What the Heart Wants (What the Heart Wants, #1)(18)

Now she looked the way she should.

Stepping across the hall, she opened the door carefully and peeked into the room. Sometime during the night, Lolly had straightened herself out and pushed the sheet to the foot of the bed, but she was still sound asleep. Let her rest, poor baby. She’d had quite an adventure yesterday.

Humming again, Laurel walked downstairs and went outside to search for the Retriever—for once, without first making sure no one was around. Lord help her, she was downright giddy. Would Lolly want to read the paper? Probably not. She was a teenager. All she’d be interested in was food.

Food. Laurel froze in her tracks. She’d need to fix some kind of breakfast for Lolly.

“Miss Harlow? Are you okay?”

She whirled around, half expecting to get something thrown in her face, but it was Bosque Bend’s least favorite author, Pendleton Swaim. Every now and then, he left his Spanish-style stucco castle on the corner and took a turn up and down the block.

Laurel stiffened.

The Kinkaids had not escaped their neighbor’s sharp pen. Pen had portrayed Great-Grampa Erasmus—“Benjamin Franklin Chapman”—as the disinherited son of Quakers, who never looked back once he hit Texas. Instead, he married the daughter of a wealthy family in Waco and bought land up cheap from cotton farmers who couldn’t pay labor costs for newly freed slaves. And when the first wife died, he married into an even wealthier family in “Garner’s Crossing,” the whole time enjoying a string of mistresses, even financing the brothel one of them set up down near the tracks of the K-T Railroad he’d helped bring through town.

Mama was indignant, but Daddy shrugged it off, saying who knew what was research, what was rumor, and what Pen Swaim had made up out of the back of his head to titillate readers. Besides, having a colorful ancestor gave Mama bragging rights.

Laurel was embarrassed. She’d learned far too much about her heritage.

“Yes, thank you. I was—was just thinking about something.”

He gave her an understanding nod. “I was coming to see you anyway. I have a visitor, and I wonder if you would be kind enough to receive him.”

“Receive him?”

“Allow him to come in and soak up the atmosphere in Kinkaid House.”

“This has to do with the movie that’s going to be made of Garner’s Crossing, doesn’t it? The one with the all-star cast?”

Art Sawyer had ballyhooed the news more than a month ago, and the town still hadn’t decided whether to be thrilled or horrified. Sure, all the “fictional” characters being portrayed were long dead, but a lot of the dirty laundry that the town had rinsed out white as snow over the past hundred or so years would be hung out for everyone to see.

Swaim nodded. “Yes. And I do so want them to get it right.”

“I don’t know—”

“I’ll send him over and you can decide at the door.”

“Well, I—”

But Pendleton had moved on, leaving her talking to air.

It didn’t matter. She returned to the house. Right now she had to come up with a nice breakfast for Lolly. And Pendleton’s pal might never show up.

Hurrying to the kitchen, she laid the newspaper on the tile counter and went from cupboard to refrigerator to the pantry. Lolly deserved something special. But what sort of breakfast did she have the ingredients for—and know how to make?

How about French toast? On Sunday mornings, Mama would take over the kitchen and prepare it as a special treat for the family. Laurel was pretty sure she remembered the process. All it took was bread, eggs, milk, and—and cinnamon. Did she have cinnamon? She checked the far reaches of the pantry. Yes, back in the corner.

Channeling Rachael Ray, she gathered the ingredients together on the counter next to the stove and greased a pan. Then, to complete the scene, she tied on Mama’s old apron, a frilly affair designed more for looks than utility. The second Lolly appeared, she’d turn on the burner.

This is what it would be like if Dave had stuck around and she were making breakfast for her own family. She turned on her coffee machine.

Easygoing, good-natured Dave. He’d been popular with Bosque Bend’s social set and she’d thought he was the perfect fit. She’d have adored any children they would have had. Of course, parenthood would have complicated matters when he left her, because she had a good idea he would have abandoned the children too. Dave always was one to minimize his losses.

Shrugging off what might have been, she poured herself a cup of coffee and opened up the Retriever to catch up on what was happening in Bosque Bend, then paused. Why was she so excited about Lolly being here? Did she miss her parents so much? It had been two years since Daddy died and not quite a year since Mama found her own escape, but she felt like she’d been alone forever.

Today’s issue was mostly ads, and, for once, Arthur Sawyer didn’t have anything controversial to editorialize about. Rats. Just when she needed something to help pass the time.

She glanced up at the kitchen clock. When would Lolly wake up?

Laying her apron across the back of a chair, she wandered into the den and paused in front of the big teak bookcase to pull out her favorite high school annual, the one from her sophomore year. She cradled it against herself and traipsed upstairs to her room. Curling up on her bed, she went through it page by page.

First came the photos of the school administrators, each one with a separate page. Principal Nyquist’s picture, which led the pack, was the same one he’d used for years. He couldn’t help the way the camera angle emphasized his broken nose, a souvenir of his coaching days, but there was something about his squinchy eyes and the grim set of his mouth that had always put her off.