American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (37 page)

She stroked his cheeks, his hair,
her blue eyes twinkling at him. “Still eager to get to that party?”

He laughed softly. “Not now, not
really,” he admitted. “But I suppose we should. They’re expecting us. Besides,
if I want Monty to marry us, then I don’t want to tick him off. Do you feel
well enough to go?”

“I feel okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He stood up, pulling her to her
feet.  He looked her up and down, the sexy dress, her stunning figure. “God,
darlin’,” he hissed. “You look so good. I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

She smiled, flattered, and went
to the dresser to pick up her purse and touch up her lipstick. “There’s a lot
to think about right now,” she said, snapping her clutch closed and heading for
the bedroom door. “We’re going to need to turn my writing room into a nursery.”

“That’s fine.”

“I’ll need to take over your man
cave. I need a place to write.”

He pretended to frown. “Wait a
minute,“  he followed her out the door. “That’s
my
room. I may have
something to say about that.”

“You have nothing to say about
that.  I’m confiscating it in the name of the Queen.”

He laughed at her as they took
the stairs, watching her take the steps on those enormously high shoes. “Be
careful there,” he admonished, gently gripping her arm. “I think in the future,
you need to ditch those high-heels altogether.”

She rolled her eyes at him as
they reached the bottom. “Nash, don’t start that already,” she said quietly,
noticing Penelope, Alec and Shane in the ballroom watching a movie. “I’m fine.”

Nash just raised his eyebrows at
her as he stuck his head into the ballroom. “We’re heading out now.  Don’t burn
the place down while we’re gone.”

Penelope and Alec waved at him
while Shane threw a piece of popcorn in his direction. Wolfgang, lying
contentedly next to the couch, jumped up to eat it.

“Go, Dad,” Shane ordered.

Nash waved at his son, lying on
one of the couches with his legs draped up over the sides, and took Elliot’s
hand as they headed for the entry.  When he opened the front door for, he
paused to kiss her hand.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

She cocked her head at him. “For
what?”

“For letting a good ol’ boy from
Louisiana court you. Thank you for making his life such a wonderful thing.”

She grinned. “You’re the sweetest
man in the world, you know that?”

He smiled and shut the door
behind them, taking the steps down to the driveway.  His cruiser sat right in
front on the new concrete and paver stone drive, so gorgeous and harmonious
with the restored house. 

Great concrete and plaster urns
with huge sprays of live plants lined what was now a circular driveway, an
enormous plaster fountain in the shape of an angel right in the center of the
circle.  Purgatory didn’t look like Purgatory any longer, and Elliot had a
beautiful bronze plaque made that had been mounted to the big new front gates.
It read:
Sophie, Est. 1818
.

Nash opened up the passenger door
for Elliot.  “I have to tell you that my stomach isn’t so great these days,”
she said, climbing in. “Isn’t Monty’s wife having a big sit-down dinner?”

Nash nodded. “We’re going to
catch it for being late.”

Elliot frowned. “Don’t you dare
tell them why.”

He laughed softly as he shut the
door and went around to his side, getting into the car and turning it on. 
“When I was pregnant with Alec and Penny, I was sick the whole time with her
but not with him,” she said. “I’m guessing I’m about five or six weeks along
right now and already my stomach is in knots, so if that’s any indication,
we’re going to have a girl.”

He looked at her, surprised.  “Do
you really think so?”

She grinned. “Maybe,” she said.
“Would you be okay with a girl?”

He turned the car down the
driveway, lit at dusk by hidden solar-paneled lights and lined with great plaster
urns and trimmed oak trees.  “Are you kidding? I’d be ecstatic to have a
daughter.  In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have one.”

Elliot’s smile grew and she
gripped his hand, holding it tightly as they pulled from the driveway and out
onto the main road.

***

Will Loreau sat in a blacked-out
pickup truck across from Purgatory.  He’d been sitting there with his brothers
for the better part of two hours, hovering just off the road in the darkness,
waiting for Nash Aury to leave.  Not that he had expected him too, but he’d
spent the past three nights sitting here, waiting for Aury to leave and being
disappointed until tonight.  They saw the sheriff pull out and head on down the
road towards Gonzales.  

“Is that him?” Nicky asked.

Will was sucking on a bottle of
Jack Daniels. “Yep,” he said, taking another hit. “Looks like he’s got that
woman with him.”

“What woman?”

“The woman, you know. The one
that owns the house. He’s screwin’ her, ya know.  Ed ‘n me were sneaking around
the house about a week ago and they were out back on the porch.  Them kids must
not have been around because they were goin’ at it right on the chairs in the
back.”

Ed snorted lewdly and Will smiled
as he thought on that night, getting hot and bothered when he thought of that
pretty blond woman, straddling the sheriff’s lap as she rode him with her skirt
hiked up around her waist, swinging that long hair around. The sheriff had his
hands up her shirt, playing with her breasts. Will blew out his cheeks at the
memory.

“She’s somethin’ else,” he said.
“Her daughter is, too.”

Nicky was sitting in the back of
the pickup, leaning in between the front seats where Will and Ed sat. “So what
are we gonna do?”

Will had the neck of the whisky
bottle up to his lips. “I’m not sure yet,” he said. “Maybe nothin’. Or maybe
we’ll just scare the daughter. She’s probably home.”

“Her and her brother,” Nicky
said. “That’s one big kid.”

Will gave his brother a look of
disgust. “He’s the one who killed Daddy.”

“So he may kill us.”

“There’s three of us and only one
of him.  We’ll get him before he gets us.”

Nicky, the youngest of the three
and normally the more reserved, shook his head and sat back in the old, torn
seat.

“Didn’t Mr. Thompson say that we
had to stay away from them on the ‘count of our probation?” he asked. “I don’t
wanna get in more trouble, Will. We’re supposed to stay out of trouble while
we’re on probation.”

Will sighed heavily before taking
another long drink of whisky. “This is Louisiana,” he said, smacking his lips.
“Sometimes there be law here, sometimes there ain’t.  Our family’s been taking
care of itself for two hundred years. We don’t need no lawyer or sheriff or
lawman to tell us how to get justice.  We take care of our own.”

Nicky just shook his head,
picking at the torn cloth seatback. “I don’t wanna go back to jail,” he said.
“The lawyer has already filed papers to sue them.  If we do something now,
we’ll just mess that up.”

“It’s takin’ too long,” Will
smacked the steering wheel angrily. “The courts don’t care ‘bout us.  So we sue
them. So what? They just give us money and that’s the end of it.  No sir, we
need to do something about it. Daddy would want us to. Now it’s revenge.”

Nicky just shook his head,
infuriating his older brothers. “If you’re so scared, you can walk home,” silent
Ed spoke up to his younger brother. “Get out of the truck before I kick you
out.”

Nicky climbed out of the back
window, onto the bed of the truck, and jumped off.  When his brothers had been
drinking, they were mean and combative and he didn’t want to get caught up in
whatever they were doing.  In fact, he had never wanted to get caught up in
what they were doing but, being the youngest, they had naturally pulled him
along.

Will spun out of his hidden
parking space, spraying dirt and rocks onto Nicky.   He tore off in the same
direction the sheriff had gone, the older-model pickup with the rifle rack on
the floor weaving crazily as he sped down the road.  Nicky watched the truck
until it disappeared, not at all comfortable with what his brothers were up to. 
He didn’t want to go back to jail.  That thought alone was stronger, at the
moment, than family ties.

He was still standing in the
trees across the road from Purgatory.  His brown-eyed gaze moved to the
driveway across the road, now set up with big security gates and a new fence that
encompassed the entire three-acre property.  They had found out about the fence
three days ago when they had tried to get onto the property again, which is why
Will had camped out across the road to watch it.  Nicky knew, instinctively,
that his brother was planning something nasty.

Nicky wandered across the road,
hoping no one would see him.  The road for the most part was quiet.  Going to
the big security gates, he noticed that there was an intercom button on one of
the big brick pillars next to a massive bronze plaque that said
Sophie, Est.
1818
.  He hung around the gates for a few moments, contemplating his next
course of action and the possible repercussions.  He sincerely did not want to
go back to jail.

His hand hovered above the
intercom button.  Then he lowered it and ran.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“Nash!”

Nash had barely taken a step
inside the posh clubhouse at the Pelican Point Golf Club that smelled heavily
of air freshener when someone was calling his name.  His arm possessively
around Elliot, he looked over the sea of finely-dressed people to see an
Indian-American man in an expensive suit waving furiously at him.  Elliot saw
the man, too, but had no idea who he was until Nash bent down and whispered in
her ear.

“That’s the governor of the State
of Louisiana,” he murmured. “Jimmy Singh.”

Elliot’s face lit with
recognition as Nash escorted her over to the gesturing governor.  Rajhal
“Jimmy” Singh was a native of Baton Rouge, a Rhodes Scholar, and much beloved
by his constituents. He was also very young; Elliot guessed he was probably her
age or younger.  His wife, a lovely Indian woman, was younger still.  Jimmy
shook Nash’s hand happily.

“I was hoping y’all would be
here,” Jimmy said, looking at Elliot for the first time. He extended his hand
before Nash could introduce them.”Hi, I’m Jimmy Singh.”

He’s definitely a politician
, Elliot thought as she shook his
hand. The man was all teeth and personality. “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Governor,”
she said. “Elliot Jentry.”

Jimmy’s eyebrows lifted. “Elliot
Jentry?” he repeated. “The writer?”

She smiled. “Guilty as charged.”

He laughed at her, putting his
arm around his wife and introducing her. “This is my wife, Jenny,” he said.
“She loves your books. We have them in our home.”

Elliot smiled at Mrs. Singh. “I’m
flattered,” she said. “That’s so nice of you to say so.”

Jimmy was fast.  He moved from
Elliot swiftly back to Nash. “How in the world did you get a hold of this one?”
he wanted to know. “She’s too good for you.”

Nash laughed softly, his hand on
Elliot’s back as she spoke quietly to Jenny Singh. “I know she is,” he said.
“But I’ve been blessed all the same. It’s good to see you, Jimmy. I didn’t know
you’d be here.”

Jimmy nodded. “Monty’s wife and
my sister are best friends,” he reminded Nash of what he’d already told him,
once. “I have to come to Monty’s functions to keep peace in my family.”

Nash wriggled his eyebrows. “Now
that you’re here, I may be able to stand this a little longer.”

Jimmy laughed, pulling Nash
towards the lavish bar by giant floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the golf
course. “Come on over here,” he said.  “Let’s talk.”

Nash went with the governor,
turning to Elliot as he walked. “Honey, you comin’?”

Elliot started to nod but Jimmy
cut her off. “Let the women get acquainted,” he told him. “I need to talk to
you.”

Elliot passed Nash a somewhat
wistful look, one that almost had him contradicting the governor’s edict, but
Jenny quickly engaged her in conversation and her focus was shifted off of
Nash.  Jimmy dragged Nash over to the bar and ordered him a bourbon.

“So,” Jimmy sipped at his own
bourbon. “How did you meet the famous Elliot Jentry? I didn’t know you traveled
in those circles.”

Nash accepted the bourbon from
the bartender. “I don’t,” he sipped his drink. “I met her when I sold her
Purgatory. She lives there now, as do I, and we’re getting married.”

Jimmy’s eyebrows shot up. “Is
that so?” he was genuinely surprised and pleased. He held up his glass to Nash,
who clinked his own against it. “Congratulations, my friend. It couldn’t happen
to a nicer guy.”