The Devil Has Dimples (3 page)

I returned to the chair and sat.  Here I was in a no-name
town, talking to a part-time wrestler in pink socks and boxers, thinking what a
hunk he was, while he’s discussing the will of a mother I never knew about. 
And he thinks I should drop everything in my life to follow her wishes.  Right.

But my life
was
on hold while I settled my mother’s
estate.  I wasn’t scheduled to return to work until after the Christmas break. 
If I wanted to pursue my past, now was the time.

Grant walked back to his desk and sat down.  “Then all you
have to do is get out of that chair and leave Boggy Bayou.  In a month, all of
Maudie’s things will be sold.  But then, you’ll never have the answers to your
questions.”

“Surely someone in this town knows the truth and is willing
to tell me what happened.”

Grant finger-brushed his hair back.  “I hate to tell you
this, Sara, but absolutely no one ever knew that Maudie gave birth to a child. 
Everyone here in town is related to each other, and they all talk to each other
and about each other.  There was never a hint or a guess that Maudie had a
daughter.  No one has any answers.  Except Maudie, and she’s no longer here. 
But she left a lot of things, both in her apartment and her store.  Perhaps
your answers are there, in her belongings.”

“There has to be some other way than spending time here to
find out the truth.”

“I doubt it.”

My hands tightened into fists.  Who was this woman who so
freely gave away a baby?  She was dead, so what difference should it make to
me?  I grabbed my purse off the chair and headed for the door.  As I turned the
knob, I said.  “I won’t do it.”

“It’s your decision.”

I hurried out of his office and my vision blurred.  I felt
Alice’s stare bore into me as I walked past her.  I didn’t care.  I felt like
hell.

I had been lucky to find a parking place in front of the
office earlier, so I pulled open the door and got inside.

Then the overpowering feeling of regret crushed me.

What should I do?  Who was I?  I didn’t know anymore.  My
parents were not my birth parents.  Why didn’t they ever tell me I was
adopted?  I wouldn’t have loved them any less.  They were all I had known.

But apparently I didn’t know them at all.  I didn’t even
know myself.  No wonder I stood out like a sore thumb at family reunions.  The
only redhead in a brunette clan, the only one with hazel eyes, the only one who
was exceedingly tall, even as a child.  The whispers that would stop whenever I
was around.  The sidelong glances.  I didn’t belong there.  They knew it, but I
didn’t.  But maybe deep down, I did know.

Was that why my mother slapped Aunt Sally when she was drunk
and began to say something about me at a family reunion?  Was that why we never
went to another reunion again?  There were so many questions, and I didn’t have
any answers.

Why didn’t my birth mother keep me?  Why did she give me
away?

A few long minutes later, my tears finally stopped.  I kept
my head on the steering wheel.  I felt so tired.  Exhausted.

A knocking on the car window brought my head up.

Alice.  She rapped again.

I didn’t want to talk to her, but I rolled down the window
anyway.

She gave me a searching look.  “You okay, girl?”

Why would she care?

“I’m fine.”  I snuffled.

“You going to give up on Maudie?”

I sighed.  “She gave up on me a long time ago.”

Alice raised her eyebrow.  “Did she?  You’re here.  Seems to
me she wants you to know her.”  She lowered her head and looked at me intently,
her dark brown eyes searching my face.  “You a coward, girl?”

My heart sank.  Was I?  Could I do this?  Could I spend time
in this quaint little town?  Could I dig through my mother’s possessions and
find out the truth?  Would my father’s name be mentioned somewhere?  Surely, he
would know why I was given up for adoption.  Or would he? Would he even be
alive?  I needed to know the truth.

Could I bear the truth?

I didn’t know the answers to these questions, but I had to
try to find them, or else I would always wonder.

Who was I?

I rolled up the window and opened the door.  Alice gave me a
big approving grin.  She held out her hand and I automatically slipped mine
into hers.  It felt so warm.  I wondered what changed her attitude toward me so
drastically.

“I knew you would do it.  Maudie always liked a challenge
too.  You better hurry.  He’s leaving in a few minutes.”

She slammed my car door shut, then grasped my shoulder and
gave me a little squeeze, and pushed me toward the office.  “It’ll be all
right.  Find the answers to your questions.”

I turned and walked toward the building.

I met him coming down the stairs.  He gazed at me with a
question in his eyes.  It was all I could do to look at him.  I kept
remembering his pink underwear. And the body in it.

My heart beat wildly.

“I think I can handle six weeks.  I need to know the truth,
or I won’t be able to go on with my life.  Just give me the keys and
directions.”  I reached out my hand, hoping that he wouldn’t notice they were
shaking.

Grant clasped my hand and heat spread up my arm then made a
u-turn southbound and I started to flush somewhere else.

“I’ll take you there.”  He didn’t look too happy about the
prospect.

I withdrew my hand reluctantly.  I needed to get away from
this man.  He was doing strange things to my system, and distance would put me
back in control.  At least, I hoped it would.  I needed to think, and his
closeness was destroying that ability.

“You don’t have to do that.  I’m sure I can find my way.”

He frowned.  “I live there.”

“Where?”

“Maudie was my godmother.  I rent a room in her apartment,
so we’re going to be roommates for the next six weeks.”

She was stunning.

She stalked into my office like a tiger.  All movement,
fluid and smooth, as if she owned her skin.  Her hair glimmered in the light
like a flame, my fingers itched to touch it, to see if they would burn.

My heart stopped.  I felt like Michael in the second
Godfather movie, when he saw the love of his life for the first time.  But, I
knew better.

Love wasn’t for me.

Lust would have to suit.  And it was lust I felt looking
at her.  It couldn’t be anything else.  I wouldn’t allow it.  I thought I would
embarrass myself before I put my pants on.

Then to find out that she is Maudie’s daughter.  I know
the gods must be laughing.  She’s the one woman in the world that I can’t
have.  Won’t have.

Unless.

No.  It would never work out.

I can be professional around her.  I can help her search
for her father, then get her out of town and my life as soon as possible.

I think my heart might not stand to be around her for too
long.

I must be out of my mind.

* * *

“You must be out of your mind!”

He gave me a big smile.  “Not nearly.  It’ll be great.  I
won’t have pink underwear anymore, as Maudie always did my laundry, plus she
fixed breakfast and dinner.”  He looked at me with a question in his eyes. 
“You do know how to cook, don’t you?”

I just stood there.  I knew my mouth was open.  How
attractive that must be.  I couldn’t spend six weeks with this man.  He would
drive me crazy.  I wanted his arms around me.  I wanted those big warm hands on
me.  I wanted to wrestle with him.

I must be going nuts!

“Come on, do you know how to cook?”  He flashed that dimple
again.

It was warfare of a new type.  Death by dimples.

“Yes...I cook...I took some courses...in college.”

He actually rubbed his hands together.

“Great!  And call me Grant.  Mr. St. Romain is too formal
for roommates.”

The next six weeks were going to be something.  What, I
didn’t know yet.  But I just had to overlook the dimples.

Grant hesitated.  He looked serious.

“Sara, if your search for the truth gets too difficult, you
can always stop and go home to Baton Rouge.”

I grimaced.  What home?  There was only a house filled with
sad memories.  “But then I will never know the answers.  I still might not find
out what I need to know about my birth parents, but I have to try, or I’ll
always wonder.”

“We can’t have that.”  We proceeded down the stairs and out
of the building.

“By the way, what did you have planned for dinner?
 
 I’m
famished after my workout at the high school.”

Two could play at this game.

“Why, nothing.  As your newest client, you’re taking me out
to dinner as soon as you show me the apartment.”

He sighed.  “Ouch!  You have Maudie’s tendencies.  Whenever
she could corner me into buying her dinner, we ate out.”

He hesitated at the bottom of the steps.  “You need to give
me a ride.  My car stalled at the high school and I walked back.”

“Sure.  Where is Maudie’s apartment located?”  We reached my
car and I dug in my handbag for the keys.

“Just across from the courthouse.  You could have seen it
from my office window.”

I glanced around the square.  “Her apartment is in the
business district?”

“Just above the antique store.  It’s really quite large, has
a balcony that faces the street, quiet at night.  I generally just walk to my
office.  The courthouse is across the street, Hank’s Hole-in-the-Wall is on the
other side, we call it the Hole, absolutely perfect for me.  I save tons of
time being close to the courthouse.”

We got into my car and I headed in the direction that Grant
pointed.

“You can park in the alley behind the store.  Just turn here
and slip into that parking slot next to the truck.”

“Whose truck?”

“Maudie’s.  Now yours, or it will be in six weeks.”

“What did she need a truck for?”

He opened the car door and stepped out.  I did the same.

“Maudie generally didn’t open until noon and she closed at
six.  She made her antiquing forays in the truck in the mornings or on Mondays,
her only full day off besides Sunday.”

I opened the trunk and Grant reached in and grabbed the
small suitcase that I had hurriedly packed in case I had to stay overnight.

“What about Sunday?”  I asked.

“You got me.  Maudie always disappeared after church
services.  Wouldn’t return until after dark or late Monday night.”

He ambled over to the back door, taking some keys out of his
pocket.

I wondered where Maudie went.  Maybe someone knew.  “Where
did she get the antiques?”

Grant flashed me the dimples again.  “I hear from the old
boys around the courthouse that Maudie could sniff out an antique from a
hundred yards, that no one’s barn, attic, or garage was safe if she had her
mind on something special for a client.”

“She sounds formidable.”

“Oh, she was.  As tiny as she was, she was a firebrand.”  He
unlocked the door.

“Grant, tell me, do I look like her?”

He studied me from head to toe, making my body temperature
rise, then grinned.  “No.  You don’t look a thing like her.”

“Do I...look like anyone else...you might know?”

“Now that, I would remember.”  Grant opened the back door
and indicated that I should go in first.

It was about eight by ten feet, with a washer and dryer
located against the wall, and a large staircase was on my right.

“There are two sets of steps inside to take us up to the
apartment.  Maudie didn’t want to get trapped by fire, so she put a winding
staircase in the front of the store.”

“That makes sense.”

“I believe a friend of hers died in a fire.  So she was
cautious after that.  Just turn on the switch and it lights up the stairwell.”

I flipped the switch as Grant locked the back door then
handed me the keys.  They were still warm from his body.  I dropped them in my
pocket fast.

“Always lock this door, or else Randall will come in.”

“Who’s Randall?”  I followed Grant up the stairs.

“The town drunk.  Maudie left the door unlocked a year or so
ago and found him curled up in her bed the next morning, drunker than a skunk,
and smelling like one, too.  She screamed so loud and so long, I almost had a
heart attack coming to her rescue.”

Grant flipped a light switch at the top of the stairs and
the stair lights went off.  A short hallway with long horizontal windows lining
the top of the right side of the hall gave off a cozy glow.

“She must have been a sound sleeper to not have noticed him
getting into her bed.”  I followed Grant down the hallway.

As he turned into a doorway, he whispered into my ear.  “Maudie
told me later that she was having an erotic dream on a garbage scow.”

I burst out laughing.

Grant gestured with his hand to a room on the left.

“Your bedroom.  Maudie’s things are just as she left them. 
Her bathroom is over there in the corner.  She was a clothes horse, so you
might be able to squeeze your things amongst them, or clear them out.  It’s
your decision.”

As Grant talked I studied the room.  The sleigh bed was low
to the floor.  Covered with a cabbage rose duvet, the bed had pillows in ten different
hues, matching the colors of the spread.  A deep rose colored love seat sat
against one wall, with a deep lavender afghan spread casually over the
armrest.  A reading lamp sat on a full bookcase next to it.  A skylight was the
only source of natural light.  I looked up and saw that it was huge.  It must
be beautiful on a starry night, but now it lit up the room with sunshine.  The
room was wonderful.  I loved it.

“It’s neat, huh?  Since the room has the staircase in the
back, the hallway on the side, and my bedroom on the other side, Maudie decided
that a skylight was just the thing.  It has an electric switch by the bed to
open it when the weather is nice.  It’s like sleeping outdoors in your own
bed.  You should see my bedroom.  Curbside furnishings is what I call it.”