What the Heart Wants

by Cynthia Reese

  “N-nothing, Gran.” How could she tell her that her heart was breaking over the man who’d rained down all this trouble on them?

  “Kyle didn’t want to come in?” Gran asked. “Get up, child. That floor is hard. You’ll get lumbago if you sit there all balled up like that.”

  She extended a hand to help her, but Allison hitched herself up to her feet. She swiped away her tears as she leaned against the banister to regain her composure. She’d almost wrestled her emotions back into their bottle when her eyes lit on the missing medallion on the staircase.

  Had Kyle finished carving the section he’d been working on? Would he give it to Greg Draper to replace the missing one?

  “Allison, did you hear me? I asked you what Kyle said that could have reduced you to this gibberish mess.”

  Allison had to chuckle in the midst of her tears. Her grandmother had resurrected her old “teacher” voice. This was the no-nonsense woman she’d grown up with, the one who liked to remind Allison not to spill the milk to begin with if she didn’t want to cry over it.

  Her grandmother’s acerbic tone served its purpose, and her words rekindled some of Allison’s anger at Kyle. “He was saying we shouldn’t sell the house.”

  “Well, that’s true enough,” Gran snapped. “Has he come to his senses about that paint job?”

  “Kyle? Of course not.” She rolled her eyes. “No, he was telling me to sell off everything on the third floor to raise the money.”

  Gran’s shoulders sagged, and Allison realized with fresh pain that her grandmother had been hoping Kyle had shown up to grant them a reprieve.

  “Half that junk probably needs to be taken to the county landfill,” Gran murmured. She settled slowly into an armchair Allison had moved near the foot of the stairs to give Gran a halfway point between the kitchen and the living room. Her gnarled fingers clasped her walking stick and she at its marble head as though it were a crystal ball. “I hadn’t even thought about all that. We’ll have to pack it up. Oh, dear. It’s just...”

  Allison reached over and laid a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry, Gran. I’ll pack it up for you. Don’t worry about it.”

  Gran’s back bowed with despair, a feeling Allison knew all too well. “No, girl, I’ll have to help you. You wouldn’t know what to keep or what to toss. I haven’t been up there in years. Why, that huge Indian carving will have to go—no room in those dinky houses you’ve been looking at for such as that. And all the books on those shelves...” Her rheumy blue eyes took on a faraway look.

  Allison refused to succumb to tears again. She would not. She could do this. She could find a house Gran would be satisfied with, get this monstrosity cleared out and...

  Now images of Belle Paix’s rooms, empty and echoing, haunted her. She closed her eyes and let herself be tempted, just for a moment, that Kyle could be right and those attic treasures could bring in enough cash for them to paint the house. Allison could worry about the next paint job later.

  The thump of Gran’s walking stick on the oak floor dragged her back to cold, hard reality. Gran had lost enough. What if she sold everything, and it wasn’t enough to cover the paint? Then they’d still have to sell Belle Paix, and Gran would have nothing left of her old life.

  Allison opened her eyes to see her grandmother negotiating the hallway toward the kitchen. Seconds later, she heard the whir of the chair lift on the back stairs. Gran must be retiring to her room for a nap—or a good cry.

  When the chair lift’s motor quit, Allison turned toward the door, planning to retrieve the broom she’d dropped when she’d dashed inside. That’s when she heard the telltale thump of Gran’s walking stick on the main stairs—going up to the third floor.

  Allison flew up the staircase and rounded the landing, to see she had managed four steps.

  “Oh, there you are,” Gran panted. Her knuckles were white with effort as she gripped the banister. “Good, you can help me.”

  “Gran, I’ll do it. That third floor’s too hot for you, and these stairs—”

  “Nonsense! There’s something I want to see, a vase that my father bought in Paris.” Gran ignored her and hefted herself up another step. “Spent a pretty penny on it—my mother was furious, especially when the crash came not two months later and we lost all our money. That thing has to be worth something—”

  “Gran!” Allison scampered up in front of her to stop her progress. “I’ll get it later. Come back down!”

  But her grandmother didn’t listen. Instead, she grumbled, “It’s still my house, at least for now. I’ll go where I please, thank you very much, with or without your help!”

  And she let go of the banister.

  Tried to sidestep Allison.

  Lost her footing.

  Tumbled.

  Kept tumbling.

  All Allison could do was stare at her outstretched hand, which had missed the fabric of Gran’s blouse by a fraction of an inch. Then watch in horror as she slid to a soundless heap at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Gran?” she gasped. And when her grandmother didn’t so much as moan in response, Allison scrambled down to the landing beside the frail, broken figure, screaming, “Gran! Gran!”

  * * *

  KYLE HAD MADE it up the street to the post office when Herbert stopped him.

  “So are you satisfied that this Draper guy will do the house up right?” he asked. “I mean, I don’t want the same mess we’ve had in the past with the current owner.”

  “Herbert, I really don’t want to—”

  “And I’m not real fired up about a B and B that close to my place. It’s not the ideal solution—”

  Still agitated by Allison’s refusal even to listen to his suggestion, Kyle interrupted him. “You can’t have it both ways, Herbert! Either we build in some flexibility in the ordinances, or Draper will buy that house and gut it. And it’s not just a B and B. He wants to put in a full-scale restaurant.”

  Herbert’s eyes popped. “But the parking will be a nightmare. Kyle, we can’t have that. There’s got to be some solution.”

  Kyle’s neighbor waved as she skirted around the pair of them, and he nodded an acknowledgment and exchanged a brief greeting. Turning back to Herbert, he conceded, “I thought I had it, actually.”

  “What was it?” Herbert perked up considerably.

  Kyle found his anger heating back up at the thought of Allison’s stubbornness. “They’ve got over a century’s worth of stuff squirreled away on the top floor of that house—all manner of things collectors would pay top dollar to get their hands on. So I went over there just now to try to talk Allison into selling it.”

  “That’s a great idea! Why, I’d bet it would work! You could get probably half the money they’d need—maybe even more. So you think she’ll do it?”

  “Not in this lifetime. Allison swears she can’t borrow any money.”

  “Won’t take the risk, you mean.” Herbert pursed his lips. “Talk about wanting it both ways. Her idea has always been to do what she dang well pleases with that house and hang our ordinances. Doesn’t she understand what we’ve worked so hard to accomplish?”

  “She doesn’t value it, Herbert. If she did, she’d fight for it. But she just sees that old house as something that’s—I don’t know. Too much of a sacrifice.”

  Just then, the cool morning quiet was rent by the scream of a siren. Kyle watched as an ambulance rushed by, then focused more intently as he saw, two blocks down, the brake lights glow red in front of Belle Paix. For a moment, the vehicle just sat there, lights flashing, siren screeching. Then a head popped out of the passenger window, craning up and down the street.

  It hit Kyle all of a sudden that the EMTs couldn’t figure out how to get around the wrought-iron fence.

  And if an EMT needed to get in...

  Kyl
e started sprinting down the block as fast as he had back in his college track days, yelling and waving like a madman as he went. “Go around! The driveway’s on the side!”

  Either they heard him—impossible, he knew at that distance—or they saw his gestures, because they backed up to him as he closed the distance.

  “Hey,” the EMT on the passenger side said, “you know how—”

  Kyle gasped, “On the side... Driveway...” He was too winded to get more words out, but he pointed.

  The tires screeched as they backed around to the side street and through the Belle Paix’s wide, open gate. Kyle bent over, chest heaving from his gut-busting two-block sprint. The ambulance doors clanged open and the gurney clacked over the driveway’s paving stones as the EMTs wheeled it toward the house.

  The front door flew open and Allison rushed out. “She’s upstairs! Hurry!” she called, and beckoned the EMTs up the porch steps and into the house.

  But she must have caught sight of Kyle, because the fear on her face dissolved into white-lipped rage.

  “Allison—”

  Saying nothing, she spun on her heel and slammed the door closed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “SHE’S LUCKY, ALLISON,” the radiologist told her. “I mean, lucky. That could have been bad.”

  “An eighty-nine-year-old woman with a concussion is bad,” Allison insisted. She peered over the radiologist’s shoulder and squinted in the darkened room at the computer screen.

  “A mild concussion,” the radiologist corrected. “And as you can see, that hip joint is fine. No problems. And no signs of fracture in the ribs or the other hip. I’d say clean living has paid off again.”

  Allison’s skin felt clammy, with fear and relief battling for control. She shook it off, knowing it was the aftereffects of the adrenaline that had been buzzing through her. “I’ll take it,” she said. “But this is a clear sign. Gran needs to be in a house with a single story.”

  “Yep,” the radiologist agreed. “I see more old folks with broken bones because of steps. They’re a killer.”

  Allison retraced her way back to Gran’s bay in the ER. She’d left her grandmother in good hands with another of the nurses while she went to check out what the radiologist had found; being an ER nurse here had its perks. Now, at least, she didn’t have to worry for the length of time it would take the doctor to report back.

  When she yanked aside the curtain to Gran’s cubicle, she saw it wasn’t a nurse with her grandmother.

  Kyle Mitchell and Gran were engrossed in a deep, low conversation, their heads together in an almost conspiratorial manner.

  “What are you doing here?” Allison snapped.

  “They let me in,” Kyle told her.

  “Well, they can let you out. My grandmother could have died because of you. She would have never tackled those steps if she hadn’t heard about your harebrained scheme—”

  “Allison!” Gran’s protest was weak and tired, but still held an edge. “I asked them to let him in.”

  “They shouldn’t have. If you don’t mind, I want a word with you.” She gestured for Kyle to follow her.

  As he rose from the chair by the bed, Gran reached out to him. “Kyle...you’ll tell her, right? You’ll see to it?”

  He patted her hand. “I’ll try, Gran. But...” Now he met Allison’s eyes. “It doesn’t look like she’s in the mood to listen.”

  Allison marched outside to a small courtyard where she could give Kyle a piece of her mind out of earshot from coworkers and patients.

  Before she could open her mouth, Kyle folded his arms across his chest and said, “She doesn’t want to sell.”

  “Well, duh, genius, neither do I.”

  “She was describing this vase to me. It may be a Jean Dunand, could be worth a considerable amount of money—”

  “Kyle. Stop.” Allison warded off his words with outstretched palms.

  He fell silent. The only sounds in the courtyard were the trickling of the fountain and a noisy pair of mockingbirds trying to outsing each other.

  Allison tried to frame her words carefully, without anger, so that he would be sure to understand. This wasn’t about him or her or the stupid paint job. This was about Gran, and what was best for her.

  “She could have died today. She could have been killed. All because of that house.”

  “It’s her house, Allison. And she wants to keep it.”

  “You’re filling her head with nonsense, with false hope. We could sell everything on that third floor and still not have enough—”

  “She’s willing to risk it. She’s ready to fight for her home. The question is,” Kyle said as he regarded her, “are you?”

  The mockingbirds were joined by a third, their screeching driving Allison crazy as she tried to focus on what to say to make him finally get it.

  “That house isn’t safe for her—”

  “Yeah. You aren’t ready to fight for it. You’re just too chicken.” Kyle’s words brimmed with contempt. “You want the safe way, the sure bet, the easy out. I’m not like that. I’m not that guy. And I never will be. How I could have ever thought you might be someone who would understand me, I don’t know.” He stared off into the distance. “Well, if you change your mind, go look upstairs. Not for me. Not for Belle Paix. For your grandmother. It’s a black vase with gold stripes, very art deco.”

  He turned, started to walk away. Then over his shoulder, he tossed another question. “And you tell me. How sick would you feel if you sold the house out from under your grandmother and then found that vase was worth more than enough to pay for the repairs?”

  “You want me to believe in a fairy tale, Kyle? One where we’re sitting on a gold mine and don’t even know it? Next you’ll tell me Gran’s got a Picasso or two tucked away up there. That’s junk in the attic. Junk that I’ve got to move and store and cry over. Leftovers from somebody else’s life. A hundred and twenty-six years of leftovers, to be precise.”

  “History...” Kyle said it sadly.

  “What?”

  “Your leftovers? That’s my history.”

  “Well, it’s pretty clear that your history is more important than me, Kyle. If you cared for me one whit, you’d realize that history isn’t as important as real living, breathing people. History is gone, the past, yesterday. And I’m here now. Doesn’t that matter?”

  He said nothing, but when he ran his fingers through his hair, she saw that his hand trembled.

  “History isn’t just the past. It’s me, Allison. It’s who I am, what I’ve devoted my life to.” He focused on her face. “You know what? I should look at the bright side. When you sell Belle Paix for half of what it’s worth, because it’s too much trouble and because it’s full of someone else’s ‘leftovers,’ at least you’ll be gone, and I’ll know. Maybe I’ll really get it then.”

  “Get what?” She was perplexed, couldn’t follow what he was saying, though a sick feeling of loss was already permeating through her.

  “You’re not for me. You can’t be. Not if you can’t understand what I love. Heck, half the time, Allison, you don’t even pretend to respect it. So it’s good I found out what you were—or rather, what you weren’t—before this went too far.”

  He didn’t wait for her reply, just stalked off.

  The finality of his words, the sad resignation, even the fact that he didn’t look back as he rounded the corner, echoed through her. It was the same feeling she’d had whenever she’d broken something precious and irreplaceable, only ten times worse.

  He was gone.

  And he wasn’t coming back.

  * * *

  SHE FOUND HER grandmother where she’d left her, but in a totally different mind-set.

  Gran’s arms were folded across her chest, her chin jutted out.
“You can call that Draper man if you’d rather, or I can do it for you. I am not selling Belle Paix.”

  “Gran, that house could have killed you today—”

  “Not that house. My stupidity. My stubbornness. And if I’d died there, well, at least I would have died there. I’d rather die there tomorrow than live another ten years somewhere else. Get it through your head, Allison. I’m not selling.”

  “Great, so you tell me how we’ll get the money to paint that monstrosity.”

  “Kyle says—”

  “Kyle—” Allison banged around the claustrophobic bay, relieved that her anger was back, numbing her to the heartache swirling through her. “Kyle is the reason we’re in this mess, Gran. And the reason you’re laid up in that bed.”

  “Very logical, Allison. First you blame the house and then you blame Kyle.”

  “Well, it’s both,” she insisted. “And it’s high time we stopped depending on someone else to rescue us or bend the rules or—or whatever. We have to face this, Gran. Isn’t that what you always taught me? Not to wish things were different, but face them and deal with them?”

  Gran’s face crumpled. She wouldn’t meet Allison’s eyes. “I’m not selling.”

  Her voice was low, but firm, and brooked no argument.

  Great. Another one of Kyle’s lovely complications. Allison had just got Gran reconciled to the fact that the house would have to go.

  Arguing now wouldn’t work. She patted her on the shoulder. “Sure, Gran, whatever you say. Just don’t cry, okay? I can’t take it when you cry.” With that, she wrapped her in a gentle hug, and they both wept, anyway.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  NOT EVEN CLEO greeted Allison when she arrived home after dark one night later that week. It was as if the cat knew Gran was back in the hospital, and put the blame squarely on Allison.

  It had been a tough few days, with Gran developing a hospital-acquired infection and having to go on another round of IV antibiotics. Allison had not been able to do much more than run back and forth between work and Gran’s bedside.