What the Heart Wants (What the Heart Wants, #1)(88)
The car eased to a stop. After a moment’s awkwardness while the three of them got their land legs under them, Lolly glared at the house, took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and marched up the buckling, broken sidewalk. Laurel caught up with her, and Jase fell in behind. They walked up the steps onto the porch. Venetian blinds were drawn tight against the summer sun, and a dingy hand-lettered sign instructed visitors to knock rather than ring.
Jase took the lead and rapped lightly on the sagging screen door, waited a minute, then knocked so hard that the door reverberated against its frame.
Maybe Nyquist had taken Marguerite to the hospital for her last hours. No—someone was working the lock. A bald, sallow-faced man Jase would never have recognized as Bert Nyquist in a thousand years held the screen open for them. The man must be in his sixties, but he looked more like eighty. The Bert Nyquist he remembered had been a typical ex-coach—big and beefy. This Bert Nyquist seemed to have lost several inches in height and about fifty pounds in muscle.
“Come in, Jason. Do come in. I didn’t realize you would get here so soon. Come in, come in.” His pale eyes darted back and forth as if he was having trouble counting his visitors. “It’s so good of all of you to come.” He smiled nervously at Lolly. “And Miss Redlander—thank you for returning. Marguerite wants to see you again so much, so very much.”
Laurel extended her hand. “I’m Laurel Harlow, Mr. Nyquist. Lolly asked me to accompany her.”
“Yes, yes. Laurel Harlow. Such a nice girl. I recognized you immediately. You look just the same.”
Jase studied his former principal as he shook Laurel’s hand. Somewhere along the line, Bert Nyquist had lost his belligerent edge. Life with Marguerite Shelton must have been pure hell. Why had he stayed?
“Margo’s awake,” Nyquist cautioned, “but she’s very weak, very weak. She may not be able to open her eyes, and she probably won’t say anything, but she’ll know you’re here.”
He led them past the bathroom, toward the rear of the house. Jase recognized the layout as a standard reversal of his old homestead in Bosque Bend, with the bedrooms and bath on the right instead of the left.
Laurel seemed to hang back as they entered Marguerite’s room, deferring to him and Lolly, but Girl Child grabbed her arm and urged her forward. “You promised you’d stay with me.”
In contrast to the rest of the house, Marguerite’s bedroom was well lit and airy. Big, old-fashioned windows opened onto the backyard and driveway, and a mat of vines draped over the chain-link fence next to the house filled the air with the scent of honeysuckle.
This room—bright, cheerful, and immaculately clean—was obviously where all of Bert Nyquist’s attention was concentrated. Prints of paintings by van Gogh and Renoir—rented from the public library according to the discreet gold tags affixed to their frames—hung on the walls, and an arrangement of glads and daisies had been placed on the bureau. In the center of the far wall, a motionless figure lay on an adjustable hospital bed.
Nyquist walked over to the bed and, despite the warning thump in his chest, Jase followed.
He studied the woman in the bed for some resemblance to the sexy siren he remembered from sixteen years ago, but if Bert Nyquist looked eighty, Marguerite looked at least a hundred. Her frail head, propped up on two plump pillows, seemed transparent to the skull, her hair was white and wispy, and the sockets around her eyes were deep as death.
Nyquist scurried to his wife’s side and leaned across the folding table laden with pill bottles and medical supplies.
“Margo, honey. Margo, she’s here. Just like you wanted, Lolly is here. Your daughter came back.”
He motioned for Lolly to come forward. “Take her hand and tell her who you are.”
Lolly walked to the bed step-by-step, obviously ready to bolt at the least provocation.
“Her hand, her hand,” Nyquist prompted.
Lolly lifted the frail hand on top of the bedsheet.
“Tell her who you are.”
“I’m Lolly, Lolly Redlander.”
The sherry-colored eyes opened. A slight frown creased Marguerite’s forehead. She wet her lips in slow motion and tried to speak.
Jase tensed. If a single foul word comes out of that woman’s mouth…
Marguerite finally found her voice, and, in the silence of the room, her hoarse, labored words were audible to everyone. “I’m sorry…” Her sunken eyes seemed to be trying to memorize Lolly’s face. “Forgive me.”
Jase relaxed. Marguerite was trying to make amends.
Lolly’s voice was barely audible. “It’s—it’s okay.”
Marguerite nodded and released Lolly’s hand, but those beautiful, horrible eyes were searching the room now.
“Jase,” she whispered, fastening him in her gaze.
He moved forward like an automaton.
Nyquist gave him a look of appeal. “Take her hand. Remember to take her hand.”
Jase looked at the flesh-covered talon, clenching and unclenching in agitation.
“Please, Jase…,” Marguerite forced out, struggling to articulate. “Forgive…”
A knot inside his chest dissolved and he warmed her cold, skeletal hand between both of his. “You gave me a wonderful daughter. That’s all that matters now.”
Marguerite attempted a smile, and her eyelids closed. Lolly started forward, but Bert Nyquist was in front of her. He adjusted the sheet around his wife’s shoulders and caressed her cheek.