Chapter 8 #2
The last time he’d seen her had been a little more than a year ago.
Jimmy had been dead for two years, and he’d been avoiding coming home, avoiding the terrible truth that if he came back without Jimmy he’d know that Jimmy wasn’t coming back.
But his mother had gotten sick, and he hadn’t been able to put it off any longer, and he’d come back. ..and gone to see Lou.
She’d been in the garage behind the house, alone. Mary was in school, Elda was a clubwoman, and only Hattie was there in the kitchen, looking at him out of her warm brown eyes as she sent him to find Lou.
Lou had always been surprisingly good at machinery, and she was bent over the engine of her blue roadster, frowning with concentration, and he stopped and watched her covertly for a moment Thinking about what Jimmy had lost.
Thinking about what he’d thrown away.
And then she saw him, and her face lit up with a smile, and she dropped the wrench she was holding and ran toward him like the tomboy she’d once been.
And then she stopped short of flinging herself in his arms, remembering. Remembering too much.
“Hi, Jack,” she said. He’d dreamed about her husky voice—long, erotic dreams that made him feel as if he was betraying his kid brother.
“Hey, Lou,” he said. “I wanted to come by and see how you were doing.”
“I’m fine. College is great, I’ve got a new car, and—” Her bright voice faded, her face crumpled, and she threw herself into his arms.
It hurt more than he could have imagined. For three years he’d held his emotions in check, and now Lou’s sobbing brought it all back. He missed his brother, damn it He missed him like hell.
He didn’t know how he managed to end up kissing her. It just happened. The feel of her warm, soft body against his, the swell of her breasts, the scent of perfume and flowers and the hot sun. And Jimmy was dead, and Lou was alive, in his arms, and he just kissed her.
And she kissed him back. It was no sisterly kiss, no closemouthed, Hollywood kiss simulating passion. He tipped her head back and kissed her hard, and she answered him with awkward, desperate passion. As if she knew their chances were running out and she was scared.
He didn’t know what had broken their embrace.
Maybe it was the distant slam of a car door, maybe it was the wind, maybe it was his guilty conscience for trying to steal his kid brother’s girl.
All he knew was that she’d shoved him away, a look of such grief and horror on her face that his desire had vanished.
And that was the last time he’d seen her until tonight, when he’d conned his way past Hattie and gone to her bedroom, planning to leave a note for her, only to find her sleeping like a baby in her rumpled wedding gown.
He should have left He should never have gone to her bedroom in the first place, and once he saw she was there he should have slunk away like a junkyard dog.
But she’d looked like Sleeping Beauty, and he’d wanted to kiss her awake. She looked like every dream he’d ever had, everything he’d wanted and given up on long ago. And instead he’d taken a seat by the window and watched her as she slept.
She was a fool to marry a heel like Neddie Marsden.
For three years Jack had been trying to prove that Marsden’s company had siphoned off illegal profits from the war effort, and gotten rich by doing it Gotten rich from the blood of America’s fighting men.
And old man Abbott, who’d never liked the upstart McGowan boys, had gotten rich, as well.
Now he was trading his older daughter...for what? For more money? For protection? And Lou, with the life almost gone from her huge, beautiful brown eyes, looked as if she’d given up fighting.
Damn, he wished Jimmy were still here. Jimmy would never have let something like this happen. If Jimmy hadn’t been killed in France during the last days of the war, he’d be back home, married to Lou, and there would already be at least one baby on the way.
And just maybe Jack wouldn’t have minded.
But he minded like hell a war profiteer like Marsden ending up with Jimmy’s true love. And he wasn’t about to let that happen.
He had two days to stop it. So far he’d been unable to get enough proof that Marsden was crooked, and he was ready to give up trying.
He had to get on with his life. He couldn’t bring Neddie down without toppling the mighty Abbotts, as well, and while he didn’t give a tinker’s damn about Elda and Ridley, Lou and her little sister were a different matter.
He didn’t want to see their lives ruined.
But he could keep Lou from wrecking her future by marrying the wrong man.
Tomorrow they were holding a rehearsal dinner, and all it had taken was a little well-applied flirtation, and Elda had invited him, despite Neddie’s glower.
He’d find time to talk to Lou once more, to try to convince her that she was making the mistake of her life.
It was up to her whether she’d listen or not.
At least he would know he had done his damnedest, for Jimmy’s sake and for Lou’s.
He was going back overseas—he had an offer to work for one of the foreign news bureaus, and he found he’d developed a bad case of itchy feet.
America didn’t seem like home anymore. There were too many places to see, too much stuff going on in a world turned upside down by the cataclysmic war.
Most people he knew were buying those tiny little houses Levitt and Marsden and others were putting up. They were settling down to a safe, carefully circumscribed life.
It wasn’t for him.
Funny, but he wouldn’t have drought it was for the likes of Lou Abbott, either. As a kid she’d always been full of imagination and adventure, longing for distant lands and travel. Life must have beaten that out of her.
But he still wasn’t going to stand by and let her de herself to Neddie Marsden without her knowing exactly what she was getting into.
Maybe Jack couldn’t pin anything on him, but sooner or later someone would, and Lou would be dragged down with him.
If he gave her a chance to escape he would have done his duty.
And then he could leave for Asia with a clear conscience, and just maybe, when he ran into her again, he’d finally be over her.
And maybe pigs would fly.
Mary Abbott pushed her silvery hair back with a weary hand, closing the bedroom door as she stepped back. “She must be exhausted, poor girl,” she murmured.
Alex Donovan stood watching her, his expression giving nothing away. “She’s not sick is she?”
“Just worn-out You don’t realize how much work a formal wedding is.”
“No, I suppose I don’t Do you suppose we would have had better luck if we’d had one?”
Mary shook her head, a regretful smile on her face. “They never would have let us get that far. That’s why we eloped, remember?”
“I remember,” he said. “Are they why you left?”
“Don’t,” Mary said. She leaned her head against the closed door for a moment taking a deep, calming breath. “I don’t need to worry about her, do I?” she asked, knowing she sounded helpless, somehow not minding. In Susan’s thirty years she’d never been able to turn to Susan’s father for support.
“Not about Susan,” he said. “You raised her well, Mary. She’s a fighter. I think you’re right—her body’s worn-out and needs to recoup its strength. She’ll wake up when she’s ready to.”
“She’s slept all day.”
“She’ll be all right, Mary,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. The touch, after so many years, was still familiar. “Trust me,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. And she knew, deep in her heart, that she always had.