Stay (Dunham series #2)

by Moriah Jovan

  Dirk shrugged, unperturbed, and turned back to Eric. “I have been hearing that since the first time I stepped between her and LaVon.”

  “Huh. So what’s up?”

  “Turns out the kid can read.”

  “No shit?”

  Dirk shook his head. “Vanessa found him in a corner with his nose in a book—and I mean, in the book—so I called his teacher. She came up here on her own to testify on his behalf, but he needs glasses. She’s sent notes home with him, but she doesn’t know whether LaVon got the notes or if she ignored them. She wasn’t sure whether or not to call you directly to take him to the eye doctor.”

  “Good God,” Eric muttered, feeling as if he’d failed the kid on a couple of different levels.

  An hour later, from the window of his private office, Eric watched Vanessa leave, holding Junior’s hand as they went to her car. His jaw clenched when he beheld the fine piece of machinery she drove, and his fist clenched against the window, above his head.

  A Plymouth Prowler, in that distinctive purple metallic.

  Eric had vaguely noticed it at her motel, but had been too distracted to devote much attention to it.

  He watched her drive that beautiful purple . . . Batmobile . . . down the street, the boy belted in and looking happy for the first time in his life.

  “I’ve never been so humbled by an act of courage in my life—by a child,” Knox had said years before as he stood in the Salt Lake City airport with Eric and Dirk, awaiting the boarding call that would take Knox back to Kansas City, leaving a freshly shorn Eric to Dirk’s stewardship in these strange cities with a strange history and a strange religion. “And at great personal cost. Make something of the life she gave you and don’t let her down.”

  Eric couldn’t believe the sudden moisture in Knox’s eyes when he looked at Dirk, so freshly returned from his mission to New Zealand that he still spoke with an accent. “Don’t try to convert him, don’t haul him to church; just get him acclimated to Provo and the culture so he can concentrate on school. Keep him out of trouble as much as you can. You know what I want to happen.”

  Yes, Eric had been obsessed with Vanessa all these years, doing what was right, trying to make that little girl proud of him, being careful not to let her down so that her sacrifice would not have been in vain.

  And after all that, after everything Eric had attained, he’d let her down anyway simply because he hadn’t said “thank you” when he should’ve.

  * * * * *

  15: Laura Must Not Complain

  Tuesday afternoon was extremely busy once Vanessa had been appointed Nephew’s legal guardian.

  “Nephew—” Vanessa refused to call him Eric. Eric Cipriani, no less. “Junior” was just as bad. “I’ll give you ten minutes to collect whatever prized possessions you have and put them in here.” She handed him a largish box once they’d pulled up in front of her parents’ mobile home. “No clothes. No shoes. Nothing that stinks. I’ll let LaVon dig out that landfill herself because I sure as hell am not doing it and I’m not going to let you do it, either.”

  “That’s stupid. What am I going to wear?”

  “We’re going shopping for a few things and get your sizes. When we get home, you can go online and see what you like and order from there.”

  She could see that concept was lost on the kid. He had no idea how business was accomplished in the world of easy access to . . . anything because there was no computer in the trailer, much less internet access. No PDAs, video games, cell phones, though they did have basic cable because LaVon wouldn’t miss her soaps. Nephew’s school had a computer lab and internet access, but he didn’t understand how it worked because he’d never had enough time or attention to have it explained to him thoroughly or use it to any great extent.

  “Oh, and before we get to the store, remember this: You swipe anything you don’t pay for, I’ll take you right back to Eric and have him keep you there for a good month before I come back to get you. If you do it when we get home, you’ll really be sorry.”

  His jaw clenched.

  “I know you’ve grown up thinking that’s normal, but it’s not. You pay for what you get and you do honest work to earn the money you need. Next item on the agenda: Pick a name. Any name. I’m not going to live with a pint-sized Eric Cipriani.”

  His eyes narrowed speculatively. “You like him.”

  “Yes, I do, and if I wanted to take an Eric Cipriani home with me, it’d be the big one.”

  “You know he’s getting married in December?” he taunted.

  “Yes, which is one very huge reason I’m not taking him home with me.”

  Well, and Nash.

  “And so maybe you’re not so different from Simone after all.”

  She turned to look at him slowly and cocked an eyebrow at him. His smug expression faded. “Do I need to remind you? I have a college degree, a television show, a million-dollar business, and I know how to cook. How am I like your mother again?”

  That shut him up, since, being a fairly bright kid, he understood when one of these things was not like the other.

  “One more thing. If you think Eric’s hard on you, you just wait until I get Knox Hilliard down your throat.”

  He gulped.

  Naturally LaVon wasn’t in the trailer, but Vanessa’s father was, napping in his wheelchair, his chin on his chest, working for every breath of oxygen he took. This time, she didn’t let him sleep; she awakened him to tell him what was going on—and it shocked him to his core.

  “But Nessie—”

  “Not another word, Pops. This was his decision and as you can see, he’s not heartbroken about Simone’s passing or getting the hell out of this shithole.” His mouth tightened and she sighed. “Please let me come back for you,” she begged. “Please. I can give you such a much better life than this.”

  “I vowed before God and a priest I’d stay with your mama, Vanessa Nicole,” he said solemnly. “An’ I’m gonna. Don’t matter what she does ’cause what she does is on her at Judgment Day.” He crossed himself. “Only matters what I said I’d do.”

  Vanessa relented because that was completely true, and bent to hug him. Nephew stormed out the door without a backward glance or a word to his grandfather. “I love you, Pops,” she said, pretty sure it would be the last time she’d ever see him alive.

  “I love you, too, Nessie.”

  But not enough. Never enough.

  She left then and found Nephew sulking in the front seat, his box wedged between his knees and the dash.

  “What’s your problem?”

  His mouth tightened. “Why do you love him?”

  She shrugged, understanding instantly. “He’s my father.”

  He said nothing to that and she sighed, turning the key to release that glorious roar and cover the awkwardness. “Look,” she said when they finally turned out onto the highway, “until you choose a new name and it gets carved in stone, I’m calling you Nephew. Get used to it.”

  “Fine with me.” As they ventured south, he began to perk up. “Where are we going first?”

  “UPS to ship your box. It’ll be there tomorrow,” she said and ruffled his hair.

  That done, Vanessa herded him into the salon at Wal-Mart and had his hair cut to a respectable length, which was to say, short. Very, very short. He squinted into the mirror and didn’t let loose one word of protest. That was suspicious.

  “You really can’t see worth a damn, can you, Nephew?”

  He looked up at her, his brow wrinkled, and said, bemused, “I don’t know.”

  She sighed and dragged him twenty feet to the eyeglasses shop for an exam and had orders for glasses and contacts sent to the Wal-Mart in Ava.

  “Oh, my,” Vanessa murmured when she saw the prescription, then looked up. “Okay. Clothes. If you don’t like anything here, let me know and I’ll take you to Target.”

  He looked at her, surprised. “You’re going to let me pick what I want?”

  Vanessa’s
soul started to hurt. Was this how Knox had felt before he’d asked Giselle to take her shopping for clothes? At least she didn’t have to explain what a period was and how to deal with it, like Giselle had had to do. “Yes, Nephew. Why would I make you wear clothes you don’t like? Except, I’d prefer it if you at least matched.”

  She stood outside the changing room door holding clothes Nephew had chosen. She’d tried to estimate his size, but had struck out three times now. Twelve must be an odd age for a boy, she decided, because almost nothing fit him well. When he came out of the dressing room for the last time, she muttered, “Well, it’ll have to do.”

  That done, Vanessa found a medical supply company and arranged for an electric scooter to be delivered to her father in the morning.

  Nephew stayed with Vanessa in her motel room that night and she made him shower over and over and over again.

  They left early Wednesday morning and though she had absolutely no reason to pass by the courthouse on her way out of town, she did anyway, looking for a glimpse, a sign, anything. But the only sign of Eric was the same one that stood where she’d first seen it, across the street from the courthouse.

  Cipriani Kenpo

  A bittersweet pain poked through her breastbone. He knew what she’d wanted from him when she was thirteen: a “thank you,” some acknowledgment of what it had cost her to prove his innocence. Now, as a woman who’d been schooled in love by the best, whose second lover had proven to be as splendid as her first, she also wanted a whole lot of other things from Eric Cipriani, only one of which was sex.

  Shocking, is what it was.

  Why had he come to her motel room Sunday morning with an offer of breakfast—and possibly more—when he had a fiancée at home? And after he’d thoroughly humiliated her for asking an important question? There was only one answer to that: He was still the dog he’d been in high school. He certainly had not knocked on her door to say what he should’ve said years ago. Indeed, it was almost as if he’d forgotten all about it.

  She got mad all over again and the speedometer measured every rise in her temper, leaving behind that cesspool of a town and its prosecutor.

  Who still hadn’t said “thank you.”

  * * * * *

  16: At the Foot of Hardscrabble Hill

  April 2010

  “Aunt Vanessa,” Vachel demanded late one afternoon in early April as he burst in the back door with his usual post-siesta energy. “What’s going on? There’s a missionary out weeding a flower bed. They’re not supposed to be doing stuff like that.”

  “His companion’s father died and he doesn’t have anything else to do right now,” Vanessa said as she tended the sauté pan in which a week’s worth of parched corn sizzled. It was a popular snack she put out on the bar instead of peanuts. “His bishop’s taking them to the airport tonight so he can go home. I’m going with them.”

  “Why do you have to go?”

  “I paid for the ticket. I have to go so I can provide ID.”

  It was late when Vanessa returned from Springfield with two very quiet men. The lone elder and his bishop disappeared down a dimly lit path to gather his things from the missionaries’ cottage, then left to stay with the bishop’s family until he was assigned a new companion. Vanessa climbed the back steps of the mansion wearily, then trudged up to her office to check her email—

  —then suddenly dropped into her chair with a gasp and a choke.

  “Aunt Vanessa, I’m going out for— What’s wrong?”

  She looked up from her laptop to see Vachel hanging over the threshold by the doorjambs.

  “Your grandfather died,” Vanessa murmured, dashing her tears away. Not that she hadn’t expected it.

  Vachel’s mouth tightened. “I’m not going back.”

  “Yes, you are. Go pack.”

  “I have things to do.”

  “They’ll wait.”

  “But—”

  “This isn’t negotiable, Vachel,” Vanessa said, giving her voice just enough harshness to make sure he knew she meant every word. After all, she had backup. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

  She knew that panicked look in his face, a look he hadn’t had for a year now thanks to a plethora of good male influence, regular therapy, and a bedroom suite that allowed him as much space and light as he could get without being outdoors.

  “I don’t want to go, either,” she said softly. “But I loved my father and I think you loved him too.”

  “No, I didn’t,” he flashed back, anger showing through the panic. “He wouldn’t protect me.”

  She couldn’t argue that, but she wouldn’t relent. He growled and pushed himself away from the door, yanking it closed with an angry slam. Vanessa sat and listened to him thump and throw things around in his room; she didn’t have to wonder what he had planned for the night.

  He clipped down the stairs to raid the ice maker so he could go check his crawdad traps—his release valve when he couldn’t otherwise contain his anger.

  She looked back at the screen.

  Subject: Your father

  Reply-to: ecipriani@co.chouteau.mo.us

  I didn’t know if anyone would let you know. His obituary is attached.

  EC

  Vanessa didn’t kid herself she grieved for her father; she didn’t. He had earned his rest and she only wished she could ask him how Whittaker House stacked up to heaven. But she could stop worrying about him now, about his obstinance and his willingness to live with LaVon, about why she even cared since he hadn’t protected her or fed her. However, before Knox, Vanessa had had Dirk to protect her, so she could afford to feel more charity for her father than Vachel could, to feel some measure of love for what little her father could give her. Vachel had had no one.

  No, Vanessa didn’t grieve for her father. She grieved for the messenger and for herself.

  For what she still wanted that she couldn’t have.

  Eleven months, three weeks, and three days.

  A week and a half shy of the year anniversary of Simone’s death.

  She knew, because she’d kept track. That fact embarrassed her; it embarrassed her that a little thrill ran through her at the sight of his email address in her inbox.

  She sighed as she re-read it. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t expected the news, but not from him.

  As long as she kept the image of him as a seventeen-year-old with a bad reputation, questionable parentage, and little to nothing in the way of potential and/or worldly possessions, in orange and shackles at his arraignment, she had a chance at keeping her libido from going out of control.

  Ah, but now she’d seen him as a grown man, successful in his own right, having come back to become a powerful man in the county that had nearly beaten him.

  She closed her eyes and dropped her head down on her keyboard, oblivious to beeps. She wanted to kiss him—deep and slow—wanted to wrap her legs around his waist, wanted to feel his naked body against hers, in hers—

  The passion in his voice when he had asked her to breakfast . . .

  The hungry way he had watched her the two days she’d spent at the courthouse arranging for Vachel’s guardianship . . .

  It had taken every bit of self-control Vanessa had developed over the years to ignore him, ignore that, ignore what he obviously wanted from her when she wanted it so badly, too.

  For reasons she didn’t understand, she had immediately visualized him here, on her turf, in her life.

  At Whittaker House.

  But he had a fiancée then and he had a wife now and he had had no business asking her to breakfast or watching her that way—and why would she want a man like that anyway? And why was she aching over a married man?

  Vanessa sat in her office chair, looking at her phone it as if she could divine some meaning from it. In a fog, she picked up the receiver and hit the speed dial by rote.

  “My father died,” she said without preamble. “The wake is tomorrow night.”

  “Oh? You going?”

/>   “Yeah. He was the only member of my family I cared about.”

  “Mmmm.” Knox held the phone away from his mouth to talk to Justice for quite a while and Vanessa could hear them rapidly trying to arrange a plane ticket. Then, “Okay. I’ll be out tomorrow. Hopefully by noon.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You all right?”

  Vanessa heard the slight hesitance in his voice, the question he wanted to ask that he wouldn’t. “Tired. Took one of the elders to the airport to go home. His father died. Came back to find out mine did, too. Then Vachel pitched a fit at having to go back.” She knew she was babbling; he knew it, too. She continued to rattle on, listing every item on the to-do list, though he knew it as well as she, but he let her talk without interrupting. Then she stopped.

  “All right, kid. Well, I’m sorry.”

  She swallowed. “Um, Knox? I— I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for not— Uh, not coming to see you when you were in the hospital.”

  “Vanessa,” he said slowly after a long pause. “Have I made you feel like I was unhappy that you didn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Where have I always run when things got a little too hot in my kitchen?”

  She sighed.

  “And where did I spend two months getting waited on hand and foot, getting chauffeured to therapy and doctor visits after I got out of the hospital, after the wedding? And who covers my ass when I want to commit suicide-by-sugar?”

  “I don’t—” Crap. She was going to start crying. “I don’t know what I would have done if you had died.”

  He chuckled. “I did die.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Vanessa, what’s all this about? You’re not usually so maudlin and I know this can’t be over your father.”