Belle Pointe

by Karen Young

  “Damn.” He fumbled for the faucet to shut off the water. Scooping her up, he shoved the shower door open and stepped out into the bathroom. “Towel,” he muttered. “We need a towel.”

  “Your knee.”

  “I deserve to have you kick it black and blue.” He sat on a vanity stool and, with Anne in his lap, began to dry her off. “I’m sorry, darlin.’”

  She leaned up and kissed his jaw. “For what?”

  “You didn’t get a damn thing out of that. But, lord, when you appeared in the shower all warm and soft and sexy, one kiss and I lost it.”

  “Two.”

  He paused with the towel at her breasts.

  “Two kisses. And do you hear me complaining?”

  He rested his chin on her head. “I’ve been thinking about making love to my wife all day. I wanted to take it slow. I wanted it to last all night long. But it was one thing after another today. Then tonight getting that glimpse of my parents’ twisted marriage—” he shook his head “—it shot my plans to hell…until you opened the shower door. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re saying you’re finished for the night?”

  He angled back to bring her face into focus. “Oh, shit. That’s another one of your trick questions, isn’t it?”

  Laughing, she untangled herself and, grabbing him by the hand, led him over to the bed. “Now, it’s my turn.”

  The next day, Buck put off heading to Belle Pointe. He wasn’t sure what he should do with what he’d learned from John Whitaker’s journal. Somehow it still felt disloyal to tell the world what Pearce had done. And he damn sure didn’t feel good about revealing his mother’s secret. First thing, he wanted—needed—was to talk to his mother. By midmorning, he’d worked it all out sitting on the porch swing. Anne was skeptical, but supportive.

  His strategy was doomed from the get-go. Miriam met them at the door carrying a tray with a carafe of water and looking very distressed.

  “Oh, Mr. Buck, I’m glad it’s you. I’ve been trying to talk your mother into letting me call the doctor, but she just won’t allow it. Maybe you can reason with her.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “She will not allow me to discuss it.” Miriam sent a fearful look up the stairs which threatened her hold on the tray. While she flailed, trying to rescue the carafe, Buck headed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Anne rescued the tray, then nudged the shaken housekeeper up, carrying the water herself.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked.

  “Ms. Victoria wouldn’t let me tell anybody she was too sick to get out of bed this morning, so they all went their separate ways.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Mr. Pearce, of course, is at his campaign headquarters. Ms. Claire took Paige to school and—” her voice lowered “—afterward, I think she’s working the phones on behalf of Jack Breedlove.”

  They were in the upstairs hall now. “What is wrong with Victoria, Miriam?”

  “You should ask her,” she whispered. “She won’t listen to me.”

  Indeed, Victoria was in bed. Buck was at the window adjusting the blinds to let in some light, but it was still possible to see at a glance that she was ill. Her skin had a sickly pallor and her eyes appeared sunken. Dark circles gave her the look of a cadaver. Anne was horrified. Yesterday she hadn’t looked well. Today she looked dreadful.

  “Ma’s in bed,” Buck said to Anne unnecessarily. Like many men, he was uncomfortable when confronted with illness.

  Anne went inside the room to remove Buck. She was certain that Victoria would not welcome visitors at her sickbed under any circumstances. Not even her own children. Buck could help by calling her doctor…or an ambulance. But even as Anne reached to tug him to the door, he shook her off.

  “Claire said you were sick, Ma, and it looks like she was right.”

  Closing her eyes, Victoria turned her face to the wall. “Go away, Buck.”

  “No. Hell, no. Not ’til you tell me what’s wrong.”

  Anne stepped in front of him. “Victoria, I apologize for barging in like this. Buck means well. Is there anything we can do for you before I drag him away?”

  “I’m not leaving until I get an answer,” he said stubbornly.

  With a halfhearted laugh, Victoria turned and looked at Anne. “My dear girl, it puzzles me why you persist in apologizing for Buck when he misbehaves. You heard him. You can’t drag him away now. He’s as stubborn as his father.”

  It was hard to tell, but Anne was sure she saw a suspicious brightness in Victoria’s eyes. Her mother-in-law near tears?

  Buck elbowed her aside. “It’s not misbehaving to ask why my mother’s in bed in the middle of the day looking half-dead!”

  “I have a touch of flu,” she said wearily.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said flatly. Glancing around, he spotted a collection of pill bottles. He walked over and read a few labels. The technical names were meaningless, but the instructions for dosages were clearly spelled out. “This is for pain, this is for nausea, this is a sleeping pill. No antibiotic in the lot.” He was scowling. “That doesn’t sound like flu to me, Ma.”

  She met his eyes directly. “And you got your medical degree…where?”

  “Enough, Buck,” Anne said, catching his arm. “We’re going now.”

  “You should tell them, Ms. Victoria.” Both Anne and Buck were startled when Miriam spoke at the door. The housekeeper was wringing her hands, but she stood straight, looking gamely at her longtime employer.

  “Tell us what?” Buck demanded.

  Victoria’s face was a stony mask.

  With a sigh, Miriam moved to stand at the foot of Victoria’s bed. “It’s cancer.” She flinched slightly under the fierceness of Victoria’s gaze, but she stood her ground. “You can’t expect to keep it a secret forever, Ms. Victoria. You need to let Buck call your doctor.”

  “I’ll decide when I want my doctor,” Victoria said coldly. “And now that you’ve disobeyed my instructions, Miriam, you’ll find your paycheck docked of two weeks’ wages.”

  Miriam stood even straighter. “Yes, ma’am,” she said with a trace of the dignity her employer displayed.

  “Wait for me downstairs, Miriam,” Buck said.

  “Yes, sir,” the woman murmured and with one last imploring look at her employer, she left quietly.

  “And there will be no undermining my authority,” Victoria ordered.

  “What kind of cancer, Ma?”

  She released a weary sigh. “Ovarian. And I’ve declined the use of chemotherapy, so don’t start planning a program that I’ve rejected.”

  “How long have you known about this?”

  “A few months.” She reached up and rubbed her face. “You’ll have to get details from my doctor. I don’t want to discuss it beyond what I’ve told you.”

  “When were you planning to tell us, Ma?”

  “I don’t consider my personal aches and pains to be anybody’s business.”

  “Meaning never. You’d suffer with a fatal disease and one morning we’d come in here and find you dead?”

  She sighed again. “Why are you here this morning, Buck? You’re usually in the fields at this hour.”

  Anne looked at Buck with alarm. Whatever he planned to say about what they’d found in the journals would surely have to wait. His mother was far too fragile to be reminded of what had to be a dark period in her life.

  “It’s nothing, Ma. It’s…nothing.”

  Victoria studied him thoughtfully for a moment, then shifted her gaze to Anne. “Have you had a chance to look at the journals?”

  Anne considered trying to dodge the question, but something in her mother-in-law’s demeanor told her she would see through any ploy. “Yes, a little,” she replied cautiously.

  “My husband’s entries?”

  Anne glanced at Buck, who answered for her. “It was late, Ma, so we didn’t get a chance to get too far—”

  “You know, don’t you?” Victoria said q
uietly.

  There was silence in the room for a long, long minute. When neither Anne nor Buck spoke, Victoria laughed weakly. “Incidentally, where did Paige find the journals?”

  “There’s a room in the attic,” Buck said.

  “I searched that room. They were not there.”

  “The room has a secret panel concealing a small space that was once used to hide runaway slaves. Dad told me about it.”

  “But he didn’t tell me.” Victoria’s laugh was weak with irony. It brought on a spell of coughing. Anne moved to her side and put a glass to her lips. When she’d taken a sip or two, she leaned back against the pillows, exhausted.

  “You need to rest, Ma.” Buck turned to leave.

  “Wait.” Victoria lifted a shaky hand. “There are…facts you need to know. Sit down.” Anne eased toward the door, but Victoria gestured to a place beside Buck. “Stay, Anne. Please.”

  “Ma, are you sure—”

  Again, she stopped him. “I don’t know exactly what John wrote in his journal and what I’m going to tell you I’ll deny afterward if you plan to take any…legal steps. But for the sake of accuracy and the Whitaker heritage, you should know the truth.”

  She turned her gaze to an artist’s rendering of Belle Pointe painted in 1890. “My father was a master mechanic. In another age, under different circumstances, he would have been an engineer. I grew up on the premises of Belle Pointe spending as much time as I wished in the equipment sheds at the plantation. I could drive a combine or a tractor as well as most field hands at Belle Pointe. I guess you could say I was a tomboy.”

  She fell silent for a moment. “John never saw me,” she said with a bitter twist of her mouth. “Like his parents, most of the people who made Belle Pointe work were invisible to him. But that one summer when I was eighteen, he did finally notice me.” She gave them a proud look. “I intended for him to notice me. I’d learned from experience how to attract a man. A woman who uses her female assets wisely can usually get what she wants. And I wanted to marry John.”

  She raised her left hand, fragile with spidery blue veins and spotted with ill health, but still bearing a gold wedding band. “It wasn’t as easy as I anticipated. His parents naturally wanted him to marry within his class. That would have been one of the beautiful, well-bred girls at Ole Miss, not a trashy tomboy girl whose daddy’s fingernails were permanently dirty with grease, and whose mama had run off years ago. In spite of their disapproval, John was besotted. The only problem was that I didn’t love John, I loved Rudy Baker.”

  As if seeing her own nails blackened with grease, Victoria tucked her hands out of sight beneath the embroidered border of a first-quality percale sheet. “Before my plan to marry John Whitaker, I’d been seeing Rudy, but suddenly he was drafted and ordered to Vietnam. Two men couldn’t have been more different. Rudy was a musician. He was wickedly handsome, dark-eyed, hair as black as coal. He could charm the birds out of the trees and he was a born liar. He was dangerous when angry, but I was mad about him.”

  Anne met Buck’s eyes and knew he was thinking of Pearce. She remembered him saying his brother often lied just for the sake of lying and everyone knew to be wary of Pearce’s temper.

  “John, on the other hand,” Victoria continued, “was quiet, attractive in his way and gentlemanly, carefully reared to revere Belle Pointe and his place in the long line of Whitakers before him. So, in spite of the fact that there was passion in my relationship with Rudy, John was far better husband material.” Her expression was suddenly bitter. “He was easily seduced, but he didn’t want to marry me. He just wanted to sleep with me. Every chance he got. Often. And on the sly.”

  She turned her face to the wall and spoke in a dull voice. “About that time, Rudy came home from boot camp and wanted me to go out with him that last night, as he was going to Vietnam and might be killed. Of course, I didn’t believe that. Rudy was too vital, too alive to be a war casualty. But I was angry with John. So I went out with Rudy. And six weeks later I knew I was pregnant.”

  “Ma, you don’t need to say any more.”

  “I do, Buck. Just hear me out.” She smoothed a hand over the embroidery on the sheet as if taking pleasure in the feel of it. “I told John I was pregnant and since he didn’t know about Rudy, he naturally assumed the baby was his. Frankly, it could have been. I didn’t know for sure myself. His parents were outraged, of course, but we married anyway in a discreet, perfectly respectable ceremony. The guest list was very small, nothing like the wedding the Whitakers’ only son would have had had he married within his class.”

  Coughing again, she reached for a tissue and delicately patted her lips. “I think they suspected Pearce wasn’t John’s child when he was about four years old and looked nothing like John or me, but they were too genteel to ever call either of us on it. You were a baby when they died within a few months of each other, Buck.” She smiled bitterly. “As you were a clone of John and other Whitaker babies in the family photo gallery, they died satisfied that I’d produced a true Whitaker.”

  Buck was moving about the room restlessly. “Why are you telling this, Ma?”

  “To cleanse my soul?” she said, arching a single brow ironically. But her irony faded as quickly as it flared in another fit of coughing. When she recovered, she appeared thoughtful. “I suppose it was because of respect for Belle Pointe and five generations of Whitakers, Buck. Pearce has been a disappointment to me. Perhaps breeding does matter, who knows? In spite of the example I’ve set, he simply doesn’t have the best interests of Belle Pointe as his primary focus in life. He’s on his way to becoming a politician and he’s well suited to that ambition. He plans to eventually wind up in Washington.”

  “Have you told him you’re aware of that?” Buck asked.

  “No. Claire shared it.” Another ironic laugh. “He’s too arrogant to think it matters one way or the other. He assumes he’ll get around me when the time comes.” She paused, as if considering what she would say next. “Whereas, you, Buck, do have the best interests of Belle Pointe at heart. I refuse to admit sending you off to a career in professional sports was a mistake and, by the same token, welcoming your return to take up the reins in my place is now the right thing.”

  “I’m flattered,” he said dryly.

  “Yes, it is a compliment.” She drew in a deep breath. “Now, I’m tired and I want to be alone. That includes Miriam. Do not send her up. Do not call the doctor. I’ve been in this state several times in the past few months and I’ve managed. Here’s the one last thing I want to say.”

  Her hand was shaky as she dropped the tissue into a tray on her bedside table. “I’ve been disturbed by Anne’s fascination with the town’s archives. Before, with the journals lost, there was little risk. But you would eventually have found all kinds of things, Anne, and with your journalist background, eventually the family—and Belle Pointe—would be embarrassed. One obvious example was the hunting accident. Following the trail would have uncovered a link to that evil contract I was forced to sign and eventually you would have connected Jim Bob Baker and Rudy. I wanted to prevent that, so I set the fire.”

  “Jesus Christ, Ma!” Buck stared at her in disbelief.

  “Yes, it is shocking, isn’t it? I’m just grateful that I’m a poor arsonist. You can’t imagine what I felt knowing I’d almost caused the death of Paige and Anne. I’m sorry. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me someday.”

  “You’re sorry.” He studied her with an expression of shock and bewilderment. “It wasn’t only two lives you endangered, but Tallulah’s past would have been destroyed. That alone was criminal, Ma.”

  “Yes, it pained me that I was forced to do it. And by the way, Anne’s laptop is in that armoire.” She waved a hand toward the tall antique.

  For a moment, he was speechless at her bloodlessness. “We’ll have to tell Jack Breedlove,” he told her dully. “He’s launched a full-scale investigation.”

  “Whatever, Buck.”

 
Having said she’d deny everything, he wasn’t sure she comprehended what was in store. “Ma, we’re talking arson and probably reckless endangerment.”

  “Yes, I think that’s most likely. But with a fatal disease,” she informed him, “I probably won’t survive long enough to cost the taxpayers a trial.”

  Buck waited a beat or two, studying his mother as if she’d come from another planet. Then, shaking his head, he turned to his wife. “Are you ready to go?” He’d clearly heard all he could take.

  “As for telling Jack Breedlove,” Victoria said as they headed out, “do whatever you feel you must. And remember, I don’t want Miriam up here fussing for a while. I’m exhausted and I want to rest. Oh, don’t forget Ann’s laptop.”

  While Buck had a word with Oscar Pittman, Anne waited in the SUV, still reeling from Victoria’s confession about the fire. Her laptop appeared undamaged, but it held no interest for her at the moment. She watched Buck break away from Oscar and noticed that he favored his knee. No surprise there considering how he’d abused it lately. It dawned on Anne that if it had been his intent to continue playing baseball, he would have been more disciplined in the rehabilitation process. Maybe he’d been looking for an excuse to retire. Or a new purpose in life. Anne touched her abdomen. For her, it was a no-brainer.

  Buck climbed in the SUV. “Okay, that’s taken care of. I’m off to see Jack at TPD. Do you want me to drop you at your mother’s house? You still planning to talk to her today?”

  Her mother’s house. The Victorian where Beatrice was born. Where several generations of Joneses had lived and died. Anne’s own ancestors, her blood relatives. She felt a little thrill. It was no longer a mystery where she came from and who her parents were. Maybe she’d always known who she was, but it was nice to be able to fill in all the blanks.

  “Hello?”

  “Hmm?” She blinked at Buck. “Oh, yes. I think so. Drop me there.”

  “Good girl.” But his smile had an edge. “I’m glad something’s going right for somebody today.”