Slow Heat in Heaven (42 page)

The accident did stop traffic, but it was the fault of rubbernecked drivers and not Crandall Logging. By mid- morning the state trooper was literally eating out of Schyler's hand since she brought him a doughnut when she catered a snack to the crew assisting Cash.

"Thanks," Cash said curtly as he opened the soda Schyler handed him. Unlike the others, who were taking a ten-minute break, lounging on the shoulder of the highway in the shade of trees, Cash was checking the bolsters and chains on the rig that had arrived to replace the damaged one. He drank the cold drink in one long swallow. "Wish it was a beer," he said, handing Schyler the empty can.

"I'll buy you a case of it if you make up this morning's quota before dark."

Staring her down, he grimly pulled on his beaten leather gloves and put the hard hat back on his head. Turning away from her, he shouted, "All right, up off your asses. This isn't a goddamn picnic. Back to work." The loggers grumbled, but they complied with his orders. Schyler had seen only one other man who commanded both obedience and respect from his crews—Cotton.

As the morning progressed, the heat became unbearable. Waves of it shimmered up off the pavement. The humidity was high; there wasn't a breath of air. The men removed their shirts when they became sodden and plastered to their backs. Handkerchiefs were used as sweatbands beneath hard hats. The state trooper kept his uniform intact, but large rings of perspiration stained his shirt beneath his arms. Frequently he removed his hat to mop his forehead and face. Schyler stayed busy at the bed of Cash's pickup dispensing ice water.

He never took a break, so she carried a cup of water out to him. He put a chunk of ice in his mouth and poured the water over his head. It dribbled off his head and shoulders and through his chest hair. His discarded shirt had been tucked into his waistband. It hug over his hips like a breechcloth.

"You shouldn't be out here," he said after giving her a critical look. "You'll cook. The tip of your nose is already sunburned."

"I'm staying," she replied staunchly. She wouldn't desert her men.

But as she walked back to the pickup, she pulled the tail of her blouse from the damp waistband of her skirt. Sweat trickled between her breasts and behind her knees. Her hair felt hot and heavy on her neck. Luckily she found a rubber band in her purse and used it to hold together a wide single braid. She'd never felt grittier or more uneasy. Even after gathering her hair off her neck, it continued to prickle with sensations that were so unpleasant as to be uncomfortable, almost as though someone had her in the cross hairs. Slowly, warily, she turned her head and looked toward the woods behind her.

Jigger Flynn was standing partially hidden behind the trunk of a pecan tree. He was staring at her, clearly laughing to himself.

Schyler sucked in a quick breath of stark fear, though she retained enough control over her reaction not to let Jigger see it. His malice toward her was palpable, but Schyler held his stare. His eyes were so small and so deeply embedded that she couldn't really distinguish them. It was his overall expression that conveyed his silent message of vengeance. He was mocking her, gloating over the havoc she was sure he had caused. He was daring her to confront him and warning her that if she did, he would retaliate. This was only a mild example of the cruelty of which he was capable.

She briefly considered running to the trooper and pointing out Jigger as the one responsible for the log spill, but she vetoed it as a futile idea. Jigger was an adroit liar; he would only deny the charge and produce an alibi. She needed proof.

As for alerting Cash, he already knew that Jigger was the most likely culprit and had made no effort to go after him. She doubted he would.

Jigger seemed to discern her dilemma because he smiled. The devil's face couldn't look any more sinister than that smile. Schyler actually shuddered, as though the evil he embodied were passing through her body. She felt it as an assault and physically reacted to it.

Panicked, she spun around. She opened her mouth to summon Cash, but she realized he was involved in loading the last log onto the rig. The trooper was speaking into the microphone of his patrol car radio. She was alone. She had to deal with her fear of Jigger Flynn by herself. She had to face him.

Drawing a deep breath, she turned around to confront him, but there was nothing beneath the pecan tree except its branches and their leaves, dropping in the heat. All Schyler saw were shadows and dappled sunlight. Jigger Flynn had disappeared without a sound through the tall, dry grass. It was as if hell had opened up and taken him home.

Schyler was brought around by the cheer that went up from the men as the last log was placed on the rig and the load was secured.

"Get that rig unloaded at the landing and then bring it back to the site," Cash shouted to the driver as he ran toward his pickup. To the other men he said, "Hitch a ride on the loader. I'll meet you at the site after I drop Schyler off. When I get there I want to see trees dropping like whores' panties."

He jumped into the cab of his truck. "Get in," he barked at Schyler, who was still standing and trembling with fear. She got in. Cash slipped the truck into first gear and pulled out onto the highway. As they drove past the trooper, Schyler waved her thanks at him.

"Did you two make a date?" Following so closely on the heels of seeing Jigger, his acerbity was too much for her nerves.

"Do you care?"

"Damn right." His arm shot across the seat and his hand plunged between her thighs. He squeezed her possessively. "This is mine until I get through with it, understand?"

Enraged, Schyler removed his hand, throwing it away from her. "Keep your hands off me. And while you're at it, go to hell."

"What would you do without me if I did?"

She averted her head and didn't look at him again. As soon as the pickup came to a stop on the other side of the Laurent Bayou bridge, she bolted out the passenger door. Cash was hot on her trail and caught up with her at the door of the office. He spun her around and, pressing her shoulders between his hands, drew her against his bare, damp chest. He kissed her hard enough to take away her breath.

His tongue ground its way between her unwilling lips. Schyler's resistance slipped a notch, then snapped. He tasted like salty, sweaty, unrefined, fearless man. Feeling a desperate need for a mighty warrior's protection, she greedily kissed him back.

As suddenly as he had grabbed her, he pushed her away and released her. "I warned you that I was never kind to women. Don't expect me to be any different with you."

He drove off, leaving a cloud of white powdery dust swirling around her.

Schyler watched until the lights of the caboose disappeared in the tunnel of trees. Wearily pushing back a wispy strand of hair that had escaped her clumsy braid, she turned around, but instantly stopped short.

Cash was leaning against the exterior wall of the office. She hadn't known he was there, though she should have smelled the smoke from his cigarette. It was dangling precariously from the comer of his lips. His shirt was unbuttoned. He had his thumbs hooked into the waistband of his jeans.

"Well, we did it," Schyler said. "We recovered the production time we lost this morning."

"
Oui
."

"Several times today I doubted that we would."

He took one last drag on the cigarette before flicking the butt into the gravel bed between the train tracks. "I never doubted it."

"Thank the men for me."

"One of the drivers brought back word to the site that you mentioned a bonus."

"I did."

"They'll hold you to it."

"They'll get it. As soon as I get a check from Endicott and the bank note is paid in full."

"You owe me a case of beer."

"Is tomorrow soon enough?"

"Fine."

She entered the landing office by the back door. She didn't sit down behind the desk, fearing that if she did, she would lay her head on top of it and fall asleep right there. Instead she switched off the lamp, picked up her purse, and made her way toward the front entrance.

"You still mad at me?" Cash followed her out, making certain the door was locked behind them.

"Why should I be mad?"

"Because I don't court you with flowers and presents."

She turned to face him. "Do you think I'm that shallow? That silly? If you gave me flowers I'd know you were mocking me, not courting me. All that aside, I don't want to be courted by you. By anybody."

"Then why are you mad?"

"I'm not."

Schyler headed toward her car, only to realize that her car was at Belle Terre. She reversed her direction. Cash caught her arm. "Where're you going?"

"To call Ken to come pick me up."

"Get in the truck. I'm taking you home."

"I—"

"Get in the truck, dammit."

Schyler knew that it would be lunacy to stand there and fight with him when she felt this tired and this grimy. It was grossly unfair of a man to engage a woman in an argument when a hard day's work had left him looking ruggedly appealing and left her looking like hell. If she'd had access to a lipstick and a hairbrush, then maybe she would have stayed to fight. As it was, the deck was stacked against her. She was too exhausted to think, much less argue with him. She got in his pickup.

"Want to go by Jigger's and see his rattlesnake?"

Jigger was the last topic she wanted to talk about. She still shuddered every time she recalled his leering grin. But what Cash had suggested was so out of context and so preposterous, she couldn't help asking an astonished, "What?"

"His rattlesnake. Jigger's got a new pet rattler. I hear it's a helluva snake. He's even charging admission to look at it. Want to stop by on the way home?"

"I hope you're joking. If you are, it's in very poor taste. I don't want to have anything to do with him, except maybe to bring charges against him for assaulting Gayla
. . .
and that only tops a very long list of offenses. I can't believe you'd go near him either. He might have been responsible for sabotaging that rig this morning."

"I thought of that."

"And you still pander to him?" She spread her arms wide. "Oh, but I forgot. He's a customer of yours, isn't he?"

"You mean the medicine?"

"Yes, the medicine."

"I was doing Gayla a favor, not Jigger."

"But you took Jigger's money."

"It's green. Same as anybody else's."

"Money is money, is that it?"

"Oui.
To somebody who's never had it, that's it, Miss Schyler. You wouldn't know what poverty is like."

"You grab at money no matter where it comes from?"

"It matters. I didn't kill those pit bulls for you, remember?"

"So there are a few things you wouldn't do for money."

"Very few, but some."

What about making a hideous little doll and placing it on someone's pillow, Schyler wondered. Cash had at least a smattering knowledge of voodoo. Gayla had heard his name in connection with it, but surely he didn't know anything about that doll. He couldn't have treated Gayla so kindly the day they found her in the woods, only to later put a curse on her. On the other hand, could anyone count on Cash's loyalty? It seemed to extend only to himself.

Schyler turned her head away and stared through the open window, letting the wind cool her down for the first time that day. Cash was practically inviting her to tell him about the doll. She didn't because she didn't trust him enough. That disturbed her deeply. There were no boundaries to their physical intimacy, but she couldn't trust him with her secrets. She didn't even want to mention Jigger's appearance at the site of the accident that morning.

He pulled the truck to a stop while they were still a distance away from the mansion. "I don't want to give Cotton another heart attack by coming any closer," he said bitterly.

"You drove right up to the front door this morning."

"This morning there was an emergency. Even Cotton could understand and forgive that."

"Better than he could understand and forgive you for delivering his inebriated teenaged daughter?"

He laughed shortly. "I could deny it till kingdom come and he'll always believe that I was the one who got you drunk that night at the lake. He probably thinks I took sexual liberties, too."

"But that's not what you argued about."

His grin evaporated. His eyes homed in on her face as though it were the target and they were a laser weapon. "What did you say?"

Obviously that night was a sore spot with him. She considered dropping the subject then and there, but she was compelled to solve this riddle, to find the clue that had always been missing. "I said that's not what you and Daddy argued about that night."

"How do you know what we argued about?"

"I overheard you yelling at each other."

He stared at her for a long moment. "Oh, really? Then you tell me. What did we argue about?"

"I can't remember." A crease formed between her eyebrows as she strained her memory. "I was so woozy. But I remember you shouting at each other. It must have been an argument over something important. Was it Monique?"

"That's been over ten years ago." He slumped down in the seat behind the steering wheel and cupped his hand over his mouth, staring out into the darkness. "I've forgotten what it was about."

"You're lying," Schyler said softly. His head snapped around. "You remember. Whatever you argued with Daddy about still isn't resolved, is it?" Cash didn't answer her. He looked away again.

"Ah, to hell with it," Schyler muttered. It was between the two of them. Let it fester. She was too tired to try to lance that ancient wound tonight. "Thanks for everything you did today. Bye."

Schyler put her shoulder to the door. It was necessary for without that boost, she doubted she would have had the strength to open it. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she bent down and slipped off her shoes. The grass felt wonderfully cool and clean and soothing beneath her feet.

Keeping within the shadows beneath the trees, she made her way toward the house. The purple twilight made the painted white bricks of Belle Terre look pink and ethereal, like the castle in Camelot. The windows shone with mellow, golden light. The bougainvillea vine that garnished one comer column of the veranda was heavy with vivid blossoms.

A pang of homesickness and love seized Schyler until it was painful to breathe. Physical and mental fatigue had brought her emotions to the surface. She braced herself against a chest-high live oak branch and stared through the balmy dusk at the home she loved, but which always seemed just beyond her grasp.

She had lived there most of her life. The walls had heard her weeping and her laughter. The floorboards had borne her weight when she learned to crawl and when she learned to waltz. She'd watched the birth of a foal and received her first kiss in the stable. Her life was wrapped around the house as surely as the bougainvillea was wrapped around the column.

But the spirit, the heart, of the house eluded her. She could never touch it. It was inexplicable, this feeling of being an interloper in her own home, yet it was undeniably there, a part of her she couldn't let rest. It was like being born without one of the senses. She couldn't miss it because it had never belonged to her, but she knew she was supposed to have it and felt the loss keenly. A sense of loss that made her sad was perpetually in the back of her mind.

She knew Cash was there before he actually touched her. He moved up behind her and folded his hands around her neck. "What's bothering you tonight, Miss Schyler?"

"You're a bastard."

"I always have been."

"I'm not referring to the circumstance of your birth. I'm referring to
you.
How you behave. How you treat other people."

"Namely you?"

"What you did and said to me this morning was crude, unnecessary, and unconscionable."

"I thought we settled this at the landing."

She made an impatient gesture with her shoulders. "I don't want hearts and flowers from you, Cash, but I do expect a little kindness."

"Don't."

Her head dropped forward in defeat. "You don't give an inch, do you? Never. You never give anything."

"No. Never."

She should have walked away from him, but she couldn't coax her feet to move, not when he was a solid pillar to lean against. She needed a shoulder to cry on. He was available, and he, more than anyone except her father, would understand how she felt.

"I'm afraid, Cash."

"Of what?"

"Of losing Belle Terre."

His thumbs centered themselves at the back of her neck and began massaging the tension out of the vertebrae. "You're doing everything you possibly can to make sure you don't."

"But I might. In spite of everything I do." She tilted her head to one side. He massaged the kinks out of her shoulder. "I take one step forward and get knocked back two."

"You're about to cash in on the deal that'll put Crandall Logging in the black and free up Belie Terre. What are you afraid of?"

"Of failing. If we don't get it all there, then the timber we've already shipped doesn't count. This last week is the most crucial. My saboteur knows that as well as I do." She breathed deeply and clenched her fist. "Who is it? And what does he have against me?"

"Probably nothing. His quarrel might be with Cotton."

"That's the same thing."

"Hurt Cotton, hurt you?"

"Yes. I love him. I couldn't love him any more if he were my natural father. Maybe because I understand why he loves this place so much. He came here an outsider, too. He had to prove himself worthy of Belle Terre."

Cash said nothing, but his strong fingers continued to knead away her tension and distress. The massage loosened her tongue as well.

"Macy was never a mother to me. She was just a lovely, but terribly unhappy, woman who inhabited the same house and laid down the rules of conduct. Cotton was my parent. My anchor." She sighed deeply. "But our roles have switched, haven't they? I feel like a mama bear fighting to protect her cub. I'm desperately inadequate to protect him."

"Cotton doesn't need your protection. He'll have to pay for his mistakes. And there won't be a damn thing you can do about it when the time of reckoning comes."

"Don't say that," she whispered fiercely. "That frightens me. I can't let him down." Cash had moved up close be
hind her. His lips found a vulnerable spot on the back of her neck beneath her braid. He lifted her hands to the branch of the tree and placed them there. "Cash, what are you doing?"

"Giving you something to think about besides all your troubles." Now that her arms were out of the way and he had an open field, he slid his hands up and down her narrow rib cage, grazing the sides of her breasts.

"I don't want to think about anything else. Anyway, I'm still angry with you."

"Anger's made for some of the best sex I've ever had."

"Well I don't think of it as an aphrodisiac." She sucked in her breath sharply when he reached around her and cupped her breasts. "Don't." Responding to the feebleness in her voice and not to the protest itself, he pulled her blouse apart, unfastened her bra, and laid his hands over her bared breasts. "This
is. . .
no. Not here. Not now. Cash."