Page 494 of Summer Heat
“Your mother?” she echoed. “Men like you don’t have mothers.”
“Now, see, that’s where you’re wrong.” A stab through his ribs straightened him suddenly. He grunted, putting a hand on the place where Gus’s beefy fist had landed all too solidly. “We do. They just despair of ever civilizing us.”
Her smile bloomed then, one more time. The pink lips curled, slowly, and a light wash of color touched her pale cheeks. Her entire face was transformed from the slightly defensive hard look of bartenders who had to deal with men like him day in and day out, and became something else. Something sweet he hadn’t even been aware of missing.
“You’re really pretty, you know it?” he said, and impulsively touched her unmarked cheek.
She only gazed at him. Still stunned.
Sirens sounded distantly and Lance looked over his shoulder. “That’s my cue.” From the pocket of his jeans, he took a roll of bills and peeled off several, which he put on the bar next to her glass of water. “Give that to Allen and tell him I’m sorry. Take care now.” He winked. “I’ll be back.”
As he leapt into his car, hearing the sirens come closer, he remembered he’d forgotten to leave a tip.
* * *
Louise Forrest was in her element. As weary as she was from attending to what seemed like hundreds of details for her husband’s burial, she felt perfectly calm as she lifted the lid on a bubbling pot of black-eyed peas. The bacon-scented steam made her mouth water. She smiled. The peas were for her youngest son, Tyler, who could never get enough of the Southern treat she’d brought with her as a seventeen-year-old Texas bride.
In the oven was a ham baked with brown sugar and pineapple, for Jake, her oldest. And in a big bowl in the fridge was the fruit salad made with whipped cream that Lance loved.
Her boys. It was hard to believe they’d all be home, together. She literally couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.
Mary, her housekeeper, bustled into the kitchen. “Louise Forrest, what ar
e you doing? You can’t keep going like this! You’ll collapse.”
“Don’t be silly. Cooking relaxes me.”
“It isn’t natural for a new widow to be so calm.” Mary frowned. “I’m worried about you.”
Louise turned. “I wish you’d stop insisting I should take to my bed.” She lowered her voice, for Jake and Tyler sat in the other room, watching the television news. “I’ll mourn my husband in my own way, in my own time.”
Mary sighed loudly, but tied an apron around her waist and made preparations for setting the table.
Louise frowned. Mary knew as well as anyone that Olan had barely shown his face within these walls for almost five years. She could count on one hand the number of times he’d actually slept here in that time. Louise had gone back to college and Olan, in a snit, took a mistress.
She would mourn him no more and no less than she’d mourn any old, but distant acquaintance. She wished it could be more, but the marriage had been hollow for a very long time.
The rumble of a big car engine sounded in the yard behind the house. Louise wiped her hands, hurried to the window and spied Lance getting out of a sixties Ford, lovingly restored. Her heart pinched—poor Lance. Of all of them, he’d mourn his father most sincerely. A part of her was glad that Olan would have someone to regret his passing, even if he’d done his best to drive this child away.
It was only as Lance slammed the door and turned toward the house that she realized he’d been fighting. Her mouth tightened. He looked like a tomcat that had just crawled out of the bushes, his beautiful hair tangled, his clothes disheveled, his mouth bleeding. There was something white wrapped around his knuckles.
“Been at it again, hasn’t he?” said Mary, behind her.
“I reckon.” Nonetheless, Louise smiled. Her boys were home.
* * *
Lance climbed the back steps carefully, a stabbing pain in his ribs. He hoped none of them was broken. On the next to the top step, he remembered the presents he’d brought for his mother, and limped back down to retrieve them. Carrying a grocery store bouquet of red carnations laced with baby’s breath—her favorite—and a box of chocolate-covered cherries, he climbed back up the steps.
His nephew Curtis, small and blond and round at three, was the first to greet him. The boy blasted through the back screen door, leaving it to slam behind. “Uncle Lanth!” he cried, and let go of the chortle peculiar to little kids, an unthrottled joy that always struck right to the bottom of Lance’s heart.
Lance knelt and caught Curtis by the legs. “Boy,” he grunted—gasping at the sharp stab in his right side, “you’re getting too big to carry! Where’s your grandma and your dad?”
“Inthide.” His big blue eyes went wide and he folded his little hands solemnly. “Grandpa’s in heaven.”
Not likely, Lance thought, but he kissed Curtis. “I know, slugger.”
Curtis gingerly touched Lance’s cut lip. “You have an owie? Grandma gots Band-Aids. G.I. Joe.”
