Scarlet Lady (9 page)

Montana saw Katie’s stricken look. To ease the awkwardness of the situation, he turned the conversation in another direction. “Where did you go to college?”

“It was a small college you probably never heard of—Weldon—close enough that I could live at home.”

That figured. “And Carson?”

“LSU, of course. That’s where Daddy went.”

“And he belonged to a fraternity?”

“Sure. All the Caritherses pledge Sigma Alpha Epsilon.”

Montana nodded. He knew the scenario. “And you?”

She shook her head. “Me? No. Mother wanted me to go to LSU and become a Tri Delt, but I … I didn’t.”

Montana didn’t have to be told that she didn’t do either because the money went to Carson instead of Katie.

“What about you?” she asked. “What did you do before you became a casino owner?”

He laughed. She hadn’t asked if he went to college, so he didn’t volunteer that he had, not right after high school, but eventually. He rarely displayed his bachelor of science in agriculture. It didn’t fit with his waterfront persona.

“You don’t want to know,” he said. “Nothing as glamorous as you and your brother.”

“Glamor isn’t what it’s cracked up to be,” she admitted. “If you aren’t careful, it becomes a fantasy world that shapes your life forever.”

“Yeah. But there are other kinds of fantasies. Once, I thought I’d study law. But I’d never be able to represent someone who was guilty.”

“Then why law?”

“I guess I thought it would be a quick way to make a name for myself.”

Katie took a quick look at Montana. He was serious. “Was that important, making a name for yourself?”

“No. I guess not. My stepfather wouldn’t have been impressed if I’d been elected governor. Not that I’d ever be a politician. Though”—he laughed—“being a politician isn’t that far removed from being a gambler.”

A long-legged white crane swooped across the water and came to a stop on the base of a leafless cypress tree near the deck. He perched silently, as still as the dark water beneath his view.

She hadn’t been hungry, but Katie soon found herself relaxed enough to eat. They talked about their mutual love of the river, of Louisiana with its old-world charm and easy pace. It seemed unreal, this ordinary small talk, this revealing of the past and dreams that she never spoke about. And she was certain that Montana didn’t volunteer this information easily.

“Did you always want to be a—what is it that you’re called?”

“Financial officer,” she answered. “Don’t laugh. I wanted to grow cotton. I even took Agr classes.”

He almost choked on the bit of bread he was eating. Of all the things he might have expected, her interest in agriculture was the last. It was too much of a coincidence. She’d studied agriculture because she wanted to grow things. He’d studied it because he wanted to show his stepfather that he could be a landowner too.

“Why on earth would you choose cotton?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Seeing fields of growing things is like a promise. It’s something that’s always been. It’s a connection with the past and the future.”

Montana’s goals weren’t so lofty. He’d just wanted to prove he could make more money than his stepfather. “Were you a philosophy major in school?” he asked.

She laughed lightly. “No, that was Carson’s field. I’m much more practical than that.”

“But why cotton? Why not sugarcane or a crop less risky. Growing cotton sounds more like something I’d gamble on.”

Her eyes lit up as she began to talk about cotton. “They’ve developed new strains now, disease- and insect-resistant. I believe it’s the crop of the future. Just think, we might even be able to bring cotton mills back to this country. I know that sounds odd, me wanting to be a farmer.”

Their waiter lit big fat candles in the middle of the table as the moon began to rise over the tree. Its pale reflection rippled in the water. Sometime, when she hadn’t noticed, the bird had disappeared. Now night frogs began a chorus in the silence.

He knew about the new strains of cotton. He kept up on farming, even if he’d long ago given up the idea of impressing his family by being a plantation owner. “You’d like to be a farmer,” Montana repeated. “No, I don’t think that’s strange.”

He smiled and pulled an imaginary harmonica from his pocket. Pretending to play, he whistled a haunting rendition of “Swanee River.” “Katie, you’re a throwback, a real Southern woman with the kind of pride that started a war.”

“And you, sir”—she laughed—“are the carpetbagger Yankee who’s come to collect the mortgage.”

With that off-the-cuff quip, her humor vanished. There
was
a mortgage, and Montana, in an odd way, held it. He, more than Carson, could change her life in ways she was only beginning to understand.

“We’d better go,” she said, crumpling her napkin and pushing away from the table. “I’ve kept you away from your business much too long.”

“You didn’t keep me,” he said. “Besides, Royal can take care of anything on the
Lady
.”

But everything had changed and Katie wasn’t sure she liked that. Being enemies was easy. Finding out that she enjoyed Montana’s company wasn’t.

They didn’t speak on the drive back. Katie was lost in her thoughts, thoughts about Montana’s fantasy of becoming a lawyer to please a stepfather who seemed impossible to please.

Later, at the house, she tried again to release Montana from his self-appointed search. “I appreciate what you’ve done. But really, you don’t have to go with me
anymore. I’m sure the police will soon find my car. I do thank you for your help, but I’ll find my brother.”

“Katie.” He reached out and took her hand. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. And what I want to do is pick you up after work tomorrow afternoon.”

Startling her with his gentleness, he leaned over and kissed her. “Good night, my lady in red.”

FIVE

The next afternoon the late-October day was still warm enough for the top to be down on Montana’s sleek sports car. Katie didn’t mind. Maybe it would clear away some of her confusion. She’d tried to come up with a way to refuse his help. But when he pulled up in front of the hospital, once again she’d gotten in without a protest.

Montana was responsible for her brother’s disappearance, but he’d spent all the previous night helping her look for him. He’d driven her, asked questions for her, and brought her home, saying a quick good night at the door. He’d been the perfect gentleman.

Except for the kiss.

She couldn’t dwell on that. She wouldn’t think about it, or him. Instead, she’d concentrate on the drive, on his car, sleek and powerful, just like the man who owned it. It was expensive and it was red.

“Don’t you know any other color?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Red. You seem to have a thing for red.”

They came to a stop at a light, and he gave her a long look. “Well, let me see. I recall a certain red dress. Could it be that you’re partial to red, too, Katherine?”

“But that wasn’t actually my dress,” she said. “I mean I borrowed it. My friend thought it would give me an edge.”

“It did.”

She caught an errant strand of hair that had curled in front of her face and tucked it behind her ear. He was right. The red dress had given her courage. The red bed in his quarters had taken it away. “Where are we going today?”

“We’re going to the
Belle
. I understand your brother used up his welcome there before he switched over to my place. They wouldn’t take his IOUs.”

“But you did. Why?”

Montana thought about that. “It was strictly business,” he finally said. “Your brother bragged about Carithers’ Chance so much that I thought it was a mansion. When he offered to put up his share of ‘the plantation,’ I couldn’t turn him down.”

Katie couldn’t hold back a laugh. “I’m assuming you hadn’t seen it at that point. We’ve sold off most of the land, and the house needs more repair than it’s worth. I can’t think anybody would want that kind of expense unless it was family.”

“Actually I had seen it. I’d driven by it many times. The first time I saw it, it reminded me of my … well,
let’s just say I’ve been thinking about acquiring a real house to live in.”

“Well, you can’t have Carithers’ Chance,” she said firmly. “It belongs in the Carithers family and that’s where it’s going to stay.”

Like the
Scarlet Lady
is going to stay in mine
. The long light finally changed and he drove through.

“So why are we going to the
Belle
?” Katie asked, trying not to think about the odd sense of yearning she’d heard in his voice as he told her of driving by her home.

“If we’re going to look, we might as well cover them all. It’s the next one in line. I know the manager and he has an ear to the river. Maybe he’s heard something.”

He hadn’t. Three riverboats later Montana still hadn’t found a trace of Carson. It didn’t surprise him. If anyone had seen the missing man, Montana would already have known about it. “It’s as if he’s vanished,” he said as he climbed back into the car. “The only thing I’ve learned is that there is somebody in a gray limo who’s been seen in the casinos talking to some of the gamblers.”

“What does that have to do with Carson?”

“Nothing, that I’m aware of. It’s just that when you’re looking for answers, you look for the unexpected.”

“You think something bad has happened to my brother, don’t you?” Katie was afraid to hear his answer, but she had about reached the end of her endurance.

“If you mean do I think he’s been hurt, no. I think he’s hiding.”

“Where would he hide? Everybody along the river knows Carson.”

“Apparently.”

“So,” she said, allowing a little discouragement to creep into her voice, “where do we go from here?”

Montana pulled the well-chewed cheroot from his pocket and stuck it in his mouth.

“The manager of the last casino said that he heard Carson had a girlfriend who danced in one of the shows on a boat in New Orleans. As soon as I find out which one, we’ll talk to her. Maybe she’s heard from him.”

“That would be a waste of time. Carson wouldn’t be dating a showgirl. He has a fiancée. He’s engaged to a girl from one of the oldest families in Baton Rouge.”

Montana pulled over into the parking lot of a vacant business. He stopped the car and turned toward Katie. “Katherine, I hate to bring this up. But your brother’s actions do not suggest that he has much regard for either honor or etiquette. If you’re going to help him and yourself, you’ve got to start seeing him as he is and not as you’d like him to be.”

“You’re right,” Katie admitted, allowing their conversation to become personal, an occurrence that was far too easy. “I know I have a blind spot when it comes to Carson. It’s just that since our parents died, I’ve had six years of feeling like I’m responsible for … everything.”

“Too bad they didn’t feel that way. Leaving Carson at the helm of a sinking ship was asking for disaster. I’m not sure you can even blame him for its going down.”

“I don’t,” she said. “I never did. The business was
already in trouble. I tried to talk to my father, to help. I could see that his prices were too high. He balked at adopting any of the modern sales and routing techniques and his equipment was hopelessly outdated. He refused to change in a world that was changing constantly. Then he was killed.”

“And Carson took over. What had he done up to then to qualify him for the job?”

“Nothing. He was just starting to look for a job as a professor of philosophy. He had to give it up to take over the business.”

“Why not you? At least you had the right kind of mind and background.”

“Yes. I’d studied business and marketing so that I could help. But my father couldn’t or wouldn’t allow that. Carithers Shipping Company had always been passed on to the oldest son. That’s even written into the original will.”

“Even if the son wasn’t interested?” Montana asked the question, but he already knew the answer. Over a hundred years had passed since the South and its peculiar ideas of family and tradition had been destroyed, but there were still throwbacks. His own mother hadn’t been a true Southerner, but once she married one, grits and mint juleps became the trademarks of her newly adopted life.

“Daddy never gave up hope that Carson would come around. When Daddy died, Carson didn’t have a choice. He finally gave in and took over. But it was too late. If Daddy was a poor businessman, Carson was worse. He couldn’t admit that he was a failure. I didn’t blame him.
The business was doomed. But nothing I could say or do made any difference to Carson.”

“Is the business a total loss?”

“It might as well be. The court appointed a bankruptcy attorney to oversee the selling of the company’s assets to satisfy our debts. It’s just a matter of time.”

“You don’t suppose Carson used your winnings to pay off some of the business debts?”

“I don’t know what to think,” was her answer. “Anything is possible, though he’d need ten times that amount of money and then some. No, the only thing that can still be salvaged is Carithers’ Chance.”

“And I hold Carson’s IOUs for his portion of that. Looks like I’m about to become part owner of a Mississippi River plantation house.”