Southern Comforts (14 page)

Cash laughed. “I do admire your powers of recovery, son.”

 

Unlike many other self-made men, Vernon Gibbons made no secret of his humble beginnings. Instead, he flaunted his plebeian roots.

Born in a hollow in rural Tennessee, Gibbons had dropped out of school when he was sixteen to support his ailing mama and five younger brothers and sisters. He did not see having to leave school as any great loss. All a high school diploma would have gotten him would be a job in the mines, like his daddy before him who'd died of black lung disease.

Having no intention of spending his life below ground, only to die wheezing his guts out in some charity ward,
Vern got a job in the local five-and-dime store, unloading stock in the back room, polishing the front windows and sweeping the floors.

One hot steamy August afternoon, on the day before his seventeenth birthday, he was unloading some drums of cleaning supplies when he caught the manager, an overweight bottle-blond divorcée in her thirties, with a doughy face and a frizzy perm, looking at him the way he intended to look at the ice-cold Dr Pepper waiting for him when he finished the job. Janey Porter's pale eyes, magnified behind the thick lenses of her glasses, were riveted on his bare chest.

He slowly ran a hand down the sweaty flesh. Her avid gaze followed. All the way to the metal button at the waistband of his faded, patched jeans. Then lower, still, to where the worn denim hugged his sex.

Although she was no beauty queen, the blatant desire that flamed in those wide blue eyes, and the way she unconsciously licked her lips, sent heat flooding into his groin.

He'd grinned, a bold knowing grin that caused color to flood into her cheeks and sent her scurrying back to the safety of her cramped and windowless office. But later, after the store had closed and the other clerks had gone home for the night, he'd taken her, right on top of her scarred wooden desk, driving into her like a jackhammer until she'd screamed with the force of her orgasm.

They fell into a comfortable pattern. During the day, Janey taught him everything she knew about the discount retail business. A smart boy, and an ambitious one, Vern had learned quickly. At night, he kept her sexually satisfied and though it curtailed his social life, he considered it a small price to pay for such a valuable business education.

Her glowing monthly reports to the home office won him a series of promotions, from loading dock, to clerk, to as
sistant manager, to weekend manager. She was his most avid supporter and although the term had not been in use in those days, she was his mentor. A role she realized, too late, that she'd played too well. Eighteen months after having sex on top of her desk, Vern arrived at the store to find her bawling her eyes out.

She was being transferred to the home office, she'd told him between sobs. To work as a bookkeeper in shipping. His heart pounding in his ears like cannon fire, he'd had to ask. Who was the company planning to move into her spot as manager?

Vern had tried like hell not to display his pleasure at her answer. But hot damn, not only was he now the top dog, with a corresponding raise in pay, he was also going to be free to return to catting around with the local lovelies. Life didn't get much better than this!

Pasting a regretful frown on his face, he allowed Janey to take him out for a combination congratulations-farewell rib eye steak dinner with all the trimmings at the Chat and Chew. For the first time since their affair had begun, he spent the entire night with her, treating her alternately with passion and gentleness that brought her to drunken tears more than once.

Although it wasn't his nature to be tender, Vern understood the concept of debt. His success was due to this woman; he figured he owed her a night to remember.

And it wouldn't hurt, he'd reminded himself as he'd helped her pack her few shoddy belongings into her battered old Pontiac Bonneville the next morning, to have a friend in the home office.

Utilizing what his lover had taught him, along with his instincts for knowing what customers wanted even before they knew themselves, he began making changes that nearly doubled the profits of the store in the first year. Two years
later, he was netting out more profit than most of the big-city Nashville stores.

He'd been manager for five years when the chain was sold to a New York retailer who had no interest in keeping the rural stores running. Getting a loan from the bank was a snap; he'd met the bank owner at a Chamber of Commerce mixer and routinely went hunting with him. Using the borrowed funds, he'd bought the building, expanded the floor space to double the capacity and renamed it Mega-Mart. Then he hired his old lover away from their former employer and made her his comptroller.

At the gala grand opening celebration, he'd boldly announced that this was only the first store in a chain that would set the world of retailing on its ear.

Although some of the locals scoffed at his high-and-mighty attitude, Vern had the last laugh. By his twenty-fifth birthday, he'd expanded to twenty-five stores throughout Tennessee, Arkansas and West Virginia. By age thirty he was a millionaire. And that was just the beginning.

Now, at age sixty, Forbes ranked him the third richest man in America. Never one to be satisfied with being less than the best, he figured he still had plenty of time to make that number one slot before he was eligible for social security.

Which was why he'd signed the multimillion dollar deal with Roxanne Scarbrough. He was already the king of mass-market discounts. What he needed, was the touch of style she'd provide.

“Class for the masses,” he'd dubbed it.

At the same time, he'd make her a household word, even with people who considered a picture of Elvis on black velvet to be the height of decorating chic.

After her other guests departed, Roxanne invited Vern into her office to show him the working drawings of the
plantation house. She poured them both a glass of Rémy Martin and offered him a cigar. Vernon Gibbon's appreciation of food, aged cognac and illegal Cuban cigars were legion. As were tales of his sexual liaisons.

For a man who seldom made a bad business decision, his personal life had proven less successful. He'd been married eight times at last count, fathered sixteen children. Never one to dwell on the negative, he actually joked that his annual alimony and child support payments cost him more than most men made in a lifetime.

“Well,” Roxanne said, after they'd gone through the spec sheets and Cash's preliminary drawings, “what do you think?”

He chewed thoughtfully on his cigar. “You're taking on quite a challenge. You know, you could end up feeling like a dog who's just caught himself an eighteen-wheeler and doesn't know what the hell to do with it.”

“It's quite a challenge,” she agreed. “But I believe I'm up to it.”

“Hell, I don't doubt that for a minute, honey bun,” he said. “But what about this Beaudine fella?”

“He comes highly recommended.”

“I had my people do a background check on him,” Vern revealed. “The word around San Francisco is that he's a maverick.”

“Most highly successful men are.” Her smile suggested the description could certainly be applied to him. “But I can handle him.”

His dark eyes swept over her. “I'll just bet you can.”

Vern took a long puff on the cigar, sending a noxious cloud of smoke up to the ceiling, then stabbed it out into a Lalique ashtray. He patted his lap. “So, now that we've got
business out of the way, sweetie pie, why don't you come to daddy?”

She smiled as she rose slowly from the chair. Her eyes glittered with raw, lascivious intent. “I thought you'd never ask.”

R
oxanne had dressed carefully for the evening, choosing a simply elegant Yves Saint Laurent black crepe dress with a high neckline, long sleeves, white cuffs and collar. She'd kept her makeup simple. With the exception of the four-inch high heels and sheer black hose, she looked as demure as a nun.

She slowly unbuttoned the snowy cuffs at her wrists, then reached around to unzip the dress. When it fell to the floor, she stepped out of it and walked across the room, clad in a black lace bustier, matching garter belt, jet stockings and hooker heels. She'd bleached the hair framed by the belt this morning; the pale blond curls contrasted vividly with the ebony lace.

“You are a sight for sore eyes, sugar,” he said, expelling a long deep breath.

Those were the same words George had used. Roxanne suffered a momentary panic, then reminded herself that the only thing George Waggoner and Vernon Gibbons had in common was that they'd both started out poor.

George was the quintessential loser, while Vern was a
winner all the way. Which was why she hadn't protested when he'd explained in an offhand way that sex would be part of their deal.

As hard as she'd tried to exorcise the ghosts of her past, deep down inside in the furthest reaches of Roxanne's mind, a bit of the barefoot girl with the Salvation Army hand-me-down clothes still lingered. And that girl found it exciting as sin to be screwing the third richest man in America.

He'd been sexually attracted to her from the beginning. And during these past months, she'd appealed to that attraction, making her most tried and true cast to net him and keep him.

Kneeling beside the flowered chair, Roxanne brushed her lips lightly against his. When he didn't respond, she traced a sensual circle around his mouth with her tongue, coaxing a response. Again, nothing. She tilted her head back and gave him a knowing smile.

“You're being purposefully difficult tonight,” she accused lightly.

“I'm an old man. Guess I need a little more convincing.” He might be sixty but sexually he was far from over the hill. Roxanne knew from personal experience he had the stamina of a stallion.

She sighed, causing her breasts to rise above the lace cups of the bustier. “I suppose I'll just have to try harder.”

His dark eyes held a wicked glint. “There you go.”

She gave him a teasing love bite on his chin, then covered his mouth with hers, treating him to a long, deep kiss and was rewarded when his tongue tangled momentarily with hers in a slow, sinuous dance. Leaning closer, she placed a palm against his snowy shirtfront and felt the increased beat of his heart.

She stood up and backed away again, inviting him to take a long look at her. Which he did. She watched the bulge
straining against his trousers and knew he was not as unaffected as he liked to pretend.

Teasing him with the flair of a skilled concubine, she spread her legs wide apart. The provocative stance caused a flame to leap in his dark, unblinking eyes.

Knowing she had his undivided attention, reveling in the role of exhibitionist, she began caressing her breasts, squeezing them, stroking them, cupping them in her palms, lifting them toward him as if offering the most succulent of ripe fruits. He was breathing harder now and his face was growing flush. A thrilling feeling of power surged through her veins. Improvising, she slipped the index finger of her right hand between her vermillion lips and began sucking on it, while her left hand did not cease its sensual caresses.

Vern stood up. “Come here,” he ordered roughly.

When she did as instructed, he put a hand on the top of her head, urging her back down to her knees. Knowing what he wanted, she unzipped his suit pants; his straining penis jutted up from the wiry nest of pewter hair like a tree branch.

She stroked it. Ran a carmine-tipped nail from the root up to the huge purple-pink knob, then repeated the fiery path with her tongue. When she pointed the tip of her tongue and stuck it as deeply as she could into the slit, moving it around and around, he groaned.

“You keep doing that, and I'm gonna fucking explode.” He grabbed hold of her hair and lifted her head, taking advantage of her still-parted lips as he shoved his engorged penis into her mouth, holding the top of her head in order to force her to accept every throbbing inch as he thrust it harder and deeper.

Just when Roxanne thought he was going to come in her mouth, he pulled out, dragging her to the floor. He ripped off the rest of his clothes and began driving into her with
rough animal ruttishness, his thrusts so deep, so powerful, that she came again and again, gasping as she brokenly spurred him on with sexual obscenities.

Finally, he let go, flooding her with his seed in a climax that went on and on. His shout echoed around the room like the victorious mating bugle of a bull elk. Then he collapsed on top of her, his passion spent.

 

The room was dark, illuminated only by the soft glow of the television monitor. The lone viewer sat in the shadows, watching the couple's raunchy mating. The unblinking eye of the lens took in the long white thighs wrapped around the man's thickened waist, focused on the thick cock as it disappeared into the slit hidden by those swollen pink folds and glistening pale pubic hair.

If there was one thing this tape proved, other than the fact that Vernon Gibbons was even butt uglier without clothes than he was when dressed, it was that Roxanne Scarbrough was a whore. Oh, she didn't sell her body on the street corners for twenty-five bucks a blow job, the way Cora Mae Padgett might have done. But whether you fucked for pocket change or millions didn't change what you were.

The watcher picked up a pistol, stroked the blue steel and imagined replacing that thick penis with the gun barrel. Pain and pleasure were so often interchangeable; it was difficult to know where one ended and the other began.

But Roxanne would discover the difference. And soon.

The watcher pointed the pistol and pulled the trigger.

“Bang, bang, bitch. You're dead.”

The idea was, as always, immensely pleasing.

 

Chelsea was not all that surprised to arrive at the Savannah airport the following morning and find Cash waiting at the gate.

What worried her was the unbidden fluttering in her stomach created by the sight of him, looking sexier than any man had a right to in something as simple as jeans and a blue chambray shirt.

“What are you doing here? And don't tell me you have a sudden urge to visit the Big Apple.”

He flashed his killer grin. “Now that you mention it, that's not such a bad idea. I don't suppose you know anyone who'd be willing to give a country boy a tour of the big city?”

“I'm afraid not.”

He sighed. “I was afraid that's what you'd say.” Without asking, he joined her in the line of passengers waiting to check in. When he reached for her bag, she mutinously switched it to the other hand.

In front of her a woman was complaining that she'd been promised a window seat. The unwaveringly friendly woman behind the counter kept tapping obligingly on her computer keys, searching out an available substitution.

“What
are
you doing here, Cash?” she asked again.

“Seeing you off.”

“Why?”

“Because we didn't get a chance to talk last night.”

“Yes, we did.” The other passenger walked away, seemingly mollified. Chelsea moved up.

“Not alone,” Cash said.

“There wasn't any need for that.” Chelsea handed over her ticket.

The reservations clerk, whose name tag actually read Scarlett O'Hara began tapping the keyboard. “I have you in seat 3-A, Ms. Cassidy.” Her smile warmed considerably as she turned the wattage toward Cash. “Will you be flying with us today, sir?” Her drawl was as smooth as honey, as
rich as the pralines Chelsea had bought in the hotel gift shop to take back to Mary Lou.

“Now, if I were going to fly anywhere, you can bet it'd be on your fine airline,” Cash assured her. “But I'm afraid I'm just seein' my lady off.”

“Oh.” Glossy red lips turned downward in a pout. The disappointed clerk stuck Chelsea's ticket into a red-white-and-blue jacket and handed it back to her. “Have a nice flight.”

“Thank you.” Chelsea took the ticket and walked toward a nearby row of molded plastic chairs. “Well, you certainly made an impression. She's probably hoping the plane will crash, putting me out of the picture.”

“Bein' friendly is her job.”

“Since when does being friendly involve practically stripping a man naked with her eyes? Which, by the way, had too much blue eye shadow.”

Cash was enjoying her obvious irritation. A jealous woman was definitely not an indifferent one. “I didn't notice. I was too busy looking at you.” He ran his fingers lightly through her hair, ruffling the waves. “Did I mention how much I like your new hairdo?”

It was a casual, unthreatening touch. It was also, in this busy terminal teeming with travelers, unnervingly intimate. “I don't believe it came up.”

“I was afraid of that. Damn. I think my only excuse is that I was too pixilated by the sight of you in that snazzy red silk suit to think straight.”

“Pixilated?” She could feel her lips curving despite her best effort to stop them.

“A nine-letter word meaning enchanted.” His fingers continued down her cheek. His head lowered, sensual intent gleaming in his eyes. “Enthralled.” His hand cupped her
chin. “Or, if you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, hot and bothered. Did I mention that I had to threaten to kick out Jeb's lung because of the way that sassy skirt hugged your cute little ass?”

“You didn't!”

“Of course I did. But Jeb understood. After all, there's an unspoken code about leering at your best friend's lady.”

“I'm not your lady.”

“Sure you are,” Cash said patiently. “Believe me, darlin', I've always been a firm believer in southern hospitality. But I don't cancel an appointment with the governor to show up at the airport to wave goodbye to
every
good-lookin' woman who visits Georgia.”

“You had an appointment with the governor? Dressed like that?”

“It was at his mamma's house here in Savannah. She's looking to remodel and it's a little hard to crawl around in the attic in a suit and tie. The governor thought I was the man for the job. He also mentioned needing a little work on the executive mansion.”

“And you canceled an opportunity like that? For me?”

“Actually, if you want to get technical, I postponed it.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “Why?”

“I told you. You're my woman.”

He made it sound so simple. “You really are crazy.”

“Pixilated,” he reminded her. He gave her a long look, then shook his head.

“What's wrong?”

“Damned if I'm not gonna miss you, Chelsea. Maybe I oughta see about buying a seat off one of the other passengers.”

“No!” She drew in a deep breath. “I don't want you coming to New York with me.”

“Afraid I'll break Nelson's nose?”

“Of course not.” The very idea was ridiculous.

“I would, you know. If he tried to keep you.”

“I'm not any man's possession.”

“Good. Then you can go home, say goodbye to Nelson and come back to me. That's probably the best way to handle it,” he decided, rubbing his jaw. “Quick and neat, and it'll save me having to kick out his lung. Or cut off his—”

“Don't you dare say another word!” She glanced around, afraid some of the passengers awaiting boarding might have overheard his ridiculously male comment. “You really have to stop talking to me this way in public.”

“I'd be happy to oblige. But the thing is, Chelsea, you don't give me much chance to have these little chats in private.” He slid a fingertip down the slope of her imperfect nose. “So, I don't see as how I have any choice but to take advantage of whatever opportunity I can get. Wherever I can get it.”

Wanting—needing—to get this settled once and for all, she grabbed his hand and dragged him over to the neighboring gate, which was nearly empty.

“Look, I'm not going to deny that I'm attracted to you—”

“That's a start. Because I sure as hell am attracted to you.”

She ignored his interruption. “And I have no doubt that sex with you would be as potent as ever.”

“That's pretty much what I've been thinking.”

“Would you please stop agreeing with me? And let me continue?”

He gave her a be-my-guest gesture.

“Thank you.” She took a deep breath and was about to continue when he broke into her already scattered chain of thought.

“Chelsea?”

“What now?”

“If you want me to keep my mind on what you're saying, I'd be much obliged if you wouldn't do that.”

“Do what?”

“Breathe like that. Watching that silk come up and down makes a man think about what's underneath. And although I like to think that I've come a long way from the days when I did
all
my thinking with my glands, I've got to admit, darlin', that the sight is more than a little distracting.”

She closed her eyes, began to take another deep, frustrated breath, then cut it off in the middle of inhaling. “You really are incorrigible.”

“And you really are lovely.”

When she opened her eyes, they were filled with confusion. “You don't understand.”

“Sure as God made little green apples, I'm trying to. But it's a little difficult, when you won't open up and tell me the truth about what you're really thinking. And feeling.”

“It's complicated.”

“Life usually is. The thing is, I never would have taken you for a coward.”

“I'm not a coward!” Dylan Cassidy's little girl, a coward? The very idea was inconceivable.