Truths and Roses

by Inglath Cooper

  Hadn’t she had enough to deal with?

  He thought about Sarah Jacobs and the obvious fact that she wouldn’t be there for Hannah. Sadness gripped him. He thought again about the woman’s ramblings and recalled with sudden clarity her mentioning “that Dillon boy.”

  Tom Dillon? And what had she meant by not letting him get away with it? Get away with what? Why would Tom have lied all those years ago about going out with Hannah?

  He sat up and looked again at Hannah’s house. Something didn’t add up. Maybe he’d drive out to Clarence’s and see if he could figure out exactly what it was.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Over the year’s, Clarence’s had garnered a reputation as the local redneck hangout. Will and Tom had never frequented the place in high school, but Tom had apparently changed his opinion of it.

  Not that it looked any different.

  It was still a joint. Little more than a dilapidated cement-block shack. It sat on the outskirts of town, and judging from the number of cars parked outside, its popularity had increased over the years.

  A few moments later Will stepped through the front door and squinted into the dimness. A jukebox sat to one side of the room. Trace Adkins complained through the speakers of a love gone bad. Cigarette smoke hung in the bar like L.A. smog, trapped with nowhere to go.

  Moving across the room, Will caught the bartender’s eye and asked for a beer, then nodded to a couple of men as he leaned on one elbow and propped a heel on the rail at the foot of the bar. “Tom Dillon been out this way tonight?”

  A man in a black Caterpillar hat said, “Ain’t he always? He’s back there.” He pointed to a side room. “Playing pool.”

  Will picked up his beer and headed in that direction, not quite sure what he wanted to know. He stopped in the doorway, leaning his shoulder against the frame.

  He watched as Tom lined up the cue ball for a victory stroke, then sent it scooting across the table, slapping the last ball into the corner pocket. Tom let out a whoop and threw a fist into the air. Then he noticed Will leaning against the doorframe.

  “Will,” he said in surprise. “Hey, buddy. Don’t just stand there. Come on over and join us.”

  Will raised a reluctant hand. “Don’t think I’m up to the competition.”

  “Oh, come on, come on. I’ll go easy on you, won’t I, boys?” He’d directed the question to the two men standing behind him. Like a couple of puppets, they nodded and then stepped aside to make room for Will at the table.

  “Had the devil of a time getting you here,” Tom said.

  “Yeah. Never figured you for hanging out at Clarence’s.”

  Tom rubbed chalk on the end of his cue stick. “Things change, you know.”

  “Few practice shots?” Will suggested.

  “Not unless you want them.” When Will shook his head, Tom said, “Then go to it.”

  He stood back and watched as Will racked up the balls and proceeded to break them, using the pool stick in his left hand. “You’re still as good with your left as your right, I see.”

  Will shrugged and said, “Doesn’t seem to make much difference. Whatever feels good at the time.”

  Tom’s laugh was a little forced when he said, “Been keeping yourself busy, I hear.”

  Will aimed at the red and sent it whizzing into the pocket. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Hanging out with Hannah Jacobs.”

  He lined up another shot. “Is that what they’re saying?”

  Tom chewed on his lower lip. “Hannah’s changed since school. Never would’ve figured she’d hold your interest. Not with all those starlets you must have had.” The pause that followed held a good measure of drama. “Word around town is that you’ve been seeing her.”

  Something told Will he’d never get anything out of Tom if the man thought the rumors held an ounce of truth. He chalked his stick and kept his eyes on the table. “Then word has it wrong.”

  “Yeah?” The question held a note of disbelief.

  “I don’t think my friend in L.A. would care too much for the idea.”

  The deputy drew one eyebrow up and said, “Wouldn’t, huh? So who is she? Model? Movie star?”

  “Nobody you’d know.”

  Tom’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, reckon not. She pretty hot?”

  “Pretty hot,” Will said as he lined the upper half of his body with the cue.

  “Didn’t figure there was anything to those rumors about you and Hannah. I tell you, that girl is strange.”

  “She’s strange all right. She ever go out?”

  “Who would ask?” Tom scoffed.

  “Why’s that, do you think?”

  “All those signals she sends off, I guess.”

  “Seemed friendly enough when you were going out with her.”

  Tom sent Will a man-to-man smile. “Pretty friendly.”

  “I remember you gloating about it.”

  Tom laughed. “Looking back, it wasn’t worth gloating over. Guess I just enjoyed proving she wasn’t the goody two-shoes everyone thought she was.”

  Will looked up at his old friend. Tom held his gaze as though daring him to question the truth of the statement. “Why’d you lie about going out with her after that?”

  Tom went still, his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, lie?”

  “Hannah says the two of you just went out once. So why’d you make the rest of us think you were dating her?”

  Tom rested his cue on the floor. “Man, I don’t know what she’s—”

  “Cut it out, Tom. She’s got no reason to lie.”

  “Like I do?” he said indignantly.

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  “Women,” he said with a snort.

  They stood there for almost a minute before Tom finally said, “So we only went out once. Big deal.”

  “Why’d you lie?”

  “For crap’s sake,” Tom said on a sigh of disgust. “What’d she have to bring this up for? It’s not like it happened yesterday, you know.” He hesitated. When Will remained silent, he said, “I figured the rest of you would’ve given me a hard time if you knew we didn’t go out more than once.”

  “You sure that was it, Tom?”

  “What else would it have been?”

  Will refocused and sent the cue ball heading for the last ball on the table. It hit the pocket with a thunk.

  Tom placed his cue on the rack behind the wall. The “good ol’ boy” grin had returned when he swung around and said, “Always were the superior sportsman, weren’t you? Come on out and let me buy you a beer.”

  But Will shook his head and reached for his jacket, no longer able to keep up the conversation with Tom. The need to defend Hannah was too strong. He couldn’t yet ask himself why. And he sure didn’t want to lay it out for Tom’s scrutiny. “Gotta get home. Early day tomorrow. See you around, Tom.”

  As Will drove home that night, he called himself a fool for going out to Clarence’s at all. So what if Tom had lied? It wasn’t a criminal offense. After hearing what Sarah Jacobs had said that afternoon, he’d thought that maybe, just maybe, Tom had been somehow connected to the life Hannah had led the past ten years.

  But that was ridiculous. Tom could not have influenced her life so drastically. There was obviously nothing between them. And there hadn’t been since high school.

  But the thought of Tom’s bragging about what had taken place between Hannah and him tied a knot in Will’s gut. He’d wanted to punch his old friend in the mouth. Hannah deserved better. But then, how was he any different? Hanging around. Comforting her. Offering to be there for her as if he’d be in Lake Perdue indefinitely.

  Rounding the curve just past Tate’s Gas & Go, Will gunned the Cherokee and shot off down the two-lane road, trying to leave the questions behind. But it didn’t work. So he slowed down and forced them into perspective.

  He’d been acting like a fool lately. He didn’t know what he was going do with the rest of his life. If he were honest,
he’d admit that just beneath the surface of their friendship lay the desire to be more than friends. Just as it had ten years ago. That hadn’t changed.

  But neither had the fact that Hannah wouldn’t have anything to do with him if she ever learned the truth about him.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Hannah stepped out of her house the next morning just before six-thirty. The screen door slammed behind her, the only sound in the early-morning stillness. She hugged herself, shivering in the cool morning air, then set off down the sidewalk at a moderate jog, determined that today would be the day she went two miles without stopping. Admittedly, her pace was slow, but placing one foot in front of the other, she’d do it.

  One foot in front of the other. A philosophy at which she ought to be an expert. Trudging along, one day to the next. Week after week. Month after month. Until the years had passed, and she found herself here in Lake Perdue, living the life of a nun. At twenty-eight.

  She picked up the pace, her shoes pounding the sidewalk.

  She’d never minded before. Before?

  Before Will Kincaid came back to Lake Perdue.

  How many times had she told herself it wouldn’t do to get close to him? How many times had she done so, anyway?

  She thought about yesterday and the way he’d held her in his arms, letting her vent her grief. She’d needed him then. How she’d needed him. He’d known it, and he’d been there for her.

  She reached the one-mile point and, making the turn to head back, jogged on, breathing harder now.

  Already, he’d wrought such changes in her life, lassoing her into working on the carnival, bullying her into taking up jogging. Both for which she was grateful.

  Her thoughts went again to the concern he’d shown her. Who would have imagined such tenderness in someone like him? A man whose life-style suggested fast women and fast cars. Love ‘em and leave ‘em. Tenderness? Will Kincaid was kind and gentle. Far different from the image she’d painted of him in her mind over the past ten years.

  Would he be leaving Lake Perdue as he’d planned? Or would he stay on?

  She completed the two miles with a smile of satisfaction. And she realized that she’d also crossed a line from which there was no turning back.

  She had begun to hope.

  But the next week crept by, and Hannah didn’t hear from Will. Pride prevented her from calling him. She forced her mind to other things, tending her roses with gloves now since she had no desire to be pricked again. But she welcomed their blossoming buds with less enthusiasm than she had in years past.

  On Monday, she’d taken Jenny aside and explained what Henry Lawson had confided to her on Saturday.

  Jenny’s astonishment had equaled Hannah’s. “Henry—I mean, Mr. Lawson—can’t read?”

  “It’s hard to believe we didn’t pick up on it, isn’t it?”

  Jenny had nodded, still too stunned to speak.

  “He wants to learn though, Jenny,” Hannah had said. “And I’m going to start teaching him. Would you be willing to help?”

  “Well, of course, I will.”

  “I thought we could take turns for an hour each afternoon when he comes in. The other one can cover the front desk.”

  “Of course we can.”

  They’d begun that afternoon. Hannah had collected some primary books from the children’s room, and she’d started Mr. Lawson out with the basics. He’d said he felt foolish at first, but she’d reassured him, “We all have to start somewhere. There’s no shame in starting at the beginning.”

  And by the end of the lesson, Henry hadn’t been able to hide the pleasure on his face when Hannah praised him for his efforts and the progress he’d made. This kind man, well into his fifties, deprived of the education he’d secretly yearned for over the years was learning to read with an enthusiasm most people couldn’t muster for anything.

  The project meant a lot to Hannah. She both welcomed and needed it. For that one hour during the day, her thoughts did not stray to Will.

  That only left twenty-three others with which to contend.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  The week was one Will didn’t care to repeat. He avoided the telephone and resisted the urge to drive by Hannah’s house. He’d made a decision to back out of her life, for her and himself. Knowing the uncertainty of his own future, he had no business letting her think he might have something to offer her. And he made every effort to follow through on the resolution.

  On Monday afternoon, he went out to his father’s for a visit, hoping that they’d be able to have a conversation that didn’t lead to what he planned to do with his life. The hope had been in vain.

  He let himself in through the back door, surprising Aunt Fan with a bear hug from behind. “It’s about time you got out here to see your Aunt Fan, son. Where you been hiding?” She turned to glare at him, then swatted him with the dishtowel and fussed until he agreed to sample her apple cobbler.

  John Kincaid appeared in the doorway, frowning at Will, who stood by the stove with his arm around Fannie. “Thought you’d forgotten where I lived,” he said, crossing the room to pour himself a cup of coffee.

  The laughter left Will’s face. “Aw, Dad, don’t start.”

  “You come home for the first time in years and spend more time with strangers than you do with your own father.”

  Fannie pushed Will toward a chair and set a plate of apple cobbler in front of him, topping it off with a scoop of ice cream.

  Before he could respond, his father went on, “I’m surprised that agent of yours is letting you get away with this. All those contracts….”

  Will dug into the cobbler. “In case you forgot how it works, Dad, Dan works for me. Not the other way around.”

  John Kincaid snorted and took a swallow of his coffee. “Your not working is money out of his pocket, too, isn’t it?”

  “I guess it is.”

  “Well, then-”

  “I didn’t come out here to argue with you, Dad.”

  As if recognizing the threat in his son’s voice, the elder Kincaid remained quiet for a moment and surveyed Will over the rim of his cup. “You’re still seeing that Jacobs girl, I take it?”

  Will glared at his father before answering. “I think that’s my business. I can see this conversation’s not going to improve.” He pushed back from his chair and went to give Fannie another hug. “Thanks for the dessert,” he whispered, just before he slipped out the back door.

  The rest of the week didn’t get any better. He resisted the urge at least a hundred times to drive to the library and see the rented bookmobile. On Wednesday he gave in to the need to hear Hannah’s voice, picked up the phone and dialed the library number. When she answered, he held the receiver until she hung up, and wondered at the wave of loneliness that washed over him.

  On Thursday afternoon, Will let himself into the house, dripping sweat from the thirty-mile bike ride he’d just completed. He’d pushed himself to the limit the last ten miles or so and still felt the strain in his lungs. For some reason, the self-abuse felt good. The phone was ringing as he unlocked the door. He sprinted across the room and picked it up.

  A woman’s voice asked, “Mr. Kincaid?”

  “Yes?” he managed, still breathing hard.

  “This is Anna Jones, at Meadow Spring Nursing Home. I’ve had a request from one of our patients. Sarah Jacobs?”

  “Yes, what is it?” he asked, alarmed.

  “She’s been asking for someone to call you since she woke up this morning. She’d like to see you. Today, if possible.”

  Will sank into a kitchen chair and rested his forehead against his knuckles. “Do you know why?”

  “I don’t know any more than that, Mr. Kincaid. May I tell her you’ll be here?”

  He closed his eyes and wondered if his going up to Meadow Spring would weave him more tightly into the fabric of Hannah’s life when his sole aim this week had been to extricate himself. He didn’t let himself answer the question, but s
ighed and said, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  An hour and a half later Will made his way down the hall of the nursing home, stopping just short of Sarah Jacobs’s room to draw a deep breath and run a hand through his hair. Outside, the first storm clouds of the season hung low in the sky. Thunder rumbled in the distance. He took another breath, knocked on the door and stepped inside.

  He’d stopped off at a florist and picked up an arrangement of tulips. He now felt awkward standing there with the basket in his hands. She probably wouldn’t even remember him. “Miss Jacobs, I’m Will Kincaid. How are you today?”

  She looked up and managed to smile at him. “What lovely flowers. Are those for me?”

  Will came closer and stopped just short of her bed, uncertain what to do or say now that he was here. “I thought you might enjoy them.”

  “They’ll look pretty there on the windowsill.”

  He nodded and set them by the window, then returned to stand by the bed. “You wanted to see me, ma’am?”

  She sighed, then leaned back against the pillows. “Since Hannah wouldn’t bring you, I called you myself.”

  Will’s heart clenched as he realized the old woman did not remember his being here before. He opened his mouth to speak, but Sarah went on.

  “I can’t tell you how glad I was to learn that Hannah had made a friend. A gentleman friend.”

  Unsure what direction the conversation was taking, he said, “Hannah’s very special.”

  “She is,” the old woman allowed, shaking her head. “Very special. And to think of all the years she’s wasted….”

  Will thought of how he’d accused Hannah of as much, but still found himself saying, “I don’t think she considers her life wasted, Miss Jacobs.”

  Sarah ignored the remark and said, “So many things she could have done. All those colleges trying to recruit her. One incident, one misfortune, can set a person off on such a different path.” She reached across the bed to take his hand in hers, gripping it with a strength surprising in someone so frail. “But you’re here for her now.”