Garden Of Scandal

If she closed her eyes, she could remember the last quarrel with her husband. It had been no great thing, though it had seemed important at the time. Howard had wanted to buy his son a pickup truck, since his own father had bought him one when he was fifteen. He didn’t see anything wrong with letting Evan drive up and down the back roads before he had his license. But Laurel had known Evan wouldn’t be satisfied with that. He was immature, spoiled by his grandmother who always gave him anything he wanted. Evan would be speeding up and down the main highway before the truck was a week old. He would kill himself, or maybe someone else.

Instead it was Howard who had died. Laurel had killed him, then withdrawn into guilty solitude. The reason, she knew, was not because she had cared so much, but because she hadn’t cared enough.

She was so tired. Tears rose, burning like acid as they squeezed from her eyes. She didn’t try to stop them.

What the hell was going on?

Alec slammed the lid on a paint can and hammered it down as he asked himself that question for at least the thousandth time.

He had expected to start over with Laurel, using all sorts of strategies to get her back out of the house. It hadn’t been necessary. She had greeted him with a bright smile when he showed up again, given him a list of about a million things to do, and disappeared into a shed at the back of the house. Emerging now and then, she pointed out any errors he had made or problems he needed to solve, then went away again.

She didn’t eat her lunch with him on the veranda, but showed up there to check on his progress as if he might not get anything done if she didn’t keep after him. She was polite but firm—the lady of the house—but any special courtesy or consideration was gone. She gave orders and expected him to obey. She didn’t look at him at all.

Alec had never worked so hard in his life, but he couldn’t seem to please her, no matter how he tried. He was tired of it, so tired.

At least the house was nearly painted. He had one more wall to do, then he could clean the sprayer and take down the paper covering the windows. After that, he was going to have a talk with Mrs. Bancroft.

He found her in the shed. The building, standing back behind the garage, dated from the same time period, as it was built from identical lumber. Construction was probably in the late twenties or early thirties, when whichever set of Bancrofts that owned Ivywild at the time had bought their first Model T. Lined with small-paned windows on three sides, floored with unpainted pine boards, it was fairly large.

The front wall supported a woodworking bench that was cluttered with carpenter’s tools, which must have belonged to her husband. The back wall was lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves crowded with bags and boxes of supplies. A big black ovenlike kiln occupied one corner. In the center was a potter’s wheel, over which Laurel was hovering with her hands deep in swirling clay.

As he appeared in the doorway, Sticks, lying beside her, lifted his massive head from his front legs and began to growl low in his throat. Alec stopped. It was the first time he had seen the dog in several days. Laurel must have been keeping him close again.

She looked up, staring at him as he lounged in the open doorway. Ordinarily, she called the dog off when he arrived. Sticks had learned to tolerate him as long as he was given an early-morning assurance that Alec was acceptable. This time Laurel didn’t open her mouth.

Sticks rose to his feet. With his ruff raised, he looked twice his normal size. He padded forward with his neck outstretched, snarling like a crosscut saw.

Alec held his ground. He had no particular fear of the dog, though he didn’t want to hurt him again while Laurel watched. Neither did he intend letting himself be mauled to protect her tender sensibilities.

Sticks came on, showing his canines, but easing lower. He stopped a few feet away, half crouching as his growl slowed. Alec held the dog’s gaze without moving. The dog growled once more, then looked away. He whimpered and dropped to the ground.

Alec hunkered down and put out his hand, letting the dog lick it. “Good boy,” he murmured, leaning to dig his fingers into the thick ruff and shake it before smoothing the fur down. “Good dog.”

The clay Laurel was forming collapsed abruptly. She squashed it onto the wheel with both hands, squeezing the slick, malleable mass with unnecessary force. In a chill voice she asked, “You wanted something?”

There were a lot of answers he could make, but he didn’t trust himself to keep them civil. He settled for neutrality. “I didn’t know you were a potter.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

“I’m learning.” That was too true. “What are you making?”

“A pot.”

That told him exactly nothing. He watched her for a long moment, his eyes on the expressive clarity of her face. What he saw there, he was fairly sure, was contempt.

“Okay,” he said on a tight breath as he rose to his feet and braced a hand on the doorjamb. “What did I do wrong?”

Her rich blue gaze was steady. “Nothing that I know of. Can you think of anything?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t turn the bike around when you asked me. I didn’t understand. Now I do, all right?”

Her smile was cool and brief, a meaningless movement of the lips. “Certainly. Don’t think of it again.”

Fat chance. “I didn’t mean to upset you or make you do anything you didn’t want.”

“You didn’t make me do a thing, Alec. I know my own mind.”

He should be happy that she had used his name. Instead, it made him feel like the hired help. Which was exactly what he was, he supposed. Voice grim, he said, “If everything is all right, then why did you stop working with me?”

“I had other things I would rather do.”

He had no right to complain; that was what galled him. He wanted the right. But if this was the way she preferred it, he could do that, too.

“I’ve finished the painting. Unless you have other ideas, I’d like to get started on the fountain.”

Without looking at him, she said, “I think the big pine next to the fence shades the garden too much for roses. You could cut it. That’s if you know how to do it without letting it fall on the house.”

She expected him to refuse. He wouldn’t give her that satisfaction. “No problem. I’ll need to take out the big limbs, then top it, so will have to have climbing gear.”

“My husband’s belt and spikes are around somewhere.”

“He worked in the woods?”

Her hands stilled, buried in the clay she was molding with quick, hard movements. “He was a lineman for the utility company—a good one.”

He’d had to ask, he thought with resignation. Changing the subject slightly, he inquired, “If he had the equipment, why didn’t he take the tree down?”

“He liked it there.” The look she gave him was brief. “You’ll have to ask Maisie about a saw. I think her husband keeps one for cutting firewood.”

Maisie’s old man was a mechanic, kept tools of all kinds, if he remembered right. “I’ll check it out. In the meantime, I can start gathering supplies for the fountain. I’ve run up quite a bill at the hardware already, but I’ll need plastic pipe, fittings, and so on. And I should lease a ditchdigger, or contract somebody to do the work.”

She squashed the clay flat again. “You’re asking if I have the money?”

Her tone set his teeth on edge. In taut control, he replied, “I’m asking if I have the authority to spend it.”

“So long as I see a copy of the bills. Otherwise, you needn’t concern yourself with my finances.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded, his brows meshing in a frown at her scathing tone.

She looked at him, her gaze steady. “Did I say something that struck a nerve?”

She knew. He didn’t know how she knew, but he would bet on it. Jesus. He thought he’d left all that behind him; but no, he was dragging it along like a piece of toilet paper stuck to his shoe. Not that it made any difference. He had beaten the odds before. He could do it again.

“For the record,” he said deliberately as he pushed off the door frame and started walking away, “it isn’t your money that interests me.”

It was the next morning that the opportunity came for Alec to talk to Maisie. Laurel had just gone back into the house after instructing him to prune the paint-spotted leaves on the shrubs around the base of the house. As if he couldn’t see for himself that it needed doing. She hadn’t said a word about the paint job, either. He didn’t expect compliments, exactly, and it annoyed him that he still wanted her approval, but she could have made some comment. For two cents, he would tell her to find herself another man to cut down her pine tree.

“What is it with her?” he asked the white-haired housekeeper in frustration when she brought him a glass of water. “Why is it I can’t get the time of day from her?”

A shrewd look came into Maisie’s fine old eyes. “She gets like this sometimes, usually when her mama-in-law has been around, or Zelda—that’s the sister-in-law, you know.”

“They get on her nerves?”

“You could say so. Mostly, they pick at her. Pickiest, most negative people I ever saw. Never a good thing to say about anything or anybody.”

Alec turned his water glass in a circle. “You think they’ve been talking? About me?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised. Not that they got a lot of room for it. Zelda Bancroft is no better than she has to be. Never was. But she likes making trouble. The mama-in-law, now, she just has it in for Laurel.”

“Because of how Howard died?”

Maisie nodded. “Did her best to have Laurel arrested, called everybody she knew, pulled every string she could get hold of. Didn’t do her any good, mainly because of the sheriff. Tanning’s always been sweet on Laurel. Said any fool could see she couldn’t bring herself to hurt a flea if it was having her for supper.”

“She thinks she may have. You know that?”

Maisie nodded. “Have to say I’m amazed she told you, though. She didn’t say anything about her kids, did she?”

“Not much.”

“Something else she don’t talk about—guess it hurts too much. They think she did it, too. Got the idea from that mama-in-law of hers.” The housekeeper paused with distant consideration in her eyes. “Well, and maybe from the way Laurel acted at the time. She never said she didn’t mean it, you know. Never could say exactly how it came about.”

“Rough.” The comment didn’t seem adequate but was all he could manage.

“You got that right,” the older woman said and heaved a gusting sigh. “Strange, but she couldn’t make herself leave him while he was alive, still can’t leave him now since he’s dead.”

“You think she wanted to? Leave him, I mean?” He was much too eager for the answer, but he couldn’t help it.

“Lot of women would have left. Howard was a moody sort, not what you might call a barrel of laughs. Sort of tormented like, you know? What matters, though, is that he thought she might. That’s why he ran out after her that day.”

“She tell you that?”

“Lord, boy, she didn’t have to. I was there.”

He gave her a hard look. “You saw what happened?”

“Saw him take off after her, saw the look on his face. The rest I just heard.” She shook her white head. “They’d been arguing, something about their boy Evan and what Howard wanted to do for him, though it ran into all sorts of other things as fights will between husbands and wives, like what Laurel could and couldn’t do in the yard. Howard was hollering like a crazy man when he stepped behind that car, telling her he’d do anything if she’d stay. Pitiful, really.”

Alec was quiet as he tried to imagine how he would feel if he thought he was losing Laurel. Of course, he had to imagine having her first. Neither one was easy.

He drew a deep breath and let it out. Deliberately, he said, “Laurel wants that big pine over next to the fence, there, taken down. She says you might have a saw.”

5

It was Grannie Callie’s idea for Alec to take Gregory to Ivywild. Gregory should get out of the house, she said. He needed something else to think about besides himself and the symptoms and progress of his illness. Alec thought his grandmother probably needed to get out for a while, as well, but didn’t want to leave Gregory alone.

She had been more than generous about letting his brother and him stay, but she had her own life and routine, which they had interrupted, her own friends she was neglecting while she looked after them. Alec had done everything he could think of to make it easier for her. They couldn’t expect her to devote all her waking hours to the invalid.

Not that Gregory was bedridden. He got around well enough, though his energy level was low. He could handle dressing and undressing himself and was able to take his pain medication when it was set out for him. The main problem was seeing that he didn’t take too much of it, and that he ate regular meals and got some fresh air and sunshine to keep his spirits up. Another good reason for taking him out on the job.

Gregory seemed to appreciate being out and about. He walked slowly around Laurel’s garden, stopping now and then to smell a flower or finger a leaf. He even tried to help a little, picking up a hoe to tackle a patch of nut grass.

Alec watched his brother for a moment to be sure he was all right, then turned back to the ditch he was working on with a shovel. It was for the water line to feed the fountain. The garden space inside the fence was too confined, too filled with plants, for him to bring in the ditchdigger he had rented. Once he had the piping finished to the other side of the fence, he would climb on the digger, but for now he was it, since he had to be sure nothing was torn up that Laurel wanted saved.

In the midst of his concentration, he heard the screen door slam and Laurel scream his name. He whipped around, saw Gregory starting to fall, crumpling like a scarecrow with the stuffing spilling out. Dropping his shovel, he lunged for him in a full, desperate stretch. He barely caught him.

“Up here,” Laurel called from the steps. “In the shade on the veranda.”

Alec was grateful beyond words for the offer. He should have known better than to let Gregory do anything strenuous, should have watched him more closely. The trouble was, Gregory didn’t like being watched over like a kid; definitely didn’t like being told what he should and shouldn’t do. He was proud and touchy, which was a fine and necessary thing, but still made it hard to decide when it was best to let things ride and when to knock him flat for his own good.

Gregory’s moment of weakness lasted only a second. He roused himself in plenty of time to curse Alec for refusing to let him make his own way to the big wicker swing that hung at the rounded oval end of the veranda. Laurel, recognizing correctly that his brother didn’t like her seeing him being carried, moved back into the house. She returned with a glass of ice water when Gregory was settled.

For a second, Alec was aware of a flash of jealousy; Laurel had never brought him a glass of water, never looked so concerned for his health. Of course, he had never collapsed in her front yard, either.

Watching Gregory drink the water, studying the haggard paleness of his thin face with its straggly beard, Alec said to him in abrupt decision, “I should have known this was too much. Rest a minute, then I’ll take you back home.”

“Don’t worry about me, little brother,” Gregory answered irritably. “I’ll be fine right here. You just get on with your job.”

“It’s my job to worry. It’s what I’m here for.” Alec kept the words patient, but implacable. “It will only take a few minutes to run you back.”

“I said I’m fine. I’ll just sit here and watch you flex your muscles. Maybe the nice lady will keep me company.”

Alec was afraid she might at that, which was one reason he was determined to get Gregory away. Without looking at Laurel, he said, “Mrs. Bancroft is busy. Come on, now.”

“I’m not that busy,” she corrected him in clear tones. “I’ll be glad to sit down for a little while.”

“You don’t have to,” he said, the words stark as he finally allowed his gaze to move over the cool, lovely planes of her face, the sunbeam sheen of her hair, the long, flowing skirt of lavender cotton she wore with a cool sleeveless blouse.

She gave a brief smile without quite meeting his gaze as she answered, “I know that.”

Gregory glanced from one to the other, as if becoming aware of the undercurrents between them. “See?” he said with satisfaction as he waved a hand vaguely toward Alec. “Run along. We don’t need you.”

Alec felt his stomach muscles tighten as if in anticipation of a blow, but there was nothing he could do. He turned on his heel and went back out into the hot sun.

Laurel, watching Alec go, thought he was upset. He was concerned about his brother, and who could blame him? He was also mad at her for going against him. That was too bad. As Maisie would put it, he could get glad in the same britches. Laurel wanted to talk to Gregory.

Looking around, she caught the arm of a rocking chair and dragged it closer to the swing. As she sat down, she said easily, “It’s been so hot and humid these last few days, it could get to anyone who isn’t used to it. I really don’t know how Alec stands it out there all day.”

Gregory glanced at his brother with a brooding look in his eyes. “He’s strong as a bull elephant, can stand anything.”

“Most of the time he doesn’t even wear a shirt.”

He looked at her, the expression in his brandy-colored eyes bland. “Sun doesn’t affect him quite the same as you and me. He has Native American blood.”

When it appeared he was not going to elaborate, she said, “You mean your father was a Native American?”

“Not mine, just Alec’s.” His smile was thin, as if he had expected some reaction from her that he had not received. “Actually, I think the guy was a half-breed, though who knows? He didn’t stay around long enough for anybody to find out too much about him.”

“I see,” Laurel said. The main thing she understood was that Gregory was trying to shock her, though she didn’t intend to provide amusement for him by allowing it. Features composed, she glanced from him to his brother. She had thought Gregory’s illness accounted for his slighter frame and lighter skin coloring, but it appeared she was wrong, at least in part. At the same time, she didn’t believe Alec was immune to the sun’s effects.

Gregory’s gaze was tinged with black humor as he studied her face. “No, we’re not much alike, are we, Alec and I? My dad was your typical WASP, some kind of traveling salesman from the West Coast who took our dear mother away from all this.” He waved his hand in a vague gesture that took in Hillsboro and the state of Louisiana as well as the woods around them. “Our younger sister Mita, now, was fathered by an Asian. Being your typical sixties and seventies woman, Mom was determined to prove her lack of prejudice. Besides, she liked having her own variety pack of kids, or so she said. She bought into the whole earth-mother, single-parent bit. Didn’t care whether the fathers stayed around or not.”

“She must be an unusual woman.”

His lip curled. “She was in her way. She died trying to have a Latino baby. At least we think that was the nationality, but only she knew for sure. Anyway, something went wrong and neither she nor the baby made it. I guess she was getting a little old for it since I was eighteen at the time.”

“I’m…sorry,” Laurel said, not sure whether she meant for his loss or for her urge to pry that had led her into so private a history.

He looked away. “I don’t suppose it matters. It was a long time ago.”

She thought it did matter—possibly always had, always would—to him and Alec both, but she couldn’t say so. Instead she said, “You were young to take on so much responsibility.”

“Me? Responsible?” He laughed, a harsh yet hollow sound. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”

“But, well, I assumed there was no other man around to take over.”

“There wasn’t, except for Alec.”

She leaned her head against the high seat-back, rocking a little as she frowned in thought. “But he must have been, what? Only thirteen? Fourteen?”

“Something like that. Our little man, though, he was always big and tough for his age.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say.” She stopped rocking.

“You wouldn’t,” he answered with an edge of rudeness as he looked around at Ivywild. “You’ve always been respectable, I would imagine. I bet you’ve never been hungry, really hungry, a day in your life. You’ve always known exactly who you are, where you came from, and where you belong. No doubts, no wild guesses, no looking for yourself in the bottom of a bottle or in the white dust of some drug with a name you can’t pronounce….”

He trailed off, but she did finally understand. Gregory had been a drug user at eighteen, and so Alec had taken over, fending for himself and his little sister.

“Surely some government agency could have helped out?” she asked.

“Oh, right. Helped Alec and Mita right into separate foster homes, is what they would have done. No way, not on your life. Alec fooled them when they came around. He may be a bastard, but he’s a smart one. Of course, he had old lady Chadwick by then.”

A chill moved over Laurel. In her compassion for Alec—for them all, really—she had almost forgotten the point of her questions. Lips stiff, she said, “Old lady Chadwick? Who was she?”

“Our landlady, after Alec moved us all out of the slum apartment where we’d been staying.” Gregory grimaced. “She owned this big estate—swimming pool, tennis courts, golfing green, guesthouse, groundskeeper’s cottage, the whole nine yards, complete with a chauffeur and even a Chinese gardener.”

“Mr. Wu,” she said in quiet discovery.

“Alec mentioned him, huh? Figures. The old guy was his idol, lived down the street from our apartment on the edge of Chinatown before we moved—preferred it to living on the estate. I think he admired Alec’s gumption. Anyway, Mr. Wu used to pay him a little something for helping out at the old lady’s house after school, whenever Alec could thumb a ride to get there.”

Laurel, watching Alec’s stiff movements as he wielded his shovel, thought he knew they were talking about him even if he couldn’t make out the words. She couldn’t help that. Sunlight moved back and forth along the filaments of his hair that were as dark and gleaming as the feathers on a raven’s wing. Indian black and shiny. It made sense.

Aware, suddenly, that Gregory was looking at her with a malicious grin for her preoccupation with his brother, she collected her scattered thoughts. As if the question had her entire concentration, she asked, “Mr. Wu wasn’t, by any chance, related to Mita?”

“Her father, you mean? Lord, no. I mean he was ancient, white hair and beard down to here.” He leveled a hand near his navel. “He did have a soft spot for her, though, and I wondered once or twice about his eldest son. Anyway, after Mom died Alec had the nerve to ask old lady Chadwick if we could stay in the groundskeeper’s cottage at the back of the property since Mr. Wu wasn’t using it.”

“You moved to avoid the child welfare authorities,” she said, clarifying the situation in her own mind.

He gave a nod. “Alec said nobody would think to bother us there. Turned out he was right. Of course, he only told the old lady that Mom was sick in the hospital. She believed him for three months or more—time enough.”

Laurel didn’t even try to disguise her sharpened curiosity. “Time enough for what?”

“To win her over. Our Alec has a way about him, or haven’t you noticed?” He watched her, a faint smile playing over his thin features and a suggestive look in his eyes.

“I thought you said he was thirteen?”

“He was.”

“This woman, then…”

“She seemed old at the time,” he said whimsically, “though I don’t imagine she was more than, oh, about your age now.”