Southern Comforts (17 page)

“Dammit, Chelsea.” He jerked her hand away before her stroking touch had him exploding. “I'm trying to be a gentleman.”

“I don't want you to be a gentleman!” It was her turn to flare. “I want you to make love to me! I
need
you to make love to me! It's only fair, after…”

Even as drunk as she was, she realized what she'd been about to say and quickly shut her mouth. So fast and so hard, her teeth slammed together, sending cymbals crashing through her head.

It wasn't fast enough that Cash didn't immediately catch on. “Ah, sugar.” He sighed, bent down and touched his
forehead to hers. “If it's a revenge fuck you're looking for, you've come to the wrong place.”

He sounded as disappointed as she felt. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his chest. “I was going to break it off with him anyway,” she muttered into his shirt. “So why does it hurt so badly?”

Cash knew he was sunk when his need to comfort overrode his need to take. Although she hadn't told him what had happened, he had a pretty good idea what she'd walked into when she'd shown up in New York hours before her scheduled arrival time.

“Sometimes wounded pride can sting worse than a broken heart.” His hands stroked her back. His lips brushed over her temple. “But the good news is that it heals a lot faster.”

“Really?”

She was looking up at him, hope and trust shining in her wet eyes. She was an emotional woman, Cash reminded himself. Even though she tried not to be. She was a romantic woman, even though he suspected she'd deny it with her last dying breath. And she was far more vulnerable than she allowed anyone to know.

He grinned. “Scout's honor.”

She managed a smile at that. A wobbly smile that wrapped satin cords around his heart. “I don't believe you were ever a Boy Scout.”

“You're right.” He couldn't have afforded the uniform, even if those stalwart leaders of young men had been willing to allow him into their ranks. Which Cash suspected they undoubtedly wouldn't have.

He lifted both camisole straps, settling them back onto her shoulders. “The worm's an idiot. You're well rid of him.”

“Yes.” Of this she was absolutely certain. “I am.”

The room was spinning faster than ever. Chelsea felt as if she were on a runaway carousel. “I think I also may be very very drunk.”

“I noticed that.”

“Of course you did.” She gave him a blurry smile. “We've already determined that you're an intelligent, clever man.” The mercurial mood swings she'd been demonstrating since arriving at his door had her full, unpainted lips turning down in a pout. “Even if you won't let me seduce you.”

“Later,” he promised.

“How do you know I'll feel like seducing you later?” Her tone suggested she just might refuse him for spite.

Cash grinned. At her. At himself. At this ridiculous situation. “I'll take my chances.” He scooped her up in his arms and began carrying her down the hallway.

“Where are we going?”

“I'm putting you to bed.”

“Oh, goodie.” She leaned her cheek against his chest and sighed with feminine satisfaction.

“Alone.”

She looked up at him, surprised and more than a little disappointed. “I never would have expected this from you, Cash Beaudine.”

“Believe me, sweetheart, it's coming as one helluva surprise to me, too.” He entered the bedroom, pulled back the spread and slid her between the sheets.

“I was supposed to check back into the Magnolia House,” she remembered suddenly. “Jeb may worry if I don't show up.”

“I'll call him and tell him you've been detained.”

“Thank you.” Every muscle in her body began to succumb to the blissful comfort of the wide bed. She could feel
them going lax, one by one. Her brain was on the verge of shutdown. She closed her eyes. “For everything.”

There was no point in answering. She was already asleep. Her breathing was slow and deep. The lines in her forehead and the deep brackets beside her mouth softened.

Cash stood there, looking down at her, thinking how inviting, how right, she looked in his bed.

He sat down in the chair beside the bed and simply watched her.

Soon, Cash promised himself.

 

“I don't understand,” Mildred Landis whined. “Didn't you tell Miz Scarbrough that your mother was ill?”

“Yes, Mama,” Dorothy lied deftly as she cut the fryer into pieces.

“Then she should have let you come home early. So you could take me to the doctor.”

“Mrs. Wickersham already agreed to take you to the doctor, Mama.”

“But Mrs. Wickersham isn't kin.” Mildred poured another two fingers of Johnnie Walker Red into her glass. Then, on reconsideration, added another splash. For medicinal purposes.

The glass was one of a set of crystal she'd inherited from her mother. The gold rims had been worn off over the years from heavy use. Mildred was not the first generation of Palmer women partial to spirits.

“It's a daughter's duty to take care of her mother.” She took a drink and enjoyed the warm feeling that flowed through her. She hadn't gotten to the click yet. But it would come.

“Keeping my job
is
taking care of you, Mama,” Dorothy said. “Without it, we wouldn't have the insurance that pays for all your doctor's visits. And your pills.”

And the money for all the damn booze you guzzle down like tap water, she felt like adding, but having had to put up with Roxanne's tantrums all day, Dorothy wasn't up to arguing with her mother.

Ignoring the litany of complaints she'd been hearing all her life, Dorothy skinned the chicken, cutting away the pebbly flesh and fat. If she allowed herself to actually listen to her mama, she'd probably start to scream. And the problem with that was, she wasn't sure if once started, she'd be able to stop.

She began dipping the chicken pieces in the milk. With her mother's voice droning in her ear, she let her mind to wander to New York. And to Chelsea Cassidy.

The writer's refusal to immediately succumb to Roxanne's will was making Dorothy's life a living hell. Roxanne was not easy to get along with at the best of times. When she wasn't getting her way, she could make the Wicked Witch of the West look like unrelentingly pleasant Melanie Wilkes by comparison.

Even as she wished Chelsea would agree, so they could all get on with their lives, Dorothy secretly admired her gumption. It took a lot of nerve to stand up to Roxanne. Lord knows, she'd never been able to manage it.

Of course, if she didn't have Mama…

“Are you listening to me, Dorothy Rose?”

“Yes, Mama,” Dorothy murmured obediently. The air seemed to be growing thinner by the minute. There were times when she found it difficult to breathe around her mother.

“Then why didn't you answer my question?”

“I'm sorry.” She dipped the chicken into the bread crumbs. “I guess I was thinking about work.”

“That's all you think about,” Mildred complained, her false teeth clacking. “Your precious work. If you thought
half as much about your poor ailing mother as you do that fancy career of yours, all the time jet-setting up to New York City—”

“I'm Ms. Scarbrough's personal assistant. I have to go where she wants me to go.”

“Even if it means abandoning me?”

“I'd never abandon you, Mama.”

That was, heaven help her, the unfortunate truth. Dorothy frowned as she thought about her sister, happily living in Minneapolis with her husband and two children. And her brother, a police captain in Albuquerque. They'd both escaped, leaving her here in the house they'd all unhappily grown up in, trying to please a woman who steadfastly refused to be pleased.

“That's what they all say,” Mildred muttered.

She'd heard this before, more times than she could count. How everyone had run off, allowing her mother to play the role of the martyr. A role Dorothy suspected she relished because it gave her an excuse to drink. It never occurred to Mildred that her drinking was what had run all the other members of her family off in the first place.

“What was your question, Mama?”

“What question are you talking about?”

“You asked me a question,” Dorothy reminded her.

“Oh. That's right. I wanted to make sure you're not using whole milk on that chicken.”

“It's Pet evaporated skim milk, Mama.”

“Good. Because I gotta watch my cholesterol. The doctor says my heart could go at any time. Just stop. Like an eight-day windup clock on the ninth day.”

Doc Roberts, who'd taken care of the Landis family for years, had assured Dorothy that her mother's heart was as strong as a mule. And it wasn't as if she did anything to put a strain on it. Days were spent lying on the sofa, de
vouring the
National Enquirer
and the
UFO Newsletter
and watching television.

To make matters even worse, this past year, as her drinking had increased, she'd started confusing old movies with reality.
The Exorcist
had her convinced Satan was living in the attic and it had been nearly impossible to get her to take a bath after she'd seen the dead woman in the tub in
The Shining.

Just last week Sheriff Burke had called Dorothy at work with the unwelcome news that her mama had taken a potshot at the mailman with the 12-gauge Ithica shotgun Irwin Landis had left behind when he'd escaped his alcoholic wife and their nightmare of a marriage fifteen years ago.

“I don't know what's wrong with the police nowadays,” Mildred had complained bitterly as Dorothy had driven her home. Unfortunately, the mailman had insisted on pressing charges. “Joe Burke oughta be goin' after that serial killer, instead of arresting a potential victim.”

“There isn't any killer, Mama.”

“Then you want to tell me why that man came to the house, if not to kill me? A person is most usually dead before skinning.”

“No one was going to kill you. Or skin you, Mama. Mr. Littleton has been our postman for years. He's come to the house nearly every day since I was a little girl.”

“He was going to skin me. Then he was going to eat me,” Mildred insisted. “With a fine Chianti.”

“Oh, Lord.” Comprehension came crashing down. Stopping at the sign at the intersection a few blocks away from the house, Dorothy lowered her forehead to the steering wheel and prayed for strength. “You've been watching
Silence of the Lambs,
haven't you?”

“Always hated Chianti,” Mildred muttered. “It's too
damn sweet for my taste. I don't know how those eye-talians can stand to drink it. But then again, what can you expect from damn wop foreigners?”

The next morning Dorothy had called the cable company, and cut off access to The Movie Channel.

“Don't worry, Mama,” she said now as she put the chicken in the oven. “I got this recipe right out of Oprah's cookbook. It's about as healthy as you can get.”

“I'll bet Oprah would take care of her mother,” Mildred muttered, returning her focus to herself, as always. “'Specially if her mama were on the brink of death.”

That said, she tossed back the drink, then held her glass out for a refill.

C
helsea woke with a splitting headache and a tongue that felt as if it had mysteriously grown a coat of fur while she'd been sleeping. Without opening her eyes, she reached out for her alarm clock. When she realized it wasn't there, that she wasn't at home where she belonged, her first thought was that she was back in the bedroom at Magnolia House.

No, that couldn't be right. She remembered checking out of the inn. And going to the airport.

And flying back to New York.

New York.

The memory came crashing back. Nelson in bed with Heather. Nelson asking her to stay. Nelson having the nerve to accuse her of driving him into another woman's arms with her own selfish neglect.

She remembered walking out of the apartment. And going…where? Although it was difficult to concentrate, she struggled to recall what she'd done next.

The bank. Where she'd learned that the man she'd tried so hard to love had robbed her blind.

She'd been in a state of shock, she remembered, as she'd
left the bank and taken a taxi uptown to Mary Lou's office. From there to the airport, where she caught the next plane to Savannah, then a cab to Raintree. Where she'd planned to check back into Jeb's cozy inn.

So, that's obviously where she was, after all.

Pleased to have solved that little puzzle, she forced her eyelids open. The drapes were closed, cloaking the room in a comforting darkness that while easy on her aching eyes, did nothing to help her figure out what time it was. She looked around, hoping to find a clock, when her gaze collided with Cash's. He was sprawled in a chair not far from the bed.

“What are you doing here?”

He lifted a dark brow. “Where would you expect me to be? It is my bedroom.”

“
Your
bedroom?”

She sat up and looked around again, seeking some proof that he was lying. But the pillow case her head had been resting on all night told the truth. It carried his scent, revealing that somehow, she had ended up in Cash's bed.

“I'm not at Magnolia House?”

“Since you weren't in any condition to leave last night, I called Jeb and told him you'd be checking back in this afternoon. Unless you'd rather just stay where you are.” Cash liked the idea of keeping her in his house. And in his bed.

“No.” She shook her head then wished she hadn't. “No,” she repeated, flinching. She tentatively lifted the sheet and noticed with some relief that she was still wearing her underwear. “Did we…? I mean, we didn't…?”

“Did we, what?”

“Dammit, Cash, you know very well what I mean. Did we make love or not?”

“You can relax. Nothing happened, Chelsea.”

Oddly, she was vaguely disappointed. “You wouldn't lie. Not about that.”

“No.” His answer was curt. Harsh. And although softly spoken, it made her head ache even worse. She began massaging her temples in a vain attempt to soothe the throbbing as she tried to recall how she'd ended up here, in Cash's bed.

“I have my faults, Chelsea. But taking advantage of a woman in the condition you were in when you showed up at my door last night isn't one of them.”

His smile was a grim slash completely lacking in humor. “Although, I'll have to admit, you put what little character I have to the test when you started that striptease routine.”

“Oh, God.” Her memory flooded back, bringing with it a rush of humiliation. She suddenly remembered taking off her clothes. Remembered daring—then, heaven help her, begging!—him to make love to her.

She flopped back against the pillow, closed her eyes again and covered them with her arm. “I'm so embarrassed.”

“There's no need to be. You're not the first woman to drink too much champagne.”

“I'll bet I'm not the first woman to come on to you, either,” she mumbled.

“No.”

“Well, that's certainly honest.”

“I've never lied to you, Chelsea. So, there's no reason to start now. Of course there have been other women in my life. Too many, at times, when I was younger and less discriminating. But none of them have anything to do with you and me.”

“It would if we were together.”

“If we were together, sweetheart, there'd be no reason for me to ever want any other woman.”

“That's probably what all men say.”

With that single statement, she filled in the blanks of the questions he'd been asking himself all night long. “I told you, I don't lie. If the reason you got drunk yesterday was because you'd found out your Yankee worm is a liar—”

“Not only a liar, but a cheat.” She sighed. “I caught him in bed with an editorial assistant from the magazine.”

“That's got to hurt,” he allowed.

“You don't seem all that surprised by the revelation.”

“Actually, I'm not. Since the guy was screwing around on you back at Yale.”

“He was?” She couldn't believe that. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“I figured you had an open relationship. Since you weren't exactly faithful at the time, either,” he reminded her.

“That was different,” Chelsea muttered, unwilling to concede that she wasn't exactly on firm ground here. “Nelson and I weren't living together back then. We weren't seriously discussing marriage.”

“What you had with Nelson—” he heaped an extra helping of scorn on his rival's name “—doesn't concern me. It didn't back then, and it doesn't now. The point is that you're not the first woman, or man, for that matter, to have an unfaithful lover.

“So now that you've discovered that your blue-blooded fiancé is a two-timing bastard, you move on. And forget it.”

“Move on with you?”

“I have a few things in my favor,” he said mildly. “I don't snore, I don't steal the covers, I don't lie. And my male ego's strong enough that I don't have to pump it up by screwing around on a woman I'm supposed to be committed to.”

“Next you'll be assuring me that you can make the earth move.”

“That goes without saying.”

His smile was too appealing. Too enticing. “I think I could have accepted Nelson being unfaithful,” she admitted quietly. “In fact, I honestly wasn't all that surprised. It was the other thing that set me off.”

“The other thing?” He ran through a list of possibilities. “This assistant,” he said carefully, “it
was
a female?”

“What?” Deciding the alcohol must have killed off a great many brain cells, Chelsea didn't immediately get his meaning. “Oh, yes.” She laughed. “Nelson isn't gay. Not that there's anything wrong with being gay,” she said quickly.

“Nothing at all,” he agreed. “And now that we've both proven ourselves to be properly politically correct people of the 90s, you want to tell me what, exactly it was, that decided to make you try to drown the guy in champagne?”

“He mugged me.” She remembered, as she'd left the bank, thinking he'd been no different than those street criminals who came up behind you at the automatic teller, held a gun to your head and demanded your money or your life.

“Mugged?” He was out of the chair like a shot, his hands curled into fists at his sides. Chelsea stared up at him, stunned. He looked like a man about to commit mayhem. Or murder. “If he so much as laid a finger on you—”

“No!” She reached out ineffectually. “I was speaking metaphorically, Cash. What I meant was that he stole all my money.”

It was the one thing he never would have considered. Cash would have been no more surprised if she'd told him that her Yankee worm had taken up with aliens from another planet.

“You're kidding.”

“Believe me, being broke is nothing to kid about. He cleaned me out. Lock, stock and mutual funds.” She sighed.
“I kept telling myself on the flight back down here that money isn't everything. But it's embarrassing to have to borrow lunch money from your agent.”

It occurred to him that seven years ago he may have actually enjoyed this little reversal in roles. Now, hearing the news, he could only feel a cold fury at Waring. And sympathy for Chelsea.

Although perhaps, he considered, there was a silver lining to this. “How are you planning to afford the inn?” Even as he called himself a bastard for enjoying the idea, it crossed Cash's mind that perhaps she'd have to stay here with him.

“That shouldn't be a problem. My agent is working something out with Roxanne.”

“So you've decided to take the job.”

“It's not as if I have any choice. I told you, Cash. I'm flat broke. I need the money.”

“There's always your job on the magazine.”

“Journalism doesn't pay very much,” she admitted. “I never could have afforded to live the way Nelson and I did if I hadn't had family money.”

The inheritance from her father, which consisted mostly of two life insurance policies, had gone into interest bearing bonds that had provided a small, but steady income. Then there were various bequests from grandparents and other assorted Whitneys and Lowells that had allowed her to live comfortably.

“And now it's all gone?”

“All but my trust fund.” Fortunately, her great-grandmother's attorneys had drawn up an ironclad trust that, even with all his slimy, sneaky tricks, Nelson hadn't been able to get around.

“Of course. The trust fund.” Cash nodded. Obviously among the wealthy, broke meant something different than it
did to the rest of the world's mere mortals. “Since you brought it up, may I ask how much we're talking about?”

“Two million dollars. Give or take a few hundred thousand.”

“Two million?” He shook his head in self-disgust. And he'd been feeling sorry for her?
Hell, suckered again, Beaudine.

“But I can't touch it for another two years. So, for the time being, I'm still broke.”

“Can't you borrow on the funds? Use it for collateral for a loan?”

“No.” It was her turn to shake her head. “My great-grandmother was very specific about that. Since she wanted her heirs to understand the value of work, she arranged it so we couldn't come into wealth at too young an age. She was also an early feminist, which is why, I suppose, she put in that other clause.”

“What clause?”

“That if any female heir marries before her thirtieth birthday, the trust reverts to charity.”

Suddenly, he understood everything. “That's why you always said you were going to marry the worm when you were thirty.”

“Yes.”

“So you could get the money.”

“It's quite a lot of money,” she felt obliged to point out.

“I'm not arguing that. I'm just finding it interesting that love comes with such a convenient price tag among the upper classes.” He folded his arms and looked down at her. “So, what's the cutoff point?”

“Cutoff point?” Her head was throbbing, her eyes felt as if they were bleeding, her mouth was as parched as Death Valley, and her stomach was anything but steady. She really
was not in the mood for an in-depth discussion of her distressing financial situation.

“There's an old joke,” he said, not answering her directly. “About a man who asks a woman if she'll go to bed with him for a million dollars. When she immediately agrees, he asks her if she'll go to bed with him for five dollars. Well, of course she's insulted. So she asks him what he thinks she is.”

“‘We've already determined that,' the man tells her. ‘Now we're just establishing price.'” Cash's lips curled in an unappealing smirk.

“If your great-grandmother's trust fund was five dollars, you'd have married the worm and not given it a second thought. But two million was enough to wait for. There's a pretty big range in between. I was just wondering what
your
price is, Irish.”

“I don't want to discuss this with you right now, Cash,” she said, hedging the issue until her head stopped pounding enough to let her come up with an answer. “The fact is that right now, I don't have a penny to my name.

“And yes, I could stay on at the magazine, but my editor was one of the people advising me to take a leave of absence to collaborate with Roxanne. She's already made a substantial offer for first serial rights.”

“So, looks like you're going to be sticking around for a while.” His tone was casual, but she could tell he liked the idea. The funny thing was, as irritated as she was at him for his attitude concerning her trust fund, she liked the idea, too.

“Yes,” she said. “I guess I am.”

After a shower and a light breakfast of cinnamon toast, tea and fruit, which Cash prepared and her stomach, amazingly, accepted, Chelsea began, just barely, to feel like a new woman.

Cash drove her to the inn, carrying her bags into the cozy lobby.

“Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

“You don't need to thank me, Chelsea.”

“Yes, I do.” She nodded. Then cringed as the movement sent boulders tumbling around in her head. “Perhaps I can buy you lunch. Or dinner.”

“Are you asking me out on a date?”

“Of course not,” she said a bit too quickly. “I was simply trying to repay your hospitality.”

“Darlin', any time you want to come sleep in my bed, you're welcome. And you damn sure won't have to buy me lunch afterward. Besides, a woman in your situation should watch her pennies.”

“Oh.” Amazingly, she'd put her financial fix out of her mind. Even more amazing, and depressing, was the knowledge that he was right. She couldn't believe that she couldn't freely buy a man a damn cheeseburger.

He ran a finger down her nose in an affectionate gesture that carried no sexual overtones. “I'd offer to spring for lunch, but I'm afraid I've made other plans.”

“With Roxanne?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Damn. It wasn't any of her business who he spent his free time with.