Southern Comforts (30 page)

“I hope you're right about that.” He lifted their joined hands to his lips. “I suppose she's going to want a huge three-ring circus of a wedding.”

Surprisingly, although she'd been expected to marry Nelson for years, Chelsea had never given any thought to the ceremony. Now she realized that she'd secretly love a big wedding with all the romantic trimmings.

“It doesn't matter what mother wants,” she said quickly, not wanting this to be an obstacle to their happiness. “We can elope. Get it over quickly, then—”

“No.” He cut off her breathless assurance with a long, deep kiss that had her slipping back into the mists. “You're only going to get married once, Irish, my love. You should do it right the first time.

“I've never been famous for my patience,” he said. “So while we're surviving the fittings and caterers and band auditions, I'm going to have to insist that you spend the nights—all night, every night—in my bed.”

“I'm already packed.”

Cash laughed. Then kissed her again. And again. And again. Until, if they weren't already in perfect accord, he would have had her agreeing to anything.

T
he night air was so thick it left a metallic taste on the tongue. Lightning crackled overhead, as hot and yellow as molten gold being poured from a smelter. In that flashing sulfurous light, Belle Terre appeared dark and deserted. But as he walked up from the road, where the truck he'd hitched a ride with had left him off, George could make out Roxanne's Mercedes parked behind the house, the polished finish of the luxury sedan gleaming like a piece of hard candy.

He thought of her, as she'd been that night he'd fucked her, smelling of perfume a helluva lot more expensive than the dime-store brand she'd used when they lived together as husband and wife. He remembered her skin, smooth as that silk she'd taken to wearing and thought back on how good it had felt to be pounding into a woman you hadn't paid.

She might have pretended she didn't like it. The same way she used to pretend she didn't like him to hit her. But George knew she was lying.

As the thunder rumbled like Union caissons overhead, a strong, fierce need sparked through his body, sending fire
into his groin. She could tell him her plan to get Gibbons's money later, George decided as he took a slug from the pint bottle wrapped in the brown paper bag. After he'd come in her mouth. And if she didn't swallow, he'd have to teach her a painful lesson about how to please her man. The thought made his prick as hard as stone.

The front door creaked as he opened it.

“Cora Mae?”

No answer. The house was as black and silent as a tomb.

“Dammit, Cora Mae, where the fuck are you?”

Again nothing. But listening carefully, he heard movement upstairs. Sticking the bottle in his back pocket, he climbed the stairs.

She'd obviously been waiting for him. Drawn to the faint light flickering at the end of the hallway, George stopped in the open doorway of the room that some of the carpenters had insisted was haunted. Candles in votive holders, like in a Catholic church, flickered warmly on the windowsill.

He entered the room, stopping dead in his tracks when he felt a chill brush over him, making the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand up.

“Dammit, Cora Mae,” he complained again in a high, tinny voice, “quit playing games.”

He heard the footfalls behind him and turned, determined to teach her not to scare the bejeezus out of him this way. He caught a glimmer of the metal head of a claw hammer descending toward his head.

 

It was the storm that woke her. Jarred from her dreams by a crack of thunder, Chelsea reached out for Cash and found his side of the bed empty.

“Cash?” She sat up and looked toward the bathroom. The door was open and it was as dark as the bedroom. A moment later, she heard the sound of a car engine.

She left the bed and went out the French doors onto the veranda. The rain was pouring down from the black sky like water from a boot. She watched as the driver's door of Cash's pickup truck opened. He ducked his head against the storm and ran up the steps to where she stood beneath the low roof.

“Hell, I'm sorry,” he said. I didn't mean to wake you.”

“You didn't. It was the storm. Then I reached for you and you weren't there.”

“I couldn't sleep, so I took a drive.”

“In this weather?”

He shrugged. “I do that sometimes, when I'm trying to work out a problem.”

“A problem with us?”

“Of course not.” He drew her into his arms. She'd commandeered one of his shirts for sleeping and although the hem fell to midthigh, when she lifted her arms around his neck, it rose up enticingly. “I was thinking about a job I'm starting next week in Savannah.”

“The governor's mother.”

“You remembered.”

She nuzzled his neck, breathing in the fresh scent of rain on his skin. “I remember everything about you.” She kissed his chin. “I always have.” His jaw. “I always will. Do you want to talk about it?”

“What?” He slipped his hands beneath the shirt and cupped her buttocks, lifting her against his arousal. Even after all these weeks together, it continued to amaze Cash how much he wanted Chelsea. How often he wanted her.

“Your problem with the governor's mother's house.”

“What problem?”

As the rigid proof of his desire pressed against her belly, Chelsea felt an answering flare of hunger. She laughed, a soft, silky laugh overbrimming with feminine intent.

“I forget.” She moved her hips against him, enjoying the friction. Reveling in the heat.

He kissed her hard and deep; she kissed him back just as hard, just as deep. He dragged his hand through her hair, pulling her head back, allowing his mouth access to her neck. When he touched his tongue to the pounding pulse beat at the base of her throat, she sighed.

When he took a breast between his lips and began to suckle deeply, she whimpered, then moaned as his treacherous teeth tightened around a taut nipple and tugged. He slid a finger into the hidden cleft between her thighs and felt her heat, and dampness and need.

A choking noise escaped her bruised and swollen lips. There was something primal in that sound. Something that tore at his already tenuous self-control.

With the rain pounding down on the veranda roof, Cash pulled her down to the green glider, then yanked down the zipper of his jeans. Chelsea helped him drag the wet denim down his legs. He lifted her hips and slammed into her, filling her, exploding almost immediately inside her. While the lightning lit up the sky to a daylight brightness, Chelsea climaxed with a power that had her convulsing in his arms.

Neither had the strength to move. They stayed there, Cash sprawled atop Chelsea, while the lightning flashed and the thunder roiled and the rain continued. Eventually, the storm passed. And then there was only the slight squeak of the glider. The soft sighs of their breathing returning to normal, and the sound of two hearts beating as one.

Back in his bed, Chelsea was enjoying a remarkably sensual dream when the phone rang. Unwilling to completely wake up, she only vaguely heard his quiet murmurs. Then a ripe, vicious curse that caused the lovely dream to shatter.

“Cash?” She watched in confusion as he began pulling clothing out of the bureau drawer. “What's wrong?”

“It's Belle Terre.”

“Belle Terre?” The room was dark, with not a hint of dawn's pearlescent shimmer. “What time is it?” she asked, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “I can't believe Roxanne would bother you in the middle of the night over—”

“It's burning.”

“What?”

“Belle Terre is on fire. Roxanne just got the call from the fire department. Jo's driving her out there. I promised to meet them there.”

“I'm coming with you.” Chelsea was out of bed, gathering up her own discarded clothing.

There was no more conversation as each hurried to get dressed. Their thoughts were on the plantation house Cash had worked so hard on. Cared so much about. The house that had brought them back together.

 

It was even worse than he'd feared. The bright orange flames were literally devouring the house, eating away at the roof, blazing in the blown-out windows. The fire fighters were doing their best, dragging hoses, chopping down doors with the axes, sending streams of water upward. But Cash could tell it was a hopeless cause. The fire, sly hungry bitch that she was, kept dodging the water, leaping from room to room, window to window.

He stood there, hands shoved deeply into his pockets, with the smoke stinging his eyes and the acrid smell burning his nasal passages and literally watched months of his life go up in smoke.

Beside him, Roxanne appeared shell-shocked. Her unmade face was as white as the smoke that rose like billowing ghosts wherever the water hit it. Her eyes were round and dark and empty in that too pale face. Her lips were thin and unpainted and trembling.

Standing beside her, Jo was murmuring words of condolence. Words Cash suspected Roxanne was incapable of understanding.

There was nothing any of them could do, but stand outside the ring of fire trucks and hoses and wait for the inevitable.

Dawn was a teasing pink glow on the horizon when a red car drove onto the scene, orange light flashing atop the roof. It stopped beside one of the pumper trucks. A man clad in jeans and a blue T-shirt climbed out and walked toward one of the firemen.

The two men talked, glancing every so often at the house, then back at the observers, which now numbered about a dozen, most of whom Cash decided were neighbors drawn to the scene out of curiosity.

Both men approached. “Are any of you the owner of this house?”

“I am,” Roxanne managed to croak in a frail and fractured voice.

“I'm Marty Cunningham, county fire marshall.” He held out his hand. “And your name would be?”

Roxanne ignored the outstretched hand. Chelsea believed she didn't even see it. “Roxanne Scarbrough.”

If the name garnered any recognition the man didn't show it. “Sorry to have to meet this way, Miz Scarbrough,” he said with genuine, professional regret. “I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you.”

“I can see that for myself, Mr….”

“Cunningham, ma'am.”

“Cunningham,” she echoed distantly. Her voice was as bleak as her expression. “Belle Terre is ruined, isn't it?”

“Well, ma'am that's between you and your insurance company, though I have to admit, it doesn't look good. But
the thing is, Miz Scarbrough, we've got ourselves a worse problem here.”

“What could be worse than my life's dream going up in flames?”

“How about a man's life going up in flames?”

She shot him an uncomprehending look. “I don't understand.”

“My men tell me that a body was found inside your home.”

“A body?” Her gaze whipped from his face to Belle Terre.

“Yes, ma'am. It looks as if the guy died in the fire. They managed to carry him out into the back yard.”

“Who is he? What was he doing here? Did he set the fire?”

“That last part's going to be my job to find out. As for who he was, to be perfectly frank, ma'am, I doubt if his own mother would recognize him. But the contents of his wallet weren't totally destroyed, so we were able to make a tentative identification.

“Unless the wallet's stolen,” he added. “Would you happen to know a George Waggoner, Miz Scarbrough?”

Roxanne's face turned an even whiter shade of pale as every vestige of color drained out of her complexion. Then she fainted, folding bonelessly to the ground at Cash's feet.

 

“Can you believe it?” Chelsea asked later, after she and Cash returned to Rebel's Ridge. “What do you think George Waggoner was doing at Belle Terre?”

Cash shrugged. He was exhausted. Emotionally and mentally drained. He wasn't interested in talking about George Waggoner. Dead or alive. “Maybe he was sleeping. He seemed pretty much of a transient.”

“Do you think he could have been the one who started
the fire? Perhaps he fell asleep smoking a cigarette? Or maybe he even set the fire to get back at Roxanne for not getting him put back on the payroll and couldn't get out in time.”

“Who knows?” What did it matter? The house was a total loss. “It could have been anything. Spontaneous combustion from painters' rags, kids breaking in to have a beer party and accidently having a cigarette ash fall onto some sawdust. Maybe a firebug who likes to watch things burn. Or even someone with a grudge against Roxanne. It's the marshall's job to determine the cause of the fire. Not mine.”

Chelsea would have had to have been deaf not to hear the edge to his voice. “I'm sorry.” She put her arms around him and held on tight, offering what scant comfort she could. “This must come as a terrible blow.”

“It sure as hell isn't the best start to a day I've ever had.” He backed away and dragged his hand through his hair, which, he noticed, smelled like smoke. “I think I'll take a shower.”

“Good idea.” Understanding how devastated he must have felt, watching what she knew had become a labor of love literally go up in smoke, Chelsea wasn't hurt by the way he was distancing himself from her. Cash simply wasn't used to sharing his innermost feelings. She could understand that because she was the same way herself. Such openness would come. With time. And love. “I'll make some coffee.”

“Coffee sounds great.”

Ten minutes later, as she watched the water dripping through the automatic coffeemaker, Chelsea thought that Cash must be taking a very long shower. Then she realized that she hadn't heard the water running.

She went into the bedroom on her way to the adjoining bath and found him, stretched out on his back on the top of
the unmade bed, sound asleep. She took off his boots, put them beside the bed, and paused to brush a light kiss against his grimly set lips. Then she went back into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee and tried to decide whether she should drive over to Roxanne's.

The writer in her knew she should be at the house with the others. There was no way she'd be able to leave such a devastating development out of the autobiography, and it would be advantageous to observe Roxanne's behavior and emotions now, rather than trying to reconstruct the events later. Of course, she reminded herself, Jo would undoubtedly have it all documented on her video camera.

The woman in Chelsea, the woman who was madly in love with the exhausted man sleeping in their bed, didn't want to be gone when Cash woke up.

Go. Stay. Go. She was sitting out on the veranda, trying to make up her mind, when a car bearing the insignia of the Raintree County Sheriff's Department drove up the dead-end road, stopping beside Cash's pickup. A man wearing the khaki uniform of authority climbed out of the driver's seat and began walking toward her.

“Cash,” Chelsea called in to him. “There's someone here. I suppose it's about Belle Terre.”