Resisting Samantha (Hope Parish Novels Book 10) (8 page)

I went inside and
decided that my next project was going to be installing the bathroom
off my bedroom, and then after that goad my cabinetmaker so I could
get the kitchen together. I decided I would let Beth handle Imogene’s
on Saturday and take the day to start framing out my powder room and
office. The rest of the downstairs space I would leave open. I also
really needed to get over to Lafayette and order my appliances. I was
so ready to get my home together.

Evie had a way of
digging up absolutely perfect items to add a magical touch to my
projects, and I hoped she would be willing to help me again.

Besides, sponge
baths were getting really old, and my determination doubled. Yep,
powder room, bathroom, and shower were going in next.

I drove over to
Evie’s shop behind her simple clapboard house, the gris-gris
bag tucked into my purse. The beautiful honeysuckle trellis arching
over slate gray paving stones was to die for. When I saw the
landscaping, I vowed I was going to get Boone’s information…or
maybe on the way home, I’d just stop by his house. I wondered
if he could do a pergola.

The faint scent of
honeysuckle teased across my nose, and I breathed deep as I got out
of the car. I noticed a Mercedes that looked very much like River
Pearl’s car as I stepped onto the grassy part of the curb.

Breathing in the
honeysuckle again, I rounded the house and smiled. Evie had some
gorgeous pieces displayed outside. Some stunning weathervanes, rattan
lawn furniture that I immediately decided was going to be mine, and
some old tin wash tubs and colorful clay pots.

Her whimsical shop
had grown over the years, and was now a must-stop for tourists.
People came from as far away as Lafayette to shop. The bell rang on
the door as I walked in, and the girl behind the counter said, “Hi,
Samantha. Head on back.”

“Thanks,
Melinda.” I said. I opened the door and came to a screeching
halt. River Pearl, her mother, and Evie had their heads together.
Uh-oh
.
It looked like I’d just been ambushed by the sweetest woman I
knew, and she was in cahoots with her daughter-in-law and her
sister-in-law. Chase wasn’t going to be happy about this. Maybe
I could get out of telling him? Right.

I narrowed my eyes
and they stopped talking. Evie rose, looking as innocent as an angel.
“Samantha, c’mon right in, shug,” she drawled.

Amy Sutton and River
stayed seated around a small table Evie used to restore smaller
antiques. “Look who stopped by. You know Amy and River Pearl,
of course.”

“Of course,”
I said with a wry cast to my voice.

The smile never left
Evie’s face. I walked past the two women who smiled and greeted
me.

“Samantha,
it’s so good to see you,” Amy said. “I can’t
tell you how scrumptious that brunch was yesterday. The crème
brûlée was heavenly.” The look she gave me made my
stomach flutter.

Oh, yes. Evie was a
backstabbing turncoat. Taking a deep breath and squaring my
shoulders, I smiled.

“I’m so
sorry about the chocolate-raspberry cake.”

She waved her hand.
“Now don’t you worry your pretty little head about that.
Accidents happen.” The foxy glint in her eye told me I should
be worrying my pretty little head instead about being pumped by
Chase’s family members about his personal life.

“That’s
right,” River added. “You outdid yourself with the
brûlée.”

I smiled, but could
tell it was tight. “Thank you, ladies so much. You’re
very gracious.”

As Evie preceded me
through to the back storeroom, I hissed, “
Traitor
.”

She whirled, smiled
at her co-conspirators, and closed the door.

“I couldn’t
help it. I was roped and tied into it by my daughter-in-law,”
she whispered. “I saw it with my own eyes, and they don’t
lie. You two have some chemistry. Is there something going on?”
At my expression, she chuckled. “Lord have mercy. I suspect the
whole town is talking about it.”

“Oh, my God.
For the love of Pete. I tripped.”

She moved some
fireplace screens over to the side, then bent down and picked up
several woven rugs. She looked up, a glimmer of humor in her eyes.
“Uh-huh. On purpose?”

Bracing myself
against a tall wooden bookcase, I took a fortifying breath. “Evie,
this is so inappropriate.”

She chuckled,
shooting me an amused look. “Oh, shug. You don’t have to
go all Yankee hard. This is the South. The
small
town
South. You’ve lived here long enough to know all about the
gossip. I’m shocked you haven’t noticed, but everyone
gets into everyone else’s business.” Finally she made it
to some cardboard boxes. “Jessica Archambault said Chase has
been to your house. Twice.”

I slapped my
forehead. “He’s helping me with some of my construction.”
I said without a speck of inflection in my voice.

She batted at the
dust and that glint was back. “Oh, is that what they’re
calling it these days,
cher
?”

“Do you have
the plates?” My voice was Yankee hard.

“Let’s
give it a little lookie-see.”

She opened the box.
“So, do you have a thing for him?” Rummaging inside, she
stopped and looked at me when I didn’t answer. “You might
as well tell me. We’re going to winkle it out of you sooner or
later.”

“No comment.”

“You are
simply no fun.”

She moved that box
and opened another one. “I swear, that boy has been out in the
bayou much too long,” she said her voice filled with sympathy.
“Must be terrible lonely for him.” She closed up that box
and set it aside. Digging into the next one, she made a soft cry.
“Oh, yes. Here we go.”

She pulled out some
wrappings and set them down on another small, beaten-up table.

But I was still
hanging on her words about Chase.

“I knew I had
more. Looks like a whole set.”

When I spied the
teapot and cups, I sighed. “I’ll take everything.”

“It’s a
terrible shame you’re going to be short a dinner plate. I will
keep my eyes out for more of this pattern.”

“Thank you,
Evie. And now you might as well get it out of your system and tell me
about Chase.”

Her eyes softened
and she said, “He was always more reserved, quieter than Jake.
He played sports, loved baseball, but Jake was the athlete in that
family. It seemed as if he tried to outshine Chase as much as he
could. Middle child syndrome. Boone had that a little until I set him
straight.” She rested her hands against the sides of the box.
“Chase and Jake used to hang out with my boys. It was a secret
I kept, because they were good for each other. The six of them ran
the bayou when they were young. Ethan Fairchild, too, as thick as
thieves, they were. Chase knows it like the back of his hand.”

Evie’s
expression altered. She started to rewrap the transferware, her
thoughts clearly focused on the unpleasant past. It was a few minutes
before she spoke again, her voice heavy from the weight of
remembering. “James Sutton, his daddy, put so much pressure on
Chase. He had his life mapped out for him from the day he was born,
and, by God, he made sure he didn’t deviate.

“He got into
Harvard, but shortly after high school graduation, he disappeared. At
first we thought something happened to him, but then I heard the
sheriff found him and he refused to come home. Sheriff Dalton said he
was of age, and he couldn’t coerce him. James was devastated,
and so angry. Rumors are he went out to the bayou and they got into
it something fierce. River did some patching up when she came home to
stay, but Jake is bitter, his daddy is powerful disappointed, and his
momma just wants him back in the fold.”

This was breaking my
heart to think about Chase being so isolated, so alone out there…and
had been for years. I softened my stance against Amy and River Pearl.
It must be hard on them, and they must be anxious for news about him.
I realized they might be happy if we were an item. It might mean he
was changing, coming back, and—they were probably hoping—coming
home.

“He showed
them, though. He worked his keister off, and built that business from
the ground up. Now he’s doing very well for himself. But no one
except River Pearl has been out there to visit him. Win and I have
visited, though. We chartered one of his boats. The shop is
beautiful, old logs and glass. He ties flies that sell for a pretty
penny on the web. Yes, the Suttons should be proud of him.”

Evie smiled while
she sized up my present state of mind. “Well, we’d better
go and face the inquisition.”

I sighed and closed
my eyes, my elation at finding more of that pattern dimmed. I rubbed
at an imperfection on one of the cups, my throat tight. I had asked,
and Evie had answered, but those answers only increased the pain
around my heart. Knowing just made things worse.

I did manage to
stave off Amy and River, much to their frustration, but I suspected
there would be another round two. River struck me as the kind of
woman who never gave up.

After they left, I
confided everything to Evie about the ghost and the gris-gris bag,
and swore her to secrecy. She said there was a woman over in
Vermilion Bayou who could help. As a bonus, the woman made the best
gumbo in the world.

But it wasn’t
until I was heading over to Boone Outlaw’s house that my
concentration fractured, and I found myself remembering the bleak
look in Chase’s eyes last night. The memory of the terrible
bleakness set off another rush of emotion, one that swamped me. It
hurt to know just how isolated, how unhappy his life had been.

No one should have
to live like that.

But he had. And
knowing that changed everything.

The knowledge broke
open something in me that I thought had died with Jeff. That scared
me like nothing else could.

I had vowed I would
never love like that again. Never. It hurt too damn much to lose it.
It was only now I saw my folly. Chase wasn’t Jeff.

And he was now a
threat to my resurrected vulnerability.

CHASE

Mooring the Cessna
to my dock, I unloaded coolers onto the weathered boards. My back
muscles strained with my catch. It had been an excellent haul, and I
easily made my orders for the red snapper I’d travelled to the
Gulf to fish.

Tired, windblown,
and a bit sunburned, I set the two coolers on my flat hand truck and
rolled it noisily up the dock. The waist-high carpet of marsh grass
to my right spread as flat as a putting green, unbroken by bush or
tree, except for a clump of cypress at the waterline halfway to the
lake.

The bayou extending
to my right several hundred yards was a beautiful, long, straight
channel that was a dream to take off from.

The bait shop was
dark, but as with the other day and River’s unexpected visit, I
slowed when I saw the big, brand-new Cadillac, sidewalls still
unmarked. I didn’t have to check it out to know it was top of
the line and fully loaded—after all, the Suttons had an image
to maintain. Recognizing the undercurrent of bitterness in that
thought, I studied the well-dressed man leaning against it. Instead
of being wary when River had shown up, but pleased to see her, the
sight of my daddy’s pricy showpiece of a car set my teeth on
edge.

He’d never
said one word about my business, hadn’t set one foot on my
property, and I didn’t give one damn.

At least that’s
what I told myself.

My daddy did casual
Southern gentleman to a T, whether he was on the putting green, or
sipping a mint julep on our back patio, or wheeling and dealing—light
blue seersucker pants and cream linen shirt open at the collar, a
study in stylish elegance. He was leaning back against the car,
checking his phone, but straightened when I came into view.

“Chase.”
He offered up a smile, but it was tight and telling. When my father
wanted something, he got the same taut smile on his face, and that
meant it was his-way-or-the-highway time. Ten years ago, I took the
highway and never looked back. He pushed away from his socially de
rigeur vehicle. In his early fifties, he was still physically fit,
powerfully built. I saw my brother Jake in his build, where I took
after my momma’s side of the family, same as River. He still
had a head of golden hair, his face etched with years of hard
dealing, and he still had the same aura of power. He stepped forward,
a calculating glint in his eyes.

“Daddy,”
I said stiffly. “Did you get lost?”

The smile faltered
for just an instant. I continued on up the ramp, opening the door to
the shop and pulling the truck inside. I didn’t even bother to
leave the door open.

Moments later it
opened, and he stepped through just as I disappeared into my cooler.
I needed to clean, prepare and package up this catch to distribute to
my customers by the end of the day. I didn’t have time to do
James Sutton’s bidding. Whatever it was.

“Chase. I came
here to talk to you. It’s time we worked out our differences.”

“Our
differences? What differences would those be, Daddy? Me bucking the
system, or your disappointment?” I didn’t bother to turn
around, but flipped off the top of the first cooler and removed the
top snapper. I opened my fillet kit and pulled out my long, thin,
flexible knife. My first cut was just behind the head and side fin.
Then I made short work of taking the meat without bones and then
skinning it.

“No, Chase.
It’s about you. About you giving up hiding out in the bayou and
coming home.”

“So I’m
a coward and a deserter.”

“No, that’s
not what I’m saying. I’m not blameless in this, but
neither are you. I will admit that our past conversations—”

“Conversations?
You mean shouting matches.”

“Whatever you
want to label them. But it’s been ten years, Chase. Your
absence has been felt all of those years. We just want you to
participate and be part of the family. Do whatever you choose and
deem right for your life. Just come home. That’s what everyone
wants.”