What the Heart Wants (What the Heart Wants, #1)(13)
Jase’s daughter was sleeping across the hall in her house tonight.
Chapter Four
Laurel slipped off her shoes and scrunched her toes into the soft silk rug beside the bed, another vestige of Erasmus’s Chinese phase.
This room would be hard to leave. It had been her own private place—her bower—since she was born. She’d store the rug and the cherrywood bedroom suite till she had a place big enough to accommodate them, but the room itself, with its high ceiling, crown molding, and wall-length closet—there was no reproducing that.
Opening the door to the connecting bathroom, she turned on the faucets of the tub. Nothing like a long, restful soak before bed. She unbuttoned her shirt and slipped it off her arms. Her bra followed next, then her slacks and panties.
What if Jase hadn’t left town sixteen years ago, and if, by some miracle, they’d actually ended up getting married? He wouldn’t have deserted her like Dave did.
Or would he?
She glanced at herself in the mirror and teased her nipples erect to make sure they still worked.
Get real, Laurel Elizabeth. If Jase knew what everybody else in Bosque Bend knows, he probably wouldn’t even have allowed Lolly to spend the night here. Not that it mattered. Now that his daughter had turned up, he’d come pick her up, turn that Caddie around, and hightail it right back to Dallas. Just like she would hightail herself out of town the second she had a contract on the house.
She stepped into the tub and settled down into the warm, soothing water, expecting to drift into near unconsciousness, but the second she closed her eyes, her brain began rerunning a mental tape from sixteen years ago.
*
News of the scandal had leapt from house to house like a shake-roof fire, but Laurel first heard about it on Thursday, during her daily hour as a student aide, when she was filing absence slips in the anteroom off the main office. Sarah’s mother’s voice was loud and clear as she discussed the event with the school secretary.
“What do you think, Gail? I know the Redlander boy comes from bad stock. After all, his father has that horrible beer tavern, Beat Down or whatever it’s called, across the county line.” Mrs. Bridges’s voice lowered a decibel or two, as if she were trying to be discreet. “Nyquist told the school board he heard Marguerite screaming for help when he dropped by her house to pick up some papers, but Odelle Schlossnagel said that Jase and Marguerite had been at it for months, that she saw him vaulting over Ms. Shelton’s fence when she was putting out Christmas lights back in December.” Her voice ratcheted up a notch again. “Nyquist’s story is that Jase overpowered Marguerite, but my God, Gail, how could that boy have forced himself on that woman for four months straight without her uttering a word of complaint?”
Laurel risked a quick look toward the front desk and saw Ms. Fogarty raise a carefully penciled eyebrow and glance in the direction of Mr. Nyquist’s empty office. “Well, Marilyn, all I can tell you is that we’ve never had any trouble with Jason. He’s built like an adult man, though, six two in his stocking feet and still growing, while Marguerite’s only an inch or so above five feet.” She snickered through her nose. “On the other hand, she always looked very happy when she clocked in every morning.”
Jase and Ms. Shelton? Laurel didn’t believe a word of it. And apparently Ms. Fogarty and Sarah’s mother didn’t either—they seemed to be more amused than shocked.
A harsh buzz drowned out the women’s knowing laughter. Time for lunch.
Laurel’s brain whirled as she placed the rest of the absence slips on top of the filing cabinet for the next hour’s aide to finish off. She walked down the hall to the lunchroom like she was in a trance, filled her tray, handed her punch card to the monitor behind the register, then went over to the table near the window where she and her best friends always sat.
Rebecca Diaz, Saundra Schlossnagel, and Jennie Lynn Pietzsch weren’t there yet, but Sarah started talking before Laurel could even set her tray down.
“Did you hear what they’re saying about Jase?”
Laurel sat down on the bench across from her friend. “Yes, but I don’t believe it.”
Sarah’s dark eyes sparkled with excitement. “Well, the school board does. Last period in drama class, Amy Fassbinder—her father’s a trustee, you know—told me Mr. Nyquist called their house at seven this morning and said he’d caught Jase in the act.”
Laurel ripped open her milk carton. “I still don’t believe it.”
“Maybe Jase—” Sarah glanced across the room. “Shh, here comes Rebecca. Don’t say a word. You know how prissy she is.”
Laurel nodded, picked up her fork, and loaded it with a chunk of meatloaf.
She had no intention of talking to Rebecca or anyone else about Jase and Ms. Shelton, but she sure was thinking about them. The whole idea was ridiculous—Ms. Shelton was far too old for him. Besides, when she’d talked to Jase yesterday, before Daddy called him into his office, he hadn’t acted any different. Mr. Nyquist must have gotten it wrong—or maybe Ms. Shelton made it all up. Jenny Lynn, who had been in her class last semester, said she was a good teacher, but she spent a lot of time flirting with the football guys.
How should she act when Jase came to the house next Wednesday? What should she say to him? What could she say to him?