Shay lifted fearful eyes and finally nodded. “No one has ever felt so right before,” she whispered.
They lay quietly dozing until a towhee’s loud call outside the window roused them.
“You need to go,” Shay said sharply, sitting up in the bed.
Liza rolled onto her back and looked up at the bed-tousled redhead. “Do you know how gorgeous you look right now?”
Shay smiled slightly but persisted. “You need to go.”
“But I want more,” Liza said, reaching for Shay.
Shay leapt from the bed and slipped into the bathroom. “No, you don’t understand. If anything happened to you…”
Liza pulled on her damp shirt and followed Shay, who was returning to the bedroom as she shrugged into a robe. They almost collided.
“Shay? What would happen to me, honey? You need to explain,” Liza said calmly. “What is it you’re afraid of?”
Shay studied Liza’s face and one hand came up to caress her cheek. Her eyes were warm sapphires. “I knew it that first day, you know.”
“You did? What did you know?” Liza’s smile was cajoling and sweet.
“That you’d be my undoing.”
“How so?”
Shay turned away. “I tried not to care, not to love you, but it’s impossible.”
Liza pulled Shay close and stroked her hair. “Love is a good thing, Shay. Together we’ll work through whatever is scaring you. Trust me, okay?”
Shay nodded and moved away. “You need to go, though. I need to think. All I know right now is that if anything happened to you…I couldn’t go on. It would kill me, Liza. It really would.”
Liza saw that conviction in Shay’s gaze. “You really want me to go, Shay? Wouldn’t it be better if I stayed a while longer? I don’t want to leave you upset.”
“I’ll be okay.” She tried to smile, but it was a weak effort. “Seriously.”
Liza pulled Shay back into her arms and sighed. “Okay. I’ll go. Pop’s probably sending Sheriff Lyles out to find me as we speak.”
Shay smiled for real this time and entwined her arms around Liza’s neck. “I’ll miss you, though,” she whispered against Liza’s lips.
Liza’s kiss was filled with all the gentleness and sweetness she could muster. She knew that anything more would land them back on the bed. Breaking away, she hurriedly scrambled into her clothing. “Will you call me later, just to talk?”
“I will. I would like that.”
Liza eyed Shay. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
Shay nodded. “I know.”
They walked silently to the front door. Shay opened it and Liza stepped through. Turning to face Shay, she laid one palm against Shay’s cheek. “See you Tuesday?”
Shay nodded and blowing a kiss, gently pressed the door closed.
Liza listened as all four deadbolts turned before starting down the drive. She looked back once and saw Shay watching from a small window set high next to the door. They waved to one another.
Liza missed her already.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
After seeing Liza walk along the drive, Shay double-checked the locks and made her way to the kitchen, flicking on lights as she progressed. Realizing she was hungry, she opened the fridge and stared inside. Nothing appealed so, after many long minutes, she let it slide closed. Leaning her spine against the cool door, she wrapped her arms around herself and allowed her time with Liza to replay in her mind. She wanted so badly to trust Liza.
No. She mentally checked herself. It was not about Liza, it was about learning to live an unafraid life. Or so Dr. Frye would say. She had a sudden urge to call Dr. Frye and let her know about this monumental accomplishment but realized it was late and her office had closed. She could leave a message but just didn’t have the gumption. She was too busy enjoying the glow engendered by Liza’s loving touch.
Shaking off the spell she was under, she laughed low in her throat and moved to the pantry. Nothing appealed there either, so she settled on a big apple from the sun-shaped bowl on her bar. She carried it across the living room and settled in front of her laptop. It sprang to life when she opened the lid, and she quickly accessed the Internet via the wireless router. Hesitating only a moment, she typed in Liza Hughes.
After scrolling through an annoying wealth of information about Liza Minelli and her ex-husband, she discovered Liza’s serene gaze looking out at her from a 2002 press photo in which Liza and a beautiful ebon-haired woman were accepting a community service award for providing food for a local after-school program. Shay spent a good while studying Liza’s ex-partner, Gina Morrow. She was an attractive woman, no doubt about that. She resembled the
Friends
actress Courteney Cox, with a lean face and abnormally dark, sleek hair.
And Liza gave her up
, she thought to herself. Amazing.
Intrigued, she started reading everything she could find about the candidly adorable Eliza Jane Hughes. It was all good. Liza had been involved in charity work even before teaming up with Gina in the early nineties.
Shay leaned back finally. She couldn’t find one negative item about Liza. Or Gina, for that matter. This gave her plenty of food for thought, and she chewed on the apple just as earnestly. Could she trust Liza? Maybe so. That still left the problem of Pepper. What would happen once Pepper was out of jail, about three years from now? Would she come looking for Shay? Now Pepper had another target, someone Shay cared about that she could destroy.
She had witnessed Pepper’s spiteful anger on too many occasions and so had ample reason to worry. What would she do to Liza? Would she hurt her as she had hurt Shay?
Shay stopped chewing and swallowed nervously. Suppose she turned that blue-eyed charm on Liza? Suppose she seduced Liza away?
Shay stood and paced the living room nervously. That would be the ultimate revenge. Take away, again, what Shay cared for.
Filled with sudden worry, Shay sped back to the desk and did what she had done so many times before; she typed her own name into the computer search window.
Although there were numerous references and photos, none told where she was currently located. Everything she saw still referred to her simply as award-winning Washington, DC
dog trainer and she liked that just fine.
One recent article, a
Washington Post
piece, had a small, below the fold article, asking what had happened to Candy’s hard shell.
Silly headline
, she muttered as she perused the article. It bore conjecture only, such as rumors of drug use and a sudden fear of dogs. Rubbish. The articles covering the somewhat sensational court case were the ones she feared most. If one of those nosy writers wanted to get radical, Shay was sure he could ferret out her whereabouts. She sighed. She had covered her tracks as well as she could.
Few people knew about her Uncle Stamos who had lived outside Maypearl in a log cabin amid the bald cypress groves of the Alabama bayou. The Raynor family had visited only twice in Shay’s lifetime and that on the way to somewhere further west. Her mother’s brother had been a strange man with a limp and shocking, frizzy red hair poking out in all directions. Shay had been fascinated because some of that hair sprouted from his ears and nose. He didn’t work, other than prowling the bayou and trapping, and Shay had loved hearing the tales he told about capturing each of the dried, stuffed animals that decorated the walls of his cabin.
Thinking back on it now, Shay realized that her hermit-like Uncle Stamos had been an embarrassment to her mother. Not that Gertie Raynor ever showed this; her manner with Stamos had been full of kindness, tempered with a loving tolerance during his fitful, periodic rants. The mature Shay could see that his behavior was far from society’s norm; she now knew it stemmed from a head injury. Legal documents discovered after her parents’ death had let Shay know that Stamos had been in a debilitating motorcycle accident in the early sixties. He’d never recovered fully and, much changed, had left the family and headed south, retreating into a bayou cabin built with his own two hands.
As far as she knew, she’d never mentioned Stamos to Pepper or even mentioned southern Alabama to her. They’d talked about visiting Jamaica once but little else about traveling. That was good and as long as no reporter searched out Shay and revealed it to those who remembered her, the likelihood that Pepper would find her was slim. And now that Stamos had passed away, his cabin returning to the wildness of the bayou, the connection to Shay had, she hoped, been erased.
Still. Shay closed the computer and made her nightly rounds, closing drapes and blinds and checking all the locks on windows and doors. She really wished she could relax.
Memories of Pepper’s rage lingered, as well as the attitude of superiority that had worn Shay down so quickly. Pepper excelled at finding any iota of self-doubt in someone and magnifying it to the nth degree. Shay never wanted to be in that particular place again.
The fact that Shay couldn’t forget Pepper and might not do so for the rest of her life often made her feel suicidal. She knew, deep inside, that those feelings simply had to be dealt with and banished. Anyone with any joy in life, and she had once possessed plenty, could not allow one brutal woman to take it away.
Standing in her bedroom doorway, she glanced back along the murky hallway, resisting the urge to switch all the lights back into brightness.
“She’s in jail, she’s in jail, in jail,” she muttered aloud as she touched the pillow where Liza had lain. She pulled the pillow close, inhaling sandalwood, and cuddled into the bed, willing herself to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“You are really starting to piss me off, Steve.”
“Well, that sure ruins my day, little sister,” he replied, his tone infuriating. “I’m gonna run right out and find a church this minute just so I can make amends.”
Liza shifted her phone to the other hand and leaned her elbow on the kitchen table.
Rich sat across from her, loading his mouth with cereal and chewing with bovine complacency. His eyes glanced her way every now and then, disgust evident. Once, when he was looking down at his bowl, she stuck her tongue out in the direction of his dark hair. It made her feel better.
“You are simply too stupid to realize what a good thing you have in Mary and the kids,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t know why I bother talking to you.”
“I don’t know either,” he countered. “Mary and the kids are fine. Now, butt out.”
“Fine. Lose your family. I just hope that when Mary leaves your sorry ass, she doesn’t take Mason and Stevie so far away that we can’t see them.”
She slammed the phone closed and looked up at her father who was making an egg sandwich at the stove.
“He’s such an asshole,” she said, spinning the phone on the placemat.
“And you thought you could talk to him?” asked Tom, studying the task at hand and not Liza.
“I’d hoped,” Liza fumed. “Mary called me yesterday and asked me to. It wasn’t my idea. Hell, I avoid him when I can.”
“Smart move,” Rich said, rising and placing his bowl in the sink.
Tom chuckled and brought his breakfast to the table. “You and Steve have always been oil and water,” Tom pointed out unnecessarily.
“It’s just ’cause she likes girls. He was okay until she came out with that gal in high school,” Rich added.
“Shut up, brat,” Liza said. “Don’t you have a job to go to?”
“No, too early, dumb-ass.”
He grabbed a banana from the bowl on the counter and slammed the kitchen door as he left.
Tom rose, sandwich in hand, and hurried after him. “Where are you going?”
Liza could hear his muffled reply through the screen door. He was going to help his best friend, Brady, work on a dune buggy but would be back later to mow the grass, obviously something he’d promised his father he would do.
Another sound penetrated: Chloe’s car.
“Here comes trouble,” Tom muttered as he held the door wide and stood patiently as Chloe greeted her brother. Moments later, she was in the kitchen. Today she carried only her data phone and a folder. She appeared practically ethereal without her usual baggage.
“Hey, Pop, how’re you feeling?” She kissed his cheek as she brushed past.
“Can’t complain,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll see you gals later. I’m going for a little stroll.”
Liza grinned, knowing Pop’s craving for peace had won out over his familial duties. And his second cup of coffee. She turned to Chloe.
“Hey, chickie, what brings you over?”
Chloe sat at the table and pushed the folder toward her sister. “I got the stuff on Miss Virginia Faith Raynor. Looks to me like she is definitely gay.”
Liza let a slow sexy grin of reminiscence escape, and Chloe, ever the quick one, noted it right away.
“Oh, ho. I guess I don’t need to tell you this, obviously.” She leaned forward eagerly. “Okay, spill it. What happened? All the details.”
“Well, not all the details,” Liza said as if shocked. “I was at the Folly yesterday and she came down and…”
Chloe’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t, Liza. Not at the Folly!?”
Liza laughed and rose to get more coffee because she knew Chloe would be in hers directly. “No, goose, we went up to her house. We had a great time, then Shay got sad and I held her and…well, it was fantastic. She fits me like a glove, know what I mean?”
She resumed her seat and passed the cup of hot coffee and the milk jug to her sister. Chloe took her time and prepared the coffee with lots of milk and sugar. Sighing, Liza rose and poured another cup, black, for herself.
“I’m not sure,” Chloe mused thoughtfully. “I don’t know as I’ve ever had that. Men are just real different, I think.”
Liza nodded with raised eyebrows. “Yeah, you could say that. Anyway, what did you find out?”
“Heck, you probably know more than I do,” Chloe said with a knowing smirk.
“This family is gonna be the death of me,” Liza moaned, holding her face with both hands.
“Drama queen.”
Chloe lifted the folder and splayed its contents across the table. Liza saw several photocopied newspaper clips and several pages of text. She lifted one small photo of a young woman with short, cropped hair and dynamic blue eyes. Her large, toothy smile was engaging and fun loving. But cocky too.