"We'll start you out at seven-fifty an hour"
He tried to do the math in his head, but something that usually came pretty easy to him was impossible at themoment. "Okay."
"Nathan?"
He looked back across the car at Jack. "Yeah?"
"I should have known about you before today," he said, but he kept his gaze on the road.
Nathan agreed, but he didn't say so.
"If I had known, I would have been in your life. No one could have kept me out."
He didn't know what to say to that, so he kept quiet.
"Maybe while you're here, we could get to know each other."
"Cool"
"And if we don't get on each other's nerves too much, you could think about staying the summer."
The whole summer? In Loserville? No way.
"When the 'Cuda's done, I'm going to need someone to test-drive it for me. You think you could do that?"
He bit the inside of his lip ring to keep from smiling. Oh man! "I could do that."
"You got your driver's license, right?"
His excitement plummeted. "No, I'm only fifteen. You gotta be sixteen."
"Not in Texas. You can get it when you're fifteen."
"Really?"
"Yep. You have to have your license to test-drive the 'Cuda for me. It's company policy for insurance purposes.
That means you'd have to sign up for driver's education. That might take half the summer."
Since before Nathan could remember, he'd dreamed of the day he'd get his driver's license.
"You don't have to give me your answer today. Think it over and let me know."
If he stayed in Texas for the summer, he could get it early. Plus work on a Hemi and make serious bank. Headjusted the chain around his neck. "I'll have to ask my mom." And she wasn't going to like it one bit. She wasalways telling him no. She didn't want him to have fun or grow up. She wanted him to be bored and stay a littlekid forever. "I'll talk to her for you." "You would?" "Oh yeah." His smile showed his white teeth. "It will be mypleasure."
Chapter Thirteen
You remember Azelea Lingo, don't you?"
"No," Daisy answered absentmindedly as she stared out her mother's front-room window.
"Sure you do, she's the one who bought Lily half a vacuum when she got married," Louella continued as ifDaisy had been at Lily's wedding, which she hadn't.
"How does a person buy half a vacuum for a wedding present?" Daisy asked, although she really didn't give adamn at the moment. It had been over an hour since Jack had come and gone. Over an hour and she hadn't seenhide nor hair of him or Nathan.
"She put it on layaway and Lily had to pay to get it off. Cost her fifty bucks for a ninety-dollar vacuum. Andyou know, Azelea isn't poor. She's so big she has to sit down in shifts, so it isn't like she can't afford a wholevacuum."
Daisy had started to leave a dozen times only to decide that staying put was the best course.
"Anyway, Azelea's husband, Bud, left her a few years back and married a gal from Amarillo. Only the gal inAmarillo doesn't know that Bud's been sneaking back to Lovett the whole time for a little lovin' on the side withAzelea."
Daisy massaged the deep crease that had formed between her brows. Her head was going to explode.
"What is it, darlin'?" Louella paused in her story to ask Pippen. "Oh, you want your hat? Daisy, honey, where'sPip's hat?"
Daisy was so tense it felt like she had to,unlock her jaw to speak. "Probably in your bedroom."
"Go check grandma's bed."
"You go," Pippen demanded in his tiny voice.
"We'll go together."
Daisy kept her gaze out the window as they left the mom. She grabbed a handful of her mother's dark bluevelvet drapes and pressed her forehead to the glass. Since Nathan hadn't returned, she figured Jack had foundhim, and all sorts of scenarios ran through her head. Ranging from the two of them sitting somewhere talking toJack kidnapping Nathan and heading some place where she'd never find them. The last scenario she didn't reallythink was likely, but with Jack she never knew.
She opened the front door, and stuck her head out to look up and down the street. There was no sign of either ofthem.
"You're letting all the bought air out. Shut that," her mother said as she entered the room. Daisy glanced behindher, at her mother dressed in a pink blouse with fake pearls sown on it and a denim prairie skirt. Pippen stoodbeside her, wearing his coonskin cap and a pair of Big Bird pull-ups.
"This afternoon as I was leaving the hospital, they brought in Bud Lingo," her mother continued where she'd leftoff. "Appears he had heart failure while he was with Azelea. I couldn't stay at the hospital, but I am powerfulcurious to know what's gonna happen when Bud's wife gets her tail up here from Amarillo." Louella walked tothe cabinet where she kept her VHS tapes and opened it up. "And their youngest girl, Bonnie, was there too.
She's the one who had that real ugly baby last Valentine's Day. Lord, when I picked the blanket off the baby'sface in church, I 'bout had heart failure myself. It was all bald and pink and skinny like a newborn rat, bless herheart. Of course, I lied and told her it was precious. You remember Bonnie, don't you. Short. Dark hair..."
Her mother was determined to make Daisy's head explode. Daisy stepped out onto the porch and shut the doorbehind her. She sat on the first step and rested her temple against the white post that supported the roof. Hernerves were frazzled. Her head pounded, and her patience had deserted her awhile ago. It was barely oneo'clock in the afternoon, and she knew the day was bound to get worse. Jack hated her now, and he was going tomake her life a misery, just as he'd promised the first night she'd seen him. While she understood his anger ather, she couldn't let things get ugly. If they did, the one person who was totally innocent would be the one tosuffer the most. Nathan.
She glanced downward at her bare feet and red toenails. For the first time, she noticed the perfect fingertipbruises on her thighs. She didn't have to wonder how they'd gotten there. Jack. He'd left his mark on her longafter he'd made love to her.
It was apropos, she supposed. Jack had left his mark on her years ago too, and she didn't mean Nathan. He'dmarked her where no one could see. He'd left an indelible mark on her heart and her soul. One that no mailerhow far away she traveled, how long she stayed away, or how long she hid from it, had not faded nearly asmuch as she'd thought.
Despite his feeling toward her, she was very much afraid that she was falling in love with Jack again. She knewthe signs just as surely as she knew better than to let it happen.
The sooner she grabbed Nathan and got out of town, the better. Jack knew he had a son now. He could call orwrite or visit Seattle sometime in the future. Lily was recovering and would be home soon, but she was still abasket case. Yet, Daisy had problems of her own, and she had to get away before her life fell completely apart.
From half a block away, she heard the unmistakable rumble of Jack's Mustang. She looked up and turned herattention to the black car moving toward her. As she stood, the car rolled to a stop at the curb in front of hermother's house. Jack shut the car off then turned to look at her. From across the distance, their gazes met: Hisangry; hers resigned to his anger. Daisy leaned her head to one side and looked beyond Jack to Nathan. Her sonsat in the passenger seat and kept his attention pinned to his lap. He said something, then the two of them exitedthe Mustang. Both doors shut at the same time, and Jack waited for Nathan at the front of the car. The hot Texassun baked Daisy's shoulders, and it took every ounce of her self-control to keep her feet planted at the bottom ofthe steps and not running toward her son.
The two moved up the walk, their strides keeping perfect time with the other. Nathan's hands swung at his sides;his walk, an I'm-fifteen-and-trying-so-desperately-to-be-cool amble. Yet his blue eyes were guarded; he waswondering if he was in trouble or not.