Threads of Steel (Bayou Cove) (34 page)

Not a good place to be when she’d made it clear that she didn’t want any part of a relationship.

They walked through each room of the house, looking into closets, opening and closing windows and stomping on the floor. The house was old and needed lots of updating and minor repairs, but basically they thought it was in good shape.

When they got to the kitchen, Anna Marie opened one of the cabinets. Most of the dishes had been taken by the family, but she reached in and pulled out a vase.

“Look, Doug. I thought if Miss Ellie would leave me anything, she’d leave this vase for me. When I was a child, I used to tell her I thought it was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. She always had it on the hall table. The light coming through the door would shine through it and scatter on the other side in different colors.” She ran her hand along the side. “I guess no one in her family wanted it because it’s cracked. I’m glad. Now it’s mine if Nancy and
Doti
agree.”

She looked up at him with twinkling eyes. Doug couldn’t help himself. He pulled her in his arms and kissed her gently on the lips. He felt the hesitation within her, but he didn’t want to let her go
.
For the last couple of months he’d felt that same hesitation when he called and when he saw her on the few occasions she came to town, and he’d tried to get her out of his mind. But wanting to do something and actually making your body do it are two different things.

He knew what it was like to make love to her, and today that need was driving him crazy.

He kissed her a little harder, and when she opened her lips to return his kiss, he nearly lost
all restraint.

Stepping back, he watched her eyes glaze over and her cheeks redden. He took the vase out of her hand and placed it on the counter.

“That could get in the way.”

He watched her swallow, and the tremble he felt in her body told him she understood what he wanted.

“And we don’t need anything in the way, do we?” she whispered and the ends of her mouth curved upward just a tiny bit, but he’d seen it.

“Oh, no.”
His voice was husky. He pulled her close again and kissed her on the lips, then let his mouth move along her cheek to her ear. With soft words he whispered, “I want to make love to you,” then ran gentle kisses along her neck.

She moaned,
then
inhaled. “Not here. Upstairs.”

Her words nearly did him in. They were all the coaxing he needed. He took her hand and headed toward the stairs. When he looked back at her, the smile on her face told him he’d been a fool to wait so long.

* * *

After they’d made love in Miss Ellie’s guest bedroom, he followed her into her hotel room, locked the door behind him and took her straight to bed.

Late into the night they talked and slept and made love again, but when the sun peeked through the curtains, he kissed her.

“I really need to go. The golfers will start coming in early and they don’t need to see me coming out of your room.”

“I appreciate that, but I don’t want you to go,” she said.

He kissed her on the nose and stood up. “I don’t want to go either, but you know those guys I golf with.
It’s
better I leave before the early birds get here.”

She nodded. “I’ll call you when I get home.”

He left her alone in the hotel room, thinking about their time together. The more she was with him, the more she wanted to see him again, but she still had questions about the man. He’d mentioned other women he’d taken out, but she had to wonder if any were current, especially the woman she saw coming out of his house.

But she didn’t want to think about that woman now. Even though she needed to get back to New Orleans, she took a moment in the dim room to relieve every wonderful moment they’d spent together. With a smile on her face, she got up to face the day.

Still tender from their night of love-making, she showered, dressed early and drove back to Miss Ellie’s house—no, not Miss Ellie’s house, but their house. She didn’t go in, but sat outside for a long time, first looking at the window of the upstairs bedroom where she and Doug had lain together yesterday afternoon. Just the remembrance of his hard body against hers and the ecstasy that she experienced with him made her entire body tingle.

Closing her eyes, she let those thoughts warm her all over again. When she finally got control of herself, she looked at the house again, this time in a different way. She envisioned it as her own, maybe having a design business there like the one in New Orleans, or maybe fixing it up to be a home for herself and Caitlyn.

She pushed that thought from her mind. Having the child and moving here would be a dream, but it was a dream that would never happen, not while Caitlyn’s father was in the picture.
If Ronnie had truly changed, he deserved to be with his daughter, and Caitlyn deserved to have her father. She certainly wouldn’t stand in their way. She thought about having Doug here with her, but that too was a dream she wouldn’t let herself think about.

As she drove down the block, out of the corner of her eye she spotted someone who looked like Angela Mason coming out of the house that used to belong to the her family. Anna Marie remembered her only as the cheerleader who never hung around with her group of friends
.

This morning as she walked down the driveway carrying a letter for the mailbox, Angela wore tight Lycra slacks clinging to her thin body. Her blond hair sported a hint at the same style she wore in high school. Anna Marie had the urge to step on the gas and hurry away, but then she made herself remember she was no longer the shy girl whose father was in prison. Forget the fact that her dad had recently killed one of the town’s beloved ladies.

She gritted her teeth and pulled the car over to the sidewalk.

“Angela, is that you?” she yelled as she lowered her window.

Angela squinted her eyes against the morning sun,
then
walked to the car. She stretched her neck and looked into Anna Marie’s car. “Anna Marie? Am I seeing straight? What are you doing in town?” Then as if remembering the events of the last couple of months, she opened her mouth to say something else,
then
closed it.

Anna Marie saved her from saying something embarrassing for both of them. “I’m here on business. I’m heading back out of town, but I had to stop and say hello when I saw you.” She looked up. “Wasn’t this your parents’ house?”

She looked around and smiled. “Yes. Dad died and Mom remarried and left the area. She gave the house to us. We didn’t have the heart to sell the house. Jay and I bought out my sisters. You remember Jay
Holbert
, don’t you?”

Anna Marie remembered him all right. He was one of the star baseball players. He even asked her out one time, but when she’d heard gossip that he bragged he could be the one to score with her, she broke the date.

She and her friends might have been nobodies in the school, but she wasn’t going to make a name for herself in that way.

But Anna Marie didn’t mention that. “Oh yes, I remember him.”

“Well, Jay and I love being back here. This neighborhood is starting to come back to life
We’re
still renovating the house, but we just love it here.”

Her exaggerated, honey-laden words grated on Anna Marie’s nerves. They sounded more like a southern Delta drawl than the sound of a southern Mississippi native. She swallowed and tried to keep her annoyance hidden.

“You’ve done a great job with the house. It’s gorgeous.”

Angela looked at Anna Marie,
then
glanced into the car. “So you don’t live here anymore, do you?”

“No, I live and work in New Orleans. In fact, your house and a lot of the others on this street, remind me of the city’s lovely old houses. I have a little bungalow just down from the Garden District.”

Anna Marie almost groaned out loud when she realized she was throwing out information to try to impress this woman. She hated people who did that, but talking to Angela who always turned her nose up to her in high school brought out the worst in her.

“But back to your question, I’ve lived in New Orleans for a while, but I’ve been over here quite a bit lately.”

“Yes, I guess you would be.” Angela looked down at her perfectly manicured nails before
continuing. “I heard Miss Ellie left the house down the street to you and your two friends.
Some inheritance, huh?
That was quite a house in its day.”

Angela’s tone made Anna Marie want to spit nails, but she answered cordially. “Yes, it was, and I’d love to see it restored like your house. These old homes can’t be replaced.”

“Uh, will one of you move into it?” Angela stretched her lips into a smile.

She wanted to tell the woman she planned to move in next week just to see her reaction, but she couldn’t make herself lie. “We don’t know yet. There’s a lot to be considered, but now that I’ve seen what you and Jay have done to this house, I can see the possibilities.” She couldn’t resist letting her think her upper-class neighborhood might be invaded with the likes of her or
Doti
or Nancy and her brood of kids.

Now Angela forced a smile. “If you decide to move back to the old neighborhood, we’d love to have you.”

Anna Marie wanted to tell her that this was never her old neighborhood. Hers was around the corner in the area where Angela wasn’t allowed to play, but she only smiled. “Thank you. I have to run.”

She left Angela standing by the mailbox, probably wondering how she could keep her neighborhood safe from the likes of the Anna Marie and her friends. The former cheerleader had welcomed her home, but it wasn’t a welcome that came from the heart.

Was it possible that Angela still harbored the same condescending feelings toward her almost twenty years after high school? But then Anna Marie only had to think about how she still felt each time she crossed the bayou bridge to enter the town to know it took a really long time for feelings to change
.

Maybe putting the For Sale sign up on Miss Ellie’s house would be the best solution.

As Anna Marie headed toward the interstate, she crossed the bridge and took one last look at the bayou water on each side of her. It was almost like crossing to the other side of another life each time her car eased across the bridge. Today she had mixed emotions about leaving the town. Was it where she wanted to own a house? If Miss Ellie’s house sold, she’d have no reason to return to the area. If she bought the house, she could make this town her weekend get-away, but is that what she wanted?

The stoplight at the entrance to the golf resort turned red. More than anything she wanted to turn into it to see Doug one more time, but that wouldn’t happen. Her memories would have to keep her company on the way back to the city, not to mention keeping her warm and jittery just thinking about what they’d done last night, so when the light turned green, she let a sigh and headed out of town.

Mardi
Gras
season was coming to a peak. No way could she return to Bayou Cove until it was over, and even then prom season, Easter, and the summer weddings would keep her buried in her sewing room each night.

Bayou Cove was a world away from the real world she lived in, and she was no longer the girl who had once lived in that world. She’d built her life by hard work and determination. In her own way Miss Ellie had offered her and
Doti
and Nancy a door to start another life back where their lives had begun, but Anna Marie knew it wasn’t easy to step through one door when your path led another way.

Even if there was a good looking gentleman waiting on the other side.

CHAPTER
22

In the midst of sewing last minute Prom dresses for high school juniors and seniors, Anna Marie got the call she’d been expecting for several weeks.
Doti
had passed away.

“I’m really sad, Anna,” Nancy said over the phone. “I didn’t think I’d be this hurt after all the bad we’d been through, but it’s like part of us died with her.”

Anna Marie sniffled. “I know what you mean. We might not have approved of what she did with Ronnie, but she was like a sister to us for a long time before that. Those years were important years, whether we liked the later ones or not.”

She listened to Nancy inhale a ragged breath. “Will you come to the funeral? It’ll be on Wednesday morning? The viewing is an hour before. Her parents don’t want to put Caitlyn through a full wake.”

“I’m glad they made that decision. I guess Ronnie’s been called.”

“Yes, when Mrs. Smith called me a few minutes ago she said that Ronnie had come in yesterday morning and had been with
Doti
all night. He had June with him. They all were with her with she died.”

“Good. If
Doti
knew June was with Ronnie, I’m sure she was at ease knowing that there might be a female in Caitlyn’s life when she goes with her dad. The little girl will need everyone’s support.”