gallery to the gardens below. Contrasting the peaceful, bucolic scene spread out in front of her with the impatient sigh of her longtime agent, Samuel Frye, only made Willa more conscious of her obligations and commitments.
“If you’d just let me in on what’s going on with you,” Samuel said, his words etched with exasperation as well as concern. “Willa, you are one of my best clients. We’ve made a whole lot of money together, me and you. You’re wholesome, the girl next door, and you aren’t a prima donna. So I don’t get this—”
“You mean, I’m acting like a prima donna now,” she interjected, her gaze scanning the distant row of hot-pink and fuchsia-colored crape myrtle trees Lucas had tugged her through a couple of days ago. Putting thoughts of Lucas and their time together out of her mind, Willa tried to find a reason to give Samuel for her refusal to come back to New York. “Samuel, have I ever embarrassed you? Have I ever before backed out on any of my contracts or my commitments? Haven’t I worked hard for you?”
“Yes, of course.”
She could almost see Samuel’s distinguished, cratered face. He’d been in the business for so many years some of the younger models called him Papa Frye. Samuel didn’t mind the title one bit. In fact, he encouraged it. He had a big heart, and he took care of his clients, especially the young women who were thrust into the sophisticated world of fashion modeling at such early ages. He set high standards for himself and his clients. Willa didn’t want to let him down.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said at last. “I’m not really accomplishing anything here, and unfortunately, that tabloid story is only going to alert the rest of the media as to my whereabouts. I know I can’t stay here much longer without more questions popping up, but there is something I have to take care of before I can come home.”
“But you do plan on coming home soon, to help me try to do some damage control regarding this benefit show?”
Willa looked over the gardens toward the bayou. She’d seen Lucas heading toward the restaurant and boathouse earlier, had watched as he’d steered his pirogue into the brown-black waters of the swamp. He’d disappeared in a low mist, like some figment of her imagination.
She wanted to escape and run after him, to ask him to take her into that lush landscape so she could hide from the world, hide from her responsibilities and her doubts. She was so very tired.
But Willa knew that would be a mistake.
“I just need until the weekend,” she told Samuel. “That’s three more days. I don’t have anything pressing anyway for a couple of weeks.”
Samuel sighed again. “Okay. I’ll hold off any bookings other than the ones we already have scheduled until I hear from you on Monday. But I expect you to be back in New York by then. And…I expect you to tell me what this is all about. You know I’m only here to help, Willa. If you need anything…”
“You’re a sweetheart,” Willa replied, wishing she could explain things to him. “Listen, I’ll be here through the weekend, but I know I’ve got to move on to avoid the press. And I’ve got some personal things to take care of. So…you have my cell number. You can track me down if something urgent comes up. But, Samuel, I’d really appreciate it if you could just back off for a while.”
“Okay, all right. I’ve sent out a press release explaining why you had to pull out of the benefit show—exhaustion, fatigue, the usual. I only hope people don’t think—”
“That I’m sick, that I’m hooked on drugs or alcohol?” She shook her head even though Samuel couldn’t see her. “We both know that’s not true.”
“Yes, we know that, but you have to understand how the press takes these things. Just like that two-bit tabloid, they make up what they can’t prove.”
Willa closed her eyes, letting the tiredness wash over her. “Yes, I know. But I need some privacy. I need to work through this without the press hovering around. I’ll be in touch.”
With that, she hung up, then tossed the phone on a nearby white wicker table.
How could she ever explain this to anyone?
She thought of Lucas, remembering his gentle touch this morning as he’d doctored her bug bites. He was such a kind man. So different from any man she’d ever been involved with.
Was she becoming involved with Lucas Dorsette?
Willa closed her eyes, wondered how to pray. She’d never been taught how to talk to a higher source, had never been encouraged to attend church on a regular basis. Her parents, so aloof, so worldly, had been inclined to look on religious practices as something to be tolerated, something to be used when time and circumstances called for it. As far as she knew, they didn’t even attend church.
Then Willa thought of Lucas and his sisters, of Aunt Hilda and the Babineaux family. All so devout, all so sincere and secure in their faith.
Why did she feel so safe with them? With Lucas?
She didn’t want to depend on him. She’d always depended on herself. Knowing she’d been adopted caused her to put up a shield around herself—distancing her heart from the tormenting questions that had always haunted her.
Did her real mother love her? Had she been forced to give up her child? Did her adopted parents really love her, or had they only taken her in to put up a facade of being the perfect family?
Lucas had lost his parents so long ago. Her heart went out to him. How he and his sisters must have suffered. And yet they carried on. They believed God would show them the way.
She got up to stand at the intricate iron and wood railing, a railing that had been forged and created right here on this land long ago, according to Lacey.
Tradition. Heritage. Roots. Family.
Willa longed to have those things, not a nomadic facsimile. She was plain tired of running from the truth. And she knew that healthwise, her own time might be running out.
She closed her eyes again, tried to form the words to ask the God she didn’t really know or understand to help her find her path in life.
And then she opened her eyes and looked down to find Lucas standing under a great oak tree, staring at her. Her heart stopped, lifted out in the wind to fill with a great, heavy longing.
“You look like a princess in her tower, standing there, love,” he called to her.
Willa leaned over the balcony, waving at him. “Are you my prince, come to rescue me yet again?”
“I just might be, at that.” Then he lifted himself off the tree’s ancient trunk, his head tilted back as he smiled up at her. “Or maybe that should be the other way around. Maybe you’ve come to rescue me.”
Willa wondered what he meant by that statement. He did seem in need of some sort of emotional rescue. But at other times he seemed content, living here far from the madding crowd. She could almost be content here herself.
Except I can’t stay. Except you don’t know the truth about me.
She should have shouted those words at him.
But she didn’t.
Because
