Diana Anderson - Entering Southern Country 01 - Famous in a Small Town (2 page)

“Sweet mother of God!” He scanned the area and then shot to his feet. He reached down, grabbed his rifle, and the duffel bag. He glanced around once more and then headed back toward his trailer at a brisk pace. Every few steps, he looked over his shoulder. He hoped the short Mexican didn’t come back for the duffel bag until he was out of the woods.

2

Raven Sawyer’s fingers hovered over the keypad of her laptop as she waited for her brain to send some form of communication to her fingers. Her desk sat in front of a large window in her bedroom. She had a glorious view of Lower Manhattan’s skyscrapers in the distance against a vivid blue sky. Her coffee cup sat nearby with her third refill.

She picked up a pen, swiveled her chair around, and scanned the room. She tapped the pen on her lower lip as she tried to think about the next chapter, but all she could think about was her unmade bed and her clothes that she’d left scattered on the floor when she’d crawled into bed that night. She needed to clean house, but when she had an idea, housework had to wait. She had to get it all down and out of her head before it left her. Distractions were not on her to-do list.

The past few days, she’d had much uninterrupted time, and even to cook a meal was low on the list of things to do. A cold sandwich, or toast, or fruit had been her meals the past week. Her refrigerator was almost bare of necessities, but a trip to the grocery store would have to wait.

She swiveled her chair back around toward the desk.

The phone on her desk rang. With her eyes on the laptop screen, she reached for the receiver and brought it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Happy birthday!” a sing-song voice said.

Raven smiled. “Thanks, Becca!”

“I’ve got a birthday present for you.”

“Well, thanks, but you didn’t have to do that.”

“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t get you this one.”

A small creased formed between Raven’s brows. “Okay. But I’m a bit confused.”

“Are you sitting down?” Rebecca asked.

“Yeah. What’s wrong?” Raven sat up straight. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, I just have some good news.”

“Oh, good. You scared me.” Raven breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ve been sitting here, staring at a blank screen since four this morning.” Raven raked her fingers through her long black hair and glanced at the time on her laptop. Seven twenty-five. Rebecca had never called her this early.

“Four?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Raven said.

“Well, I’ve got good news, girl. We’ve got a hit.”

Raven rolled her chair back and looked out the window. She tried to not let her hopes soar too high.

“Raven, are you there?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sitting down?”

She took a deep breath. “I told you I was. Stop with the suspense and tell me.”

“Six figures.”

The phone slipped. Raven clutched it tighter. She opened her mouth, but couldn’t speak.

“You there?” Rebecca asked.

She took a deep breath. “Yeah,” she breathed.

Laughter came from the other end of the line. “Now, aren’t you glad you were sitting down?”

“Yeah. I doubt I’ll be standing for awhile.”

“I about wet my pants when I got the call. Switching genres was the best thing you ever did. Not that women’s contemporary fiction isn’t a hot topic, but you’re where the money is now, girl.”

Raven swiveled her chair around to face the wall that shelved her previous novels and scanned the volumes. Many she had written in high school and college but none were ever submitted to an agent until after she had graduated college.

Rebecca continued, “You know, you owe it all to your breakout novel?”

Raven’s eyes homed in on Shattered Lives. She felt a flutter in her chest.

“You’ve come a long way, Raven Sawyer,” Rebecca said. “A long way.”

Rebecca hadn’t a clue the distance Raven had traveled.

3

Callie sat on the edge of the pool, took in a slow deep breath, and then slid into the cool blue water for her morning laps. Her long blonde hair floated on the water as she glided across the swimming pool. She’d made it a ritual every morning since she’d moved into the house four years ago. She still had a firm body and intended to keep it that way. She didn’t want her husband to stray. It’d taken every effort to catch him. In his profession, there were too many young nurses around him every day. No doubt in her mind any one of them would love to get their claws hooked into him.

She made her ten laps and flipped over, and then floated on her back. The sunlight filtered through the branches of live oaks surrounding the two story estate. She smiled with pride. Her dark eyes took in its magnificence. She’d awakened to breakfast in bed every morning since she’d become Mrs. Theodore Wallace. She didn’t take that for granted, although she’d earned it. It’d taken her three years to snatch up the doctor, but it’d been well worth the wait. Six years since his first wife had died but Callie had been there to comfort him from day one. She counted her blessings every day and all his money as well.

His money. Him and his damned pre-nup.

He gave her a generous allowance every week; however, when he keeled over it would all be hers. He was sixty-seven, so it might not be too many more years. He’d been fit as a fiddle when they’d married, but with Maggie, the new housekeeper she’d hired six months ago to replace the nosey old bat, it shouldn’t take long. The tall black woman loved to cook with lard, and Ted had acquired a taste for her rich cuisine. Why, he’d put on ten pounds since she’d hired Maggie.

Callie had let Maggie know, right after the first meal that she’d prepared, to not serve her those fattening southern dishes if she planned on being employed very long at the Wallaces’ home. Callie had to watch her figure. Although it baffled Callie how anyone as thin as Maggie could cook such things. Although managing the large house had to be the reason she’d stayed so thin.

Before Callie’s first ship had come in, she had been employed as a housekeeper. She hated that job. But it had proved profitable in the long run. As luck would have it, she just happened to have a boss that couldn’t keep his hands off of her. Ted wasn’t like that though. She couldn’t imagine him and Maggie together. However, Maggie was attractive for her age. But Ted lacked sexual interest in Callie and that puzzled her. He hadn’t touched her in months. Callie didn’t care though as long as he kept his pants zipped around other women. Maybe she ought to keep an eye on Maggie though. She didn’t want her messing around with her husband or in her business.

Callie considered herself a socialite now since she was married to an upstanding doctor. Of course, a few old hags at the country club still snubbed her.

Old money.
Callie smirked.

They probably still had worthless confederate dollars in their bank accounts and up their asses. Most had accepted her or at least polite enough to pretend. Southern hospitality still lived and breathed in the state of Mississippi.

After a year of numerous phone calls, the ladies had given up on their quest for her to participate in their charitable events. She didn’t have time for that. Who, in their right mind, would want to waste their precious time stuffing envelopes or have a telephone receiver stuck to their ear for hours at a time while they begged for donations to charities, such as feeding starving children in foreign countries? From what she’d seen on the television, every country in the world had a McDonald’s, and everybody knows McDonald’s had a dollar menu.

Just how hard can it be to scrounge up a dollar?

Their other charitable events included the Toys for Tots program.

Has anyone heard of the Dollar Tree? Hello?

And the annual save a pet drive, which was an effort to save a pet from being euthanized. If it was any kind of real pet to begin with, nobody would want to get rid of it. The way she saw it, if the animal wasn’t worth keeping, who would want it anyway? And the one charitable event that baffled her the most was their organization to help the homeless. They took up clothing, food, and monetary donations and gave it to the local homeless shelter. Why her Dior clothing, Jimmy Choo stilettos, Gucci handbags, and Versace lingerie would be a total disaster on a homeless person.

Nobody would take them seriously. The money would be wasted on drugs and alcohol, so why bother? Besides, if you give them money, there is no incentive for them to get a job. And food is available at McDonald’s. There’s a McDonald’s on every corner. How hard can it be to find food?

She had survived all of her life by fending for herself. If she could do it, anyone could. She was a perfect example of how to succeed in life without a high school diploma. Her parents instilled that in her at a young age.

If you want something bad enough in this life, you’ll find a way to get it.

She had better things to do with her time. It took an hour and a half out of her week just to get a mani-pedi and another hour at the beauty salon to get her roots bleached. And then the shopping trips to Memphis—that’s at least two hours round trip not counting the time it takes to get from boutique to boutique.

Her parents had lived in a double-wide trailer on a few acres of land out in the country. Her father had owned a used car lot in town until the IRS had taken everything—business, property, and trailer. He had failed to pay income taxes for eight years. They’d moved to a trailer park on the outskirts of town. He’d spent his final days in front of the television with a bottle of whiskey in his hand. At the end, he had drunk himself to death. Her mother collected his life insurance, went to Vegas, and lost it all. She then had taken up drugs and baby-sitting. When one of the mothers found a blunt in her child’s diaper bag, she informed the sheriff’s department. They raided her home and found the two back bedrooms had been turned into greenhouses. She was then arrested for drug possession, child endangerment, and marijuana cultivation with the intent to sell.

Callie hadn’t the time or energy to visit her mother while she was incarcerated. The one time she had driven down to Rankin County to visit her mother, all her mother did was whine and complain about the living conditions and how miserable and alone she felt.

“Well, that’s what prisons are for, to make one’s life miserable,”
Callie had told her.

Two years later, her mother had committed suicide. She had hung herself.

Callie had never been close to either of her parents. She had been an only child, and both her parents had been strict on her. They had demanded respect. How could she respect a used car salesman and a mother who had thought ‘General Hospital’ was real? Every day, Callie had come home from school to find her mother in tears over Dr. Steve Hardy and Jessie Brewer or whatever the latest disaster was in Port Charles. However, when Bobbie Spencer came on the Port Charles scene, that was what had gotten Callie’s attention. Callie couldn’t wait to get home to learn more of what
not
to do to get ahead in life. Although she and Bobbie had similar ambitions, Callie was more than willing to sacrifice anyone or anything to get what she wanted. She’d had a few minor set backs, but it had been well worth the wait.

A splash from the other end of the pool brought her head up. Her ankles were gripped, and she was plunged underneath the water. Strong arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her against a firm body. Their heads popped up above the surface. Hot lips covered her mouth. His tongue forced apart her lips and played with her own. She wrapped her legs around his waist and felt his erection. She moaned when he released their kiss. He trailed his lips down her neck to her breast and lapped his tongue over her taut nipple protruding through her bikini top. She dropped her hand down into the water and pulled the strings at the sides of her bikini bottoms. The flimsy material floated to the surface. His strong legs maneuvered them to the edge of the pool. He braced one hand on the pool’s edge and the other on her bottom. His mouth covered hers again.

“Mrs. Wallace?” Maggie called from the patio door. “Dr. Wallace is on the phone.”

Salvador’s head popped up.

“Dammit! I’m busy,” Callie yelled, “Take a message.”

She gripped his shoulders. “Don’t stop,” she breathed.

Maggie rolled her eyes and went back inside.

4

Sheriff Cal Rayburn came into his office with a rolled up newspaper tucked under his arm and a mug of coffee in his hand. He took off his beige Stetson, tossed it on his desk, and ran his fingers through his short, sandy blonde waves. He sat down in his chair, slid some paperwork over, and took his first morning sip of tar he’d poured from the blackened carafe in the kitchenette. He made a face, set his mug down, and unrolled the newspaper. The headline read, “Ground Breaking for the Wallace Wing Scheduled Today.” He skimmed over the brief story, tossed the paper aside, picked up his mug, and took another sip. He grimaced and set the mug back down on his desk. Deputy Justin Ledet favored stout chicory coffee, but Cal didn’t care for the concoction.

Cal had enlisted in the Marines after he’d graduated four years of college. He had joined the Marines to get away from painful memories, but the painful memories had followed him. After he had done a tour in Afghanistan, he returned home. His mother had convinced him to run for sheriff. At twenty-seven years of age, he was elected and had been sheriff of Laurel County for almost three years.

The door to his office opened, and the deputy poked his head inside. “We going to man the ground breaking?” Justin asked with a noticeable Cajun drawl.

Justin and his wife had lived in Cypress, Mississippi for two years. It had been his mother’s hometown when she was a child. All through his childhood and teenage years, she had talked so much about its beauty that he had decided to visit. Upon arrival, he and his wife had fallen in love with the area, the town, and the town’s people, so they had made the decision to move there.