Lana's Lawman

by Karen Leabo

  “Okay, see ya, Mom,” Rob said.

  “I’ll be on my way too, Demolition Man,” Sloan said. He figured his smile didn’t look any better than anyone else’s.

  “Bye, Officer Bennett,” Rob said.

  For the first time, Bart seemed to notice Sloan. “What the hell are you doing here anyway?”

  Sloan narrowed his eyes. “I answered the 911 call,” he fudged, figuring Bart didn’t need to know anything about his former acquaintance with Lana. Lord knew Bart wouldn’t remember him from high school. Sloan had been nothing to Bart, a nonentity.

  “Yeah, well, thanks, man,” Bart said, showing more common courtesy to a total stranger than he had the mother of his child. He offered his hand.

  Sloan took it grudgingly. Watch your step, bastard. He had to struggle not to say the words aloud.

  Sloan had to run to catch up with her as she tore through the emergency room toward the exit. “Hey, Lana, wait up.”

  She acted as if she didn’t hear him.

  He grasped her by the shoulder. “Lana.”

  She stopped and buried her face in her hands. “Just leave me alone.”

  Sloan dropped his hand, but he didn’t go away. He stood very still beside her. She snuffled into her hands, oblivious of the howling babies and the paramedics rushing past with another stretcher, the pacing friends and relatives waiting to hear news.

  “I’m sure Rob didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” Sloan finally said. And because he couldn’t stand not comforting her physically, he touched her hair with one forefinger. Even under fluorescent hospital lights, the silky strands shone golden, with an almost magical glow of their own.

  The contact tightened his gut and made him think of whispers in the night and moonbeams on bare skin. God, his memories were far too clear.

  “Nothing I do is good enough for Bart,” Lana said with a sniff. She wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand. “Or for Rob,” she added. “Of course, I can’t blame Rob. He’s only a little boy, parroting his father’s feelings.”

  “It’s kind of hard to compete with new mountain bikes.”

  “And chocolate ice cream,” Lana added. “Bart thinks he can buy anyone and anything. The sad thing is, he can.” She looked up suddenly at Sloan. “Why am I telling you this?”

  “Because I’m here, and I’m listening, and you’re pretty stressed out.” He found an abandoned box of tissues on a table and grabbed a wad, handing it to her.

  She swiped ineffectually at her face with the tissues. “It’s not like you can do anything. I’ve been living with this situation for eight years. It’s not going to change now.”

  “It doesn’t have to. Your son has a case of hero worship for his dad. It’s the most common thing in the world. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love his mother.”

  “Couldn’t tell it by the way he acts.”

  “Yeah, well, three guesses who he was asking for when he was scared and those doctors were checking him over, and the first two don’t count.”

  “Me?” Lana’s eyes lit up with hope.

  “His mama.”

  “But he didn’t want me to stay with him. He wanted his father.”

  “That’s ’cause he knows he can count on you. If he asks, you’ll be there in five minutes. My guess is he doesn’t have that kind of confidence in his father. He has to take what he can get. And he figured he had a pretty good chance of getting Dad’s attention in the hospital.”

  Lana looked up at Sloan, her expression full of skepticism. “You’ve got it all figured out, huh?”

  “Well, I’m no psychologist, but what I said makes a certain amount of sense, doesn’t it?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose.”

  “Kids are smart. They figure out soon enough who’s trying to buy their love and loyalty and who’s earning it the old-fashioned way.”

  Lana gave a wry smile and shook her head. “Rob hasn’t figured it out yet. By his way of thinking, Dad’s the fun parent. I’m the ogre.”

  “He’ll thank you for it someday.”

  “Someday can’t come soon enough.”

  “Make way!” a booming voice called. “Code blue!” Another gurney was being rushed through the ER, nearly running over Sloan and Lana.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Sloan said. “I’m starving. How about a burger from Spinner’s?”

  “Oh, I really need to get back—”

  “You have to eat. Rob’s fine for the time being. He’s with his dad.”

  “Not a comforting thought.”

  Sloan couldn’t talk her into Spinner’s. But when they stopped at her house, she asked him in. Her home was neat and cozy, a funny mixture of a few pieces of expensive designer furniture, slightly worn, and fading treasures from someone’s attic. Still, everything appeared to be … just so, as if Lana had hung every picture with forethought and placed every knickknack with an artistic eye.

  “If you want,” she said, “you can heat up some of the spaghetti and meatballs in the microwave while I pack a bag for Rob. Dinner was about done when the roof fell.”

  Sure enough, Sloan found cooling spaghetti and sauce on the stove. He put together a couple of bowls and nuked them. He cleared a space on the kitchen table and set two places with vinyl mats and pink paper napkins.

  When Lana reentered the kitchen, she found a very domestic-looking Sloan Bennett placing steaming bowls of spaghetti on the table. It smelled heavenly.

  “Oh, you didn’t have to make one for me,” she objected.

  “You have to eat. C’mon, it’ll take you five minutes.”

  A part of her resisted. He was trying to take care of her, make decisions for her, as though she didn’t know to feed herself when it was necessary. She didn’t like being second-guessed. She wanted to get back to the hospital. She could grab a vending-machine snack later, after Rob fell asleep.

  But, darn, that spaghetti smelled good. In direct rebellion to her wishes, her stomach gave a clearly audible rumble.

  Sloan gave her a knowing look.

  “Oh, all right, I’ll eat spaghetti.” She put down Rob’s bag and pulled a chair out from the kitchen table. “But you didn’t have to do this.”

  “It would have been rude of me to fix just one bowl of spaghetti, Lana,” he said in gentle rebuke. “If you’d been invited into someone’s house and they told you to help yourself to dinner, wouldn’t you fix a plate for your host?”

  Okay, so he had a point. In his place, she would have done exactly the same thing, and that wouldn’t mean she was bossy. She nodded. “You’re right,” she said demurely. “Enough arguing.” She tucked into the spaghetti with relish.

  “Something to drink?” she asked. “There’s milk and, um, grape soda. Rob’s favorite.”

  Sloan smiled, revealing a dimple at the right corner of his mouth. Lana stared at it, transfixed. “Grape soda was my favorite when I was a kid too,” he said as he walked to the cabinets and opened them methodically until he found the glasses. “But my folks never bought candy or Cokes. Every extra penny went toward booze and tobacco. I had to save up my own pennies and sneak treats from the 7-Eleven down the street.”

  Lana winced at the memory of Sloan’s so-called parents. She’d met them only once, when she and Sloan had stopped by his house for something or other—a fishing pole, she recalled now. Lana had never been fishing, and Sloan had decided she needed to Jearn.

  Ollie and Marlene Bennett had both been sitting on the front porch of their ramshackle house, drinking beer and chain-smoking. Sloan had told Lana to wait while he ran inside for a minute. He’d paused to hand his parents a carton of Marlboro he’d bought for them.

  “Didja get the bourbon?” Ollie asked.

  “No, Pa. I told ya, they won’t sell it to me ’cause I’m not twenty-one, and if I tried to buy it, my parole officer would be on me like a rash.”

  Ollie had backhanded his son, but the blow had hardly seemed to faze Sloan. He’d merely rubbed his mouth, checked for blood.r />
  “Who’s the slut?” his mother had asked.

  Lana had realized with a start that Marlene Bennett was talking about her.

  “Nobody you know,” Sloan had said as he disappeared into the house.

  In those few seconds when Sloan had been out of sight, alien thoughts had burst into bloom inside Lana’s mind. The boy she was falling in love with wasn’t just the tough, misunderstood youth she’d talked with at the library. He was from these parents. He lived in this house. He had committed crimes and he had a parole officer.

  She felt sorry for him, and at the same time she’d felt a slight panic at the idea of linking herself forever with someone so different from herself.

  The snick of the refrigerator door brought Lana back to the present. Sloan returned to the table with a carton of milk and two glasses.

  “Thanks,” she said as he poured. “I don’t care for soda myself, but Rob would drink it by the six-pack if I let him. I limit him to one can per day. Unfortunately his father doesn’t.” How many times had she heard, “But Dad lets me …” Drink all the grape soda I want. Eat doughnuts for dinner. Stay up till midnight. Walk to the store by myself. Fill in the blank.

  “Seems like every parent has their own ideas about discipline.” A shadow crossed Sloan’s face, and Lana wondered if he was thinking of his own parents. She thought about the slap she’d witnessed. She started to say something, then stopped herself, sensing that his family background might be forbidden territory. Back in high school she’d tried to get him to talk about his parents, but he’d refused.

  At the time, she’d been almost relieved. A mysterious past was much more appealing than the harsh truth would have been, she was sure.

  “I don’t think I’d be so strict if Bart weren’t so lenient. Someone has to set limits.”

  She took two more bites of spaghetti and drained three-fourths of her milk, then delicately blotted her mouth with the paper napkin. “I’m done. Can we go now? I don’t mean to rush you, but—”

  “We can go.” He took one last gulp from his own glass and wiped his mouth.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to take a cab?” she asked. “I feel like you must have something else to do.”

  “I told you, it’s a slow night. ‘To Serve and Protect,’ that’s the police motto, and right now I’m serving. So hush. I’ll let you know if I’m needed elsewhere.”

  “Okay.” She managed a smile. What would she have done if he hadn’t been there tonight? She supposed she would have gotten through it somehow. She always managed. But Sloan Bennett’s presence had made things so much easier. How nice it would be—

  Oh, no, you don’t, Lana Walsh. That kind of thinking will get you in loads of trouble.

  “So, you and Bart must have gotten married pretty young,” Sloan said casually as he drove toward the hospital.

  “The summer after my freshman year at Stockton,” Lana replied.

  “Why’d you do it? Why so young, and why him?” Sloan heard the words coming out of his mouth before he realized he’d spoken them aloud. This was none of his business.

  “You mean what on earth could I have seen in him?”

  “I’m sure he has redeeming qualities,” Sloan said. “I’m just curious—unfairly so. Rudely so. Feel free to tell me to stuff it. But even in high school you were so pretty. You could have had any guy you wanted.” She probably still could.

  Lana sighed. “He was a catch. He was handsome, wealthy, intelligent, ambitious, athletic. He came from a good family.”

  Ouch. Sloan had been none of those things. Well, maybe a few girls had found him attractive in a dangerous sort of way, but nothing like Bart Gaston’s preppy, clean-cut good looks. And he’d never been stupid, though nobody knew it because he hadn’t tried very hard to overturn people’s assumptions.

  “He was … safe.”

  Something else Sloan wasn’t.

  “And I loved him,” Lana added. “Hard to believe that now. But he had … charisma, I guess. He charmed me. Bowled me over. Made me think I was the most important person on earth. It was good for a while.

  “I figured out pretty quickly that the money and social standing weren’t really important. But the love was. He even went out of his way to include my mother in our family. Imagine, a man who truly adores his mother-in-law. I thought that was a pretty rare and wonderful thing. Mama had been so alone since my father died. It meant the world to her to be such an important part of the Gaston family. So respectable.”

  “Why didn’t your mom ever remarry?” Sloan asked. If he recalled correctly, Lana had lost her father at a very early age—three or four.

  “She didn’t think it would be seemly. ‘One good marriage, that’s all any girl needs,’ she always said. And my father’s insurance policy provided well enough for us.”

  “That’s good,” Sloan said blandly because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “I’m not so sure. If she’d needed the money, maybe she would have settled down again instead of setting herself up as the martyr widow.”

  Ah-ha. Sloan was beginning to see the light. No wonder Lana married so young. She wanted emotional security, consistency. But what had Bart wanted?

  Maybe he’d fancied himself an empire builder, linking forever his own family fortune with the respectability of Lana’s grandfather’s name.

  “My mother was a character,” Lana went on, seemingly more comfortable with that subject than her marriage. “She was a beauty queen—Miss Texas-USA 1965. She always got by on her looks, and assumed I could do the same. She paid for my college tuition only so I could spend time with Bart.”

  Sloan wondered how Mrs. Walsh would have felt about her daughter dating Sloan Bennett. Lana never told her, so far as he knew. “How did your mother react to the divorce?”

  “Oh, I hope that wherever she is, she doesn’t know,” Lana said fervently. “She died five years ago. I don’t think I’d have had the courage to leave Bart while she was alive. She would have been so disappointed in me and heartbroken over losing Bart as a son-in-law.”

  Sloan digested this as he pulled into one of the hospital parking places reserved for police. He wanted to ask more—like why had the marriage broken up, given that she’d loved him, and he’d treated her like a princess? But that really would be too nosy. She would tell him if she wanted him to know.

  “Do you want me to come in with you?” He hated the thought of her facing that skunk Bart alone, with no backup. But it sounded as if she’d been alone for a long time. He had to face the fact that she was stronger than she seemed.

  She thought about his question as indecision played on her face. But whatever her answer would have been, the voice of dispatch over the radio cut her off. “Car 17, we have a possible ten-eleven in progress at 3750 Lamar Street. Can you respond? Over.”

  He picked up the radio mike. “Car 17, ten-four, I’m at Methodist right now and I’m on my way.” In an aside to Lana he added, “Ten-eleven, that’s a burglary. Looks like my slow crime night is history.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you go. Thanks for everything, Sloan.” She was out of his car faster than a chipmunk running from a hawk. Didn’t give him a chance to say good-bye, good luck, see you later, nothing.

  Precisely what she intended, he imagined. She probably couldn’t get away fast enough, after the grilling he’d given her about her family. He just couldn’t seem to help himself. He was ravenously curious about Lana, about the events that had shaped her life since high school, and even before. His golden-haired girl, the object of his fantasies, had led less than a fantasy life. No parents, a jerk of an ex-husband, a son who didn’t appreciate her, and a bank account hovering in the double digits, from the sound of things.

  He couldn’t stand it. By all rights, she should have better. For whatever reason, he wanted to make things better. And dammit, that’s just what he was going to do, even if she fought him tooth and nail the whole way.

  Lana was exhausted. First there wa
s a crack-of-dawn cab ride to Cartwright’s to pick up her car, paying for the repairs with her beleaguered credit card. Then it was back to the hospital to check Rob out and shuttle him over to Millicent’s—thank goodness Millie had volunteered to watch him for the day so Lana wouldn’t have to miss another day at Full Bloom, the florist where she was manager.

  Lana had spent the rest of the morning helping a harried bride choose flowers for a big wedding. The bride and her critical mother had been at each other’s throats, and Lana had been forced to play peacemaker, balancing their delicate budget with their even more delicate egos.

  She breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed behind them, only to be hit with a mountain of Teleflora orders. Her boss, Sue Coldwell, was out with the flu and her part-time help had stayed only till noon, which left Lana to run the show—on two cylinders.

  “Why can’t I go to Dad’s house?” were the first words out of Rob’s mouth after Lana had picked him up from Millicent’s.

  “Because that’s not the arrangement we made,” Lana answered, her standard reply to this frequent question. “Your dad has you Monday and Thursday evenings, when I’m at school, and one weekend a month. It puts a burden on him if we suddenly change the routine.” Never mind that Bart would change the schedule in a heartbeat if it suited his purposes. If Lana wanted to drop Rob off an hour early or an hour late, he accused her of violating their custody order.

  “But I have a TV in my room at Dad’s. Besides, Lucia is there all the time during the day. She can watch me and you wouldn’t have to take me over to Millie’s tomorrow.”

  “For your information, pal, you’re going back to school tomorrow. The doctor says you’re fit as a turtle in his shell.”

  “You mean fit as a fiddle, Mom,” Rob corrected her in the thoroughly annoying way he had. Always imitating his father. “What’s so fit about a turtle?”

  “Hey, I’m just quoting the doctor. Anyway, you’re to rest this evening, but tomorrow it’s back to the grind.”

  “Back to prison, you mean. I hate school.”

  Me too, she wanted to agree in a very unparentlike way. Her classes this semester were a bear—political science and botany. Her poly sci prof was a raving Communist, and she still wasn’t sure whether her botany prof was lecturing in English. Instead, she said, “A lot of things that are good for you aren’t very much fun. You just have to make the best of it.”