Million Dollar Road (31 page)

“No.” In truth, nothing would do any good.

“I'm gonna have to let my little girl go,” Bud said heavily. “I got to pray she don't come to harm by him.”

“That's hard,” Emma said. “She's your child.”

Bud tried to smile. “Lireinne's been my own kid since she was four years old, a scrappy little thing, and wild as Tiger Branch after a big rain. Always was a good girl, though, and didn't she grow up to be a real beauty?” His face turned somber. “When I couldn't talk her out of quitting school, that near 'bout broke me up inside—smart girl like that, giving up on her education. This is worse. I'd kinda hoped that her
Mr. Con
was just giving her a hand up like she said, but now I see I was mistaken. She went to New Orleans today, picking up her passport and buying herself a new winter coat. Says it's cold over there in France and she wants to look good.”

“I imagine she does.” Oh, Con, Emma thought sadly. So many women in the world you could have trained your attentions on, so many other girls you could have had. Couldn't you have let this one alone?

“Well, thanks for the coffee, and for listening to me.” Bud got up from his chair and reached for his hat. “Guess I'll be headin' out,” he said. “Took up too much of your time already.” He smiled a half-smile for Emma then, his eyes meeting hers and lingering for a moment. Though his shoulders were slumped, his mouth a tired, discouraged line, to Emma Bud somehow filled the room with his solid strength: a good man, carrying a terrible burden of love and fear. She didn't want him to leave. Not now, not like this.

“Can you stay for dinner?” Emma asked, struck by an impulse. She had no advice for him, but she could offer the comfort of this one thing. “Wolf's invited, too,” she added quickly.

Bud smiled, shook his head, and picked up his old jacket. “Dang, Emma. I invited myself over here this past Sunday, and you fed me and my boy like kings. Don't mean to overstep again.”

Emma rose, too, and put her hand on his arm. “Please, it's no trouble. I'm cooking for myself anyway and . . . I'd love the company.” Blushing at her unusual forwardness, still Emma knew without question that she needed to feed this man tonight—for her own sake perhaps, if not for his. She wasn't ready to be alone again, she thought with a shiver.

With what Emma hoped was a winsome smile, she asked, “Please?”

“Well,” Bud said slowly, “Wolf's over to his friend Bolt's house, some kind of video-game throw-down goin' on tonight. Was looking at eating alone anyhow. Usually don't cook when it's just me, seeing as how I'm not worth much in the kitchen.” This new smile seemed to come from behind the clouds in his eyes, a hesitant, stray beam of good humor. “Getting kinda tired of Spam.”

“I can have everything ready in an hour. It's just chicken. Please, say you'll stay.”

Bud's smile broadened until he chuckled. “Lord knows you can flat cook, Emma. Can't imagine anything you'd fix would be ‘just chicken.' I'd be pleased to join you, but you got to let me help out some kind of way.”

“Oh, wonderful!” Emma said. Her return smile brightened her gray, gold-flecked eyes. “How good are you at peeling potatoes?”

“I don't have any beer, I'm afraid, but would you like a glass of wine while we wait?”

Walking into the front room, Emma flourished the opened bottle of chardonnay: there was plenty left over after putting the chicken to braising in garlic, butter, and wine. She put the bottle and two glasses on the low wooden blanket chest that served as her coffee table.

The chicken was simmering, the salad was made, and the gratin was in the oven. Bud had built a fire and now they were sitting on the low couch in front of the flames, enjoying the warmth as the chill retreated to the corners of the bookshelf-lined room.

“Don't know a thing about wine, but I'll try some and thank you,” Bud said. With a cautious settling of his wide shoulders, he relaxed deeper into the soft cushions.

“Great. Here.” Emma poured the golden chardonnay into both glasses and handed one to him. She raised her own glass and tapped it gently against Bud's with a clear
ting
of crystal. “Cheers,” she said. “To . . . better times?”

“I'll drink to that.” Bud took a bare taste and nodded in appreciation. “That's good,” he said. “Nice change from beer—not that I'm much of a drinker, anyhow. Had me a wild youth, tore up this town like all kids do when they ain't responsible for much. I cut way back on the booze when I married Lireinne's mother and there was kids in the house. These days, a six-pack lasts me a week or more.” Bud had another sip of wine.

Emma curled up on the other end of the couch, drawing her long legs underneath her. “I'm not much of a drinker myself,” she confessed. “Back when I was married, Con drank enough for both of us and then, after the . . . the divorce, I was such a head case I was afraid I'd end up a raving drunk in detox, if I wasn't careful.” She was silent a moment, remembering those days, but then Emma shook her head impatiently.
Be here now
. Be here now with Bud, enjoy this good feeling, and let the past lie quiet for once.

“It was a bad time for you, wasn't it,” Bud said neutrally. His eyes were a deep brown, accepting as the earth of her garden.

Startled by his observation, Emma paused to think before she answered. She took a gulp of the crisp, cold wine. “You could say that,” she said. “That time was, almost literally, the end of the world for me.”

“You must have loved him a whole lot.”

With a deep breath, Emma nodded. “I did.” It was a painful admission, but at least it felt honest and clean. “Con was the world to me. When I found out who he'd really become—a serial, no, a
successful
philanderer—when he told me we were through, it was like that
Superman
movie, you know? That scene where Krypton's gravity fails, it cracks apart, and the pieces fly off into the universe in slow motion? I guess I was like that planet, orbiting around a red sun until it died.” She'd never thought about it in quite that way before, but floored by the heart-striking truth of that unlikely metaphor, Emma fell silent again.

At the other end of the sofa Bud leaned forward, his arms on his knees, his wineglass cradled in both of his big hands. “You don't strike me as the kind of woman who'd love like that without a good reason,” he said. “You're smart, Emma. Real smart. Educated, too. Not like me. I can be foolish sometimes. I mean, I knew Lireinne's mom had a hell of a past before she met me, but I thought if I loved her enough she'd be different, that she'd be happy being my wife. I was wrong as a man can be.” He stared at his wine, seemingly lost in thought.

After a moment, Bud went on, his expression faraway. “I remember she was the prettiest girl at the Parish fair that year,” he said softly. “Not even twenty-one yet, and high-spirited as a, a unbroke filly. She was laughing at everyone and everything. Seemed like a hundred fellas following her around, buying her whatever carnie crap she set her eye on. She'd already had Lireinne then, but only saw her when she had to go home to drop her off at a different relative's house. She could do what she liked then, without being held down by her own kid. I didn't know about that side of her when I decided to marry that girl or die tryin', but I was only twenty-two myself, too young and ignorant about women to know better.

“Three years later when she up and left, I come home from work to find Lireinne by herself and takin' care of her baby brother. She was only seven years old, Emma. ‘Mommy's gone,' was all she said. There wasn't even a note. Finally heard from my wife's people up in Mississippi. They said she'd gone to the coast with her old boyfriend and wasn't coming back. Those folks told me I was on my own with the kids. Seems they had their hands full already and they was done with having Lireinne underfoot, much less her brother. My wife's own mother told me maybe the boy wasn't even mine, since everybody knew she'd been steppin' out on me for years. I'd been so blind in love with her I never suspected a thing. I swear I don't know what I did to that woman to make her leave, but she's gone and Lireinne and Wolf turned out to be the best part of the deal.”

Emma remembered Bud's talking about his ex-wife's desertion before, and Sarah's telling her that he'd married a “trashy piece from Tylertown.” That description didn't do Lireinne's mother a remote justice, she thought. Even cats didn't walk away from their kittens until they were old enough to fend for themselves.

“How did Lireinne get the scar on her eyebrow?” Emma asked. She was wondering if Bud's ex-wife had been abusive as well as desperately irresponsible, but didn't want to ask outright.

Bud looked ashamed, but he met her eyes steadily. “That was my fault. The neighbor woman who was watching the kids for me let her fall down the steps to the trailer. By the time I got home from work and drove her to the emergency room, the doctor told me there wasn't much he could do, said she was gonna need plastic surgery. Couldn't afford that. I always feel bad, lookin' at that scar. I hope Lireinne don't care about it too much.”

Ah, poor Bud, Emma thought. Poor Lireinne and Wolf. She couldn't imagine how this man had managed on his own with two little children, two abandoned kids who had no one in the world but him. Her heart swelled with pity and a dawning sense that Bud Hooten was a remarkable man who'd always deserved better than what life had handed him.

She was lost in these thoughts until Bud cleared his throat. “Uh, not meaning to tell you your business or nothing, Emma, but I think I smell something burnin'.”

 

The potatoes were browner than Emma would have liked, but Bud ate everything on his plate with a real hunger and insisted on a third helping of the slightly singed gratin.

“Best spuds I ever et,” he said, wiping his lips on his napkin with evident satisfaction. “And the chicken was mighty fine, too. Thanks for the meal, Emma. It sure hit the spot.”

Emma smiled happily, rose, and began to clear the table. “It was my pleasure,” she said. “I'd forgotten how I love feeding a man who can really eat, and you're always such good company. I enjoyed having you here.”

Bud put a gentle hand on her arm as she reached for his plate. “Would you mind leaving this for now?” he asked. “Can you do me another favor? Set here and talk with me some more? Just for a bit.”

Bemused, Emma put down the plate and sat again. “Of course.”

Bud rested his elbows on the table, steepled his big-knuckled fingers, and was quiet for a moment. He took a deep breath and expelled it in a gusty sigh.

“Tell me about your ex-husband,” Bud said, returning his hands to the table. “Like I said before, you don't seem like a woman who'd love so hard for no reason. Give me a better idea of him, if you can, if it's not too much trouble for you. That way . . . I can maybe tell myself that he won't hurt my Lireinne.”

Emma was confounded by his request. How to explain Con to him, how to explain Con to anyone? Con was a rogue comet, a man as full of contradictions as he was full of hungers. Impulsive, thoughtless and destructive, blazing with a consuming determination to capture and keep anything he wanted to possess. You could get burned when you got too close to Con.

And yet . . . she'd loved him. She'd loved his generous spirit, his unexpected, unseen kindnesses, loved the fire of his trajectory across the domed sky of her earthbound world. She'd been in love with the way he'd never let her retreat from life, but grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him instead.
Come with me, come with me
. Oh, yes—Con burned, but he burned bright, so bright you couldn't help but be drawn to the light he cast.

Would he harm Lireinne? Emma pondered this question. No, he wouldn't, not consciously. She'd finally come to understand that women were like . . . found money to Con. They were the same as hundred-dollar bills lying around in the street, waiting for anyone to pick them up and pocket them. He wouldn't manage his own appetites, and what was worse, he didn't think he should have to. Still, if Emma looked at him with a hard-won dispassion, she knew Con didn't mean to do harm any more than a wildfire did, scorching across a dry marsh.

And he'd never set out to hurt her either. Tonight, Emma could finally make her peace with that remembered pain. It had simply been Con, having his own way, only that. Emma had been so in love with him, she'd never stopped to count the possible cost of loving a nature like his, nor had she known how to stop loving him, even if she could. And yet her heart, she now understood, had in some secret part known the truth about this man all along and loved him anyway. She'd never allowed herself to accept the possibility that, inevitably, she'd be hurt.