Nobody's Baby but Mine(39)
“I’ll bet it was fun.”
Jane didn’t realize how wistful she’d sounded until he shot her a curious glance. “You never did anything like that?”
“I was in college when I was sixteen. I spent my Saturday nights in the science library.”
“No boyfriends.”
“Who was going to ask me out? I was too young for my classmates, and the few boys I knew who were my own age thought I was a freak.”
She realized too late that she’d just given him a golden opportunity to take another verbal swipe at her, but he didn’t do it. Instead he turned his attention back to the road as if he regretted having even such a short conversation with her. She noticed that the hard edges of his profile made him seem very much a part of these mountains.
They’d approached the outskirts of Salvation before he spoke again. “I’ve always stayed at my parents when I visit, but since I couldn’t do that this year, I bought a house.”
“Oh?” She waited for him to offer a few details, but he said nothing more.
The town of Salvation was small and compact, nestled in a narrow valley. The quaint downtown section held an assortment of stores, including a charmingly rustic restaurant, a shop that featured twig furniture, and the pink-and-blue caboose-shaped Petticoat Junction Cafe. They passed an Ingles grocery store, then crossed a bridge. Cal turned onto another winding, climbing road, then pulled into a lane paved with fresh gravel and came to a stop.
Jane stared at the two wrought-iron gates directly in front of them. Each held a pair of gold praying hands at its center. She swallowed, barely repressing a moan. “Please tell me this isn’t yours.”
“Home sweet home.” He got out of the car, pulled a key from his pocket, and fiddled with a control box on a stone pillar to the left. Within seconds, the gates with their praying hands swung open.
He climbed back in the car, put it into gear, and drove forward. “The gate operates electronically. The realtor left the controls inside.”
“What is this place?” she said weakly.
“My new house. It’s also the only piece of real estate in Salvation that’ll give us enough privacy to hide our nasty little secret from the world.”
He rounded a small curve, and Jane caught her first glimpse of the house. “It looks like Tara on steroids.”
The gravel drive ended in a motor court that formed a crescent in front of a white, colonial plantation house. Six massive columns stretched across the front, along with a balcony of elaborate gold grillwork. A fanlight of jeweltoned colored glass topped the double-wide front door, while three marble steps led to the veranda.
“G. Dwayne liked to do things in a big way,” Cal said.
“This was his house?” Of course it was. She’d known it the moment she’d seen the praying hands on the gates. “I can’t believe you bought the house of a crooked televangelist.”
“He’s dead, and I need privacy.” He stopped the Jeep in front, then craned his neck to look up at the ornate facade. “The realtor guaranteed I’d like it.”
“Are you saying this is the first time you’ve seen it?”
“G. Dwayne and I weren’t close, so he never put me on his guest list.”
“You bought a house without looking at it?” She thought about the car she was riding in and didn’t know why she was even surprised.
He climbed out without replying and began to unload. She got out, too, and stooped down to pick up one of her suitcases, only to have him brush her aside. “You’re in my way. Get inside. It’s unlocked.”
With that gracious invitation, she mounted the marble stairs and opened the front door. As she stepped inside and caught her first glimpse of the interior, she saw that it was even worse than the outside. The open foyer had at its center an overly grandiose fountain with a marble sculpture of a Grecian maiden pouring water from an urn balanced on her shoulder. The fountain was running, thanks, no doubt, to the realtor who had unloaded this monstrosity on Cal, and the multicolored lights hidden beneath the water gave the whole thing a certain Las Vegas look. Hanging above the foyer like an inverted wedding cake was an enormous crystal chandelier made up of hundreds of prisms and teardrops held together with gold swags and filigree.
Turning to the right, she entered a sunken living room that was furnished with fake French rococo furniture, elaborately fringed draperies, and an Italian marble fireplace complete with cavorting cupids. Perhaps the room’s most vulgar piece was the coffee table. Its round glass top was supported by a center column shaped like a kneeling blackamoor, naked except for a crimson-and-gold loincloth.