What the Heart Wants (What the Heart Wants, #1)(45)
Jase glanced out his window at the pale twilight, crisscrossed by garish streamers of pink and purple clouds. “It’s going to be semilight for at least an hour yet—I’d like to check the area out.”
“What area?” She’d lost track of what they were talking about.
“Ray’s subdivision. Is it across the river?”
She nodded. “Yeah, it’s called Lynnwood, after his sister. Lots of new families with little kids. I used to teach at their elementary school.”
*
The sodium vapor lights were coming on, one by one, as Jase turned onto Lynnwood Drive and entered the subdivision. The heat of the day had died down, and the neighborhood residents had moved outside for the evening, the adults sitting in lawn chairs and quaffing iced tea while their children yelled back and forth and raced from lawn to lawn.
Laurel stared out the window. How many of those children had been in her classes last year? Did they miss her? Was their new teacher keeping up the after-school piano lessons she had offered?
Finally they ran out of streets. Jase leaned back and exhaled slowly, apparently having satisfied his curiosity about Ray Espinoza’s development.
He turned to her, his dark eyes smiling. “Okay, Sacagawea, how the hell do I get to my old house from here?”
*
The night had gone totally dark by the time they pulled into the driveway.
He knew this house by heart. He’d hated it when he lived here, but for some reason, he hadn’t sold it when he got rid of Beat Down after Growler died. Maybe because it was his last link with Bosque Bend and Laurel Harlow. Or maybe because he needed a sense of his own origin, his life path. This was his home.
He paused at the door. Home—an interesting concept. Somewhere deep inside, he still thought of this little house, where the worst of his life had been lived, as his home. His brow wrinkled. Perhaps everyone yearns for that kind of underpinning, to know one’s origins. Was that what Lolly was trying to find in her search for her mother? Was she looking for an extended family, a heritage? Not that he knew anything about Marguerite in regard to her family. She never talked about anything personal. Even in bed, their relationship was instructor-student.
He turned his key in the lock. “I decided to keep it for income after Growler died. Hired a crew to update everything and replace the porch steps, then got the drive paved and the lawn sodded. Of course, the Bosque River still runs thirty yards behind the house, but some people see that as a plus.”
Laurel nodded. Sixteen years ago, she’d walked right in a door that opened at a push. What if the house had been locked up that Saturday morning? Would they still be here together right now? How much had that fateful day determined their current relationship?
Jase flicked the switch beside the door. Laurel blinked as a sudden flood of light ricocheted off the stark white walls. The air in the house was fresh and the temperature comfortably cool, which meant not only had the place been cleaned up and repainted, but central air had been installed somewhere along the line as well.
He turned toward the front bedroom. “I’ll just be a few minutes. Have to grab my gear.”
So, he’d automatically taken his old room.
Not sure what to do while Jase gathered his clothes, Laurel went exploring. The dining area, an ell to the right off the small living room, connected to the left with a tiny, modernized kitchen more up-to-date than the one at Kinkaid House, then led to the back bedroom, which contained a double bed stripped down to its mattress. The hall took her past the bathroom, where Jase was busy packing his toiletries into a leather bag. She moved on to his room, taking a seat on the single bed.
With a clarity etched on her brain for all eternity, she could picture every item that had been in this room sixteen years ago—the football posters and sexy pinups on the wall, the tall bureau with the small mirror above it, the beer cans littering the floor, the tuna tin overflowing with cigarette butts.
Jase came in and took a suitcase from the closet, “Maxie packed everything but the kitchen sink,” he commented as he pulled a vinyl garment bag off the wooden rod. “She even stuck in my old boots. They’ll come in handy when I’m walking property lines.”
Laurel studied his face as he gathered his luggage. He looked different in the brightly lit nighttime room, almost like a stranger. She remembered that she’d had the same apprehension when she’d walked into this room sixteen years ago. Suddenly nervous, she said the first thing that popped into her head.
“Do you still smoke?”
She hadn’t smelled any tobacco on his breath, and she’d certainly been close enough to tell, but for some reason, she wanted him to say something, as if to confirm his identity.
He wedged his Dopp kit into an outer pocket of the suitcase and zipped the bag shut. “No, not for years. Too expensive a habit for a young father, and one I didn’t want my daughter to pick up.” He set his gear next to the door. “Why?”
“Just wondering.” In a strange, unnamable mood, she changed position, languorously stretching out on the bed and leaning back on her elbows, her knees bent, her head flung back. There was a hot running fever in her that had to be appeased, a molten river of desire.
Jase looked over at her, and his eyes narrowed as he remembered the last time she had seen him smoke and the last time she had been in this room. He walked over to the bed slowly, purposefully.