Paradise for a Sinner Read online

  “Major plumbing installation,” Nell mentioned.

  “We could have it done before the camp opens.”

  “The path through the grove should be cement so the children in wheelchairs can enjoy it, too,” Winnie added, mindful of her patient.

  “Sure, all that can be done in time, but for now we put in the sand and trees,” Adam urged.

  Corazon, her face planted between her two hands over a steaming mug of coffee, had a faraway look in her round, brown eyes. “I would like a beach where I could sit in my spare time—if I had spare time.”

  “While I am here, I can give you that, Mrs. Polk.” Brinsley took a small sip of coffee as if he committed some dire breach of etiquette. The others built sandwiches, but his plate remained empty.

  Corazon snapped back to reality. “Your offer is good. I get a beach. You can be butler while you are here. Eat! You are too skinny like Miss Winnie,” Corazon rolled on, not noticing the other woman’s small wince. “Call me Corazon and I call you?”

  “I am called Brinsley.”

  “You got no first name. You born being Brinsley?”

  The butler capitulated. “Clive, Clive Leopold Brinsley.”

  “Ha! No wonder you no say. Clive is okay with me.” The phone rang. “Clive, you get that while I eat, no?” Corazon raised a multilayered ham, roast beef, three cheese, and smoked turkey sandwich to her mouth.

  Clive, his plate still empty, went to the cordless phone in the kitchen. “Billodeaux residence. This is Brinsley. To whom am I speaking? Yes, certainly. Thank you.” He disconnected. “Miss Anastasia is finished with her testing and is in need of a ride home. I would be delighted to retrieve her if you will entrust me with a vehicle and directions.”

  Nell, in the midst of eating a sandwich much more modest in size than Corazon’s masterpiece, forked over her keys and paused in her lunch to write directions to the Episcopal day school. Brinsley, seeming very relieved, left to run the errand.

  Winnie’s hand hovered over the dill pickles. She made a snap decision and scooped up two sweet gherkins instead. Adam eyed her empty plate, then considered his own holding a half-eaten slab of French bread brimming over with fillings and a twin sandwich beside it. He considered the nearly empty platter. “Here take one of mine, Winnie.”

  “Oh, I had that salad and some fries earlier.”

  “You’ve been lugging rocks.”

  “Well, you dug a pit.”

  Nell and Joe exchanged glances. Corazon snatched the extra sandwich. “If you not gonna eat that, I take it to my husband.” She stood and patted Adam on the back. “This man knows how to eat, not like Clive Brinsley.” She found Knox Polk’s favorite beverage in the fridge and made up a plate to deliver. No sooner had her broad behind passed out the door than Adam leaned close to Winnie.

  “See, all she needed to be happy was a beach. And so do you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Winnie waited for the arrival of the special school bus hauling the handicapped students as she had all week long. She carried Teddy’s armband crutches. He hated them, but needed to exert himself to learn walking. The minibus with the wheelchair lift swung to a stop as she opened the gate. A round-faced, short-chinned Down’s Syndrome girl waved happily from one of its windows. The head of a boy with severe muscular dystrophy lolled against a headrest, but could not turn her way. Most likely, Teddy did not feel lucky about his condition, but thanks to early intervention, he had a good mind that could take him all the way through college. An aide helped Teddy from the bus and left him in her care.

  Winnie held out the crutches. “Up we go, half way down the drive before you get to ride.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Absolutely. Someday you’ll want to walk across a stage at graduation, so let’s practice now.”

  “Maybe I won’t finish high school like my mom.”

  “Nell and Joe will make certain you do.”

  “Only if I’m Daddy Joe’s real son.”

  “Up. You’re stalling.”

  Winnie made sure he had a good grip on the stick crutches before they started along the paved drive. The boy complained about so very little, almost as if he feared making any sort of trouble would get him thrown out of Lorena Ranch. He only griped about the crutches to her. As Teddy toiled slowly along, her mind wandered to yesterday’s physical therapy session and to Adam Malala.

  Joe had done her a big favor by visiting the home gym when she guided the child through his upper body strengthening exercises after Teddy completed his homework. He squeezed the boy’s biceps and assured him he noticed an increase in size. Teddy’s face lit with the praise. Of course, the triplets, who had little homework, tagged along and somewhat ruined the moment by showing their daddy what they could do. Even Lorena wanted her arm muscles approved, and Mack made everyone count his pushups. Still, Teddy’s glow over his purported father’s compliment did not fade. Just those few words made her job easier.

  Adam Malala did not, though the fault didn’t rest with him. He helped her get Teddy ready for bed every night. Usually they stood by the elevator talking softly while Nell visited briefly with the children at the end of the hall. He stood so close his body heat made sweat trickle between her shoulder blades, but never came as close to kissing her as he had that single time on the first night she arrived.

  Instead, he lavished her with flowery compliments. Her eyes were like the green of sea waves sparkling in the sunlight. Her hair, and he twined a curl around his index finger, as soft as the down on an ocean bird’s breast. She would have liked to sink her hands into his curly mane and initiate a kiss, but somehow she never had the nerve. Why did he move so slowly, so cautiously with her, a divorced woman who needed and wanted a demonstration of her attractiveness?

  Adam always came to the gym while she worked with Teddy. He wore long sweatpants and a hoodie as he ran on the treadmill. Sometimes, he stripped off his top when Joe spotted him in weightlifting. As the perspiration beaded on his chest, she felt the desire to lick it off, laving the valley between his pecs and rounding his dark nipples with her tongue. Joe flashed a wicked smile her way as if he could read every decadent word of the novel in her mind. Teddy, noticing her distraction, began to fudge on his reps. “Ten, twelve, fifteen.” She’d gotten her attention back where it should be and made him start over with his count.

  Today, Teddy poked along setting his feet firmly each time. He had feeling in his thighs, but not his lower legs. Still with exercise and massage, he might stimulate his nerves to grow. He stopped so suddenly Winnie nearly bumped into him with the wheelchair. “What’s that noise?”

  “That racket? Bulldozers. They’ve been getting the lot ready for the beach all day. Frankly, I was enjoying the silence when they took a break.”

  Teddy’s pace quickened. He moved so fast his feet flopped carelessly, and Winnie feared he would fall. The boy turned on the side path toward the pool and kept chugging along as eager to see the big machines in action as he would have been to meet the ice cream truck. The other boys, large and small, were already lined up along the chain-link fence around the pool: Joe and Adam, Dean and Tommy, Mack and Trinity. They watched in rapt attention as the big shovel of the bulldozer pushed small, uprooted trees toward a far corner of the lot. Teddy leaned up against the fence at the end of the line.

  Joe greeted him cordially. “Have a good day at school, Teddy?”

  “Same as always.” He shrugged his small shoulders.

  “You sound like all the rest of the kids. See that pile of brush the bulldozer is making? I’m thinking we should have a bonfire.”

  “That would be cool.”

  “You bet it would.”

  Failing to find the big machinery fascinating, Winnie joined the girls at a poolside table where Brinsley stood at rigid attention seeming very out of place in his dark suit and tie. He served the after school snacks as formally as a British high tea.

  Winnie took a seat under the striped umbrella. “What do
we have here?”

  “Scones,” said Stacy. “Brinsley got them for us. We have currant, cranberry, and lemon. Would you care for one?”

  “I’d love it.”

  As Winnie seated herself, Dean shouted over the noise of the machinery, “Sissy food!”

  Stacy shot back, “Civilized food, you big lout.”

  The girl not only passed her entrance exams for the Episcopal day school but excelled to the point that the administrator suggested she be placed a grade ahead with her cousins. The twins and Xochi had not been thrilled by this development, but since the puppy had broken the ice on their relationship, they tolerated it. Now, they giggled over her calling their sometimes-overbearing big brother a lout. Clearly, they were enjoying their tea party and Stacy’s in-your-face reply to Dean.

  Xochi’s brown countenance warmed with a wide smile. “I’m beginning to like you, Stace.”

  Stacy leaned over and patted Titi curled at her feet. She coached the dog conversationally. “If Macho tries to roll you in the dirt again, you just bite his ankle.” Macho, locked out of the pool compound for putting his feet on the table, whined at the gate at the mention of his name. Stacy broke off a corner of a scone, fed it to Titi, and lobbed the rest over the fence to Macho who caught the treat in midair.

  The girl had bribery and dominance all figured out, Winnie thought, and wished she’d had half that much confidence at the age of nine. Maybe she would be a doctor by now instead of a divorced nurse.

  “More milk, anyone?” Brinsley asked. “Would you care for some iced tea, Nurse Green?”

  Winnie nodded. He filled one of the tall plastic glasses in tones of melon, green, and yellow that matched the umbrella for her first, then poured more milk into upraised cups. Taking a silver tray of scones to the men, he offered them around. Adam grabbed one of each flavor. Dean refused the offer, but the others picked up one each. Rather than nibble like the girls, they finished theirs in a few big bites.

  Trinity, on the end of the line next to Teddy, said, “Your wheelchair looks like fun.”

  “It can be, not always. I wish I could run.”

  “Can I try it out?”

  Although a twinge of anxiety crossed Teddy’s face, he said, “Go ahead.”

  Trin carefully wheeled himself around the perimeter of the pool. Getting out he said, “Harder than it looks. You must have strong arms.”

  “I sure do. I can race my wheelchair.”

  Mack, the biggest of the triplets, asked for a turn and took the chair for a spin. While he would not confess to needing any special strength to maneuver, he did admit racing the wheelchair would be fun. “Camp Love Letter has wheelchair races. I bet you could win.”

  Joe gave both his little boys a smile of approval that quickly turned into a frown when Dean forced his overgrown twelve-year old frame into the small chair without asking permission. The oldest Billodeaux boy, his chin nearly resting on his knees, pushed off with a mighty shove. Whether by accident or intention, the wheelchair sailed over the lip of the pool and sank into the deep end.

  Dean kicked free of it and sputtered to the surface. “Cold in here!” He stroked toward the edge and pulled himself out. The girls burst into laughter as he straggled from the water.

  “That was a dumb thing to do,” Stacy remarked without sympathy. She earned a small chorus of “yeahs” from the rest of the females.

  “For sure a dumb thing to do in February. Go into the pool house and get a towel,” his father directed.

  Teddy wobbled on his crutches and sat down hard on the ground. “My chair! I can’t go to school without my chair. What if it doesn’t work anymore? What if Dean broke it?”

  Dean stopped in the doorway of the pool house. “Oh, shut up, you wimp. Dad, my dad, will buy you a new one that isn’t all beat up.”

  Joe covered the space between the fallen Teddy and Dean with the same quickness he displayed on the football field. He grasped his oldest son by the shoulders. “You march over there and apologize. Help the boy up.”

  “Why, because he really is your son, because you cheated on Mom?”

  “No, because I’m trying to raise you as a decent human being. For the last time, I am saying Teddy is not my son. Now do as I told you.” He gave Dean a shove in the right direction.

  “Sorry, I guess.”

  Using a strength most boys his age did not possess, Dean heaved Teddy to his feet. The crippled boy hung his head to hide the tears streaming down his face. Reassure one child, hurt another. Joe shook his head in frustration as Dean stomped past on his way to get a towel. Tommy, ever Dean’s best pal, moved closer to Teddy, who cringed against the fence.

  “Dean isn’t really mean. It’s hormones Mama Nell says.” Then, he trotted off after his buddy.

  A huge splash drew everyone’s attention back to the pool. Two oversized athletic shoes sat on the rim. Adam Malala surfaced, dragging the chair with him into the shallow end. He wheeled it up the ramp installed for the Camp Love Letter kids.

  “Still working fine, but we should dry it off. Maybe Knox can check the gears for you, Teddy. Want me to carry you back to the house until we are sure?”

  Teddy made his way to his beloved and yet hated wheelchair. “No, Miss Winnie, could you get me a towel to put on the seat? I want to take my own self back to the house.”

  Winnie did this small service, opening the gate for him, and walking behind as he went along. Carrying the boy’s sticks, Adam escorted them. She could have sworn steam rose off of his big body, his long, bedraggled hair already beginning to curl again. A family in crisis, a patient to care for, and her mind took her straight to bed with a Samoan lover. She had sunk lower than the wheelchair in the deep end of the pool.

  Chapter Twelve

  Spurred on by a cash money incentive, the landscaper worked like the devil in debt to complete the beach and palm grove before Super Bowl Sunday. He plugged the tall, graceful-necked trees into the earth, shoring them up with ropes and stakes until they rooted. Not very attractive for the moment, but he screened the stakes with a border of short, bushier palms bearing sharp, pointed leaves along the fence surrounding the pool and set groupings of dwarf banana trees, hibiscus, and cannas into the gentle curves of the walkway that wove through the garden.

  On the Friday before the deadline, dump trucks filled to the brim with pearly white sand arrived, and the mostly Mexican work crew began hauling and dumping wheelbarrows full on top of the bare, scraped earth until a beach evolved. The process drew the Billodeaux children after school, blithely skipping out on homework that could and would be done on Saturday before the big party the following day.

  Brinsley served them a less than elegant snack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on whole wheat bread cut into triangles, but still placed on a silver tray poolside. Corazon was getting used to having a butler in the house. At the moment, she relaxed in the kitchen with her coffee in hand and enjoyed the company of her own son, a big baby and now a husky little boy. Even the maids who came in the mornings to clean and do laundry performed better under the butler’s cold eye. They might have been Corazon’s livelier, prettier cousins, a seemingly endless procession of young women on their way to better jobs, education, or marriage, but they completed their tasks more efficiently with Brinsley double-checking their work. Once, the maids had been housed on the grounds, but Nell long ago decided to pay them better and get them rooms in Chapelle after more than one of their boyfriends set off the alarms by climbing over the fences after dark and a few flashed their dark eyes at Joe. Knox picked up the maids daily during the week after dropping the children at school, and now delivered them into Brinsley’s competent hands. Knox Polk never talked much, but all assumed he enjoyed having a less fatigued wife, too.

  The Billodeaux kids had already put their mark on the concrete path by scraping their initials in the wet cement. Titi and Macho contributed by running along the path before it cured, and Teddy, dared to do it, wheeled across one damp section. The landscaper
offered to repair the damage, but Joe and Nell told him to leave it be. Still, Winnie and Adam offered to keep an eye on the brood as the final touch fell into place, a line of low solar-powered lights snaking along the walkway. Before the contractor wiped his hands and held them out to receive Adam’s substantial check, the children shucked off their shoes and socks and charged into the palm grove with two barking dogs at their heels.

  “See, everyone loves a beach and the feel of sand between their toes,” Adam said to Winnie as he paid the landscaper at one of the poolside tables where she sat with Teddy.

  Putting aside his sulky pre-teen act, Dean chased his sisters and Stacy around the trees in an impromptu game of tag. He made an extra effort to catch Stacy and dump her into a mound of sand with a heavy-duty touch of the hands.

  “You got sand in my hair and made my uniform dirty. I’m coming for you, Dean Billodeaux.”

  “We’ll help!” The girls reversed the chase. They had little luck as Dean weaved among palms and easily outran all the younger children until Tommy intentionally slowed enough to be caught and then ran down his elder brother for them. Teddy glumly wheeled his chair to the edge of the new walkway.

  “Want your sticks to walk in there?” Winnie asked.

  “No. I can’t feel the sand between my toes even if I didn’t have these stupid boots and braces on. I’ll only sink and keel over, then Dean will laugh at me.”

  Adam had the boy out of his chair and seated under a palm before Winnie could protest. “You can sift the sand through your fingers and enjoy the sigh of the breeze in the palms, not a bad way for any man to spend some time.”

  Two winded dogs soon joined Teddy, then the triplets, who began mounding sand into what they claimed were castles. Teddy moved his legs wide apart and started to dig out a moat for them. Adam leaned one muscular arm lightly against an anchored tree and spoke softly to Winnie. “Today the children enjoy the beach, but tonight it belongs to us.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t go out at night and leave Teddy alone. He might need me.”