to a cell in the Harris County Jail.
“I was happy to do it,” Jay said. “And it’s good to have you home.”
Marisol looked uncomfortable with the word, Scott thought. Then again, why would a woman like her, used to the finest things in life and the social whirl of a big city, ever feel at home in a small house in a sleepy place like Cedar Switch?
“I plan to stay here for a little while,” she said. “Until I can sell the house. That’s what I came to see you about. I was hoping you could recommend a real estate agent. I’d like to list the house as soon as possible. I didn’t know who else to ask.”
Jay’s smile broadened. “You came to the right place. Scott here is an excellent agent, and his office is right next door.”
She looked at Scott again, her gaze lingering, and he had the impression he was being judged. Sized up. “That’s very convenient,” she said. “Do you think you can sell my mother’s house?”
“I’ll be happy to help you find a buyer,” he said.
“Thank you.” She looked away from him again, her hands knotted tightly in her lap, gaze focused somewhere above his father’s desk. The silence went on so long he began to feel uneasy.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Jay asked.
She took a deep breath. “You’ve always been so kind to me,” she said.
“I’ve always liked you very much.” Jay’s voice was gentle. He cleared his throat. “We all do.”
Her eyes widened, as if in surprise, for half a second—such a fleeting expression Scott wasn’t entirely sure he’d actually seen it. The unnaturally calm mask was back in its place. “I have some questions I hope you can answer,” she said.
“I’ll do my best.” Jay relaxed in his chair again, while Scott continued to study the woman who sat a few feet away, unable to tear his eyes from her. The beauty he remembered had matured to something deeper, something more compelling even than the girl who had cast a spell over him.
“Why didn’t my mother want me at her funeral?” she asked, her accusing tone startling after the long silence.
“There wasn’t a funeral,” Jay said. “She insisted on that. I suppose, given the circumstances, she thought it best.”
Marisol laced her fingers together. “I had permission to come to town for a funeral,” she said. “My lawyers even thought it would help gain sympathy for me.”
When the media learned there was to be no funeral—that it had been her mother’s last wishes that Marisol not return to Cedar Switch—the press had trumpeted the news for weeks. Marisol was so bad, her own mother had rejected her. Of course a woman like that would murder her husband.
Jay frowned. “I didn’t know Mercedes well,” he said. “But I don’t think she even considered doing you any harm. I think she was simply a very private person who didn’t want any fuss over her. She wanted everything taken care of so you wouldn’t have to bother.”
“And she told you to wait until after she was buried before you contacted me?”
“Yes. I tried to talk her out of the idea. I told her you would want to be contacted. She made me promise not to bother you.”
“Was that the word she used? Bother? ”
He nodded. “Yes. She said it would be better for everyone if all the details were out of the way and over with before you even knew she was gone. I couldn’t convince her otherwise.”
Marisol’s shoulders sagged, and her fingers played with the strap of her purse, stroking the leather over and over. In that moment she seemed more vulnerable than she had since walking into the office. Scott fought the urge to put his arms around her. But the fact that he wanted so much to touch her kept him firmly in his chair. What he felt for the woman across from him went beyond sympathy for a client or compassion for an old friend. His feelings for Marisol were too mixed up with adolescent desire, unfulfilled fantasy and maybe even the fact that as an adult she was so much like the women who had attracted him during his high-flying days—polished, sophisticated women whose outer sleekness was a thin coating over an earthy sensuality. He couldn’t separate all these facets of his attraction to Marisol in his mind, and therefore had no business laying a finger on her.
She stood suddenly, poised once more. She extended her hand to Jay. “Thank you for talking with me.”
“If there’s anything I can do, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you.” She turned to Scott. “I’ll want to sell the house as soon as possible.”
“I can come out late today or tomorrow to look at it and draw up a listing agreement.”
“Tomorrow would be best, thank you.” She turned to leave. He stood and followed her, holding the door open for her. Then he moved to the window and watched her walk to a bright red Corvette that was parked at the curb. He smiled. He would have guessed the girl who stood naked on the bridge and the woman who held her head high and faced the television cameras head-on would drive a car like this. A car that dared everyone to watch her. As they always had.
As he always had.
CHAPTER TWO
M ARISOL WOKE the next morning to golden light streaming through the yellow curtains in her mother’s old bedroom. Lying there in a place she had never imagined she would find herself she felt the impotence of a person in a dream, unsure her legs would support her if she tried to rise. The grief she had fought for days battered at her, waves of memory threatening to drown her: her mother teaching her to make tortillas when Marisol was five years old, Mercedes’s larger hands over her small ones, helping her to pat out the flat disks of dough; mother and daughter watching the movie Grease at a matinee at the Cedar Switch cinema, sharing a tub of buttery popcorn and pretending to swoon over John Travolta; the pink silky dress she wore to her mother’s remarriage, and how much she’d cried when the newlyweds left her behind for their brief honeymoon.
Mercedes had told her she was gaining a father that day, but in truth Marisol had lost her mother to Harlan Davies. He had been a hard, possessive man, who had demanded Mercedes take his side in all disputes. Until finally he had dug a chasm between mother and daughter that could not be crossed, not even after his death.
If Marisol could have asked her mother one question now, it would be if she felt all she’d gained by marrying Davies had been worth all he had forced her to surrender.
She shut her eyes tightly and forced her mind from such thoughts. She had too much to do to indulge her grief. This morning she had to see about finding a job; the few thousand dollars left in her bank account after she’d paid the legal team and all their investigators, and settled the debts Lamar had left her with would not last long. And she absolutely would not touch Toni’s college fund. Lamar’s death had robbed his daughter of the advantages of wealth and privilege; Marisol would not deprive her of a first-class education as well.
Besides, working would keep Marisol occupied and out of the house until it sold and they could leave town for good.
What kind of job she had no idea. Years of attending charity balls, shopping and lunching with
