Home Before Dark (4 page)

“Maybe she gets it from me,” Jessie said, knowing the thought had crossed her sister's mind.

“I won't take that cop-out,” Luz said. “I got the daughter I raised—that's how it works. Ian and I aren't perfect… Ah, Jess. Time slips by so quickly. I was always so busy when the boys were little. Even now, I barely have a moment to go to the bathroom, let alone psychoanalyze my daughter.”

Jessie's gut lurched at the words
my daughter.
Leaning back in her chair, she absorbed the blow. With some barely acknowledged part of herself, she understood that Luz loved the idea of Jessie being fifteen thousand miles away. It was so much easier that way.

“She's been getting in trouble at school, acting out, that sort of thing. You saw how she acted toward me. My sweet little fairy child has turned into a demon, skipping school, sneaking out at night, climbing the water tower, rappelling off the train bridge, skinny-dipping in Eagle Lake. I keep telling
myself it's a normal teenage rebellion, she'll get over it and we'll all survive, but it keeps getting worse. Her grades are going south, I don't know her friends anymore. She's going through all the things you read about in those scary books about adolescents. Ophelia is alive and kicking.”

“So what are you doing about it?”

“We've been talking to the school counselor, but I don't know if it's doing any good.”

“So does the counselor know—”

“Of course not. If we haven't told her, we're not about to tell some stranger. Only Mom knows, and she's never, ever mentioned it.”

“Maybe Lila's having some sort of identity crisis.”

“She's fifteen and a half. Everything is a crisis when you're that age.”

Evening light fell over Luz. How different she was now. Yet how much the same. Over the years Luz had sent dozens of beautifully composed photos. Innumerable portraits and informal snapshots infused with the rich honesty that was Luz's trademark. Most pictures showcased the kids, but a few had featured Ian. He was always playing with them, flying kites, setting off homemade rockets, running along beside one of the boys on a new bike, paddling a boat. Luz's place had always been behind the camera. Like Jessie, she'd studied photography in college, and her photos were remarkable and crystal clear. Photography had been a passion for both sisters. Yet Luz had given up her ambitions to raise a family.

Jessie stood and stretched her arms toward the sky, arching her back. “I'm going to hit the hay. I don't even know what day it is.”

Luz stood up and hugged her. “Ah, the jet lag. You must be bushed. I'll let you get to bed. Ian took your luggage over.”

In the house behind them, lights glimmered in the win
dows, and the low hum of the air conditioner swished through the gathering twilight. The thump of rock music vibrated from one of the upstairs windows.

At the path to the cabin, Luz paused and squeezed Jessie's hand. “How long are you planning on staying?”

“I don't know. Look, if it's a problem—”

“Of course it's not a problem. You belong here for as long as it feels like home to you.”

Jessie squeezed back, even as she bit her tongue. She'd never tell Luz, but this place had never felt like home to her. No place ever had. “I don't know what's next for me.” It was probably the most honest thing she had said all night. “I called Blair LaBorde as soon as I landed in Austin.” Blair was an old friend from the University of Texas, a fiercely ambitious failed debutante who didn't give a flip about the genteel past. After finishing her doctorate, she taught for a few years, then became the star writer of a glossy popular news magazine called
Texas Life,
working out of the Austin bureau.

Jessie was aware of the irony of looking for an assignment at this point, but she needed all the work she could get, and she needed it now. More than that, she needed the solace of work, which for so much of her life had been a refuge from issues she didn't care to face. When she took pictures, she could disappear into the camera lens and travel to sharp-edged, dramatic places where the real world turned into fantasy.

“You called Blair but not me?”

“I had to let her know I could use some work.”

Luz relaxed a little; Jessie knew her sister understood practical matters all too well. “With her connections, she's bound to have tons of assignments.”

“That's what she said. When I mentioned Edenville, she found a dead lead for a local story, and promised to see if she could revive it.”

“Then it's as good as done. I wonder what it's about?” They stopped at the bumpy path that led to the three cabins on the property. “Not exactly the five-star hotels you're used to, is it, Jess?” Luz asked.

Jessie laughed, shaking her head. “You have an inflated view of my glamorous international lifestyle.”

“At least you
have
a lifestyle.”

“At least
you
have a life.” Jessie laughed again as she said it, but she could feel the tension thrumming between them, as fresh as if she'd never left.

Carrying the half-full bottle of wine and a borrowed glass, Jessie made her way along the path through the woods. She was eager for bed, hoping to push past the dizzy exhaustion of jet lag.

When she was little, the forest had held a thousand unseen terrors for her, and if she had to cross the woods at night, she would hold her breath the whole way for fear of inhaling the evil spirits that inhabited the darkness. She found herself holding her breath now, and the same old terror clawed at her, but unlike that frightened little girl with the messy braids, she knew what scared her. It was a lot more real than monsters hidden amid the sighing maples, shaggy mesquites and bony live oak trees.

Ian had brought in her bags and turned on a couple of lights and the window unit. Manufactured air that smelled faintly of mildew blew gently into the room. The cabin had a kitchenette, sitting area with a lake view and small bedroom and bathroom in back. A little, contained world, one that held neither threat…nor hope.

“Hello,” she called out.

“In the bedroom,” Ian said.

“Then I've got you right where I want you.” Although everything had changed, Jessie forced herself to tease like the fun-loving girl he'd known so long ago. In the pine-paneled room, she found her sister's husband struggling with a hyper-elasticized mattress pad that didn't quite fit the queen-sized bed.

“Right,” he said, flashing her a grin. “Give me a hand with this, will you?”

She eyed the messy wad of bedclothes. “But you were doing so well on your own.” She grabbed a corner of the mattress pad and wrestled it in place. On the other side of the bed, he did the same. But each time they got one corner covered, the opposite one sprang loose. Finally Ian lay spread-eagled on top of the thing, holding down the corners while Jessie tucked them in place.

“The things I have to do to get a guy in bed,” she muttered, finally succeeding with the mattress pad. She wrinkled her nose. “You were right earlier—you
do
smell like yard work.” They worked together in companionable silence, and she was grateful for the ease she felt with her brother-in-law. There was a time when the two of them hadn't gotten along at all…and a time, before that, when they had gotten along too well. Now they simply got along, because to do anything else would upset Luz.

Everything about Ian Benning was larger-than-life—his looks, his voice, his laughter…his passion. That was what had drawn Jessie to him, so long ago, before he'd ever met Luz. Ian and Jessie had never loved each other, but youth and appetite had sustained them through a brief, incendiary affair that had flared up quickly, then burned to ash just as fast.

She and Ian never talked about that time and no one
knew about it, not even Luz. It was all so long ago, she rarely thought about it. Especially since her heart guarded a larger secret, something even Ian didn't recognize.

He had been a third-year law student at UT, and Jessie a hard-partying photojournalism major who looked older than she was. Their affair had been simple biology at work, and Jessie had been known to base relationships on shakier foundations than that. She'd met him at a campus party and slept with him that night. For about three weeks, he was everything she'd ever hoped for—physically. But when not directly groping each other, they didn't have much in common. He thought experimental theater was something found at the Doyle Center on Sixth and Pine, and she thought a capital case was a character on her keyboard. They never officially broke it off, but in the middle of week three, as if by mutual agreement, they stopped seeing each other. She flung herself into a photography project taught by Simon Carrington, a visiting professor from New Zealand. She was fascinated by both the subject and the man.

Not long afterward, Luz fell in love.
He's perfect, Jess. I can't wait for you to meet him. And he's a law student….

To their credit, Ian and Jessie covered their shock that first meeting. If Luz noticed the startled looks, the red-eared remembrances, the guarded glances, she never let on. When Jessie shook Ian's hand, she recalled that hand caressing her bare skin. When he gave her a fleeting smile, she remembered the taste of his mouth. It felt weird as hell. Not exactly like incest, but like some sort of secret that had no name.

Neither Jessie nor Ian ever said a word to Luz. Even then, they wanted to protect her because the idea of upsetting her was unthinkable. They both loved her, both wanted to safe guard her from the mistakes of the past.

“Where are you, Jess?” he asked, drawing her back to the present. “You look like you're a million miles away.”

“Woolgathering,” she admitted, fluffing the pillows against the headboard. Straightening up, she said, “Luz says Lila's been giving you a run for your money.”

His face paled and his mouth tightened. Then he took a deep, uneven breath. “I never know what to do about Lila these days. Puberty hit like an eighteen-wheeler. According to Lila, I'm the bane of her existence. I love her, Jess. I love her with all my heart. But she's a teenager now and it's not so easy, figuring out the right thing to do.”

She searched his face, seeking some hint that he knew the deeper secret. But he regarded her openly, and she saw no undercurrents buried in his eyes. He didn't know. Amazing. If Lila didn't know who her biological mother was, she couldn't begin to deal with who had fathered her.

When Jessie found out she was pregnant, Ian had cornered her in private and confronted her with the inevitable question:
Is it mine?
Simon had asked the very same question. And she gave each man the same answer, telling one man the truth and one a lie.

She had looked her ex-lover in the eye, that tall, good-looking man who loved her sister, and said, “No.” What else could she say? If she admitted the baby was his, he would have been forced to choose between taking responsibility for the mother of his child, or keeping a secret from his wife. It would have been a nightmare for all of them, so Jessie had done the only thing that would keep the situation from exploding.

At the first doctor's appointment, Jessie discovered the date of conception coincided with a certain tequila-marinated night at a honky-tonk that ended on the screened-in back porch of the rambling old house Ian shared with other law
students. But she never said a word. Luz loved this man, and Jessie would not be the cause of her heartbreak.

The rest of the pregnancy was taken up with discussing the adoption arrangements, getting a passport, making plans to live overseas as an expatriate. She and Simon were going to photograph the world's wonders. She was going to escape to the adventure of a lifetime. Ian was going to marry her sister, practice law, raise a family. It should have been so simple.

But at twenty-one, alone and scared, she hadn't understood that matters of the heart are never simple. She thought knowing the baby was with her natural father and Luz would dull the ache of loss. She thought sending all the money she could spare to help with the hospital bills would somehow exonerate her. But the hurt never quite faded.

As Ian turned on the hot water heater in the cabin, his pager went off. He checked the tiny display with a frown.

“Problems?” Jessie asked.

“Shoot. I was expecting this. I've got to get to Huntsville tonight.”

He probably had to go file a last-minute appeal or something. Watching him, she could see he was already withdrawing, thinking about the case. Being a death row attorney in Texas was clearly a job with a number of built-in frustrations. “You'd better get a move on.”

“Yep. Anyway, I need to go say good-night to the family and get myself over to the airpark. Fellow there will take me to Huntsville tonight.” He offered her a brief hug. “You need anything, let Luz know.”

“I will. And thanks, Ian. Good luck.” Standing at the door, she watched him head up to the house with a purposeful stride, a good man trying to keep a bad man from dying.

After he was gone, she poured the rest of the wine into a glass and went out to the broken little dock in front of the
cabin to savor the last of the daylight. The water was dark and flat, the air refreshed by the cooling breath of night. Exhaustion crept through her, and her eyelids drooped.

But now she forced her eyes open; she had to look. Sixteen years ago, Jessie had left in a red haze of panic, before her premature infant's survival was assured, before the baby even had a name. Now Jessie was back, driven by desperation to face up to what she had done, to fill in the blanks of those lost years, to somehow find atonement and maybe even redemption. And it had to start with Lila.

She had to see her daughter, really see her. See the way the light fell on her hair in the morning, how her eyes looked when she smiled or wept, how her hands lay atop the covers when she slept at night, how her mouth puckered when she ate a slice of watermelon.

Jessie wished for the one thing she wanted above all else, the one thing she couldn't have—more time. She had consulted doctors and specialists from Taipei to Tokyo, but the prognosis was always the same. Her condition had no known cause…or cure. Once assured of the diagnosis, she'd done the only thing that seemed important. She had come back to see her child before the lights went out.