Deconstructing Lila (Entangled Select)

by Shannon Leigh

  “The next step is getting inside and assessing the damage. I need to know what you intend to salvage and what can be tossed as we break the place down.”

  “Oh.”

  “I have the rest of the afternoon free. Why don’t we meet and go over a rough plan?”

  Did she want to meet with him so soon after her disgrace? She caught Granny’s frown out of the corner of her eye. Heck, she couldn’t miss the downward curve of her rose-red lips.

  “Hold on and let me check with Granny.” She held the phone out, covering the receiver and feigning an inquiry.

  “What’s going on between you two?” When Lila kept her silence, Granny sat forward in her chair, rocking the footrest downward. “Do I need to get in the middle of this like I used to? How about I call Jake’s mother and find out what this is all about? I’m sure she would be interested.”

  “Ssshh!” she pleaded with her grandmother, almost laughing at the way the woman resorted to the tactics she’d used when she was a teenager.

  “Don’t tell me—”

  Lila jerked the phone back to her ear, cutting Granny off before Jake could overhear her lecture. “Okay, I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes.”

  She slammed the phone down and spun on her grandmother. “Don’t you have a domino game with the Bombshells?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. If you’re going into town, you can drop me off at Alta’s.” Disengaging herself from the chair, she flipped off Montel Williams and headed for the back of the house. “I’ll be ready in five.”

  She saw the back of Granny’s good hand as she sauntered down the hallway. Good grief, the woman could go head-to-head with the best of them and still come out a winner. Unlike her granddaughter, who still learned lessons the hard way, one painful experience at a time.

  The garish glow of pink flamingos lining the driveway greeted them as they arrived at Alta’s house. The birds perched on spindly legs sporadically throughout the front lawn, interspersed with painted wooden tulips and metallic-colored rocks. Whirligigs hung in pairs across the shaded porch, limp in the hot July sun.

  Lila refrained from commenting on Alta’s exterior decor, although the urge almost overwhelmed her. “What time should I pick you up?” she asked Granny, bumping the car into park behind the stationary RV.

  “Earl said he’d drive me home. That way you and Jake can work things out.” Granny released the seat belt and reached down for her purse.

  “There’s nothing personal Jake and I need to work out. We’re discussing business.”

  Granny flipped the visor down to check her white curls in the mirror. “Uh-huh. Then why were your eyes all red and puffy the other night?”

  Dang, if her grandmother didn’t have eyes like a hawk.

  “It’s allergies. You know they bother me out here.”

  Granny flipped the visor back into place and shoved the car door open, giving Lila a stern, disapproving look. “You know you can go to hell for lying to your grandmother like that, don’t you?”

  Lila gaped. She watched her grandmother’s back scoot across the seat and out the door. The woman could move, despite the cast.

  “Don’t wait up for me. It’s a tournament tonight and I intend to win!”

  The door slammed and Lila sat in the deafening silence. How was it possible that a little seventy-two-year-old woman could shock the hell out of her?

  Because Gentry blood ran through her veins, that’s how.

  She recalled the story Granny had once told her about the way her parents had met in the town bank. Her father worked as a teller at the time before he went into the service, and her mother was a customer visiting the vault to deposit her coin collection. Smitten, Michael asked Sarah out on the spot. But she wouldn’t agree. So he locked her in the vault until she said yes. And Lila was born eleven months later.

  Shaking her head at Gentry grit, she pulled the Lexus away from the curb and headed to the town square and Jake. She wished she could lock him in a vault until he agreed to her demands, like she’d done in high school on a dare, but things weren’t quite that easy.

  She found his truck parked outside the store when she arrived, his face hidden beneath the brim of his hat as he slouched back in the seat, seemingly asleep.

  Taking a deep breath, she squelched her nervousness. She wouldn’t push him. Not again. The ball fell in his court now.

  Tapping on the window, she brought him upright, his hat sliding smoothly back into place. He stepped out into the street beside her, his denim-clad legs unfolding with animal-like ease.

  “I was beginning to think you’d changed you mind.” His stare appraised her.

  “No.” She didn’t owe him an explanation as to why Granny took fifteen minutes to spray her hair and find the right sandals.

  He expected more, but she left him hanging. Looking up to Miss Pru’s, she noticed the shiny new lock nestled against the worn wood of the door.

  Rushing up the steps, Lila investigated the new fixture. “This looks great. Where did you find it?” She stroked the hardware in appreciation. It was almost identical to the original.

  “At the salvage yard in Temple.” He pulled the key from his pocket and offered it to her. The key slid home and the door swung open at her light touch. Not what she’d expected.

  “Did you fix the door as well?” Surprise colored her voice and she tried to deny the appreciative smile that touched her lips. Jake wouldn’t weasel back into her good graces so easily.

  Okay. He might.

  “I figured I might as well get started, and this rusty mess seemed the logical place.”

  She found the light switch and stepped through the door, with Jake right behind her. It looked worse the second time in the flood of full daylight.

  She sneaked a peek at his face beneath lowered lashes, wanting to catch his reaction to the interior. Would he see the potential she had? He wasn’t surveying the mess, but looked directly at her.

  Not the tender, toe-curling look she wanted, but a look born of incredulity. Her spine went rigid and her head shot up under his perusal. “What?”

  His fingers drummed a staccato on his buckle and he shook his head in disappointment. “What were you thinking?”

  She looked around at the store and then back at him. “About what?”

  He kicked up dust as he moved around the store, his eyes never leaving her face. How he could maneuver without watching where he placed his feet, she didn’t know.

  “About what? About this place! It looks like a bomb went off in here!”

  Lila’s hackles came up all at once. This was her baby! “It’s not so bad. I’ve seen worse.”

  “When?”

  “Dallas. Numerous abandoned warehouses on the east side of town. We went in and made them viable storefronts. There are some major players lining those streets, thanks to us.”

  Jake grunted. His attention focused in on the ceiling overhead. “And you plan to turn this heap into a day spa?”

  She bit her nail, doubt creeping into her mind. She didn’t want anyone telling her it couldn’t be done. She didn’t want Jake rolling off reasons why she couldn’t stay in Hannington.

  It could. And she would.

  “Well?” Jake strolled up alongside her, so close she could see the flecks of gold in the depths of his green eyes.

  “A day spa,” she affirmed.

  “You really think the residents of Hannington are going to pay for that kind of pampering? In a former whorehouse?”

  Her idea would work, dammit. She knew this business; he didn’t!

  “The tourism to this area would support a spa. I don’t go into business without doing the preliminary research, Jacob. I’m not an amateur.”

  He stepped back, holding his hands up, palms out. The formal use of his name usually elicited such a response. “Whoa. Whatever you say, boss lady. I just do what I’m told.”

  Lila turned away, clenching her teeth together. “You have no idea how I wish that were fact and
not fiction,” she mumbled, straddling debris as she made her way to the staircase in the back corner.

  “Knock knock!” An unfamiliar voice drifted to the back of the store. Lila craned her neck around the staircase to see the source of the cheery feminine drawl. A plump woman in her midforties crossed over the threshold and into the store.

  “Goodness! Will you look at this place?” Her ash-colored pageboy haircut swung as her head turned every which way, taking in the disaster.

  “Afternoon, Carrie. What brings you by?” Jake greeted the cherub-like lady with an easygoing grin. Lila envied her.

  “Afternoon yourself, Jake.” She picked her way across the store to stand next to him. Lila stood partially hidden behind one of the candy cases, so the woman didn’t spot her immediately.

  “I heard someone finally bought this old place and I couldn’t wait to come by and meet them. I’ve been hoping for years this day would come, and I couldn’t stay away another second and not know who it was.”

  She stared at Jake with a sweet, appreciative Southern smile.

  “Lila? I want you to meet someone.” His voice drew the woman’s attention to where Lila stood.

  “Hello there!” the woman called merrily, waving her jeweled hand in Lila’s direction.

  Picking her way back across the store, she tried to ignore the way Jake’s eyes followed her every move. She hoped she didn’t have dirt on her face or something stupid like that. She checked to make sure her clothes were in order, no embarrassing peekaboos. And then she actually blushed. If he wasn’t interested, why the hell did he stare so much?

  “Hello, Carrie, I’m Lila Gentry.” She extended her hand for the customary shake and was surprised at the woman’s firm grip.

  “Lila, it’s so wonderful to meet you. I’m Carrie Goodwin. My father used to own this store.”

  “Oh, my. We’ve probably met then. I can’t tell you how much time I used to spend in here as a kid.”

  Carrie smiled and at last, Lila saw the family resemble to Mr. Goodwin.

  “I remember you,” Carrie beamed. “You and Rose Garner used to come in together.”

  Lila nodded and looked around the first floor. “What can you tell me about this place? Did your father make a lot of changes to the structure? Do you have any old photos, or any old documentation?”

  Carrie’s hair swung back as she took in the damage to the tin ceiling. “Dad didn’t do a lot. He made some changes to the ground floor here, but kept the big fixtures as you can see.” She pointed to the original staircase and the bar. “The second floor is unchanged. He just used it for storage. From what he told me, the building sat empty for a number of years around the turn of the century. Dad bought it from the bank in the twenties and we’ve owned it ever since. Until now.”

  Lila thought about the second floor. Miss Pru’s rooms. Unchanged. She couldn’t wait to get up there and have a look.

  “Do you know anything about a woman named Prudence MacIntosh who once owned the building? It would have been before the turn of the century. Someone sent me her diary and I’m trying to find out more about her.”

  Carrie’s light brown eyes narrowed in thought. “Nope. Don’t know anything about that. Dad did say, though, that the guys Howard hired to start salvaging the place found some stuff. Don’t know what it was. You might ask Howard. He would know.”

  The mayor was the dead last person Lila wanted to question about Miss Pru.

  “Now that I think about it, Dad said there was a photo album once of this place. Back when it was a boardinghouse. The album was part of the city’s museum collection, but nobody knows what happened to it. It disappeared some years back.”

  Lila’s heart sank. There might have been pictures of Pru in the album. “What a disappointment. Who runs that museum?”

  “It’s funded by the city, of course, but Janie Armstrong is the head of the board.”

  Jake stepped to the side, over a pile of rusty ceiling tins, making room for Lila next to him and Carrie. He watched her with what he prayed was a look of detachment and disinterest. But he boiled inside, full of base emotion.

  How he made it here today, to stand next to her, smelling the clean fragrance of her shiny hair, was a testament to willpower. After the disaster of the other afternoon, he hoped she might decide to give up her ideas of restoring the building and return to Dallas.

  But no, here she was. Standing strong and smiling, like the other day never happened. Her courage and spunk warmed his insides.

  He could not, under any circumstances, fall in love with his wife. Again.

  “Jake, Carrie says there is wonderful old plaster behind the paneling. Can we remove it and see?”

  Lila was talking to him. He knew because he watched her cherry-red lips move and all he could think about were those same lips parted in passion and screaming his name in climax.

  Like she did when they were first wed. Like she did two days ago.

  Jesus.

  Clearing his throat, he met her eyes. They were heartbreakingly beautiful, wide and innocent. He could lose himself easily in those ocean-blue depths and sail forever, ignoring reality. Living through the fantasy.

  She smiled at him, waiting.

  Waiting for what?

  “Jake, are you okay?”

  A question. Lila asked him something about the paneling.

  “You want to take the paneling down?”

  Both women looked at him cautiously as he repeated the question, like they were dealing with a mental patient.

  Get with the here and now, Jake. The here and now.

  He crossed to the north-facing wall, letting them follow behind so he could get himself together. Lila had him turned upside down and it damn near felt like she’d banged his head on the concrete.

  He had to maintain focus.

  Knocking on the wall with a curled index finger, he listened. “We can peel the paneling off, but you never know what you’ll find underneath. The brick could be crumbling and in bad shape, opening a new set of problems. There could be water damage, structural settlements, and other nightmares waiting behind here.”

  Lila’s smile faded with each word.

  The more he talked about the walls, the more he felt he talked about their relationship. “Sometimes, it’s better to leave what’s underneath, buried. You never know what problems you’ll find. It might not be worth the hassle.”

  “Is that your professional opinion?”

  She had heard the meaning behind his words, all right. And she was mad. Her hands came up to rest on her hips and she stood with her legs spread, her tiny white sneakers planted firmly on the dirty hardwood floor.

  Carrie made some well-timed excuse about checking her mailbox at the post office and hightailed it out of their path.

  “Lila, in this business, if the risk is bigger than the payoff, you’ve got to reconsider. You’ve got to be careful—”

  She waved a hand, cutting him off. “I hear you. But I don’t care how much it costs. I want to see what’s under there. If it’s in bad shape, we’ll fix it. If it needs to be rebuilt, we’ll do that, too.”

  She fought like a pit bull. When she got something in her head, she wouldn’t let it go.

  When it came to them, how could he keep telling her no?

  Lesson Number Twelve —

  Silent words conveyed with the eyes are as powerful as those spoken.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lila examined the staircase, wondering if it would hold their weight. “I want to see the upstairs,” she told Jake, who stood on the other side of the ground floor, feigning interest in some old wiring.

  She wanted to go up there and find Miss Pru’s room. Maybe simply standing in the same place Pru had lived would enable her to soak up some of Pru’s grit and gumption. Some of her wisdom when it came to men.

  Because Lila needed help.

  Although she had no idea which, if any, had been her great-great-grandmother’s room. She imagined if she walked aroun
d, measured the vibe of the place, she might intuitively make a guess. Get a sense of the history that had occurred in the building.

  She hoped she might get a sense of the love once residing in the place. Love between Pru and Luke Pierce.

  She’d found a long entry in Pru’s journal about the two lovers that brought tears to her eyes.

  Luke Pierce has invited me to work for him out on his ranch. Permanently. As in, move in and be his live-in girl.

  I do not understand it. He is rich. Lordy, the man has money. His house is a palace, at least what I would imagine as a palace. And he has servants and hired hands running all over the place doing whatever he asks.

  Everyone smiles and seems happy there. No starving serving girls or cowed washwomen. People come and go freely, speaking to Luke as though he is a friend.

  He seems to care for his employees, too. But he lives in that house all by himself. No wife, no children.

  I am not sure what to make of it, but the look in his eyes when I woke up beside him this morning sent me scrambling for my clothes.

  “What are you doing?” he asked from the bed. He was naked and rumpled in the sheets. The picture squeezed my heart. But I am easy. A pushover. A prostitute with a tender heart. Hard to believe there is even such a thing. I do not recommend it in my girls. They will not last long in this line of work with fragile emotions.

  The right people know how to work me over, and Luke was no exception this morning.

  I did not stop to answer his question as I thought it was rather obvious.

  The giant brass bed groaned under his weight as he shifted into a sitting position, the sheets falling down around his barrel waist. “Didn’t we have a good time last night, Prudence? Why are you in such a hurry to leave?”

  If I listened closely, I could hear the hurt in his voice. But I was not falling for it. I could not afford to get attached to this man. “Sure, we had a good time. And we can again whenever you want to visit me in town.”

  I had to keep the situation firmly in my control.

  I managed to dress quickly, forgoing the stockings as I stuffed them into my purse. I wanted, needed, to get out of there before I committed to something the man would only later regret. And when he regretted it, I would then, too.