Million Dollar Road (30 page)

But by the time Skip opened the large front door of the Lemon Tree for her, Liz's agitated digestion was in full cry, bloated and distressed by the burden of nearly a whole head of cabbage. Hang on, she commanded herself. You can do this. No matter what, Liz meant to carry off this evening with her customary, well-honed dating skills, even though she felt as though there were an Asian land war going on inside her stomach. A glass of pinot grigio might settle things down in there, Liz hoped, amid her growing agitation.

“Reservation for Binnings,” Skip said to the long-waisted blond girl in the black dress behind the hostess's desk.

Despite her insides' near-revolt, Lizzie was instantly watchful. As though it was yesterday, she recalled the hostess from her previous visit to the Lemon Tree, how that night she'd seemed much too familiar with Con, in Liz's opinion. He'd called the hostess by name, too. What was it? Liz couldn't remember.

The blond girl smiled a charming welcome. Gathering a couple of menus, she gestured at the dining room's entrance.

“Right this way, Dr. Binnings.”

It was the same saccharine, little-girl lilt of Con's infamous voice mail. This was
Jennifer,
naughty-underwear-from-Victoria's-Secret Jennifer, this was the girl Con had been doing behind her back! Eyes narrowed into slits, Lizzie's throat swelled, her face and chest flushed, and her hands clenched into fists.
Jennifer
.

But in the same instant of Liz's swift, inarticulate fury, a hot sheen of perspiration broke on her forehead. In awful certainty her stomach announced that things had gone too far, that enough was enough. It was
done
with all that indigestible coleslaw.

Torn between the furious desire to slap this blond bitch, her hope to acquire Skip Binnings's very necessary approval, and the more pressing, immediate imperative to find the bathroom—fast—Liz called up every ounce of self-control she possessed.

“Excuse me, Skip,” she managed, queasily swallowing the bile in her throat. “I, I need to find the ladies' room.”

Jennifer barely had time to point to a door christened
Femmes
before Lizzie made an awkward, limping beeline for the bathroom, leaving confused Skip Binnings behind.

“Are you all right?” he called. “Lizzie?”

But Liz was shoving open the door to the marble-tiled ladies' room, frantic to get to the toilet before she threw up all over the floor. She pushed inside a stall at the last possible moment, only just able to slam and latch the door before the inevitable happened. And happened.

And happened.

Several minutes later, Lizzie was exhausted and shaking from her ordeal, but the worst was over. Lord, what must Skip be thinking? she wondered as she flushed away the remains of the coleslaw. She'd cut out of there as though she were running from a gun-waving lunatic.
That
was going to take some explaining. Liz was wiping her mouth with a handful of toilet tissue when, outside the stall, the door to the ladies' room opened. A pair of heels tripped briskly across the marble floor and stopped on the other side of the stall.

“Ma'am?”

Jennifer
. Her hand itching to yank the hostess's yellow hair off her head, Liz was filled with loathing at the sound of that childish, tinkling syllable.

“Ma'am, are you okay?” Jennifer's tone was solicitous, exactly as any employee's in a good restaurant ought to have been. Under other circumstances, Liz would've approved. “Can I get you something? A little sparkling water from the bar?”

“No,” Lizzie snapped, brusque and short. Just get the hell
out
of here, you stupid slut, she thought. Liz had no intention of leaving this stall until she was thoroughly composed, and Jennifer was the last person on earth she wanted to see her like this—the last person she wanted to see, period.

“Are you sure?” Jennifer, that skank, wasn't getting the hint. Her question was plaintive, just like the one in that infamous goddamned voice mail.
Why haven't you called me?

Goaded beyond endurance, nevertheless Lizzie surprised herself when she snarled, “Do you even know who I
am,
you ignorant whore?”

A shocked silence filled the lavender-scented air of the bathroom. Liz coughed and wiped her mouth again. Whatever was this idiot girl's problem?

“Ma'am?” the hostess finally squeaked. She sounded terrified. Lizzie ran her fingers through her taffy hair, praying she wouldn't lose it. Wouldn't that be a scandal? A catfight in the ladies' room at the Lemon Tree? How people would love to spread
that
juicy story around town.

“Excuse me?” Jennifer quavered.

“Shut up.
I'm Con Costello's wife,
” Liz grated. “Now get the hell out of this bathroom before I take you apart.”

“Con's . . . wife?”

“Didn't you hear what I said? Get the hell out of here!”

Jennifer mumbled something inaudible, something that could've been “I'm sorry,” but then she got the hell out of there. What had Con seen in that vacuous fool? Liz thought. What had he gotten from someone so . . .
ordinary
that it was worth risking his marriage to her?

Alone in the ladies' room, exhausted and trembling, Lizzie realized she needed to pee before she had to go back out there and face what was turning out to be a perfectly disastrous first date. As she unzipped her skinny pants and sat on the toilet, she refused to cry because tears would leave her with raccoon eyes of melted mascara. She wasn't going to risk
that
particular humiliation. The evening might still be salvageable, although at this point it seemed such an uphill battle, she wasn't sure she was equal to resurrecting this date.

Her thoughts turning to possible explanations to offer Skip, Liz's eyes fell, noticing a bright carmine stain on the white silk of her underwear. Great, she thought. On top of all this, what a time to be getting my period. But then Lizzie remembered. That single spot of red, the size of a quarter, took on an ominous, terrible significance.

She was losing the baby because she'd nearly vomited herself to death.

“No.”
Lizzie moaned. “Ah, God—no!”

Blindsided by the implacable reality of this spot of blood and what it meant, Liz was utterly unprepared for the grief that slammed her like a bone-shattering gale. Heedless of her eye makeup now, she sobbed with a desolation she'd never known could have existed within her, not until now.

Losing Lima Bean had been awful, but this was a bewildering agony. Lizzie bent over her knees, covered her head with her arms, and wept inconsolably for the child dying inside her. The child who, until that scarlet stain, she hadn't known she'd wanted all along.

 

Liz had done the best she could to repair her face, but there was going to be no denying her reddened eyes had been flooding like a broken water main. At the sink, she rubbed the melted mascara off with a tissue, rinsed her mouth out one last time, and dispassionately reapplied her lipstick. Nothing, least of all her makeup, seemed to matter anymore.

“You,” Liz said to her pasty reflection in the mirror with weary indifference, “are a fright. No man's going to want you looking like this.” It was a statement Lizzie believed to be a cold fact, but found she hardly cared. She pressed her hand to her stomach and closed her eyes. Oh, the baby, she mourned.

She was losing the baby.

Sure there was nothing she could do to stop the miscarriage, Liz had to stop thinking about it or she'd be lost to her grief, however incomprehensible it was. She had to leave the bathroom, go out and face what was bound to be an impatient Skip Binnings, since she'd been in here for over twenty minutes. At least it was Monday, a normally quiet night for dinner in Covington, and so she'd been alone in here with her sorrow—except for the ridiculous blonde who'd slept with Con.

At that thought, Lizzie found a little pride. She set her jaw and exited the bathroom, emerging into the reception area where Skip was waiting for her on the long padded bench by the entry. The hostess was nowhere in sight. Thank God for small favors, she thought with a sniffle.

Don't cry,
Liz ordered herself. Don't you dare cry. She attempted a confident smile, except that smile was trembling on her tear-ravaged face, and in that instant, more than anything on earth, she wanted to go home. Before the night was over, she and the baby would be in the hospital, and after the miscarriage was over, she'd be leaving alone. Skip would never call her again, that was for damned sure.

But to Lizzie's amazement Skip was rising from the bench and hurrying to her from across the foyer, his hands outstretched. His face calm but concerned, he put his arms around her waist and looked up into her wondering, puffy eyes.

“Let's get you out of here,” Skip said. “Come on, I'll take you home.”

 

During the ride back to the house neither of them spoke, but Skip's hand lay in light comfort on Lizzie's knee, squeezing it from time to time. Lizzie was grateful for that and grateful in a way for her exhaustion, too, for now she felt mercifully emptied out and almost numb. For the time being, her tumult, her grief—both were still and quiet as dead things.

Once she and Skip had reached her front porch, Lizzie unlocked the door. She wanted to put a good face on the end of the evening, if such a thing was possible. “Sorry to have made us leave before we even ate,” she said. In spite of her attempt to be polite, her voice was leaden. “Thanks for bringing me home.” She put her hand on the doorknob, wanting only to go inside, to be alone with her baby a few minutes more, before she called her doctor and went to the hospital.

“May I come in?” Skip asked. “We could still have a drink together. Right now, that might help you feel better.”

A drink? God, she'd never needed one more. But remembering the reason she hadn't had a glass of wine in weeks, Liz couldn't suppress a shuddering, wordless sob.

“Are you okay, Liz?”

She'd never be okay again. Lizzie's eyes filled once more with the hot tears, then her mouth fell open, and to her horror, it began to spill all her secrets. Unable to stop if she tried, she told Skip
everything
. The coleslaw, Jennifer, losing the baby—Skip listened to it all, not saying anything but stroking her back as though she were a heartbroken child, until this gentle, human touch calmed Lizzie's wild weather at last. She took a deep breath, wiping her nose on the back of her hand.

“Here.” Skip reached into the pocket of his jacket and handed her a clean handkerchief.

Oh, wouldn't you know it: he was the wonderful kind of man who carried a handkerchief, her favorite kind of man. Blowing her nose, her tears spent, Lizzie assumed that any minute now wonderful Skip Binnings was bound to take his handkerchief back, walk down the steps, and leave. After her confession, why was he still here? She couldn't think of a single other word to say to him. God knows, she'd said it all already.

“You should have told me before,” Skip said.

His handkerchief a damp ball in her hand, with downcast eyes Liz nodded, feeling gray as November rain with fatigue. “I didn't think I was going to keep it,” she murmured. “I thought I wouldn't be able to do it, being a single mother. Even then, Con would still have been a part of raising the baby and I didn't want that. God, I thought I was going to call my gynecologist tomorrow for an appointment to . . . you know.” She bit her lip. “But then,
this
happened. All of a sudden, I realized I
wanted
this baby.” Lizzie raised her eyes from her feet to meet Skip's. “I guess I'm just . . .” She struggled to find the words, gave up, and said with a sigh, “I'm just blown away.”

Skip shook his head.

“This doesn't mean you've lost the baby, Lizzie, not necessarily.” In the glow of the flickering porch gaslights, his handsome face was reassuring and kind. “Some spotting's not unusual, not in the first trimester.” He reached up to stroke her hair, smoothing it off her face. “You ought to get an appointment, though. You need a prenatal checkup.”

Lizzie went quiet, stunned by sudden hope. “You mean . . . I could still be pregnant?” she said eventually.

“It's likely you are, so cheer up.” Skip drew her into his arms. “Come here, honey.”

And Liz melted. Her head drooped, coming to rest on his wide shoulder. She didn't care anymore that he was short. Skip felt so
solid,
so strong.

“Look,” he said, his voice soft. “I think you're an incredible, beautiful, brave woman. You can have this baby if you want to.”

Liz sobbed again, but this was a sob of pure gratitude for her deliverance, for the warm arms around her. She clasped her hands around Skip, lowering her forehead to his upturned one. “How am I going to do it, raising a child on my own?” she whispered. It seemed impossibly daunting.

Those wonderful arms tightening around her as though he would never, ever let her go, Skip Binnings smiled an intimate smile.

He kissed her, whispering against her lips, “Who says you're going to have to?”

T
he wind was out of the north this late Tuesday afternoon, a high, cold river of air rushing through the tops of the pecan trees. Their bare branches creaking overhead, dull-gold leaves swirled in the current before drifting down to the brittle, aromatic carpet crackling underneath Emma's boots.

She was in the grove gathering wind-fallen branches for she planned to build a fire this evening, and pecan wood burned bright and clean. Dressed warmly against the wind, Emma was bundled up in jeans, a heavy, cream-colored Irish fisherman's sweater and a knitted cap, her leather gloves and wearing a bright scarf around her neck. Autumn seemed to be coming early this year, but Emma knew that long-anticipated Louisiana season could be fickle, that a cold front like this one could turn humid and mild again overnight. Still, today felt like a promise. A fire would be a good way to welcome this first day of fall's return, Emma thought, bending to pick up another branch. A fire and perhaps a glass of wine to drink while she watched the flames.

And despite the lingering disappointment of Lireinne's rejection of last Sunday's overture, Emma was ready to celebrate the day—the wind, the brilliant, slanting sunlight, and the turning of the year all serving to lift her spirits.
“All the leaves are brown,”
she sang under her breath, but the sky was anything but gray today: it was a layered, translucent blue, deep as a wild ocean, fathomless and wide above her.

Her arms full, Emma returned to the pile of wood at the base of the pecan tree, satisfyingly large and promising a good blaze on the hearth tonight.

“Sheba!” The hound bounded up to meet her from the end of the grove, frisking in the wind like a half-grown pup. Emma reached down to stroke Sheba's head in a quick caress. “Good girl. Let's go home.” She stacked as many of the branches in her arms as she could carry on this first trip. She'd need to come back for the rest after she got her load to the house.

Emma trudged past the edge of the garden with her burden. Swaying in the wind from their trellised vines, summer's gourds—warty balloons of striped green, yellow, and orange—hung ready to be harvested. Loving their color and fantastic shapes, she meant to keep a few to decorate her kitchen table in a big pottery bowl. The rest were headed for the farmers' market this Saturday, as well as the bushel basket of her pecans on the front porch. Okra's dubious bounty was done at last, and it would be another week before most of the greens would be ready to cut, bundle, and sell. Pausing to survey her acres stretching to the surrounding trees, windswept and light-limned in the late-afternoon sun, Emma smiled, knowing that she'd been, well,
hungry
for change and here it was.

It was good to be alive.

And this was a good day. Tonight she was going to cook herself a real meal, something to suit the season. Maybe a gratin dauphinois and a salad of baby kale from the garden, a chicken breast browned in butter and then sautéed in white wine with a hint of garlic.

Emma's thoughts turned to the dinner two days ago, to Bud and Wolf. She felt that had been a beginning of something, although what it was, she wasn't sure. Since then she'd fingered the evening in her mind like a rosary, telling remembered moments like beads. How different and yet so sweetly familiar it had been, feeding people other than herself and Sheba. Bud and Wolf had seemed to enjoy themselves and, after she'd gotten past her chagrin that Lireinne hadn't wanted to come—Bud said she wasn't feeling well, but Emma knew that was a kind lie—she'd found herself hungry for both the food and the company. When they'd gone, she couldn't stop smiling as she cleaned the kitchen, reliving the conversation, the warmth.

The wind gusted and under her cap Emma's silver hair lifted in a static-snapping nimbus. Sheba nosed her thigh, a reminder that it was time to go indoors.

“Sorry, girl,” Emma said. The dog was surely wondering why her master was hanging around in the yard with a load of wood in her arms when it was more comfortable inside the house. “Let's go home.”

Emma had opened the front door when she heard the distant rumble of tires on the gravel road that led to the farmhouse. Turning, she looked to see who would be coming all the way out to visit her this afternoon. It could be Sarah Fortune, although that would be out of the ordinary: she rarely came by this late in the day. But the car wasn't Sarah's noisy Mercedes. The vehicle clattering down the road was a battered red pickup truck.

Bud's truck, memory reminded her. Why had he come? Emma wondered, and was happy to discover that it didn't matter to her in the least. She was glad to see him again, whatever the reason. Her mouth turned up in a welcoming smile as she shifted the firewood in her arms to wave a gloved hand at his approach. The truck rolled to a stop in front of the house with a dieseling, dying rattle. The driver's door creaked loudly as Bud got out.

“Here,” he said. “Let me get that for you.”

Emma looked down at the pile of wood she was carrying. “Oh,” she said. “I'm stronger than I look. I've got this. Just give me a minute to carry it in the house.”

But Bud hurried up the front steps anyway, his arms reaching, his expression determined, so Emma surrendered her load with a breathless laugh. “Well, thanks! Come on inside, get out of this wind,” she said, opening the front door.

Bud wiped his work boots on the mat before he came into the hallway. “You want this by the fireplace?” he asked. His blunt features reddened by the wind, he was wearing an old tan Carhartt jacket, faded jeans, and a felt fedora with a crushed crown.

“That would be great,” Emma said, leading him into the front room. Bud followed, carefully stacking the wood on the brick hearth in a neat pile.

“You got any more?” he said. “Don't look like this here's enough to see you through the evenin'.”

“The rest of it's out in the grove, but please don't bother.”

“No trouble a-tall.” Bud swept off his hat. “Sorry, my old mother always used to say a real gentleman takes his hat off indoors, 'specially in the presence of a lady.”

Emma blushed. “I thank you kindly, Bud Hooten.” Lord, she sounded as prim as an old maid with a row of straight pins between her lips. “Why don't I make us some coffee? It won't take a minute.”

“I'm going to bring in the rest of your wood,” Bud said. “But a cup of coffee sounds good to me. Be back directly.”

Ten minutes later the wood was beside the hearth and the coffee was made, filling the kitchen with its genial welcoming aroma. The air in the house had seemed almost hot after being outside in the wind, and so Emma had changed out of her heavy sweater, pulling a soft cashmere cardigan on over her knitted thermal shirt. Bud shrugged out of his jacket and hung it and his hat on the back of a chair, Emma poured the coffee, and they sat down across from each other at the old scrubbed pine table.

“Feels good in here,” Bud said, reaching for his cup.

“Thanks for bringing all that wood inside,” Emma said with a grateful smile.

But although Bud smiled in return, it was just a preoccupied, quick stretch of his mouth. “Happy to do it,” he said. He didn't drink from his cup right away either, only turning it in a tight circle on the tabletop. His eyes were lowered, his broad shoulders hunched. Emma took a nervous sip of coffee, wondering what was on Bud's mind, what had brought him out here at the end of what she knew had to have been another brutal day on the loading dock.

Still keeping his eyes fixed on his cup, Bud said, “Hope it's okay with you that I dropped in so late, but after work I got to thinking. I could sure use your take on something.”

“Me?” Emma said with a surprised laugh. He looked up at that, his face wearing a guarded expression she couldn't read. “I mean,” she went on, “I'm not exactly a poster child for useful advice. Even on my good days, I'm still kind of a recovering mess.”

“Don't know 'bout that. You sure seem like a lady who's got her act together to me.” Bud sighed and looked away again, obviously working up to the point of his visit. A minute passed and Emma's curiosity was growing.

“It's Lireinne,” Bud finally said. “Tomorrow she's getting on a plane to go to Paris, France.” He raised his eyes to look at her. “With your ex-husband.”

It was a body blow. Her head reeling, Emma was suddenly unable to draw a breath.

Her
heart
. Oh my God, her
heart
. Unthinking, she gripped her coffee cup in both hands, so tightly it seemed as though she could shatter it. The revelation Emma had been dreading all along hung in the air between them, loaded with the threat of her disappearing into nothing, into smoke. And Bud—he continued to gaze at her, an awful expectancy suffusing his honest face. She gasped a deep, frantic breath, then another, snatching at the air to bring it into her lungs.

You don't have to listen to this, Emma thought wildly. Raise your walls, raise them high! Tell Bud you're sorry but you can't help, get him out the door.
Then
you can fall apart.

And yet, even as panic screamed across the windy plains of Breakdown Country, Emma heard herself saying, “Oh, no, Bud.” It was all her faltering tongue could manage. “Oh, no.”

Bud ducked his head between his broad shoulders. “Yep. I'm 'fraid you heard right. Sorry to bring you trouble like this.” He sounded miserable and almost ashamed. “I wish it weren't so, but she's set on going and won't listen to me.”

“No.” Emma's voice was faint as she struggled to breathe again. “No, she won't listen to anyone.”

She couldn't forget that night in the truck on the way back from the mall. She could still hear Lireinne, swearing with all the passion her young heart possessed that she'd give
anything
to go to Paris. Emma, fighting to keep her head above the girl's river of wounding words, could only half listen, but still, there'd been no missing the naked desire, the longing, as Lireinne told her about the city of her dreams, a place she knew only from pictures in her French book, fashion magazines, and her posters. Con had to have known that this was the perfect bait to dangle, but how?

I'd give
anything
to go. Anything
.

“It ain't good, Emma,” Bud said, shaking his head. “She calls it some kind of business trip, but I don't like the look in her eyes—like she knows she's doing something wrong but ain't gonna own up to it.” He sighed. “Look, the reason I come over is . . . I got to ask if your ex-husband is the kinda man to, to . . . to take advantage of a young girl. If you say he is, I mean to drive all night if I got to. Find him wherever he's at, tell him he better leave my little girl be.”

Bud's big work-roughened hand spasmodically opened and closed in a fist. His square jaw taut, he seemed to wrestle with himself for a few moments. In a sudden, violent move he pounded the table, startling Emma out of her private panic.

“Can you tell me, Emma?
Is
he that kind of man? Tell me, 'cause I'm afraid for her. Please, help me out here.”

Before she knew she was doing it, Emma reached across the table and placed her hand over his tightly closed one, wanting only for him to stop speaking because he was hurting her. He didn't intend to, he couldn't know, but this was too much, far too much. Con, with Lireinne. She still couldn't bring herself to face it, not completely. She wanted to get up, to leave the room and take a tranquilizer, before she remembered she'd swept them up and thrown them away weeks ago.

But Bud opened his fist and gripped her hand. She wished then he hadn't come, wishing, too, that she were capable of being equal to this. She wished for words to comfort him.

But there weren't any, and so her silence answered his question.

Emma and Bud stayed at the table for another half hour, wordlessly drinking coffee. The unsaid—
yes
,
he is
—lay between them like a corpse until, finally, Bud put his hands over his face and rubbed his stubbled cheeks. “Oh, hell,” he muttered, knuckling his eyes. He seemed so tired, so defeated.

“If only I could help,” Emma said softly. In the quiet space between them, her panic had gradually passed without resorting to Xanax. She'd fought her way through the steadily ticking minutes one breath at a time, somehow arriving on the other side filled with concern for Bud's anguish and a deep, restless worry for Lireinne. “I'm so sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Bud said, his voice resigned. “But it wouldn't do any good, would it. Going to talk to your ex-husband, I mean.” It wasn't a question.