Southern Comforts (12 page)

“That's not true! You killed Jubal.”

“There's not a lick of proof of that,” he reminded her. “In fact, now that I think on it, the only thing that might just suggest Jubal Lott's death wasn't from that mugging the night he got drunk down at the Dewdrop Inn, is that letter you wrote me beggin' me to kill him. And saying that if I didn't, you'd have to do it yourself.”

“But you did kill him.” She'd never forget that day. Never forget how terrified she'd been. And how happy.

“I've got an alibi sayin' different. In case it ever comes up.” He rubbed his jaw. “I also still got that letter.”

“I don't believe you.” Her crisp tone belied her pounding heart.

“You can believe what you want. But it's the truth.”

“Let me see it.”

“You don't think I'd carry it ‘round with me? All these years?” He shook his head. “Hell, Cora Mae, you know me, I'd lose my head if it weren't screwed on real tight. That's why I tucked it away somewhere nice and safe. Never know when something like that's gonna come in handy.”

She'd suffered nightmares about this moment. More times than she'd cared to count. The fears that she managed to keep at bay during the day crept back at night, invading her sleep, torturing her dreams, leaving her sitting bolt upright in bead, drenched in sweat.

She closed her eyes, took a long breath meant to calm and made her decision. “Name your price.”

He did. And it was, as she would have suspected, ridiculously low, considering the circumstances. “Fine. I'll need some time to get to the bank. I will, of course, want this to be a cash transaction.”

“Cash works for me,” George said agreeably. This was turning out to even easier than he'd hoped. “There's one more little thing.”

Caught up in the logistics of how she was going to explain the need to transfer fifty thousand dollars in cash from her corporate account to her personal account, it took a minute for his words to sink in. “What now?”

“Well, you see, I got myself in a bit of trouble a while back—”

“Now why doesn't that surprise me?” she muttered.

“Now, honey bun, there's no need to get nasty. The thing
is, I ended up doin' a little time for what was mostly a misunderstanding.”

That explained his pasty complexion, she decided. It was obviously prison pallor. “I don't see why your legal difficulties should have anything to do with me.” A horrible thought occurred to her. What if he'd broken out of prison? What if the authorities were searching for him right now? What if they tracked him here?

“The thing is, I've got this probation officer who thinks I oughta be workin'.”

“What a novel concept.”

He did not seem to take offense at her remark. “You always did have a smart mouth on you, Cora Mae. ‘Course these days your words are more the fifty-cent kind, ‘stead of the nickel ones you used to toss at me. But they still hit the mark.”

“You were telling me about your probation officer.”

“Yeah. Well, the way I figger it, I need a job or I'm gonna have to go back to Arizona. And you're fixing up that old house, so you're bound to need guys handy with a hammer.”

He paused, not bothering to add how Jubal had died after having his head bashed in with a sixteen-ounce claw hammer. There was no need. Not when they both remembered that night so vividly.

“I figure this is another one of those cases of us being able to help each other out.”

“There is no way in hell I would hire you. Which is a moot point, because I'm not even involved in such petty details.”

“Now it may be a petty detail to you, Cora Mae. But it's goddamn important to me. I need this job. And you're gonna get it for me.”

His eyes had turned to hard black stones. For the first
time since he'd arrived, she was looking at the cold-blooded killer she knew him to be.

“I can't.”

“Of course you can. And you will.”

“Who will I say you are?”

“How about your husband?” When that earned a glare, he laughed. “Now, honey bun, you're underestimating yourself again. Like that lady on “Good Morning America” said, you've got one helluva imagination. So, think something up. But think fast. Because the clock's tickin' on this one.”

“Why can't you just take the money and go away?”

“And end up on “America's Most Wanted” for jumping parole? Nope. That wasn't one of your better ideas. Guess you'll have to try again.”

“I suppose I could say you were a cousin of one of my office employees.”

“There you go.” He grinned. “So, how about we have a drink to celebrate? You got any champagne?”

A
lthough Chelsea felt guilty about playing hooky when she still hadn't made a decision about writing Roxanne's book, as Cash steered the boat away from the dock, she realized this was exactly what she needed. She'd been working so hard for so long, she couldn't remember the last time she took some time out to enjoy herself. The last few years of her life had swept like a speeding runaway locomotive down the career track she'd so purposefully chosen.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. And still neither Cash nor Chelsea spoke. She didn't ask where they were going; she wouldn't have known the location if he'd told her. Instead, for once, she was content to simply relax.

She watched the scenery for a while. Then, lulled by the movement of the boat churning through the water, and the warmth of the sun, she unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse, rolled up the sleeves, leaned back, closed her eyes, trailed her hand idly in the water and allowed her mind to wander.

Watching her, Cash wondered if she knew how gorgeous she was, with her rich copper hair fluttering in the wind, her
exquisite face tilted up toward the sun, her lashes bright spikes on her porcelain cheeks. Her scent drifted toward him, faint, slightly spicy, distinctly sexy, creating a tug that was no longer unexpected, but frustrating just the same.

His gaze slid to her left hand. Her fingers were long, her nails short and unpainted. She wasn't wearing a ring, something that had been intriguing him from the beginning. Meredith had suggested she'd married. But if that was the case, considering how much dough her Yankee had, Cash would have expected her to be sporting a diamond the size of the Georgia Dome.

Of course, huge flashy rocks were more Roxanne Scarbrough's style. But at least, if she'd finally taken the plunge, Waring would have insisted she wear a gold band. If for no other reason than to stake his claim.

Dreams Cash thought he'd forgotten, memories he thought he'd buried deep inside him, came flooding back. And with them all the painful desires and frustrations he'd suffered during that crazed time when just looking at Chelsea Cassidy had made him ache with a need that went all the way to the bone.

Angry that she could still affect him so intensely, without even trying, he said, “It's getting hot. I think it's time we cooled off before lunch.”

He thrust the throttle forward, causing the sleek boat to streak forward like a thoroughbred breaking out of the starting gate. Chelsea was pushed back against her seat, the wind began whipping her hair into a fiery froth, the deep vibrating thrum of the engines stirring her blood.

The scenery on the banks of the river became a dark green blur, the boat bucked as it cut a swatch down the center of the river, sending up a spuming rooster tail.

She laughed. “This reminds me of riding your Harley,” she shouted over the roar of the engines. The water churned
wildly in the wide wake behind them. “You always drove too fast.”

“I don't remember you complaining.”

“I wasn't now.” Her hair flew into her face, and she pushed it back with both hands. “I was just remembering how much you always liked speed.”

“Not all the time,” he shouted back. “Some things I liked to do very, very slowly.”

“What we had was over a long time ago,” she insisted, leaning forward so she could be heard.

“You sure about that?”

“Positive,” she lied without compunction.

“I don't suppose you'd be willing to let me kiss you again? And see if you still feel the same way afterward?”

“That's not necessary.”

“It might be easier just to get it out of our systems. Once and for all.”

“Why don't you worry about your own system? Because mine's just dandy, thank you.”

He flashed her a wicked grin that came just short of calling her a liar. “Whatever you say.”

They raced down the river in silence, each aware of the other. Finally, after about twenty minutes, he cut the engines.

“You're getting too much color.” Her cheeks were pink and a sprinkling of freckles were scattered over the bridge of her nose.

“If I'd known I was going to spend the afternoon on a river, I would have brought along some sunscreen.”

“No problem.” He reached into a cabinet and pulled out a white tube of sunblock and handed it to her. His gaze settled on that rosy V of flesh framed by her unbuttoned blouse. “Want some help spreading it on?”

“No, thanks.”

He sighed and decided that it was probably for the best. “Whatever you want. I'll put up the canopy.”

While she spread the creamy white lotion over her face and arms, he busied himself setting up an awning to shade them.

The fried catfish and hush puppies were drenched in grease. They were also delicious. “I can't believe I ate all that,” Chelsea said, staring in amazement at the empty box.

“You always were a woman of strong appetites,” Cash reminded her wickedly.

Only with you, she could have answered, but didn't. “I'd weigh a thousand pounds if I lived down here.”

“A few pounds couldn't hurt.” She'd always been slender. But now she was thin. And her face, while still stunning, appeared almost gaunt. “If you're not careful, you're going to end up looking like one of Tom Wolfe's New York X-ray women.”

She paused in the act of wiping her greasy hands on the white paper napkins. “You read
Bonfire of the Vanities?
”

Her surprise was so transparent he could have throttled her. “Sure. Between issues of
Guns and Ammo
and
Redneck Journal.
”

She flushed, knowing she'd been guilty of stereotyping again. It also made her uncomfortable to realize how much like her mother—or Nelson—she must have sounded.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. I just don't think of men as reading that much fiction. Unless it's Tom Clancy, or Michael Crichton, or some macho male fantasy story.”

“Are you questioning my manhood now?” His easy smile assured her he was teasing.

“Of course not. It's just that…” She dragged a hand through her hair. “I suppose the truth is, we don't really know all that much about each other.”

“Now's as good a time as any to resolve that. We never spent much time talking.”

They'd had better things to do back then. Over the years he'd tried to tell himself that his uptown girl was just another lay. Better than most, but nothing to get all twisted up in knots over. So why did he still get that aching pain in his heart whenever he remembered the night she'd turned down his proposal?

“Except for that last night,” she murmured.

“My mouth sure as hell ran away with me that night.”

“I liked listening. Your plans were so exciting. I remember thinking at the time…” Her voice drifted off.

“What?” This time he caught her hand on its way through her hair. “What were you thinking?”

The way he was looking at her—hard and deep—made her mouth go dry. She dragged her gaze to the lush green riverbank. “That you were the only person I'd ever met who could possibly understand how driven I was.”

“Is that all?”

“I don't remember.” She shrugged, still refusing to meet his probing dark eyes. “It was a long time ago.”

“Chelsea.” He captured her chin in his free hand and turned her head toward him. “What else were you thinking?”

She swallowed and decided that after all this time there was no point in not telling him the truth. “I envied you your ability to start fresh somewhere, where no one knew you. I admired your courage to take off all on your own. And—” she took a deep breath “—I wished I could go with you.”

“I asked you to.”

All these years she'd wondered. And now she knew. Chelsea wondered why the answer left her feeling so strangely sad. She closed her eyes briefly, allowed herself a
momentary regret for lost opportunities, then reminded herself yet again, that those days, and that strange and wonderful night, was in the past.

“I wondered about that. But I wasn't sure. And I was afraid that if I said yes, you'd laugh at me and tell me I'd misunderstood.”

“I wouldn't have laughed. Not at you.” His fingers trailed down her throat. “Never at you.” He'd told himself that he'd left Chelsea Cassidy behind that night. But he'd lied. Because seven years and countless women hadn't managed to dilute the emotions she could instill.

Because he realized that he was suddenly standing on the brink of a precipice and a wrong step could send them both tumbling over the edge, he backed away. Both physically and figuratively.

“That last night, you let me do all the talking. I think this time it's your turn.”

She shrugged and tried not to be disappointed when he stopped touching her. “There's not that much to tell.”

“It's a long road from summer in the Hamptons to eating greasy fried catfish on the Savannah River. I'd like to hear the story.”

“This may take a while,” she warned.

He leaned back, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I'm not going anywhere.”

To Chelsea's amazement, once she started, the words poured forth, like floodwaters surging through a broken dam.

He already knew, from the dinner at Roxanne's about her famous father. And the fact that she'd written her first story when she was five.

“But it was the newspaper that changed my life,” she recalled now.

“The one you printed with the press you got for your tenth birthday.”

“It was the best present I'd ever received.” Her mother had bought her another Madame Alexander doll—which was immediately locked away with the others in the glass display case in her fairy-tale princess bedroom.

“Six months after the premiere edition of the
East Side Weekly Tribune
hit the streets, I had one hundred and fifty subscribers. Four years later, the
Tribune
was being professionally printed on an offset press in Queens, I'd hired six classmates as stringers and my subscription list had more than tripled.”

“I'm impressed.”

“Thank you.” She grinned. “You're supposed to be. Of course, there wasn't much hard news. Mostly it was just gossip.”

Although the old-money WASPs who resided in the privileged environs of Manhattan's East Side would have denied enjoying anything so common as gossip, each Saturday morning an amazing number of them would sit on their terraces with cups of coffee and discover what their neighbors had been up to all week.

“Gossip makes the world go ‘round,” Cash said. “And it sounds as if since there weren't any clotheslines on Park Avenue for people to chat over, you were clever enough to spot the need and fill it.”

She liked the idea that instead of belittling her youthful efforts, Cash immediately understood.

“Your folks must have been proud.”

“I like to think my dad would have been. Unfortunately, he was killed before he was able to read an issue.”

“I'm sorry.”

She shrugged and fought against the unbidden and unexpected sting of tears. “I've gotten used to it.”

“Getting used to it and getting over it are two different things.” He ran his palm down the slide of her hair. “My dad died when I was just a kid, too.

“I didn't know.”

“No reason for you to,” he said simply. “He died in a farm accident. A tractor fell on him. I found him when I went out to call him in to dinner.”

“How terrible!”

“It wasn't one of my better days.” When he felt the pall settling over what he'd hoped would be an enjoyable afternoon, Cash decided it was time to change the subject. “So, I'll bet your mother was proud of having a budding journalistic star in the family.”

“Hardly. She'd like nothing more than for me to get married and provide a Lowell heir.”

So Melanie had been mistaken. Chelsea wasn't married, after all. Cash knew he was in deep, deep trouble when he experienced a cooling rush of relief.

“How about Waring?” He congratulated himself on managing to say his rival's name. “What does he think of the idea?”

“He's very proud of me,” Chelsea hedged.

“That wasn't what I asked. Are you and the Yankee still planning to get married?”

“Eventually.” Her tone lacked conviction, even to her own ears.

“How about kids?”

“Of course we'll have children. Eventually.” And when they did, she intended to give them roots, Chelsea thought. A sense of belonging she'd never experienced in her own family.

“Seems to me if you really loved the guy, you'd have married him by now. Career or no career.”

“Not that it's any of your business, but there happen to be extenuating circumstances.”

“That's bullshit.” He leaned forward, until his lips were inches away from her tightly drawn, unpainted ones. “If you were my woman, Chelsea, I wouldn't let anything stand in the way of getting you to the altar.

“And I can sure as hell tell you that if we'd been together as long as you and that blue-blooded creep have been playing house, we'd already have a couple of rug rats. In fact, if I took you home and did what I want to do to you right now, before the sun came up tomorrow morning, you'd have my baby growing beneath that fine smooth belly.”

His hand splayed over her stomach, causing her nerves to tangle. “Dammit, Cash, if you don't quit touching me—”

“I like touching you.” He also planned to do a lot more of it. But for now, not wanting to scare her away, he retrieved his hand. “You realize, of course, this would be a lot easier if you'd gotten fat and ugly these past few years.”

That earned a faint smile. “I'm sorry.”

He laughed at that. “I'm not. You're as gorgeous as ever. More so with that aura of success around you.” He took her hand in his and laced their fingers together again. “Answer me one question.” His expression sobered. “Are you happy?”