The Lockwood Legacy - Books 1-6: Plus Bonus Short Stories

by Juliette Harper

  Langston’s surliness and the length of his absences got worse after Jenny was born. There were moments when he accorded Kate grudging attention. The poor child was so like her father, so desperate to please him. But Jenny, sweet and sensitive, already showing real artistic abilities seemed to enrage Langston.

  The night before Irene decided to ride to Baxter’s Draw, he’d sent Jenny to bed in tears yet again, and Irene made up her mind that she had to find something she could use against him. If he had a secret Irene could use to her advantage to protect her children, then she was going to uncover it.

  Just before noon, Irene guided Dixie into the mouth of the draw. She scanned the walls and floor as she rode, but saw no sign of a human presence until she reached the back wall of the canyon where she found the remains of a campfire. Irene dismounted and tied Dixie to the branches of a cedar bush.

  She circled the area around the campfire, following Langston’s boot prints in the soft dirt. They led her straight to the rock wall of the cliff. Perplexed, Irene studied the rough limestone. Nothing seemed out of place until a single stone caught her eye. At first she only noticed the rock because it was round, about the size of a baseball, but then she realized there was no dirt at its base.

  Kneeling down, Irene tried to pick up the rock. It wouldn’t budge. She ran her fingers over the surface and under the edge where she touched metal. As she continued to probe the exterior, she found an indentation on the back. She pressed it, and a door smoothly opened in the canyon wall.

  “Well, Langston,” she said. “You are indeed a clever man.” She stepped inside the cave without hesitation.

  Fifteen minutes later she emerged, white as a sheet. Automatically Irene bent and touched the latch again, closing the door behind her. She mounted Dixie, rode back down to the Rocking L, unsaddled her horse, and sat down on the front porch. That’s where Langston found here that evening, staring fixedly across the yard, completely unresponsive.

  “It was a long time before I knew what she found,” Clara said.

  “You mean the fact that he created a fantasy world in that cave with Alice Browning?” Jenny asked.

  “Yes,” Clara said. “But it was a good two years before Irene told me about any of it. Not until she got the diagnosis about the cancer. That day she found the cave, when your Daddy got back from selling those cows she was sitting on the front porch staring off in space. She wouldn’t say a word. He called me and I came right on over, but I couldn’t get her to answer me either.”

  “What did Daddy do with her?” Jenny asked.

  “He put her in a private mental hospital in Austin,” Clara said. “He took you all home for a few days, but you started asking questions he couldn’t answer. That’s when Langston called me and asked if we’d take you girls until Irene got back. He said if we breathed a word of any of this, he’d pack you off to boarding school somewhere.”

  “I was four years old!” Jenny protested.

  “Trust me, honey,” Clara said. “Langston would have found some place to put you, and I couldn’t let that happen. I owed it to Irene. She came back right after Christmas a different woman.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She stopped trying to change Langston or get him to love her,” Clara said. “She just let him be and lived her own life. Of course, she had you girls to raise, and then Mandy came along.”

  “If she let Daddy be,” Jenny said, “then how is it that Mandy came along at all?”

  Clara shifted uneasily in her chair. “Even refined women like your Mama have needs, honey.”

  “Do I look like the kind of woman who would buy a pat explanation like that, Clara?” Jenny asked. “I’ve done the math. Mandy isn’t Daddy’s child, is she?”

  The older woman hesitated and then took a hard look at Jenny. “Dear God, you are your Mama’s daughter. Langston thought Irene was some kind of hothouse flower from back East, but your Mama had more backbone than he did any goddamn day. No. Langston was not Mandy’s father.”

  52

  Bridal magazines littered the top of the library table, the pages marked with color-coded sticky notes. At least once a week Mandy and Jolene Wilson sat together and munched cheeseburgers and fries from the town’s one drive-in while debating the merits of various wedding themes.

  Each time Mandy came close to making a decision, she waffled over a “better” choice. Jolene, who printed her own wedding invitations and married Rick on the bank of the river where they had their first picnic, was trying to stay patient.

  Only one detail was firmly in place. The moment Jolene’s twin daughters, Missy and Sissy, learned of Joe Mason’s Christmas-time proposal, they announced their intent to serve as junior bridesmaids in the coming nuptials.

  Now the girls, age 9, were on a firm but hopeless campaign to be allowed to have their first coveted set of acrylic nails for the wedding.

  “Those girls had never even heard of acrylic nails until you came back to this town, Mandy Lockwood,” Jolene said accusingly, ruining the effect of her ire by sucking noisily on the over-sized straw stuck in her chocolate shake.

  “Well, maybe since it’s a special occasion . . .,” Mandy stopped when she saw the look on Jolene’s face and quickly changed her tone. “You are absolutely right, Jolene. It’s just the most irresponsible idea for children.”

  “Nice attempt at playing the grown-up there, Aunt Mandy,” Jolene groused. “Of course, at the rate you’re going planning this wedding, they might be old enough to get acrylics and catch the bouquet.”

  “Oh, you’re never too young to catch the bouquet,” Mandy said earnestly.

  “Tell that to their father and his shotgun,” Jolene snorted. “Rick is not looking forward to them getting interested in boys.”

  Mandy played with her own straw, making it squeak against the Styrofoam cup. “They’re so lucky to have their daddy,” she said in a small voice. “And he’s so sweet with them.”

  Jolene watched her friend’s downcast face for a minute and then reached over and stopped her hand on the straw. “Stop that racket, girl. It’s worse than fingernails on the blackboard. Something you need to talk about, darlin’?”

  Mandy wrapped her fingers around Jolene’s and didn’t look up when she asked, “Who’s going to give me away now that Daddy’s gone?”

  Lord, Jolene thought, like Langston Lockwood would have put on a tuxedo and walked any one of his girls down the church aisle. What she said was, “Aw, honey, don’t you go getting upset about that.”

  “I know Daddy was just awful to everyone, but he was a lot nicer to me than he was to Katie and Jenny. He didn’t yell at me nearly as much, and he paid for me to go to school. Did I ever tell you what he said to me the day I left for college?”

  “No. Tell me.”

  “Sister, go in the house. I want to talk to Mandy,” Langston ordered.

  Kate set her jaw and glared at her father. “Don’t you go upsetting her.”

  “Do as you’re told, girl,” he barked. “This is between me and her. I can by God talk to my own daughter if I want to. Now git.”

  Kate stood glowering at Langston for several seconds until Mandy said, “It’s okay, Katie.”

  Reluctantly Kate hugged her again and whispered in her ear, “Drive safe, Baby Sister. I’ll call you later.”

  “Katie,” Mandy said, her voice breaking, “I’m gonna miss you.”

  “I’m gonna miss you, too,” Kate said, kissing her on the temple, “but you’re gonna blow’em all away down in Austin.”

  She released her sister, and without giving their father so much as a glance, Kate went back inside.

  Langston waited until he heard the front door shut to say, brusquely, “You got enough money?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You need money for anything, you call me. I’ll have the bank put it in your account.”

  Mandy stared at him as if he’d grown a second head. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  “I, uh, well I . .
.” Langston coughed awkwardly and stared off toward the barn instead of looking at his daughter. “You’re a good girl,” he finally managed. “Won’t be the same around here without you making racket all the time.”

  “I’m going to miss you too, Daddy,” Mandy said smiling.

  “Huh,” Langston grunted. “Who the hell said anything about missing you? I just said we were finally gonna get some peace and quiet around here. Get on the road, girl. You’re burning daylight.”

  Mandy climbed in her car and started the engine. Before she pulled out, Langston leaned down and looked in the passenger window, miming for her to roll the glass down. When she did, he said, “You’re the only one of us worth a goddamn, Amanda Elizabeth Lockwood.”

  Before she could answer, he walked away from the car and down toward the pasture, pulling his hat low over his eyes, pounding the ground with belligerent, purposeful steps.

  Mustering all her diplomacy, Jolene said, “That’s hardly what I would call a tender good-bye, honey.”

  “I know,” Mandy said, “but from Daddy it was just huge. We all have the most confusing memories of him. He was so awful to people, but he would have killed someone on sight for hurting an animal. He let us have cats in the house! After I left for school, Old Tom stayed inside for the rest of his life. And Katie always said Daddy would sell one of us before he’d sell a horse.”

  “That I do not doubt,” Jolene said, arching her eyebrow. “Daughters are a dime a dozen, but a good horse is hard to find.”

  “I’m just saying that even though Daddy was real complicated, he was my father,” Mandy said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I know there was good in him. I just know it, Jolene. And now he’s not going to be there for my wedding day. It just makes me sad, that’s all.”

  “Maybe you could ask Joe’s daddy to walk you down the aisle.”

  “Mr. Mason is awful sweet, but I don’t really know him,” Mandy said, shaking her head. “It should be somebody special to me.”

  Jolene plucked a tissue out of the box on the table and offered it to Mandy. “I might have known you were one of those women,” she said accusingly.

  Mandy took the tissue with her free hand, still clinging to her friend’s hand, and dabbed at her eyes. “What do you mean ‘one of those women’?” she asked.

  “You just get prettier when you cry,” Jolene said. “Me? My eyes get all red and swell up and the snot just flies every which way.”

  Mandy laughed, as Jolene intended. “Stop it! You’re just being silly to get me to stop crying.”

  “Well, yes,” Jolene admitted. “But it’s still the truth. Now look. There’s no rule that it has to be a girl’s daddy that walks her down the aisle. Why don’t you ask Katie? She’s the head of the family now.”

  Mandy thought about that and her expression started to brighten. “But wouldn’t that hurt Jenny’s feeling?”

  “Why not ask them both to do it?” Jolene suggested.

  “Oh!” Mandy said, smiling happily through her tears. “Oh, Jolene! You’re brilliant! I love that idea. It’s perfect!”

  “That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” Jolene said, squeezing Mandy’s hand before she released it to steal one of her French fries.

  Mandy swatted her away playfully, “Stop that, you tater thief! Eat your own fries.”

  Defiantly biting the purloined spud in two, Jolene said, “You know, it might be a good idea to actually pick a date for this shindig.”

  “Now you sound like Elizabeth,” Mandy said.

  She routinely reported on her visits with the reclusive Elizabeth Jones and Jolene just as routinely expressed her reservations. “How often are you going to see her now?” Jolene asked.

  “A couple of times a week. Don’t start.”

  “Is she still sitting behind that screen when she talks to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you think that’s just a little creepy?” Jolene asked. “Kinda bad Gothic novel there’s a crazy wife-husband-dead-body in the attic creepy?”

  Mandy giggled. “If the dead body is crazy, doesn’t that technically make it a ghost?”

  “Oh, right, ‘cause visiting the creepy old lady in the haunted house is such an improvement on this plot,” Jolene said, crumpling up the remains of her lunch and stuffing everything back in the white take-out bag.

  “I did ask Hortencia about the screen,” Mandy said, cleaning up after herself as well.

  “And what did the equally-weird Mexican Lady Igor have to say about all of this?”

  “She said, ‘Señora she was hurt,’” Mandy replied. “And then she clammed up and wouldn’t tell me anything else.”

  Jolene frowned, “Hurt as in physically hurt? Like she’s hiding some kind of injury?”

  “Yes, I think that must be it,” Mandy said. “She doesn’t want me to see her face or something. I’m taking all these magazines out there to show her now and, well, I was thinking I might say something to her about it.”

  “Maybe you should just do things her way,” Jolene said. “You know, not set her off.”

  “She’s not crazy, Jolene,” Mandy said firmly. “She’s just old and eccentric and really lonely. I like her. You would, too. She’s a bookworm like you and Katie and Jake. I think reading all those books makes her feel like she’s not so alone.”

  Jolene toyed with the edges of the white bag still in her hands. “Well, ”she said finally, “I do know something about that. When the chemo was so awful and I couldn’t do anything else, I made myself read. I remember this nurse telling me, ‘Honey, you’re too sick to read.’”

  “What did you say to that?” Mandy asked.

  Jolene looked up. “I said, ‘If I can’t read, then I’m too sick to live, and I’m not done living.’”

  Mandy flashed her a dazzling smile, “Of course, you weren’t done living! You didn’t realize you had to help me plan a wedding.”

  “Lord, Mandy. Narcissistic much?” Jolene said as they both stood up, but then, on impulse she pulled her friend into a tight hug.

  “What’s this for?” Mandy asked, hugging her back.

  “For giving me a wedding to plan,” Jolene said, still holding her friend. “And making my little girls want acrylic nails and being nice to a crazy old lady. You’re like sunshine, sugar. You know that?”

  Mandy hugged her tighter and then stepped back to arm’s length, “Oh! Sunshine! What do you think about a yellow wedding?!”

  When Hortencia opened the door for Mandy and saw that her arms were full of bridal magazines, she said, “You don’t be leaving those all over the living room for me to clean up.”

  “Hi, Hortencia,” Mandy said smiling. “I promise I’ll pick everything up.”

  “The Señora, she is waiting for you,” Hortencia grumbled, gesturing toward the parlor.

  Mandy walked into the small, immaculate room and said, “Elizabeth?”

  “Here, dear,” came the voice from behind the antique Japanese screen. “What have you brought to show me today?”

  “All my bridal magazines. I thought you might like to see the wedding themes I’m thinking about,” Mandy said brightly.

  “How lovely. Just put them in the basket as always, dear,” Elizabeth said. “I look forward to seeing them.”

  “Couldn’t we look at them together today?” Mandy asked.

  A silence filled the room that stretched on long enough that Mandy was afraid she’d offended the old woman. Then Elizabeth said, “Mandy, dear child, I am . . . disfigured.”

  “I thought that might be it,” Mandy said. “But we’re friends now. It matters to me that you got hurt, but I don’t care what you look like.”

  Again, several long seconds passed and then Elizabeth said, “I am also crippled, dear, I cannot move the screen. Would you . . . would you do that for me?”

  “Sure,” Mandy said. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

  “Dear, please just move the screen before I change my mind,” the older wo
man said, her voice quivering slightly.

  Mandy walked over to the screen and said, “Okay, here goes.” She carefully folded back the first panel and then the second to reveal an elderly woman with white hair pinned high on her head.

  The left side of her face was lovely, aquiline and strong, but the right side was a ruin of overlapping scars that seemed to melt down to her neck. She could barely open her left eye, and Mandy could see that the corner of her mouth was frozen. A walking cane with an elaborate silver handle rested against the arm of her wing-backed chair.

  “Oh!” Mandy said.

  Elizabeth tensed, but then Mandy went on. “Your hair is so pretty! It’s like snow! Have you always worn it long?”

  Visibly taken aback, Elizabeth said, “Since I was a girl.”

  “I will never cut my hair,” Mandy declared, sitting down. “I love having long hair. Now, let me show you my favorites first . . ..”

  Elizabeth interrupted her. “You are a quite remarkable young lady, Mandy,” she said. “I am most happy that we have become friends.”

  Mandy gave her a dazzling smile. “Me too!” she said. “You’re fun.”

  “I am?” the old woman said, sounding genuinely shocked.

  “I think you are,” Mandy said fondly. “And you have killer fashion sense, so you have to tell me what you think about this one.”

  Mandy leaned over and placed an open magazine across Elizabeth’s lap and began flipping pages. Over Mandy’s head, Elizabeth’s eyes met those of Lenore Ferguson, standing in the shadows of the hall. After a moment’s hesitation, Lenore smiled and then silently retreated.

  53

  Jenny sat in Clara Wyler’s tiny, cluttered apartment and tried to assimilate everything she just learned. She found herself focusing on the dust in a beam of sunlight falling through the window to Clara’s left. All those little particles floating down, obscuring the clean surface of the end table. Were all these scattered details from the past hiding a clean truth or something Jenny really didn’t want to know?