The Talk of the Town (11 page)

“More cake?” Mary asked him, reaching for the glass dessert plate.

Luke paused, looking from what remained of the chocolate-iced Scotch cake to her in puzzled surprise. She pushed the plate toward him. He slowly shook his head. “No, thank you.”

“I’ll leave it in case you change your mind.” She stood. “Nora, will you help me clear the table?”

Normally the men would have retired to the oak-paneled library for an after-dinner smoke while the women finished up in the kitchen. But in deference to Roxie’s injury they remained seated at the dining room table. After retrieving a clean crystal ashtray from the top drawer of the sideboard, William set it on the table, pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his sweater and tapped one out.

“Cigarette?” William offered the pack to Luke.

Luke shook his head and said wryly, “That’s probably the only vice I haven’t indulged in.”

William laughed. “Ah, well, you’re smart not to. I’ve had the habit since high school and have never been able to get rid of it.”

“I’ve heard it’s a hard one to shake.”

“Tell me, Luke,” William said then, “what are your plans now that you’re home?”

The question caught Luke off-guard. His gaze shot to the older man, whose face wrinkled in a kindly way. Still, he didn’t lower his guard. “Plans?”

“Do you plan to learn a trade?” he prompted. “Or maybe go to college?”

“Outside of doing the best job I can at the warehouse, I really haven’t made any plans,” Luke admitted.

“You probably need some time to figure things out.”

“One thing I would like to do is to go by my grandfather’s old place someday soon and see what’s become of it.”

William got an odd look on his face, but before he could respond Frederick took center stage. He stood, said “Excuse me” in a brusque tone of voice that declared he didn’t care whether they excused him or not, and stamped from the room. His exit seemed to go unnoticed by his father and sister but not by Luke. He stared at the vacated chair, almost wishing Frederick hadn’t gone. He knew how to deal with that type of animosity. It was the others’ kindness that unsettled him.

A hand touched his knee. He cast a startled eye toward Roxie. She smiled that soft, sweet smile that made his heart hitch.

“Don’t worry about Frederick,” she said softly. “He’ll get over it.”

He wasn’t worried about Frederick, not in the least. It was this upheaval within himself that had him worried. What he said was, “Maybe it’s time I got on my way.”

But he didn’t go. He stayed to carry Roxie into the parlor, lowering her gently into an overstuffed club chair so Mary could dry and wrap her daughter’s ankle and prop it on the footstool William brought in. He stayed even after Frederick and Nora made a hasty and, on his part at least, somewhat huffy exit. He stayed to listen to William’s dry observations on both the local and national political scene. Most of all, he stayed to pretend, for a short while longer, he was a part of it, to imagine he belonged.

It passed all too quickly. Though he tried to hold it back, the time spun away. It seemed a matter of mere seconds before William rose, stretched and offered to drive him home.

Reluctantly Luke came to his feet. “Thank you, Mr. Mitchell, but I can walk.”

“Are you sure?”

“I just live across the railroad tracks.” The irony of his being right back where he’d started from didn’t escape Luke.

“I’m on the welcoming committee at church,” Mary said then. “Perhaps you’d like to attend services next Sunday.”

“Now, Mary—” William started to intervene.

“Or any Sunday of your choosing,” she quickly amended.

Luke bit his tongue before he could tell her that the roof and the walls of the church would probably cave in if he showed up. Instead he just nodded in a noncommittal manner and replied with stiff formality, “Thank you, Mrs. Mitchell. I don’t know when I’ve had such a delicious meal, nor such a pleasant evening.”

He wasn’t exactly being truthful. He did know. He’d never had food that tasted so good. He’d never had an evening so imbued with a welcoming warmth.

“Nonsense,” Mary said in her brisk way. “It’s we who thank you—for bringing Roxie home.”

“He should have let me limp home,” Roxie put in. “But he’s too much of a gentleman.”

Their eyes met, and Luke felt a surge of desire unlike anything he’d ever known. The heat blazed from his loins to the center of his being, where he lived and breathed and didn’t have to think. Some gentleman, he thought with self-derision, and harshly reminded himself that such desires could never be fulfilled.

Suddenly anxious to be leaving, he bid her and her parents a restrained good-night and strode out.

Chapter 6

The number of people living under her roof might have grown smaller, but Mary Mitchell still believed in big breakfasts.

This morning was no exception. Her kitchen table, a round oak affair sitting in the middle of the cheery apple green room and covered with a clean oilcloth, held platters of buckwheat pancakes, bacon fried to a perfect crisp, fluffy scrambled eggs, and warmed-over biscuits. A small jar of homemade strawberry jam and a glass pitcher of syrup topped off the array.

After filling everyone’s coffee cup, she hung her apron on a wall hook near the stove, took her chair and bowed her head for the blessing. Then, smiling at her husband, daughter and oldest son, she said as she did every morning, “Well, are you going to let it all get cold?”

As if on cue, hands shot out to pass plates around the table while chattering voices harmonized with clashing silverware.

Only Roxie remained silent. She’d awakened in a listless mood, her apathy spawned by the melancholy she’d taken to bed with her the night before. It had been so unexpected, that abrupt withdrawal of Luke’s as he’d said good night, that her joy in the evening had instantly crumbled.

Up to then she’d felt a blossoming happiness. Her heart had swelled with love for her parents, for their unequivocal acceptance of Luke. She had not even known how very much it meant to her until Frederick had made it abundantly clear that he, for one, did not accept Luke. But even that hadn’t dampened her spirits. It had taken Luke to do that. One long look at her and he’d withdrawn. She’d seen it in his eyes, she’d heard it in his voice, and she’d ached with the grieving pain of loss.

Her reaction stunned her, then depressed her. She didn’t understand her sense of loss, but she did understand that she didn’t want to feel such things—not on his account, not on any man’s account. One time through that particular emotional wringer had been more than enough for her.

It hadn’t improved her mood any to see that her oldest brother Bill had dropped in this morning. He came for breakfast once or twice a week, generally on the way to his insurance office, so it wasn’t all that unusual to see him sitting at the table. What was unusual was the way he kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as he piled eggs, bacon, and biscuits on his plate. It made her suspect there was an ulterior motive behind this morning’s visit.

She idly shifted a portion of eggs from one side of her plate to the other, not really interested in food. It took a good minute for her to realize that her mother was speaking to her. When she finally did, she sat up straight and put on an attentive face. “I’m sorry, Mother, what did you say?”

“I asked how your ankle is this morning.” Mary gave her one of those sharp looks she had honed to perfection over the years. Without waiting for an answer to her first question, she posed a second. “Do you think you should stop by Dr. Griffin’s office and have an x-ray made?”

“No, I’m sure nothing’s broken,” Roxie reassured her. “It’s not even that much of a sprain, just a twist really.”

“Still, you’ll probably need to be driven to work today.”

“Oh, I think I can drive myself.”

“You probably could last night,” her brother muttered around a mouthful of eggs.

Roxie set her fork down and stared across the table at him. This was it, she realized, the real reason he’d stopped by. She knew the town was buzzing with gossip about her hiring Luke. Everywhere she went, be it the general store, the bank or even the movie house, she saw people clustering together when she passed by. She could only imagine what they would all say if they knew that Luke had driven her home and carried her into the house.

She couldn’t confront each and every rumormonger, of course, but maybe she could put a stop to her brother’s blathering. Toward that end, she strove to ask in a calm voice, “What, exactly, did you mean by that?”

Bill expertly speared a pancake from the platter centered on the table and plopped it onto his plate before replying. He’d gained weight since becoming a husband and father, and it didn’t sit particularly well on him. His cheeks had plumped out, his once sharply-defined jaw line had softened some, and he had developed a small paunch that the jacket of his suit couldn’t disguise.

“I’m just wondering how bad your ankle was in the first place,” he said. “Did you really need someone to drive you home and carry you into the house? Or were you using one of the oldest female tricks in the book?”

“You’ve spoken to Frederick,” she concluded, her voice turning edgy.

“He and Nora stopped by on their way home from here last night,” he acknowledged as he slathered butter on his pancake.

Roxie’s mouth twitched once before she controlled it. “Well, even if I had been using such a trick—which my swollen ankle more than proved I was not—what concern is it of yours?”

“You just happen to be my sister.” Bill picked up the syrup pitcher and poured, drowning his pancake in the sweet, sticky liquid. “And I’m very naturally concerned when I hear my sister has come home in the arms of a known criminal.”

“That’s what he was,” she clipped out, “not what he is.”

“Come on, Roxie,” he said in a condescending tone, “how naïve can you get? He is what he is, what he always has been.”

“Don’t you believe in giving someone a chance?” She lifted a hand almost in a pleading gesture, then let it fall. “Don’t you think people can change?”

Bill snorted in disgust. “I think Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker can change into model citizens if they so choose, but I sincerely doubt that’s going to happen.”

“Oh, for the love of—” Roxie swept up her fork and stabbed at a crispy piece of bacon, breaking it in half, then dropped the utensil back onto her plate with a clatter. “All he did was bring me home!”

“Probably to see what Mother and Dad have that’s worth taking,” he shot back.

A heated flush swept up her neck to her cheeks. She thought of a dozen retorts but bit them back. It would be futile to go on arguing. He was too certain he was right to be swayed by anything she said. Perhaps, given time, he’d reassess his judgment of Luke. Or perhaps not.

“What I can’t believe,” Bill said, glancing irately from their mother to their father, “is that you two are so complacent about this. Do you
want
Roxie to get involved with a convict?”

The sudden silence in the kitchen was broken only by the ticking of the wall clock. Everyone sat immobile, paralyzed by the grip of tension. For a long moment, Roxie stared down at her plate, waiting for one of her parents to respond to her brother’s question.

“What we want, son,” their father finally and firmly stated, “is to enjoy our breakfast in peace.”

An awkward shuffling of feet and shifting on chairs preceded the mute resumption of the meal. Bill finished first. Shoving his empty plate away, he kissed his mother on the cheek, nodded at his father and, ignoring the sister he claimed to be so concerned about, left the house.

That suited Roxie just fine. She ate nothing more, simply continued pushing the food around. When her father excused himself, she picked up his plate and utensils along with her own and limped across the kitchen with them in hand. After setting the dishes in the sink, she began packing her lunch. She was angrily spreading butter on bread to accompany the chicken leg she’d selected from last night’s leftovers when Mary came up beside her.

“Do you think the stork made a mistake?”

Roxie looked askance at her mother. “What?”

“Do you think perhaps it brought me the wrong child?” Mary tied on her ruffle-edged apron and began scraping plates and running a hot-water suds to wash them in. “Bill can be so bullheaded on occasion. He simply can’t be mine. It must have been the stork’s error.”

“I don’t feel like being humored, Mother.”

“No? What do you feel like?”

Roxie slapped her sandwich together and cut it in half. “I feel like knocking some sense into Bill.”

“Now, isn’t that odd?” her mother mused. “I’ve the distinct impression that he feels precisely like doing the same to you.”

The knife clattered to the floor. Roxie blew out an irritated breath as she picked it up, put it in the sink and got a clean one out of the silverware drawer. When she reached over to cut herself a piece of leftover Scotch cake, Mary clasped her hand, stilling the restless agitation.

“For what it’s worth, Roxie,” she said softly, “I don’t think you need some sense knocked into you. But I do think you should take care.”

She met her mother’s unfaltering gaze. Tolerance shone in Mary’s hazel eyes, but concern dimmed their normal brightness. Willfully getting a grip on her temper, Roxie took a deep breath.

“You needn’t worry,” she said, seeking to soothe her mother’s fears. “Bill’s blown this totally out of proportion, that’s all.”

“I’ll always worry about my children—”

“That’s what mothers are for,” Roxie finished for her. A smile played over her mouth. She’d heard that one so many times it was probably engraved in her heart. “Okay, Mother, worry all you want. Who am I to stop you? But believe me, there’s no need to waste your time and energy.”

Mary wagged a teasing finger at her. “It’s my time and my energy; I’ll waste it if I wish.” Then she turned back toward the table to finish clearing it, saying as she did, “Why don’t you take him that last piece of cake to eat with his chicken and bread-and-butter sandwich?”

Roxie stared blankly at her mother’s back for a few shocked seconds. Then she closed her dropped jaw and, laughing, reached for the cake plate and two more slices of bread.