Free The Talk of the Town by Fran Baker Page B

smile. “And the lunchroom reminds me too much of places I’d rather forget.”
    A gentle breeze cavorted through the grass, but it didn’t cool the heated curiosity building inside Roxie. She had to know. She had to hear it straight from him. Into the charged silence she blurted out, “What happened, Luke? What went wrong?”
    “I got caught,” he said, his voice flippant.
    “Please don’t,” she pleaded.
    “You know what happened. Everybody does.” Repressed emotion roughened his voice.
    “I was away at school when you left,” she told him. “I never really knew all the details.”
    “And you haven’t asked anyone?”
    “I wanted to hear it from you.”
    Luke shifted restlessly. He had known it would come to this. Sooner or later it always came back to this. His past oppressed his life. But if he were ever to come to an understanding with Roxie, it couldn’t be avoided. As much as he dreaded it, he had to try to explain. But what should he say? If he said too much, she might think he was making excuses. Too little, and he might not convince her how much he regretted his past mistakes. What to say? How to begin?
    He crossed his legs Indian-style and stared out over the flat horizon. Just grass and sky with nothing in between. As always, the view soothed him. Finally, he began at the beginning.
    “I was what went wrong,” he said matter-of-factly. “My parents never really wanted me. I was just an accident, or so I was always told, and each blamed the other for me. My mother deserted us before I was even five. My old man was a drunk whose favorite pastime was beating me—while I was still small enough not to fight back, that is.” He paused. “You know, my father never once said he loved me,” he added, dropping his voice a decibel.
    He didn’t look at her, which Roxie thought was probably just as well. She knew she was one of those people whose faces reflected what they were feeling, and what she was feeling right now was a deep sadness for the little boy whose parents had never hugged him or kissed him or held him in loving arms. He didn’t want anyone’s pity. He’d made that clear the day she hired him. So she locked her grief inside, where her soul rocked with suffering for him.
    “No one except Granddad Marchand—my mother’s father—ever seemed to expect anything of me,” he continued. “I pretty much grew up thinking I had to take on everyone in sight. Take them before they took me. All I ever really wanted was out. Out from under my father’s fists, out of Blue Ridge, out of the life I was leading. But I was mired in it. I knew what people thought of me, and I did my best to reinforce their opinion, directing all my energy to being the Bauer to end all Bauers. More and more I followed my father’s footsteps, drinking and fighting and wasting my life. As strange as it sounds, I think he finally approved of me.”
    Luke risked a glance her way. Her head was bent, her face veiled by a honey-colored fall of hair. He was almost relieved he couldn’t see her reaction. He couldn’t bear to see her disbelief, her distaste, her disgust. Hoping with all his being that she wouldn’t hate him for what he’d done, he forced himself to go on.
    “I’d had an ongoing feud with the owner of the gasoline station.”
    “Buck Roberts.”
    “Right.” He plucked a blade of grass and chewed on it, gathering his thoughts. “Old Buck was always egging me on, calling me a crumb and a bum and a raft of other names I won’t repeat. Then one day he said some things about my parents. Now he didn’t say anything about them that I hadn’t thought or said myself over the years, but I took exception to him saying them.”
    He shook his head in self-deprecation. “I’d been drinking, of course, and decided I’d just have to teach the old codger to have a little more respect.”
    Roxie crossed her arms over her stomach as if it pained her. Tightly she clasped her elbows with the opposite hands. She