Stay (Dunham series #2) (27 page)

The slam of her front door, then booming laughter
that grew fainter and fainter until there was none.

They looked at each other again and then began to
laugh. The moment was lost, but they had something to share
now.

“Dying sure didn’t have any deleterious effects on
his crappy sense of humor, did it?”

She rolled her eyes. “Uh, no. He killed it for me;
how about you?”

“Can’t you tell?” he muttered, pulling away from her
to discard the condom.

“Ah, yes. Just making sure.”

But they kissed. And then again. Longer still, and
Vanessa simply enjoyed his taste, his touch. Soft, tender.

She stroked his arm as if to feel the spider web
buried in his skin. “What is this?”

“Symbol of my people,” he whispered.

“You’re close to them?”

“Not really. I’d like to have been, to learn and
carry on what traditions are left. It’d make my mom happy, but life
got in the way.”

She smiled then and traced his lower lip with her
finger.

Eric’s arousal firmed up at that—because of her
smile or the way she touched him, she didn’t know. “Mmmm, maybe he
didn’t kill it after all,” Eric breathed, stretching to grab
another condom. “Let’s try this again.”

“Oh yes.
Thank
you.”

“AUNT VANESSA!”

He froze. His head dropped down into the crook of
her neck and Vanessa clapped her hand over her face.

She took a deep breath.

“What, Vachel?”

“Curtis is out of his medicine. He miscounted.”

“Have Knox or Justice take care of it.”

“Oh, they’re here already? Cool, okay.” Pause. “Uh,
are you all right? You sound funny.”

“I’m
fine
!” she screeched, but then felt
Eric’s body begin to shake. His warm breath puffed into her
neck.

“Easy for you to say,” Vanessa grumbled, yet feeling
the pull of his amusement. “are you gone yet?!”

No answer.

Eric burst out laughing and rolled off her, captured
her hand in his and brought it to his lips. “Shit, Vanessa, is this
an endurance test or something?”

“I told you what my life is like and I wasn’t
exaggerating. I don’t know what you plan to do with yourself all
week.”

He still chuckled. Wiped a hand down his face. “I’ll
find something.” He turned his head and looked at her with that
heart-breaking smile she’d always adored. “You think third time’s
the charm?”

“Nope. Everybody knows where I am now. Next thing
you know, the missionaries will show up needing something.” She
sighed. “Time to get back to work.”

“I’ll help you. Tell me what you want me to do.”

“Oh, I see. You just don’t want Knox to laugh at
you.”

“Knox? Hell, Vanessa, you’re talking about a man who
got caught by an office full of attorneys and cops fucking his only
female assistant prosecutor up against the wall of his office in
the middle of the workday. He can’t point and mock.”

“He didn’t!”

Eric’s chuckles turned back into a rolling laugh,
then a guffaw. “You should’ve seen it.”

“With
Justice
?”

“Who else?”

“Wasn’t she embarrassed?”

“Not a bit. She thought it was funny as hell. They
both did.”

They continued to laugh as Vanessa pulled on her
whites and Eric re-dressed. They walked back toward the mansion
with fingers laced and Vanessa shocked herself when she
remembered—

“I’ve never held hands with a boy before,” she
murmured.

He looked at her sharply. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. It just now occurred to me. You popped my
hand-holding cherry.” He laughed again at Vanessa’s self-satisfied
smile and they continued along the pathway to the mansion.

“Curtis is the veteran, right?” Eric asked
suddenly.

“Ol’ Curtis Lowe,” Vanessa began, “lives in a small
cabin at the back of the property and insists that we refer to him
as ‘the sharecropper’ because he thinks it’s funny to let the
guests think he’s a charity case. The man’s richer than God.”

Eric stopped. Stared at her. “His name is
not
Curtis Lowe.”

She smiled up at him. “It
is
. Just like the
guy in the song. Looks like him, too.”

“And his medicine?”

“He wouldn’t take it if Vachel weren’t around. I
told Vachel it was his responsibility to make sure Curtis took his
medicine so he’d stick around for a while. I told Curtis it would
shatter Vachel if he died because he didn’t take his medicine.”

“Mmmm, no pressure there.”

She shrugged. “It gets the results I want.”

“And what you want is to keep ol’ Curtis alive and
give Vachel someone to take care of.”

“Right. Curtis fought me for years over that and the
only thing he ever let me do is feed him. My food is his Achilles
heel. Better than his mama’s, he says. So I make him sit in the
kitchen and tell me
all
about his mama’s cooking. You can
guess what I do with that.”

Eric laughed.

“Knox is my next project. Haven’t figured out how to
make him do what I want him to do yet.”

“Which is?”

“Take care of his diabetes.”

Eric grunted. “Good luck with that. Justice can’t
even get him to do it.”

“Justice doesn’t know.” At his look, she said, “I
suspect everybody else thinks she does, but that this is one area
where she can’t get him to heel.”

“That explains a lot. Why don’t you just tell
her?”

“And hit the button on World War III? That’s not my
style. I’d rather Knox rat himself out than put myself in the line
of fire like that.”

“You’re as sneaky as he is.”

“Oh, I’ll never be that good.”

They climbed up the back porch stairs and walked
into the main kitchen. Justice had made herself at home to cook,
but Knox was nowhere to be found.

“He’s hiding,” Justice said in answer to the
question that no one asked. “Didn’t want to get his head ripped
off—and before you ask, I told him not to do that.”

“What’s that?” Vanessa asked, coming up behind her
and looking over her shoulder.

“It’s sauce for apple dumplings.”

“I could’ve had some for you when you got here, if
you’d asked.”

“Uh, I didn’t know I’d want some until about an hour
ago.” She looked at Vanessa, her face full of excitement. “I’m
pregnant again!”

“Fabulous!”

“I just got past puking everything up and now I’m
into eating everything in sight.”

“I’m guessing Knox is happy?”

Justice flashed a swift, dreamy smile. “Oh, he’s
thrilled.”

“I’ll bet,” Vanessa muttered absently, dipping a
spoon into Justice’s sauce to taste. “Damn, that’s good. Love that
kick. I still can’t figure out your secret ingredient.
Please
tell me?”

“Absolutely not and quit asking. Oh! I saw
Mister
Thompson
walking down the highway with just a rucksack and his
iPod. Where’s he going?”

Vanessa felt Eric’s gaze and bit her lip.
“Montana.”

Justice stared at her, incredulous. “He’s
walking
?”

“That’s how he got here, remember? Walked and
hitchhiked from West Virginia.”

“I swear, I do not understand that man.”

Vanessa risked a quick glance at Eric and felt the
heat rising in her cheeks at the smirk of satisfaction on his
face.

Then he looked at Justice. “Hellooo, Miss
McKinley.”

Justice looked over her shoulder. “Oh, hey, Eric.
Knox about had a heart attack when he saw your car.”

“Yeah, I bet. How’s Provo?”

“Weird,” she replied. “I’ve never lived in a college
town before, so that alone was strange. Not like UMKC, where, you
know, there’s a campus in the middle of a huge city. It’s almost
like BYU is the city. The culture is strange. The jargon’s a
foreign language and it was very odd listening to Knox speak that
language. He had to give me a crash course in Mormonism so he
wouldn’t have to stop and translate every three minutes.”

“You never talked about it before?”

“Not much. You know how much I despise organized
religion and I don’t get how his family can claim either Ayn Rand
or Joseph Smith, much less both in the same breath. I mean, I
thought
I married into a semi-intelligent family.”

“They’re on the cafeteria plan,” Eric drawled.
Vanessa began to chuckle when Justice shot Eric a quizzing glance.
“Take what they want, leave the rest. Like a cafeteria.”

Justice laughed. “How much of it did you take?”

Eric raised his hands. “Hey, I’m a Lamanite. I don’t
have to believe a damned thing. As one of God’s chosen people, I
get a special dispensation all the way through life.” Vanessa
grinned at him then. “Oh,
you
know what I’m talking
about.”

“Yeah, I do.” Vanessa chuckled and glanced at
Justice, who looked confused, albeit resigned to her confusion.

“Eh, I’ll ask Knox later.”

“Are you spending the summer here or what?”

“Oh!” Justice said, tasting her sauce. “No. We moved
back, living in Eilis’s house until ours is rebuilt. Just got back
three days ago, actually. Spent a couple of weeks in California so
Knox could surf all his favorite spots. We’re going to go to
Australia over Christmas.”

“What happened?”

“Well,” she said with a snicker, “seems the law
school somehow didn’t bother to get the church’s approval before
pushing Knox through the hiring process. It took the powers that be
a little bit to figure out that
the
Knox Hilliard was
teaching for them. You know, the
same
Knox Hilliard they
excommunicated sixteen years ago.”

Vanessa gasped. “He got fired?”

“Oh, c’mon,” Eric said. “I was shocked they got away
with hiring him at all, and I’m surprised he lasted all of two
semesters.”

“Well, did and didn’t. He and the dean were summoned
to Salt Lake about halfway into the first semester, but they were
stuck and needed him to finish out the year. The law building
pretty much blew up the minute his students heard the whispers and
went googling. He was very popular the second semester.”

Vanessa watched Eric laugh, and she was entranced.
All those years—gone. She was thirteen again and he was eighteen
and she watched that brilliant smile in that dark, carved face that
had always made her want to laugh, too. But this time, when he
caught her staring, he didn’t stop laughing, didn’t turn and walk
away.

His smile did fade a bit, but only enough for him to
touch his tongue to his bottom lip suggestively, then burst out
laughing yet again when Vanessa felt her blush deepen.

Embarrassed, she turned away. She couldn’t remember
the last time she’d blushed, the last time she’d met a man who
could make her blush.

“So, uh, Justice,” Eric said, his laughter winding
down, “what’s he going to do now?”

“Teach at UMKC and have actual office hours. Write.
Publish. And otherwise be a stay-at-home dad.”

“What are you going to do?”

She stopped stirring and looked straight at him.
“I’m going to go to the new Chouteau County prosecutor and
prostrate myself at his feet for my old job back.”

“Pretty sure he’s not going to have a problem with
that. Where’s Mercy?”

“Knox is probably out trying to make her ride a
sheep. Those two are attached at the hip.”

“I’m guessing he’s fine since he’s as obnoxious as
he ever was.”

“Yes, back at full strength, thank heavens. My hand
was getting tired.” There was dead silence for a beat before the
entire kitchen staff started to laugh. Justice, her face still
perfectly straight, rubbed her tummy and said, “This? First time
out of the chute since the man died. He’s potent, I tell you.”

While everyone else howled, Justice calmly put Eric
to work peeling and coring the apples she’d picked.

“Justice, I didn’t know how much I missed that nasty
sense of humor of yours.”

She grinned. “I had a good teacher.”

Once the hilarity wound down, Vanessa wrapped an
apron around her waist and stepped up to the stove to direct one of
her apprentice chefs. Two waiters roamed in and out for foodstuffs
that were always on hand for the guests who had rooms.

Vanessa heard the sound of pie crust being worked
with a fork. Then, “How many pies do you need this weekend,
Vanessa?”

“None,” she called over her shoulder. “You’re
pregnant, you just got here, and I didn’t plan for it.”

“Oh, good. Just me and my apple dumplings.”

“I’d rather the entirety of the Ozarks not
automatically associate your presence with cherry pie. It’s bad for
business and bad for you. Scarcity is a fine thing.”

Just then Vachel burst into the kitchen from the
back door. “Why are you here?” he barked at Eric.

Vanessa and Justice turned to gape at him. “Vachel!”
Vanessa snapped once she’d recovered herself. “What’s the problem?
You guys got along just fine last month.”

“Yeah, in
Kansas City
,” he said snidely. “Not
in Mansfield.”

“Uh oh.” Knox’s voice came from the doorway between
the kitchen and the dining room. “Looks like we’ve got territory
problems. C’mon, Vachel. We’ll go get Curtis’s prescription filled
and have a chat. Eric, you can thank me later.”

Knox, one arm full of gorgeous squirming strawberry
blonde toddler, clapped his other hand on Vachel’s shoulder and
steered him gently outside. Their voices floated back through the
open windows, getting quieter as they walked away from the mansion
toward the private garage. “Look, I know this is probably really
weird for you.”

“Uh,
yeah
. First my mom and now my aunt. I
mean, I knew she liked him but—”

“Apples and oranges, and let me tell you why . . .
”

Vanessa swallowed, the sting of tears in her eyes
and a sharp pain behind her nose. She turned away from Eric—the
reminder that she was tied up in the same family as Simone and
LaVon Whittaker too much to bear. She could feel the pull of
Chouteau Acres Mobile Home Park dragging her back into the
cesspool.