The Sweet Gum Tree (24 page)

And there’s always the possibility that I had a darker motive, one I couldn’t let myself acknowledge. Not then. Nick had left me. I had borne our daughter alone, loved her, and seen her die. All the hatred and anger I’d aimed at Nick still lived, buried inside those walls I’d built. He had nearly destroyed my life.

So if I couldn’t have my daughter, I’d steal his son.

Oh, not physically. But mentally, emotionally? Since then, I’ve tried repeatedly to analyze my intentions, and the truth is, I simply don’t know. While I hope not, maybe revenge
was
driving me. Maybe I thought Nick had no right to a healthy, happy child when mine had died. Maybe, God help me, I thought he owed me his son.

And Daniel made it so easy.

He was waiting on me when I pulled the Chevy to a stop in front of the barn, leaning against the wall, watching the kittens play. His eyes lit up at the sight of the old car, and he was talking by the time I got the door open.

“Wow! I can’t believe you’ve still got the Chevy. Dad told me all about it. I didn’t think it would be running anymore.”

I smiled, then looked ruefully at the car. “It has its moments. I need to take it in and have a tune-up done. Sometimes it dies on me.”

I’d kept the Chevy all these years over Hugh’s protests. He hated it when I drove the old car, claiming people would think we couldn’t afford better. Eventually I’d given in and let him buy me a BMW, one he traded in every year for a newer model. But I had refused to sell the Chevy, keeping it stored in the garage and starting it once a month to make sure it stayed in running order. When I left him, I left the fancy cars, too, and felt no urge to replace the Chevy with something better.

“Maybe I could do it for you.” Daniel looked as though he was dying to get his hands on the car.

“You know all about engines, huh?”

“Well, not everything, but Dad taught me a lot. These old engines are simpler to work on than the new ones with all their electronic stuff.”

“Tell you what.” I smiled. “You give it a tune-up and I’ll let you drive it sometimes.”

“Awesome! You’ve got a deal.”

135

Katherine Allred

“Only when I’m with you, though.”

“Okay.”

I didn’t ask him if he had a learner’s permit, or even if he knew how to drive. In the south, kids started driving before they were potty trained. I could still remember sitting on the Judge’s lap, gripping the steering wheel tightly with both hands while he yelled encouragements and pretended I was scaring him half to death. I must have been all of three years old at the time.

“How do you like Morganville so far?” I asked, heading through the barn.

“It’s okay, I guess. A lot different from Saudi Arabia.” A mild shock ran through me as I opened the door to my room. “That’s where you’ve been living?”

“Yeah. For the last eleven years, anyway. I don’t remember much about Kentucky.

We left there as soon as Dad got out of the army.”

“Why Saudi Arabia?”

He shrugged as I put my purse away. “A guy Dad met while he was in the army gave him a job with a big oil company. Dad ran the company’s garages.”

“It must have been interesting to live in place with a culture so different from ours.”

“Not really.” His attention was captured by the bookshelf against one wall and he moved closer, his gaze running over the books. “We lived in a compound the company provided for employees and their families. They even had a school. It was sort of like living in a small town. Are these the books my dad used when he stayed here?”

“Most of them. I’ve added a few in the last two months. Your Dad said you like to read.”

He glanced at me over his shoulder, dimples popping out when he grinned. “It wasn’t like I had much choice. Dad started reading to me about five minutes after I was born. Not kids’ books, either. He read me novels.”

“What about your Mom? Did she read to you, too?” For a second he looked absolutely blank. “You mean Lindsey? No, she doesn’t like to read. Besides, she wasn’t around that much when I was little.” I wanted to ask why he called her by her first name, why she wasn’t around, but from the way his gaze avoided mine when he mentioned her, I couldn’t. There was something very wrong with this picture, something Daniel didn’t want to talk about.

“Feel free to borrow any of the books you want. They should probably belong to you, anyway.”

“Thanks. I’ll check them out later.” He turned and surveyed the room. “It looks just like Dad said.”

I smiled. “There’s not much you can do to fancy up a room in a barn.” He sat on the edge of the bed facing me. “Why do you live here? Everybody says you’re rich, that you could live anywhere you want.” 136

The Sweet Gum Tree

Taking a boxed pizza mix from the cabinet, I turned my back. “Hungry?”

“Sure.”

I got a bowl down and dumped the flour mixture into it. “For the record, I’m not rich, just moderately well-off. And I guess I live here because it doesn’t matter to me what it looks like. It’s home.”

He nodded, a curious wisdom filling his eyes. “It is for Dad, too. Whenever he talked about home, it was always about you and the Judge, or this room, or the Chevy. I think he stayed homesick a lot.”

Moving like an old lady, I covered the bowl of dough with a towel and set it on the stove to rise, then took two sodas from the fridge and handed one to Daniel. I didn’t want to talk about Nick, or even think about what his life had been like all this time, but I didn’t know how to avoid it. He was Daniel’s father and the one link we had in common. Of course the boy would want to talk about him.

I sat in the easy chair, my legs curled under me and sipped my soda. “If he was homesick, why didn’t he come back?”

Daniel looked down at the can he was turning slowly in his hands. “He was trying to protect me. He didn’t want me to know about what happened with his father.” I closed my eyes briefly. Christ, that sounded like Nick. Always the protector, always the guy responsible for everyone else. And now it was clear that Daniel felt guilty for keeping his father from coming home.

“I’m sure he only did it because he loves you, Daniel. And no matter what you hear from anyone else, your father is not the type of person who would do something like that deliberately. It happened because Frank gave him no choice.”

“He told me. But that doesn’t stop people from staring at us every time we go out, and none of the kids around here will talk to me.”

“I don’t think that has anything to do with your father. I think it’s because they don’t know you yet.” I got up to check the dough and prepare the pizza pans. “I have an idea. How would you like to work for me part-time until school starts? Say in the evenings for a few hours? You could work in the electronics department with all the computers and video games. I bet you’ll get to know the kids real fast that way. There’s always a bunch hanging around.”

“Honest?” His eyes lit up. “You’d do that?”

“You bet. And you’d be doing me a favor. Most of the people working for me don’t know anything about computers except the basics. Why don’t you drop by tomorrow and we’ll get you started?”

“I’ll have to ask Dad.”

“Okay, but I’m sure he won’t mind.”

He got up and moved to where I was spreading the dough onto the pans. “You put your own toppings on?”

“Yes. They’re better that way. Want to help? You can do one and I’ll do the other.” 137

Katherine Allred

While I listed the items, he took them from the fridge, and we spent the next few minutes piling ingredients on. Since my oven was so small, we had to cook them one at a time, and as we waited, Daniel regaled me with stories of the salvage yard, where, apparently, he’d been spending his days.

“You should see it. They’ve got this huge backhoe, the biggest one I’ve ever seen. It just scoops those old cars up and dumps them on a flatbed trailer as neat as anything.” Well, that would sure make a lot of people happy, I thought ruefully. The salvage yard was in worse shape now than it had been when Frank ran it. Waist-high weeds had taken over every available bare spot, with small trees growing in clumps that couldn’t mask the rusty hulks of metal. The City Beautification Committee hated the salvage yard with an unstoppable passion. They had tried on several occasions to have the county confiscate it for nonpayment of taxes and plow it under, but there was a mystery surrounding the yard that no one could figure out.

Someone was paying the taxes on the place. According to the county tax assessor, every year when the taxes were due, someone would slip a plain white envelope into the night depository. All it contained was an untraceable money order and a typed note indicating that the money was to be used for taxes on the salvage yard. Foiled by this unknown person, the committee could only grit their mutual teeth and live with it.

Now it looked like they were finally going to get what they wanted.

“What’s your dad cleaning it up for?”

“He’s going to build a garage. One that works on diesel and gasoline engines both.

Bowie is going to help him run it after Lindsey leaves.” I was leaning over the oven, checking the pizza when he dropped that bombshell, and I jerked erect, burning my hand on the door in the process. I yelped, and instantly Daniel was by side, turning on the tap and shoving my hand under the cold water.

“If you get the temperature down fast, it won’t blister,” he said, sounding so much like Nick I could barely breathe. It wouldn’t have surprised me in the least if he’d pulled out a tin of bee balm.

My teeth ground together, but the question I was fighting slipped out anyway.

“Lindsey isn’t going to live in Morganville?”

“No. She said there were some things she had to do here, but after that she’s going to live near her mother.”

Her mother? Liz had left a few years after Lindsey vanished, taking her brood with her. Rumor had it that she was living in Tunica now, working at one of the new casinos.

In an odd sort of way, I missed her, although I knew Jenna had breathed a sigh of relief when she’d left.

What the hell was going on here? Nick and Lindsey had never married, Daniel acted like he barely knew his mother, Nick was building that huge house, and now Lindsey wasn’t even going to live in it with him. I felt like I’d been dumped without warning into an alternate universe, one where reality was skewed beyond recognition.

138

The Sweet Gum Tree

I shook my head in confusion and realized Daniel was watching me, a concerned look on his face.

“Are you okay? Maybe I should get Dad.”

“No!” I forced myself to regain control, and smiled. “It’s fine, really.” I turned the tap off and dried my hand. “See? It’s not even red.”

“Okay, but
I’ll
get the pizza out,” he said. He obviously no longer trusted my abilities around hot appliances. “It sure smells good.” It did, at that. The combined odors of mozzarella, tomato sauce, basil, and pepperoni filled the room as he carried the pan carefully to the table.

“Here.” I took the cutter out of a drawer and handed it to him. “You do the honors while I get the plates.”

“You use plates?” He was concentrating intently on cutting the pizzas.

I laughed. “You would too if you’d grown up with my aunt.”

“Which one? Darla?”

Surprised, I stopped and glanced at him. “You know about Aunt Darla?”

“I know about your whole family.”

My mouth opened, but nothing came out. It was almost a relief when someone knocked on the door, even though I was pretty sure I knew who it was.

I was right.

“I decided to see if my kid was holding you hostage,” Nick said. “He’s been here over an hour.”

“You shouldn’t have waited. I can take him home when he’s ready to go.”

“Hey, Dad. Look at this. I helped Alix make pizza.” Nick gave me a half-grin and squeezed through the door in spite of my arm partially blocking the entrance. “So that’s what I smelled.” He pulled a chair out and sat down next to Daniel. “Looks good, too. Are those pickled banana peppers on top?” Daniel’s brow wrinkled. “Yeah. I wasn’t too sure about those, but Alix says she puts them on all the time. Want a soda?”

I sighed. It would seem Nick was staying for supper, whether I wanted him to or not. I couldn’t throw him out on his ear with his son watching. “I’ll get it.” I motioned Daniel back to his seat. While I was getting the soda, I got another place setting and joined them, noting the way they were looking at the forks then at each other, amusement sparkling in their eyes.

“If you want to burn your fingers off, it’s fine with me,” I declared loftily. “But I’m eating in a civilized manner.”

They shot me identical grins before they charged the pan like racehorses released from the starting gate.

“You’d think no one ever feeds you,” I grumbled, using a spatula to slide a wedge-shaped slice onto my plate.

139

Katherine Allred

“Bowie does all the cooking at home,” Daniel spoke around a full mouth.

“He used to be a mess hall sergeant,” Nick added. “And it shows. No matter what he cooks, it all tastes the same. Like shoe leather covered in paste. I still have dreams about your Aunt Jane’s fried chicken and your mother’s cornbread.”

“Guess what, Dad? Alix wants me to work for her. Is it okay?” Nick frowned. “You’re a little young to hold down a job, aren’t you?” I swallowed quickly. “It’s won’t be full-time. Just a few hours in the afternoon until school starts. It will give him a chance to meet some of the kids in town, and make a little money, too.”

“He doesn’t need the money.”

“And I didn’t imply he did.” I bristled, glaring at Nick. “Anyone who works for me gets paid.”

“Come on, Dad. She said I could work in the electronic department where all the kids hang out.”

Nick’s expression softened as he looked at his son. “Daniel, you don’t know what the people in this town can be like.”

“Yes, I do.” His eyes, so much like Nick’s, got a stubborn glint and his chin squared.

“And I know they aren’t ever going to change their minds about us if we don’t make them. I’m not gonna hide, Dad.”