Читать книгу Sugarplum Homecoming - Линда Гуднайт, Линда Гуднайт - Страница 12

Chapter Two

“He was nice,” Sydney said.

Lana absently stroked a hand over Sydney’s frizzy hair as they stood on the top porch step—the only porch step—and watched Davis Turner and his kids recross the quiet residential street. A vanilla breeze danced around their feet, tossing leaves and dirt over their shoes and into a growing pile against the siding.

Davis was nice, but she’d seen the shock in his eyes and felt the temperature drop when she’d told him her name. He remembered.

Nothing she hadn’t expected but still the reaction stung. She’d changed, thank God, the day she’d stumbled into a Nashville street mission drunk as a skunk after getting turned down for an important gig at the Opry. She hadn’t known it then, but both had been her last chance. She’d never sung in public again, but she’d found the Lord and started on a new path.

Lana looked at Sydney, her throat aching with love and guilt. “Maybe you can be friends with Paige and Nathan.”

Dear Lord, don’t make Sydney pay any more for Tess’s or my mistakes. Let this work. Make it work for her sake.

“Will Paige be in my class at school?”

“Probably. Maybe. I don’t know. We’ll have to ask. Come on, let’s get the car unloaded.” She thumped the flat of her palm against the center pillar in a show of energy she didn’t feel. They still hadn’t worked up the nerve to go inside the forlorn two-story, but they were here and they would stay. Regardless. Somehow she and Sydney would turn this dreary old relic into a real home, clearing out one room and one old ghost at a time.

“Nathan was nice, too,” Sydney said. She reached her skinny arms into the backseat of the old Ford and dragged out a cardboard box. “He said I could swing on his swing set sometime.”

“He did?” Lana had not even noticed the children talking, probably because she’d been too focused on their handsome father. Boy, did she ever remember him!

“Uh-huh. He did. So, can I?”

“We’ll see.”

“Paige said they have a dog. Can we get a dog?”

“I don’t think so.” When she saw Sydney’s expression, Lana hurried to say, “Maybe later after we’re well settled.”

Sydney shoved the box onto the grass with a grunt. “Am I staying at this school forever?”

“Poor baby.” Lana squatted for a hug. Sydney had changed schools frequently enough to develop reading difficulties. Lana was determined to remedy that problem this year. Stability was the answer, even if it meant living in this awful house. “We’re going to try.”

Sydney rested her hands on Lana’s shoulders, face close. She had the most beautiful olive skin and turquoise eyes.

“You’re not going to sing no more? Never?”

The loss was still as sharp as a hot stick in the eye. Music was the only thing Lana had ever been good at, though like everything else, not good enough. “No, baby. I have a real job now.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” Sydney screwed up her face, feathery dark eyebrows drawing together over her nose. “What was it?”

“I’ll be working for the Whisper Falls newspaper.” She popped the lid on the trunk. Their pitiful possessions were stuffed into two cardboard boxes and a couple of battered suitcases. “I’ll have press passes which means we’ll get to go to lots of fun events for free. Football games, carnivals, plays, all kinds of things.”

“Cool.”

Actually, she was a stringer covering local events for the small paper. The pay was minimal but it was money. Along with the amount her mother left behind—unintentionally, Lana was certain—they should be all right for a while. That is if she could figure out how to write an acceptable article. School hadn’t exactly been her thing, but like singing she could always write. She’d written lots of songs, none of which had been picked up, of course.

Joshua Kendle, the newspaperman on the other end of the telephone, had promised on-the-job training and hired her sight unseen, so how hard could the reporter job be?

Desperate times meant desperate measures. She would personally hand deliver every paper in town—or live in this house—to give Sydney a normal, stable life.

Sydney, slender back bent in half, began pushing a cardboard box across the grass.

“Hold on and I’ll help you.” Lana slammed the trunk of the dependable old Focus with one hand while balancing yet another box on her hip. Though she mourned the loss of her pickup truck, the Focus had been more economical and more sensible.

“I can do it by myself.”

Box on one hip, Lana grabbed the smaller of the suitcases and rolled it, bumping along behind Sydney as she crossed the dry brown grassy distance from the cracked driveway to the porch. Times like these she could use a man around to help out.

Her thoughts shifted again to Davis Turner. She’d had a mild crush on him in high school though he’d never known it. He was an upperclassman, the boy everyone liked because, unlike his sister Jenny, he didn’t have a snarky bone in his body. She wondered if he was still that way.

Time hadn’t damaged his appeal. That was for certain. If anything, maturity had made him more attractive. Very Matt Damon-ish, and hadn’t she always had a crush on the fresh-faced actor?

Lana shook her head in disgust. Men had been her downfall one too many times. Now that she had Sydney to consider and she no longer drank, she wasn’t going down that road again.

Arms full and Sydney nowhere in sight, she kicked the storm door with her boot toe and caught it on the first bounce, thrusting it open with the rolling luggage. The door swung out and back quicker than she’d expected, catching her in the backside and knocking her off balance. The cardboard box tumbled from her arms, spilling its contents. In a juggle to stop her fall, Lana caught her boot on a loose piece of threshold and hit her knee against the suitcase. The rollers spun the bag in front of her, entangled her feet, and down she went.

Dusty carpet came up to kiss her. The musty odor of disuse and grime tickled her nostrils. Inside her childhood home for the first time in thirteen years and here she was sprawled flat on her face. With her underwear spread all over the floor.

Lips twisting wryly, Lana lifted her head and looked around. Crude red graffiti scrawled across the wall directly in front of her. She glanced to the right and then to the left. More graffiti. She shuddered and buried her face in the crook of her arm, breathing deep the lonely, musty smells. The buoyant hope that had propelled her four hundred miles scuttled away with the sound of whatever vermin roamed her childhood home. For the first time since the idea struck, Lana questioned her decision to bring Sydney to this house.

Maybe she should have let Davis have a look around after all.

* * *

Davis slid a pan of lasagna from the oven with a fat maroon oven mitt. The warm oregano scent filled his modern kitchen. He set the casserole dish on an iron trivet, careful to protect the gleaming black granite countertops he’d installed himself. If there was anything Davis enjoyed, it was transforming the looks of a room with tile and granite.

“Come and eat!” he called and was gratified to hear the scramble for the remote as one of the kids shut off the Wii game. “Red velvet cake for dessert.”

Thank the good Lord for a sister who occasionally took pity on him and sent over dessert. He’d learned the basics of cooking but baking was out of his league. Jenny said a trained monkey could learn to follow instructions on the back of a cake box. Which Davis figured disproved the theory of evolution once and for all since he, a human, couldn’t successfully manage the task.

“Did you wash your hands?” he asked when Nathan, forehead sweaty from the active boxing game, plopped into his chair at one side of the polished ash table.

Fingers stretched wide, Nathan held his palms up for inspection. “See? All clean. They smell good, too. Want to sniff?”

Davis scuffed his son’s hair, affection welling in his chest.“ Good enough for me, bud. Who wants to pray?”

“I will,” Paige said, her face suddenly radiant as if transfigured by the idea of talking to God.

That was his daughter. She had an ethereal faith, disconcerting at times when she offered to pray for total strangers. “All right. Go for it.”

They bowed their heads. Davis kept one eye open, trained on Nathan who had a habit of sneaking food into his mouth during prayer. Today, he was as pious as his sister.

“And Jesus, thank you for sending us new neighbors,” Paige was saying. “Bless them and I hope they have plenty to eat, too, just like we do. Do you think they like red velvet cake? Amen.”

Frowning, Davis turned his gaze on his daughter. Her sweet prayers never failed to move and impress him, but today he suspected an ulterior motive. “What was that about?”

“Well.” With studied innocence that he didn’t buy for one second, she took a slice of buttery garlic bread from the offered plate. “The Bible says to love our neighbor. Right?”

Davis looked down at the lasagna dish, suddenly uncomfortable. He suspected where this was headed. “Right.”

“Lana and Sydney are moving in that old haunted house. They might not have any groceries in the fridge yet. They might not even have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!”

“Or Popsicles,” Nathan said. To Nathan, a Popsicle was one of life’s necessities.

“A house without a Popsicle is a sad house indeed,” Davis said, amused. He dolloped ranch dressing onto his salad and forked a bite.

“Anyway, Daddy,” Paige said. “I was thinking. We want to love our neighbors and invite them to church and everything, right?” She jammed a glob of lasagna into her mouth while awaiting his reply.

Davis skirted the issue momentarily. “Nathan, put some salad on your plate.”

Nathan’s square shoulders slumped, a picture of dejection. “Aw, Daddy.”

“Nonnegotiable. No salad, no cake.”

Nathan reached for the salad.

Paige put down her fork. “Daddy, are you listening to me?”

“Sure, princess. What is it?”

“Are we going to take some lasagna and cake over to Lana and Sydney?”

Davis eyed the long casserole. They’d barely made a dent in the cheesy dish.

“I don’t know, Paige. They might be busy getting settled.” Lana had said those very words. They needed time.

“Everybody has to eat.”

“She’s pretty, isn’t she, Daddy?” This from Nathan who was clearly avoiding the three tomatoes lined up like British redcoats on the edge of his plate.

“Who?”

“Lana. I think she’s real pretty. Her hair is pretty, too. I like brown hair.”

Davis swallowed. The forkful of noodles stuck in his throat. He grabbed for his water and swigged.

Yes, Lana was pretty. She and her sassy boots had been prancing around in his head the entire time he was cooking supper. He was curious about her, wondered why she’d left her life in Nashville and what secrets lurked behind her cool blue eyes. He wasn’t sure he wanted answers, but he wondered.

He’d taught his kids to do the right thing, to treat people the way they would want to be treated, and that included greeting new neighbors. He was head of the neighborhood welcome community and co-chair of block parties and summer cookouts. Might as well find out early if Lana Ross and her child were people he wanted his children associating with.

“After dinner, if you kids will help clean the kitchen without grumbling, we’ll take a couple of plates down the block. How does that sound?”

“You are the best daddy ever,” Paige said.

“Yeah,” Nathan added, nodding sagely. “Everything is going exactly like we planned.”

“Nathan!” Paige shot him a paralyzing look and shook her head. Nathan clapped both hands over his mouth.

Davis looked from one child to the other, puzzled.

What was that all about?