Jar Of Dreams Part 4

She was from Richmond, she'd worked in a restaurant, her parents were dead and she knew Crockett. The description covered everyone in his family and many of his friends and it didn't narrow things down much.

She said she wanted a future, but exactly what kind of future was she talking about and how did she intend to go about securing it? Had Crockett talked enough about his rich aunt that Lucy had set out to ingratiate herself? Crockett wasn't stupid by any means, but he wouldn't be the first man duped by false innocence.

That was what Kelly thought had happened, but it didn't quite ring true with Boone.

In the first place, Aunt Gert wasn't anybody's fool. Other than Crockett's, she'd never been taken in by a pretty face, and since he was her nephew-Crockett's mother was Gert's sister-Boone supposed that didn't count.

Secondly, in Boone's experience, which admittedly was confined to watching television and reading newspapers, people who set out to bilk others of their worldly goods did so because they weren't willing to work at making an honest living. Most of them didn't work in gas stations with no thought of being paid. They didn't stand on ladders to polish chandeliers, dismantle toilets to remove toys that had been flushed by small patrons, or help recalcitrant students study for chemistry exams.

Lucy had done all of those things this week. Jack had been reluctant to accept help with his homework, although he was happy with the cookies and milk Lucy offered. She'd nagged him until he sat at the island with his books and answered the questions she fired at him while she worked. When he'd wanted to give up, she bribed him with more cookies.

Gert'd asked if she'd ever considered teaching. Lucy said she hadn't.

Jack'd said that was a good thing, because she was G.o.dawful at chemistry.

Boone laughed, remembering Lucy's indignation and the cup of ice she'd dumped on the boy's head. Then Jack had taken out the trash without being asked, exchanging grins with Lucy when she opened the door for him.

"Where did Jack come from?" Boone took the cup of steaming chocolate Lucy handed him.

She sat beside him. "I don't know. He was already working here when I came." She smiled fondly. "He's a nice kid."

Boone nodded. "Seems to be."

They drank their chocolate, making desultory conversation, then Lucy stood, gathering their cups and putting them upside down in the dishwasher. "I enjoyed the dinner," she said. "Thank you."

"I did, too." He watched her disappear up the back stairs, then wandered through the house checking locks. He didn't want to think about the last reason he'd nearly decided to trust Lucy, although it was working its way around the edges of his mind. He started up the front steps at a sprint. If he could just get into his third-floor bedroom before the thought developed fully, he could escape it. He could shuck his jeans and crawl into bed and think about the strip or about an idea for the political cartoons he occasionally drew.

Then he'd fall asleep, having survived another day without...her.

But he didn't make it. By the time he reached the first landing, with its faceted round window displaying the light of the full moon, Maggie's face filled his mind and her laughter echoed softly through his heart. He could almost feel her hand on his face, nearly heard her voice as he remembered her saying, "Of course Elmer and Myrtle love each other, just like Sims and Gert do. What would ever make you think I can't see into your heart?"

He rounded the second landing of the staircase and lifted his head as a familiar scent touched his nose lightly, like a feather drifting past. Lilac. Maggie had always smelled of lilacs. Of spring. Of eternal hope.

"For our dreams," she used to say, dropping change from her purse into the crystal bowl that sat on her piano-the parlor grand he'd bought her when he'd signed the contract for the first collection book of "Elmer and Myrtle" cartoons.

By the time he closed his bedroom door, the pain had engulfed him. On auto-pilot, he opened the slatted blinds to let the moonlight and its shadows into the room before sinking onto the bed to lie on his back and stare at the angled ceiling. If he lay still and tried to force his mind to go blank and empty, sometimes the pain would ebb away to numbness and allow him to sleep.

Lucy kept her dreams in a gla.s.s pickle jar on Aunt Gert's counter. The fact that she kept them at all was the third reason he couldn't think she was less than honest.

He'd buried his own dreams in a cemetery outside of Taft under a stone that read, "Maggie Brennan. Beloved wife and daughter." He no longer believed in dreams or the future or hope.

Reaching into the wastebasket that sat between the bed and the desk, he took out the beer can he'd placed in it the night before. He crushed it slowly in one hand, working at it.

And realized that even though he didn't believe in any of those things, meeting Lucy Dolan had made him wish he did.

Chapter Five.

"I never realized how hard Sims and Aunt Gert worked."

Crockett, Boone, Kelly and Lucy sat around the table in the sunroom off the kitchen. The weary remark had come from Kelly, but any of them could have said it. The three days since Sims's accident had been long and difficult.

"Why don't we close the tearoom, at least for the summer?" Boone suggested. "Aunt Gert's bound and determined she's going to take care of Sims when he comes home, and she can't do both. We can't close the gas station-I'm as scared of Sims now as I was when I was in high school."

"No." Lucy sipped sweet tea with a frown, thinking she'd added too much mint when she brewed it.

"No?" Kelly's voice rose and thinned with the word. "Need I remind you that this is still our aunt's home, and none of us has the time to run the tearoom and this house? Crockett will be going back to Virginia any day now. I have a practice that needs my attention. Even Boone has business he has to conduct."

"So do I," Lucy said evenly, setting her gla.s.s down so no one would see her hand shaking. "I know this is your aunt's house, but that doesn't alter the fact that I pay to live in it or that I own half the business. I need to make a living, and the tearoom is how I do it. You're welcome to keep an eye on the books to make sure I don't abscond with the funds or the china, but Tea on Twilight isn't closing, even temporarily."

"I hardly think a handshake and a contract written on a notepad from a campaigning politician are things I can't get around if I need to in order to protect Aunt Gert's interests," Kelly said evenly. "I don't want to put you out on the street, but I wouldn't hesitate to do so if I thought it was best for her."

"Kelly!" Fury vibrated through Boone's voice. "This isn't a time for threats, nor has Lucy done anything to earn them. If you don't have anything constructive to suggest, why don't you go home?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Boone, she's a perfect stranger, another stray of Crockett's. Don't tell me you're taking her side." Tears glittered in Kelly's eyes.

As angry as she was, Lucy felt the pain and exhaustion of those tears and was sorry for it. She was as tired as Kelly was, and the street of dislike definitely went both ways. "Maybe I should-"

"Let's stop before everyone says things they don't mean." Crockett's voice was calm and patient-Lucy didn't know how he did it. "Everybody's tired."

Kelly spoke stiffly. "I won't be here tomorrow or the next day. I have to be in court." When she got up, she knocked her gla.s.s to the floor, flinching when it shattered against the hardwood. "I'll make sure not to count that one against you when we inventory the dishes, Lucy."

She didn't clean it up, either, just left the house without further comment. The silence between Boone and Crockett was even louder than usual after she left, and Lucy wished they would go home, too. This had been such a happy house before they'd descended on it, the easygoing atmosphere not affected even by Kelly's snippiness, but the anger between the two men hovered like a dark cloud.

She went for the broom and dustpan, and when she came back to the sunroom, Crockett was gone and Boone was picking up the larger shards of gla.s.s and laying them carefully on his plate.

"I apologize for my sister," he said, taking the dustpan and holding it for her to sweep the splintered gla.s.s into. "I really don't know what her problem is."

"Well." Lucy shook her head, hoping to somehow dislodge the weariness from her soul as well as her voice. "It seems to be me." She took the dustpan from him. "Thank you."

He helped her carry the dishes into the kitchen. "How did you meet Crockett?" he asked, double-bagging the broken gla.s.s.

She wanted to say it was none of his business, but that would have sounded as though she had something to hide. And she didn't. There was a difference between hiding something and not wanting to talk about it.

"I told you before, he came into the restaurant where I worked," she said. "Even in a city the size of Richmond, servers become familiar with regulars. You know, calling them by name, pouring their coffee before they order it. After a while, you remember if the customer hates tomatoes or wheat toast or whatever. It was that way with Crockett, although I never knew his full name until he gave me a business card and told me to come to Indiana and call Gert." She closed the door of the dishwasher and turned it on, then leaned wearily against it. "I just called him Father."

He forgot sometimes.

Boone changed into running shoes and left the house as quietly as he could. He stopped to warm up, pushing against the sycamore tree in the front yard, then took off, heading toward downtown. It felt good to stretch his muscles. He slowed to a walk long enough to make sure everything was okay at the gas station-it was closed for the night, but the pumps were still open for business-then speeded up again. After the bridge, he turned onto the River Walk. He hated running on the cobbles that paved the path, but he loved the Walk and the sounds and smells of the river.

He waved at Eli St. John, who was running the other way with a couple of his kids, and kept going. He pa.s.sed the park bench where he'd proposed to Maggie on a sunny summer day, another one where he'd sat and wept after he lost her. Crockett had sat with him that time, neither speaking nor touching him.

In the three years since Maggie died, Boone had often wondered if the man who'd sat on the bench with him had been doing his job or being a friend. Unless he was going to ma.s.s, Crockett seldom wore his collar when he visited Taft. He was just the guy who'd once been his best friend, who had a tattoo of a c.o.o.nskin cap high on his thigh that matched the one on Boone's-the only lasting result of a hilarious and often drunken spring break spent on a Florida beach.

However, being reminded of his former friend's vocation lightened a load Boone hadn't realized he carried.

Father Crockett had met Lucy first, he'd invited her to come to Taft, and he was fond of her. But he wasn't in love with her-Boone would know if he was. It wasn't like fifteen years ago when Noah Crockett had come home from Notre Dame for the weekend, bringing beautiful Maggie Martino to meet Aunt Gert. Boone had been there too, home from art school for the weekend. That was when they all learned that there really was such a thing as love at first sight.

Sweat was pouring off Boone when he got back to Main Street, and his legs felt rubbery when he slowed to cool down. By the time he reached the house on Twilight Park Avenue, however, he felt energized. He'd be able to draw for a couple of hours before going to sleep.

Lights were on in the kitchen, and he went in to find Lucy working at the island, a row of pie crusts arranged in front of her. "Why are you still up?" He filled a gla.s.s with orange juice and lifted the carton in mute invitation. "You were exhausted at dinner, even before Kelly had her tantrum."

Lucy shook her head, pointing at her teacup. "I don't always sleep well," she said, "so sometimes I bake in the middle of the night." She smiled as she poured hot lemon filling into two of the crusts. "My guilty conscience, remember?"

He held up the hand that wasn't holding his juice, palm out. "Mea culpa."

"You're forgiven." She placed plastic wrap across the surface of the pies and turned to put them in the huge refrigerator.

"But, in all seriousness, why can't you sleep? Have you seen a doctor?"

"I was my father's primary caregiver." Her voice was devoid of emotion, but her eyes looked haunted and dark. "Long after he didn't know who I was, he could still cook. We lived above the restaurant, and he would go down during the wee hours and start serving up meals to clientele who weren't there. I'd have to come down and talk him back up to bed. It was nothing for it to happen three times a night."

"How long has he been gone?"

"He died a little over a year ago, but he was gone way before that. Whoever first called Alzheimer's 'the long goodbye' had it exactly right." She went to the stove, stirring the pan of cherry pie filling that simmered there. "Even then, you're not really prepared. My life had been on hold for five years before Dad died. Everything I did revolved around him. I had no idea what to do with myself when he was gone and all the legal stuff was over, and I still wanted him back." Tears shone in her eyes, darkening them still further. "I still wanted my daddy, just like a little kid."

"I know." Boone finished his juice. "Our parents were killed in a car wreck when I was twelve and Kelly was ten. Twenty-some years later, I still want them sometimes. I just want to be able to tell them things." He went to refill the gla.s.s. "When Maggie and I got married, she set a picture of Mom and Dad on the altar with the candles, 'so they could see the whole thing,' she said." He couldn't help it-his voice grew thick with the memory. "My faith is iffy at the best of times, but I hope she's with them now, that they're taking care of each other. Maggie's mother says she believes they're together. It's helped her to cope."

"I hope so, too." Her gaze met his, and the tears spilled over, trailing starlike down her cheeks. "And I hope Dad's cooking for them."

Boone supposed as romantic moments went, this particular one was a failure, but he felt closer to Lucy than he had to anyone since Maggie. Not only emotionally close, but something else, too. He just wasn't ready to identify what it was, much less do anything about it.

"Well." He cleared his throat. "I'm going to bed. Anything I can help you with?"

She shook her head. "Goodnight."

He walked behind her to the back stairs, then stepped back to put a hand on her shoulder and ma.s.sage lightly. "Don't let Kelly bother you, okay? I'm not close to her anymore, so I can't begin to explain what's wrong with her, but-I don't know-just give her a break, I guess. I'm not sure she deserves it, but I think she needs it."

"I'm all right." She turned far enough to meet his gaze. "I don't really think it's me she's mad at, just circ.u.mstances. We've all been there."

So they had. He grabbed his clean clothes from the table in the laundry room and went up to his room. He paused in the sitting area on the third floor landing. The door to Crockett's room was closed. Maggie had been the "circ.u.mstances" that had driven a wedge between them, and even though they were at least polite these days, they'd never become close again.

Boone missed his best friend.

"Come see what I found." Crockett's voice rang through the first floor, and Lucy came out of the kitchen, tossing a dish towel over her shoulder.

"Gert!" She embraced the older woman who stood in the parlor casting a critical eye on the tables already set for tomorrow's lunch. "You've lost weight. Come on in here and have something to eat while you tell me about Sims. I saved a piece of pie for Crockett, but you can have that, too. It's a nice big one."

"Thanks a lot, friend," Crockett said dryly. "I'm going down to take over for Boone at the station. One of us will take you back to Cincinnati in the morning, Aunt Gert," he promised, kissing his aunt's cheek.

"Nonsense." She batted his shoulder. "I can drive myself."

"Yeah, right. You taught Boone to drive. I can't in good conscience turn you loose on the interstate, much less on the city of Cincinnati. Just think how many people that would endanger. Lucy, you got anything you need me to deliver?"

"Four pies to Nancy Walker if you have time. She's hosting a retired teachers' meeting tonight. Ethan-you remember she's married to Micah Walker's father?-is going to work at the station, too, since he says he'll be in the way if he stays home, so you'll only have to be there a few hours, Crockett."

"Oh, good, I can see you all at once," Gert said. "I'll call Kelly and invite her over for dinner. I can let everyone in on what will happen when Sims comes home." Her gaze was apologetic when she met Lucy's eyes. "I plan on bringing him here. He's healing well for an old buzzard, but he can't handle the stairs at his house."

Lucy wanted to protest. Bringing Sims to Tea on Twilight to convalesce would necessitate closing at least one of the serving rooms-the only bedroom downstairs was Gert's. Would the older woman want to close the tearoom while Sims healed? If she did, how would Lucy live during the down time? I'll find a way. Jenny might hire me or maybe Sims would put me on the payroll. I've figured out what a dipstick is, at least. The thought made her grin despite her concern. "Come have some lunch," she said. "It was that new quiche recipe. You can tell me what you think."

She emptied the dishwasher while her landlady ate and called Kelly at her office to issue an invitation to dinner. Lucy pondered the big room with its wide windows and open shelving. She could spend her whole life in this kitchen, with old and new so beautifully and comfortably mixed in its decor.

"Seven o'clock." Gert hung up the phone and rubbed her hands together. "Kelly works until six today. I'm cooking," she added decisively, "so you, my dear, have the rest of the afternoon off."

Lucy scanned the older woman's face, certain more lines had appeared over the past five days. "Don't you want to rest, Gert? I don't mind cooking."

"All I do at the hospital is rest. The nurses take wonderful care of Sims-I'm just there for him to complain at, which he's got down to a fine science. Now, be off with you."

"Okay, okay." Lucy put the last of the dishes away and took her ap.r.o.n into the laundry room. She loaded the day's tablecloths into the washer while she was in there, and when she came out, Boone was hugging Gert.

Lucy wished he was hugging her-that his hands were splayed over her ribs, his chin against her temple. Girl-type muscles she tried not to think about tightened in response to the idea of being in his arms, and she leaned against the counter. Weakness crept warmly down her legs, and she took a moment just to enjoy it.

"You've got close to three hours free." He met her eyes over his aunt's head. "What do you say we drive down to Rising Sun and hit the gambling boat there? We can probably win enough to buy red velvet wallpaper for when you turn the place into a brothel."

Lucy widened her eyes in mock outrage. "You told him we were going ahead with the bordello this year? I thought it was a secret."

"He pried it out of me." Gert flapped a hand at them. "Now, go on, you two, I'm going to make lasagna."

"Do I need to change?" Lucy took stock of her peach T-shirt and brown capris. At least she wasn't wearing the ingredients to anything. One thing growing up in a restaurant did for you was teach you to wear an ap.r.o.n.

"Nope. You'll be fine. Come on." Boone kissed the top of his aunt's head and reached for Lucy's hand.

"Wait." She pulled away and went over to her pickle jar, rummaging among the coins, bills and pieces of paper until she came up with two twenties. "This is it," she said, waving the cash. "If I can't win enough with this, we're going to have to forget the wallpaper and make do with pasting up comics from the Sunday paper. We could make 'Elmer and Myrtle' a focal point and work from there."

In Boone's Jeep, Lucy buckled her seatbelt and settled into relaxation mode to enjoy the twenty-minute drive. Maybe if she closed her eyes, she could ride with Boone without panicking. Not likely, but anything was possible. "This was a good idea," she said, wondering if she had an allergy pill in her purse. Not that she was allergic to his driving-specifically-but one of the little pink caplets would help her relax. "I haven't been outside the city limits in a week." She closed her eyes-at least that way, she couldn't see whatever was coming. Besides, riding along with her eyes shut and the sun shining warm through the windows felt good. She tucked her knees up into the seat and pillowed her cheek on a soft sweatshirt he'd reached into the back for and handed her.

"The sign hasn't changed. No one was born or died this week." He said something else then, but she didn't quite catch what it was.

He woke her when he parked outside the casino. "Were you really that tired," he asked, "or should I take all that snoring personally?"

She grinned at him. "You forget that I've ridden with you before, so you can take it as personally as you like."

He laughed, reaching to tug at a curl that had sprung loose from her ponytail. "Come on. Let's go win your wallpaper."

Lucy hadn't been in a casino since a weekend restaurateur seminar in Atlantic City many years ago. She'd lost a week's worth of tips in her first hour on the glittering premises and sworn never to gamble again. This one was as bright and noisy as she remembered. However, there had been something added since her last venture. "They have penny slot machines," she said, pointing. "I want to play those."

He gestured. "Lead the way."