American Ghost by Janis Owens Read Free Book Online Page B

shrugged again—that small hitch of her shoulders so natural it was almost a physical characteristic, that Who Knows? denial of personal opinion, common among poor people in the South. “I don’t know. I couldn’t cry when Carl left either.”
    Sam just nodded, still a little distracted by her casual state of undress that was setting off a purely sexual buzz in his head that hummed like a hot wire, making a true analysis difficult. “You mean your brother, Carl? Her boyfriend?”
    Jolie grunted at the word. “Well, I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call him her boyfriend. Carl’s three years older than Lena—or three years physically. Emotionally, he’s about eight.”
    â€œThat him?” Sam asked with a nod at the wall of photos of the dark-haired child who was obviously kin to Jolie, with the same thick block of hair and straight eyebrows.
    She nodded. “Yeah, that’s Carl. He doesn’t have as much hair anymore. I think he’s already losing it.”
    â€œAren’t we all,” Sam murmured, feeling for the lever on the recliner and kicking out the footrest, making himself comfortable as he dug into the domestic history. “Yeah, she told me how you and her, you got in a fight once, when you caught them on the couch. Said you were pretty hot.”
    Jolie looked utterly astonished and muttered, “She told you that? Good God —what a thing to tell.”
    Sam found her puritanical tone disappointing (aye, heartbreaking, when coupled with her legs) and hastened to defend Lena. “Well, he was her boyfriend. And these things do happen—” He stopped short as Jolie obviously wasn’t buying, her lanky hospitality literally folding up as she threw her feet on the rug and faced him with direct, gunslinger eyes.
    â€œYeah, it does. It happens all the time—but that don’t mean it’s right.” Then she asked, as if giving him the benefit of the doubt, “Did she tell you how old she was?”
    â€œSixteen? Seventeen?” he offered, and was cut off with a snort.
    â€œSixteen, my butt . She was four teen. She just moved here—was barely out of a training bra. And I wasn’t hot with her, I was hot with my idiot brother, who was raised to know better. Daddy was—he was beside himself. He put Carl’s stuff on the porch—sent him away that very night.”
    Sam was a little shocked at the severity of the punishment for what sounded like a bit of minor philandering. “To where? You mean, like, military school?”
    Jolie had the grace to look a little embarrassed at the query, sitting back and finding a sofa pillow to clutch to her chest. “Well, Bible college, if you must know. Claims to have got rededicated down there, but I don’t trust him any further than I could throw him. Not where Lena’s concerned.”
    This was more to Sam’s taste, wonderfully Southern and quirky. “Oh, well, I wouldn’t worry too much with Lena. Last time I saw her, she was headed out with a surfboard tied to her roof. She seems to have escaped Hendrix, hymen or not. So there goes that theory.”
    It was the kind of audacious remark you make to a potential girlfriend to see if she’s on the same page with you, though Jolie didn’t laugh.
    She just met his eye levelly and commented in a dry voice, “You two must have had you a right long talk after you dropped me off from the beach.”
    â€œNot long”—he smiled—“but instructive. All about the Sisters. And the rules—which, I must say, she didn’t seem too worried with breaking.”
    He said it in a tone of mild challenge that Jolie rose easily to answer. “Yeah, well, the thing is, with Lena, she ain’t really from around here. She’s got three married sisters and a rich granny in Naples and can come and go around Hendrix pretty much as she pleases. Not all of us got