Dream a Little Dream

by Melinda Curtis

  Darcy kept smiling, but her stomach did a little flip the way it did when she sat alone in Dad’s truck on a dark road while he stole cattle.

  “But you two have good character. And you’re smart enough to know that your parents don’t always set a good example.” He glanced toward Darcy’s mother and then at Jason. “It’s hard to be an adult and always do the right thing. If you feel angry, hit a ball, not your friend’s face. If you want a pretty dress, work hard for the money to buy it, don’t steal.”

  Jason nodded.

  Darcy nodded, but she didn’t feel so good.

  “Darcy?” Mom called to her.

  Judge Harper let her go.

  She sat next to her mother but she stared at her feet because everything Judge Harper had said had a ring of truth to it.

  “Darcy.” Mom took her hand. “Listen to me. Your father and me…We’re going away for a while.”

  Darcy knew what that meant. They were going to prison. But they’d never gone at the same time before.

  “Judge Harper has made arrangements for you to stay with a nice family in Sunshine and your brother to stay in Greeley.” Mom’s smile was off in a way Darcy couldn’t explain. “I know you like to make friends, but you have to remember our life is secret. You wouldn’t want to tell someone about me and make me stay away longer? Or spill a secret about yourself that sends you back here.”

  “No,” Darcy said quickly.

  “Good.” Mom smoothed Darcy’s hair. “You look pretty today. Remember that people will like you if you show them what they like to see.”

  “Did I lose you?” Adult Jason stroked Darcy’s hair and pressed another kiss to her forehead. “You went away for a second.”

  He didn’t realize how far she’d gone. “While you’re here, you need to park around back,” Darcy told him, refusing to let him inside until he’d done so. She stood at the kitchen door, waiting for him to bring in his duffel bag. “There’ll be no more kisses.” No more temptation.

  “I’m fine with that.” He flashed a grin that brought out his dimples.

  I want more kisses.

  Darcy held on to Stogey the way a child clung to a security blanket. But as she opened the door to let Jason in, she experienced the first shaft of pure happiness she’d had in George’s home.

  The George she’d married had been tall and gangly, a skeleton of the hale man he’d once been. He’d blended in with the darkly paneled house with its heavy drapes and shuttered windows that protected his sensitivity to light. When he’d entered a room, it’d been with bowed shoulders, shuffling feet, and a booming, gravelly voice that defied the weakness of his physical being.

  Jason was tall and broad, his blond hair a beacon in the shadowy house. He stood out, a ray of sunshine and energy. His boots scuffed the linoleum. His heels rang as he planted them to take stock of his surroundings. His smile and laughter were just what she needed. What she’d always needed.

  More than she needed to launch her law career?

  She was afraid to answer that question.

  * * *

  “This is the kitchen.” Darcy clutched Stogey like a shield.

  Jason hung his hat on a hook by the door, running a hand through his hair as he took in his surroundings. “I thought it’d be grander.”

  The house was dark. The lighting limited to small lamps. The door he’d come through was gouged at Stogey height. The kitchen cabinets were a soft shade of yellow, a faint attempt at cheerfulness. The butcher-block counters and small kitchen dinette tried to convey warmth. Overall, it felt like a place to sleep, not live.

  “George wasn’t into material possessions,” Darcy said defensively.

  “Except for that fancy iron gate.” And its electronic security panel.

  Darcy didn’t argue. She gestured toward an alcove off the kitchen. “That’s the sunroom.” It had two rattan chairs, built-in white Shaker benches beneath the windows, and brightly colored pillows and drapes. “It looks out over the pond.”

  “It looks like it was constructed in this century.” And lived in by someone other than George.

  “He had it built for Imogene when she got sick.” Instead of expanding upon that, she led him through a doorway into the dining room without saying anything.

  The dining room needed no introduction. The table would seat at least twelve. The red cherrywood was out of fashion. Even he knew that, and Jason wasn’t up on trends. It was big and ornate and ponderous on the soul. He was liking this house less and less the longer he was inside.

  “Living room.” Darcy paused, looking around as if seeing it for the first time. Or through his eyes.

  The room was oblong, broken by a round brick fireplace in the center with a humongous black metal flue hanging from the ceiling. A small television was positioned in front of two matching green recliners, one more faded and worn than the other. The wood floors were stained a dark brown. The curtains black and drawn closed. On the far side of the fireplace was a piano with worn keys and a white couch with big orange flowers. The couch cushions didn’t fit snugly against the couch back, as if they’d been washed and shrunk.

  “The judge lived here?” It was hard to believe. He’d expected some luxury, more like Rupert’s office. Instead it was more like…his apartment. And finally Jason understood what he’d been unwilling to believe in the kitchen. “He really didn’t care about the finer things in life at all.”

  Unlike his sons.

  “He cared about the law. He cared about people. And justice.” Darcy held her head high, as if girded against Jason’s poor opinion of the house she’d come to call home.

  He slung an arm across her shoulder and hugged her to his side, the way friends do. “He was like us.” Reluctantly Jason released her. He’d promised not to pressure her. This tour…this stay…it was a gift. An inside look into her life with George.

  “He was like us,” Darcy echoed hollowly. She led him down a dimly lit hallway.

  He was going to take Ken’s advice and make this place better for Darcy to live in, starting with installing bright light bulbs and opening those drapes. Somehow he’d repair the scratched kitchen door and whatever else needed upkeep.

  “That’s George’s room.” She continued past it without further discussion. “And this is his study, which is where you’ll sleep.” She paused and added, almost as an afterthought, “There’s a sofa sleeper in there. I’ll get you some blankets and pillows.”

  He dropped his duffel to the brown shag floor.

  She led him past another room. “That’s my bedroom.”

  Her bedroom.

  It wasn’t George’s bedroom.

  Jason almost sank to his knees to give praise to Jesus. Since that day outside the courthouse, he’d tried fitting Darcy’s marriage into a business-deal-type box. But there’d always been that niggle of doubt. And now he knew.

  Darcy didn’t sleep with George.

  He’d told himself for months that it’d be okay with him if she had. Their love—his and Darcy’s—was different. He knew it to the core of his being. Whatever feelings she’d had for another man were separate from the love she had for Jason.

  Didn’t mean he hadn’t had doubts. Didn’t mean he hadn’t lain awake long into the night and wrestled with jealousy.

  But now he knew for certain. He knew, and he breathed a deep sigh of relief.

  She led him back into the sunroom. “And that’s it.”

  “It’s not very big.”

  She shook her head, still clutching that dog, whose short legs hung limply over her forearm like those of a leopard sleeping on a tree branch. The dog was relaxed, but Darcy wasn’t. She fiddled with her wedding ring, turning it with her left thumb. Not looking at anything. Not him. Not the dog.

  He was missing something. Jason glanced around the kitchen. There was an empty bowl in the sink. He glanced around the sunroom. There was an empty Coke can on a coffee table. He hadn’t seen signs of life anywhere else in the house. “You stay in these
rooms.” He made a sweeping gesture to indicate the kitchen and sunroom.

  “Yes. I studied with George in here. At the table. In the sunroom sometimes.” Her words were stiff. Stilted. Her gaze jerked about. “He spent a lot of time in bed. In the dark. He was sick. Sicker than anyone knew. He needed help to get up, to get dressed, to get to work and back.”

  “You were his nurse?” His neck spasmed as his head jerked back. A reflexive response to a shocking revelation. “Tell me you didn’t clean the house and mow the lawn too.”

  “He needed me. Not just for physical care but to ensure he went out on his terms.” Darcy’s blue eyes were huge. By degrees her chin came up. “I don’t regret it. He turned my life around.”

  Thoughts and revelations flew by too fast to register.

  She’d married a man who needed a caregiver, who insisted she study the law rather than work, who didn’t tell her he was making her his heir. And then there was Darcy’s insistence that she live up to George’s standards. And the old man’s voice in her head. He’d dangled Darcy’s dream in front of her, all the while pulling strings.

  Rage bubbled in his veins.

  Jason prided himself on the fact that he didn’t rail. He didn’t demand to know exactly what had gone on under this roof while she was married to George. He didn’t stomp around, lashing out like a wounded bull.

  Instead he came forward, set the dog down, and wrapped his arms around her because he knew this woman better than he knew himself. She looked like a Jones, like she could take whatever obstacle life threw in her path. But inside, she was a delicate flower. “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. I wanted to make as much money as I could for us for as long as I could. And because of that you ended up here. I should have known you weren’t happy. I should have taken one look at you and seen the truth.” That she needed his help, his love, a flippin’ rescue.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Darcy’s arms circled his waist. “You don’t have to be sorry. I made a choice. I knew it would be as difficult as being in foster care. In some ways this was easier.”

  Meaning that in some ways it wasn’t.

  “I loved George like a father. Without his involvement in my life, I would probably have gone to jail by now. What’s a year of my life when weighed against that?”

  The wounded bull banged around his chest, demanding action, retribution, revenge. But still, he held her tenderly.

  “The town…Rupert and Oliver…Everyone’s wrong.” Jason drew her closer, wanting to absorb her into his very being so she’d know she wasn’t alone. If he had his way, she’d never be alone again. “George gave you everything out of guilt.”

  Darcy shook her head. “I think he believed marrying me rescued me from becoming a stay-at-home mom instead of an attorney. I think he left me everything as payment for becoming Judge Harper. Not for seven months. But forever. I think he believed no one would make Darcy Jones a judge. I certainly wouldn’t have.”

  Later, after he and Darcy sat for hours at the kitchen table—him holding her hand, her clinging to Stogey…after she brought him up to speed on her marriage, on her struggles to understand the law to George’s high standards, on Pearl’s angry grief…after she confessed her desire to give the money and properties to George’s sons and Pearl and her fear of losing Stogey…after listening helplessly to her claim that she’d do it all again—Jason sprawled on the hard-coiled sofa sleeper mattress in George’s study and stared out the open window at the blanket of stars, waiting for a star to fall so he could make a wish for Darcy, a wish for that fresh start she wanted far, far away from the web George Harper had woven.

  Because she deserved to choose her own destiny.

  George’s office smelled like old wool suits, cigars, and decaying books. It smelled of old money and old man. Of desperation in a man’s last days.

  Jason couldn’t imagine devising such a plot. He’d grown up on a small sheep ranch owned by generations of Reeds, his mother’s family. Their house, the house his mother still lived in, was a small farmhouse over one hundred years old. It was filled with antiques. He got a kink in his neck just thinking about the wood-trimmed antique love seat in the living room. It wasn’t made for lounging. But Mom always said there was no reason to buy new furniture when the old held up. Dad had supplemented their ranch income (translation: paid the bills) with his farm supply salesman job. Those sheep were the first animals Jason had ridden on. His first horse had been a wild mustang his father received in lieu of payment. He’d learned to fall off without breaking a wrist on that horse. He’d grown up with socks mended so many times they were paper thin. Jeans he’d grown out of and tucked into his boots to avoid being labeled as a flood-wearer in school.

  Money, the kind of money that allowed you to buy a car because it was Tuesday—it’d been a dream. Like Ken said, Jason had that kind of money now. It was just…the money wasn’t as important to him as Darcy and her happiness. He’d been going through life grateful for the opportunity to climb on a bull and put his manhood to the test every week. He would have paid someone for the privilege. But by some twist of fate, they paid him.

  So he could relate to this house not being a showpiece, to George and his passion for the law. But he couldn’t relate to the way the old man had treated Darcy.

  Jason punched his pillow.

  Darcy, jeez. She’d lived here for nearly a year. The two times preteen Jason had gone before George, he’d been scared to death. And the judge had known it. He’d scared Jason straight when he’d sentenced him to juvenile hall.

  As for Darcy…

  George had also seen Darcy throughout her childhood and teen years. He’d known she was intent upon going to law school. One year, he’d even awarded her a scholarship so she could work fewer hours waitressing at Shaw’s. George knew what Darcy wanted. And him being the type of judge he was—a man who presented you with hard choices and the hard truth about your life—he knew how to railroad folks down a path. He’d railroaded Darcy into marriage and a seat on the bench.

  Slimy bastard. Jason punched his pillow once more.

  I’m being judged without a trial.

  Jason sat up, glancing furtively around the room. The voice had sounded garbled, ancient, almost the way he remembered George sounding the last time he’d seen him in December, when he’d taken the time to speak to Jason at Shaw’s.

  Jason lay back down. Darcy’s belief that she heard George’s voice in her head was getting to him.

  That and his guilt for not recognizing the jam Darcy had gotten herself into.

  Don’t feel guilty, boy. Darcy rebounded, same way she’s always done.

  Jason jerked to a sitting position again, wide-awake and a bit unnerved. After a moment he whispered, “Get out of my head, George.”

  He thought he heard laughter. But there was no more commentary.

  In the morning he convinced himself he’d dreamed the entire thing.

  * * *

  Darcy’s alarm went off far too soon, jolting her out of a sound sleep.

  She’d gone to bed last night comfortable with the truths she’d shared with Jason about her marriage to George but ruing the fact that she hadn’t told him she’d been a juvenile delinquent.

  She rolled over and stared in the direction of the alarm clock. The numbers were obscured. She must have left something on the bedside table.

  She rubbed her eyes and sat up. The gray light of dawn peeping through the window revealed the obstruction.

  A Coke can had been placed in a glass tumbler with ice, so that the can was kept cold. It blocked her view of the time.

  “Jason?” Her bedroom door was closed but not latched. She smiled. This was their normal. He’d leave her an iced can of Coke in the morning and go for a run.

  She turned on the bedroom light. A scrap of paper with two scribbled words sat on top of the can: Love, Jason.

  Jason loves me.

  She put Stogey on the carpet, where he stretched and yawned and released a characterist
ic toot.

  She popped open the Coke and poured half its contents over ice. Jason would be out somewhere running, starting his day with miles logged while she slept.

  “Just warming up,” he’d say, flashing that trademark grin upon his return.

  Darcy drank the soda while padding down the hall to the kitchen door. “Come on, Stogey.” She put on a jacket over her pajamas, slipped her bare feet into plastic rainboots, and escorted the dog outside.

  The sun was coloring the horizon pinkish orange, chasing away the mists clinging to the grass. The pond was still. She sucked down more Coke while Stogey went right out to the grass and relieved himself.

  Love, Jason.

  It might have been the caffeine and sugar surging in her system, but everything seemed on the track of rightness. Her judge’s robes had arrived special delivery. Tina Marie was no longer openly hostile. And Stogey was promptly taking care of business outside.

  Footfalls approached.

  She and Stogey turned to see Jason jogging down the drive. Sweat soaked his hair and dampened his shirt. His tan legs were thickly muscled, despite the ugly-looking scars above his right knee.

  “Just warming up.” He slowed a few feet away and came to a stop with a lurch. He reached for his leg, almost as if he’d pulled a muscle, and then straightened and gave her a smile with all the dimples. “You should shower while I make eggs.” He kissed her forehead and proceeded up the steps, limping a little and calling for Stogey to follow.

  Darcy’s skin tingled where he’d kissed her. She sipped her cold Coke. Stogey waddled toward the door, pausing at the top step to glance back at her, waiting.

  Everything’s going to be okay.

  She didn’t dare believe it.

  * * *

  “Do you want me to keep Stogey today?” Jason walked Darcy out to her car after breakfast.

  “No.” Darcy wouldn’t look at him. “People would ask me where he was.”