by Arlene James
She laughed. “Two acquired tastes in one. Next it’ll be goatees, long sideburns and black turtlenecks.”
“Oh, yeah, that’d go over big in court.”
They both laughed, and talk turned to the courtroom.
He told her about showing up in the same tie as the prosecutor one day, only to have the judge open his robe and display the exact same neckwear.
“Scared my client to death,” he said. “He thought we were all in some sort of secret society together and the fix was in.” He shook his head. “People in crisis get the strangest notions.”
“What happened to his case?”
“Probation and counseling. I hear he enrolled in college this semester.”
“That must make you feel good.”
“It does.”
“What happened to that other kid you told me about? The one who played the prank.”
“He got five years probation, a six-thousand-dollar fine and will finish high school at an alternative site. No prom, no sports, no extracurricular activities other than those relating to his counseling.”
“Seems harsh.”
“Not nearly as harsh as prison.”
Before she could respond to that, an older couple approached, arm in arm, and Mitch waved to them. Piper knew at once that they were his parents. For one thing, Mitch greatly resembled his father. Except for the eyes. As the older couple drew near, Piper saw that Mitch definitely had his mother’s blue-velvet eyes. He rose, ushering Piper up with him, one hand cupping her elbow.
“Mom, Dad, I want you to meet someone.”
Piper detected a very keen interest in both of the elder Sayers. Mitch’s hand hovered near the small of Piper’s back.
“This is Piper Wynne.”
Mrs. Sayer literally clapped her hands together as she inclined her head in greeting.
“What a lovely surprise!”
Piper noticed that she wore her thick, steel-gray hair in a braided coil at the nape of her neck.
After trading a look with his son, Mr. Sayer plucked his cold pipe from his mouth and dropped it unceremoniously into the pocket of his cardigan. He was the tweed-coat type, very professorial looking, right down to the reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. Behind them his eyes sparkled with mischief, belying their muddy-green color, somewhere between light brown and the shade of dried moss. His hair, still thick but receding slightly at the temples, was equal parts brown and silver, as if his head had been dusted with sugar, enough to cloud the rich chocolate color and leave sparkly bits to catch the light. He was a little heavier than Mitch, but toned and healthy looking, whereas his wife was all grand-motherly softness. He offered Piper a handshake. His hand was as broad and flat as Mitch’s but more rugged, stiffer.
“Well, Piper, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Oh, no, we’re Marian and Vernon,” Mrs. Sayer— Marian—said, blatantly looking Piper over. “My, my,” she commented to Mitch, “you never said how pretty she is.”
Piper tossed him a surprised glance, and he had the grace to color slightly, bow his head and cough behind his fist.
“Now, we must get to know one another,” Marian instructed, taking Piper’s hand in hers.
Mr. Sayer—Vernon—grimaced. “I thought you were going to feed me.”
Marian rolled her eyes. “We ate lunch not three hours ago!” She added in an aside to Piper, “You can tell I starve the poor wretch.”
Piper bit her lip to hide her smile and felt rather than heard Mitch’s chuckle.
Vernon patted his abdomen affectionately. “It’s all this fresh air—makes a man peckish.”
Marian gave in with a slump of her shoulders. “Oh, all right.” She still had Piper’s hand in hers, and now she gave it a little tug. “You’ll join us, of course. We can talk more comfortably at the house, anyway.”
Piper blinked. “Oh, uh.”
Marian looked to her son. “Mitch, get her to come.” She gave Piper’s hand a squeeze, patted her cheek and busily turned away. “We’ll bring the car around.” Taking her husband by the arm, she forcibly turned him and headed, ostensibly, toward the front gate. Vernon sent a look over Marian’s head to Mitch, winked at Piper and fished his pipe from his pocket as Marian led him away.
Mitch shuffled his feet but said nothing, just waited for Piper to make up her mind whether or not she would accept his mother’s insistent, unexpected invitation. Piper frowned, unsure. One part of her wanted to walk away, fast; another recoiled from the swift, painful knowledge that she was more of a coward—and more lonely—than she wanted to admit. Yet somehow all she could think to say was, “You didn’t tell them about my parents.”
He shrugged, but made no explanation. After a moment he said, “You don’t have to come. You could have another engagement.”
She didn’t, but she could say that she did. Except that she was not a liar. She wasn’t a coward, either, unless she let herself be. She pressed her shoulders back even as confusion surged through her.
He had mentioned her to his parents, but he hadn’t mentioned her parents to them for some reason. That seemed significant. It seemed significant enough to tilt the scales in favor of accepting an invitation to dinner. She picked up her book and stuffed it into her small backpack before slinging the pack over her shoulder. Then she turned and began ambling toward the gate, some distance away.
Mitch fell into step beside her, and she asked him just what he had told his parents about her. He bowed his head, his words as measured as his footsteps.
“That I’ve met someone I’m interested in.”
She let that settle into her thoughts, let it germinate for a few moments and produce a surprising conclusion. She was interested in him, too.
Intellectually she knew that the whole thing was fraught with risk, but as they slowly wandered toward the gate and his parents, she felt an odd comfort in his presence, as well as a growing swell of excitement.
“Is your car here?” he asked after some time.
She shook her head. “Don’t have one. I’ve been getting around by bus.”
“That can’t be fun in Dallas.”
“It’s not too bad. The worst is grocery shopping. There’s not much close to where I live.”
“And that is where?”
“On Gaston Avenue, a few blocks off Abrams.”
“I’ll see you home whenever you’re ready to go.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Oh, I’d like to. Besides, it’s not far.”
She smiled. “All right.”
As they drew near the brick columns of the gate, Mitch once more reached out and rested his hand in the small of her back, his touch light, warm, gentlemanly. A full-sized domestic luxury sedan waited at the curb outside, the engine rumbling. Mitch leaned down and opened the rear door. Piper bent forward and ducked inside, her braid swinging down over her shoulder in front. She saw Marian Sayer touch a hand to her own braided coil. Then Mitch dropped down lightly beside Piper, his arm sliding along the back of the seat.
“Wasn’t the music lovely?” Marian said, obviously feeling that it was her duty to offer a suitable topic for discussion. Piper smiled, remembering her conversation about music with Mitch earlier.
“Yes. Lovely.”
“Do you by chance like jazz, dear?” Marian asked innocently.
Piper sliced a conspiratorial look at Mitch. “I’m told that it’s an acquired taste, ma’am.”
His mouth quirked, and he gave his head a patient little shake. His mama was matchmaking, and he knew it; he acknowledged it but didn’t mind. She found that interesting. The whole Sayer familial relationship was interesting. A man of Mitch’s age, confidence and personality did not usually evince such a close, almost indulgent, relationship with his parents. Somehow, rather than making him seem dependent, it made him seem unusually strong.
“Actually,” Piper said with sudden conviction, “I do like jazz.”
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br /> His expression didn’t change, but his arm slipped down until it casually rested across the tops of her shoulders.
Perhaps, she thought, she liked jazz even more than she’d realized.
Chapter Five
The drive was short, as the Sayers lived in the White Rock Lake area, but along the way Piper learned that Vernon was a retired attorney, Marian a retired elementary school teacher and Mitch an only child.
“We wanted more,” Marian admitted baldly, turning a fond look over her shoulder, “but instead of more children we got the very best.”
Mitch chuckled and shook his head.
“Well, we did,” she insisted.
Mitch telegraphed a message to Piper. Mothers.
Piper telegraphed one back. She means every word of it.
He nodded, that small, defenseless smile in place. Piper found herself wondering why he wasn’t already attached romantically. As close as he seemed to be to his parents, she sensed that he was very much his own man. Some other woman must have seen what she did. The conviction was growing in Piper that she might have stumbled onto something special.
Vernon pulled the car into the spotless garage of a long, low, white brick house nestled artfully in the center of a tree-shaded lot. Piper knew instinctively that this was where Mitch had grown up. He let himself out of the car and reached down to assist her. Marian was already on her way to the door before Vernon had killed the engine, making him the last one to get out. Mitch waited for his father to move toward the door before he touched her back as a signal to follow. It seemed a supremely respectful thing to do.
“Come on in, Piper,” Vernon said around the pipe stem between his teeth, “and make yourself at home. Son, show her where to go, would you? I’m going to help Mother in the kitchen.”
“Of course. This way.”
They followed Vernon into a cool hallway floored with white ceramic tile. Piper received the instant impression of comfort and security. She saw gleaming woods, pale walls and good, serviceable furnishings, as well as a smattering of artwork. In the den she found the photos.
Framed and arrayed across one wall as well as on the mantel and tabletops, photos displayed the Sayers as a young couple and Mitch from infancy to adulthood. The most recent, a photo of Mitch receiving an award and shaking hands with another man, couldn’t have been more than a few months old, but the one that caught and held her attention was a wedding photo: Mitch in a white tuxedo standing next to a sweet-faced brunette in yards of satin. The photo was at least a decade old.
“Her name was Anne,” he said quietly, standing at Piper’s elbow, and she knew then why he was not—rather, no longer—attached.
“How did you lose her?”
“Lose her,” he echoed, looking down at his toes. “I didn’t.” He lifted his gaze then, rich blue eyes piercing, open. “She died over nine years ago, but she has never been lost.”
Piper gulped and moved away, crossing her arms over her middle protectively. She didn’t want to feel what she was suddenly feeling, didn’t want to think the thoughts hovering at the edges of her mind. Mitch shifted his stance but didn’t come after her. Instead he reached out to her with words.
“Her death has given me a rather unique perspective,” he said, “a calling of sorts. I’m a certified grief counselor. We have a group that meets at church.”
Piper turned her back on him, desperately clinging to her composure. He went on.
“What I’ve learned has helped me deal more effectively with my clients and the families of my clients—and sometimes their victims.”
Anger flared inside her, along with the irrational notion that she’d been set up for this. She turned on him, speaking more sharply than she intended. “And just what, may I ask, is your ‘fix’ for grief?”
He stared at her, his head slowly tilting to one side. “Time,” he said.
She scoffed at that. “More like a good time. Or don’t you think that we should enjoy life while we have the chance?”
“All right,” he said after a moment, whatever that meant.
She whirled away again, muttering, “A good time just might be all the joy some will ever know.”
She felt him move, sensed it in the instant before his big, strong hand closed on her elbow. She turned to face him, but then Vernon was there with a tray of crackers and cheese spiked with olives on toothpicks.
“Appetizers!” he announced jovially. “Mother’s putting on the dog.”
For an instant Mitch’s gaze searched Piper’s face, but then he smiled at his father and turned her gently but resolutely toward the sofa, asking, “What can I get you to drink? There are sodas in the fridge under the bar.”
“Anything at all,” Piper answered stiffly, sinking onto the comfortable sofa.
A moment later Vernon had fixed on a photograph of Mitch in a football uniform and a tale about the day he had finished a game with a broken foot. Gradually Piper felt the ugly tension inside her ease. After a while, she no longer felt as if she might fly apart at any unguarded moment, and her enjoyment in her company and surroundings returned.
Laughter came easily to her, Mitch noticed, despite the deep well of dark emotion that he had glimpsed behind that pretty face earlier. A quick smile and an impish sense of humor were second nature to Piper Wynne, but they did not disguise her pain. His trained eye recognized the signs. She was harboring some sort of secret, some serious, perhaps overwhelming problem; yet when those amber eyes of hers lit with that personal sense of the absurd, Mitch couldn’t help smiling, even when he didn’t know what had struck her as funny.
His parents were a little befuddled by her. They were hopeful, almost pathetically so, although she was nothing like quiet, reserved, delicate Anne. He wondered what it was about her that made his nerve endings tingle with awareness. It was more than her pretty face and womanly figure. Something in her spoke to him. It was as if he knew her on some very elemental level.
After dinner she insisted on helping his mother clean up. His parents had a long-standing arrangement—she cooked, he cleaned. But Vernon was happy to let Piper do it, even if the look Marian sent his way promised retribution later. Mitch bit his lip and kept quiet. He could hear the women chatting about china patterns as he rose to follow his father into the den. He’d have stayed where he was and eavesdropped on their conversation if he could have—not because he particularly wanted to know what they talked about, but just to hear their voices. Listening to the two of them talking made him feel peaceful and cozy.
Why had he waited so long to start looking for someone with whom to share his life?
He didn’t have any answers for that, wasn’t sure they even mattered.
As soon as the two women entered the room, Piper reached for her bag. Mitch got to his feet.
“Do you have to go?” Marian asked plaintively.
“I really do, yes,” Piper answered, “but thank you for a lovely dinner. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”
“You’re welcome any time,” Vernon said, rising from his chair with one eye on the football game playing almost silently on the television screen.
“I promised to drive Piper home,” Mitch announced, reaching into his pocket for the car keys.
Marian gave him a bright smile and turned to walk them out.
“We never talked about the letter,” she said as they reached the front door.
“Nothing much to talk about,” he told her, kissing her cheek. “I’ll let you know if something informative comes up.”
“All right, son. Take care. Piper, do come see us again.”
“Thank you. Dinner was delicious.”
“You’re very welcome. Bye-bye now.”
Mitch pulled open the wide Chinese-red front door, and Piper slipped out onto the low brick porch beyond.
“This is a lovely house,” Piper said as she stepped down onto the brick-edged walk.
“I’ve always thought so. It has a kind of timeless quality about it for me.”
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“You know what they say. Styles change, come and go, but a classic is a classic.”
“I was thinking more in relation to my childhood,” he told her, guiding her toward his British-made luxury coupe parked at the crest of the shallow circular drive. “No matter how many times they redecorate, and there have been many, the house always feels the same to me. It’s not even my home anymore, but I’m what’s changed. Do you know what I mean?”
He used his remote to unlock the car doors and reached for the handle on the passenger side, which happened to be nearest.
“I’m not sure,” she answered honestly, allowing him to hand her down into the leather bucket seat. “I didn’t grow up in one place. My parents never even owned a home until they retired. When I think of my childhood, I think of jungles and bamboo wind chimes and being different.”
He thought about that as he walked around to the driver’s seat. “That must have been difficult,” he said, settling in and reaching for his safety belt. Hers was already buckled. “Is that why your parents sent you away to boarding school?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I’m not sure. It may have been part of it. My feeling always was that they just wanted me to get a good education in safe surroundings, to know my home country.”
“You didn’t discuss it?”
She seemed to think about that. “Not really. It was always sort of a given. ‘When you go back to the States for seventh grade…’ It was never ‘if,’ always ‘when.’ I don’t suppose I’ve really thought too much about it.”
Obviously she had lived in a very different world from his. He started up the car and drove out to the street. While waiting for a pickup truck to pass he asked, “Would you go back to Thailand if given the opportunity?”
“To visit, of course.”
“But not to live?” He turned the car into the right-hand lane.
She shook her head and after a moment said, “Somehow it was never home. Isn’t that odd? I was born there, spent the first twelve years of my life so deep in the jungle that hearing English spoken openly in the halls at my school seemed weird, but something inside me always knew that it wasn’t home.”
