path to land with a soft crackle amid the hydrangeas.

Then she was sprinting down the drive, the road ahead gleaming pale as bone in the moonlight, the hills beyond folded in shadow. Her backpack tugged at her shoulders as she ran, a cruel reminder of how unaccustomed to its weight she’d grown.

But this time she’d come prepared at least. She felt the pocket of her jeans, where it bulged slightly—Sister Agnes’s key. She would lie low at the convent until first thing tomorrow. The search would have widened by then. The cops wouldn’t think to look so close to home.

Home.
The thought was like a sharp rock in the pit of her stomach. She pictured Maude, Laura, and Hector gathered about the kitchen table, the dogs in their boxes by the stove, the cats padding about underfoot. Only this time Laura would know better than to come looking for her.

Finch found the hole in the fence and crawled under, setting off up the hill. It was easier now because she knew the way, and with sneakers and long pants—not to mention a full moon—the going was fairly easy. Before long she spotted the convent, no longer strange and forbidding, but a place where she’d be safe from harm. Even the thought of its resident ghost didn’t frighten her. If there
were
such things as ghosts, wouldn’t they be like people? Some good, some bad?

As she started up the path she’d first walked with Sister Agnes—what seemed a thousand years ago—she heard only the soft tweep of nightjars. The tall grass whispered against her jeans, and the air was filled with the faint dry scent of sage. She allowed herself a last image of Laura and Maude, like a precious sip of water: Maude in her robe with one button dangling loose, and Laura in a rumpled T-shirt down to her knees.

The girl stumbled, and the stony path rose up to smack her. She picked herself up, brushing dirt from her stinging knees and swiping angrily at her eyes. No tears. That was for later, when she would have the luxury of feeling sorry for herself.

Hugging the shadows, she crept around back of the convent to where a dirt road sloped to the pasture below. The moon floated overhead, a ghostly galleon. Amid the meadow’s tall grass tiny white flowers shone bright as stars. She could see the boxy outline of the beehives, quiet this time of night. Sister Agnes had told her that bees were like people in that way: They worked hard all day, each at its own assigned task, and rested at night.

She realized she would miss Sister Agnes, too. She’d always thought of nuns as set apart somehow; she hadn’t known they could be so understanding. She dug the key from her pocket. Warm from her body’s heat, it seemed to glow in the cup of her palm. In the moonlight the corrugated shed below was starkly outlined, its windows dark.

The lock opened easily, the door swinging open. The girl felt her heart lurch as she stepped into pitch darkness, easing the door shut behind her. A row of ghostly sentinels, floating above the floor, with gaping holes where their faces should have been, seemed to leap out at her. She let out a startled little squeak, goose-flesh crawling up her arms. But a closer look revealed them to be white canvas jumpsuits and netted hoods hanging from pegs along the wall. The nuns wore them when collecting honey, she recalled. She let out a breath and lowered her backpack to the floor.

Gradually her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Now she could make out rows of shelves lined with jars that glistened like gold. In the center of the room was a long table jumbled with boxes, and in the far corner a desk with a computer hooded in plastic. It made her smile, thinking of nuns browsing the Internet. It didn’t go somehow with Sister Agnes’s biblical garden.

She was looking for a place to curl up for the night when she heard the crunch of footsteps along the path. Instinct honed by a lifetime sent her diving under the desk. The pounding of her heart seemed to fill the tiny space.

A moment later the footsteps paused and she heard the soft click of the door. It swung open and a narrow avenue of moonlight flooded in, illuminating the floor just inches from where her backpack lay propped against a table leg. Oh God. Would it give her away? Then the figure stepped inside and she let out a tiny, inaudible sigh of relief. She couldn’t see its face, only a pair of shoes peeking from under the hem of a long dark skirt.

Not a cop after all—a nun.

Her heart wouldn’t stop pounding, even so. There was something strange about this nun. Why wasn’t she turning on the light? Why was she creeping around in the dark like…

…
like a burglar.