Where There's Smoke (41 page)

"Because you're smart enough to realize that I'm right.
 
Clark was instrumental in getting Randall assigned to Montesangre.
 
My baby died as a consequence of your brother's cowardly, political machinations."

"A debatable point at best," he said.
 
"So, in order to make your argument more convincing, you decided to throw in some tonguetwisting kisses, right?"

Heat rushed to her face.
 
"One has nothing to do with the other," she said gruffly.

He made a snide, scoffing sound.
 
"You know, Doc, you've just lived up to all my expectations.
 
In fact, you surpassed them."
 
He whistled long and softly, wagging his hand as though he'd touched something hot.

"One little kiss and you're ready, baby."

He snickered insultingly as he looked her over, then started toward the door.
 
"Find yourself another sucker.
 
I'll pass on taking a vacation to a war zone.
 
I'm sure as hell not interested in fucking my dead brother's leftovers."

He was so angry, it was a life-threatening risk to drive, yet he pointed the Lincoln toward home and pushed it through the night like a Sherman tank.
 
He was angry with her, but that was nothing new or surprising.

The surprise was that he was angry with himself.
 
He, who never analyzed his actions or apologized for anything he did, was riddled with guilt because he wanted his late brother's mistress.
 
If circumstances had been different, if she had given him the go-ahead, he'd be tugging off his boots right about now.

Jesus.
 
Didn't he have any more character than to be craving a piece of the woman who'd caused his brother's downfall?
 
Jody was right about him after all.
 
Who better to know a child's character than his mother?

He was rotten to the core, just like his old man.

Where women were concerned he had no discretion and no conscience.
 
If he did, his cock wouldn't be hard enough to drive nails, and the taste of Lara Mallory's mouth wouldn't still linger on his tongue.

When they were growing up, he and Clark had shared things, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes under parental duress.
 
They swapped sweaters, shaving lotion, skateboards.
 
But they'd never shared women.
 
Not the easy girls at school.
 
Not even whores.

This tacit agreement had evolved out of their adolescence, possibly because romance was one arena in which they didn't want to compete.
 
As brothers, they were constant subjects of comparison, but they drew the line when it came to sexual aptitude.
 
Key had never wanted a girl that Clark had dated before him, and, although he couldn't put thoughts into Clark's head, he figured his brother had felt the same way.
 
That's why his desire for Lara Mallory was so puzzling and infuriating.
 
It violated one of his own commandments.

He knew he had just as well get over this itch for her because he could never scratch it.
 
To want the woman who had tainted his brother's name and destroyed his future was sinful.
 
And while sin had never been a deterrent to his doing anything he wanted to do, stupidity certainly was.

That was the crux of his anger.
 
He felt like a stupid fool for listening like a trusted old fogy while she poured out her tearful story.

He'd brewed coffee, for chrissake!
 
Then he'd gone one step farther and held her.
 
Kissed her.

"Shit."
 
He hit the steering wheel with his fist.

She was probably still laughing, knowing that she'd built a fire in his gut that he doubted ten other women could extinguish.
 
A woman didn't let you make love to her mouth like that without knowing damn good and well what it was doing to you.
 
No wonder she'd chosen that moment to make her pitch about a trip to Central America.
 
She figured she had him so wound up he'd agree to take her to Mars if she asked.

Guess again, Doc, he thought with a smirk.
 
He'd been hot for a lot of women, but even in the throes of passion he'd never taken a total departure from his reason.

On second thought, she hadn't looked particularly complacent when he left.
 
She had seemed as confused and humiliated as he felt now.
 
True enough, the story of her daughter's death had been heartbreaking.
 
He still didn't trust her, but when it came to Ashley's murder, who could doubt that her suffering was genuine?
 
The kid's death had shattered her, and she wasn't over it yet.

When I nursed her, it was as nurturing to me as it was to her.

She seemed destined to make the people around her happy.

She had adored that kid and had taken her death harder than Randall Porter's brutal execution.
 
Of course, following the nasty scandal involving Clark, their marriage couldn't have been on solid ground.
 
By her own admission, she'd been miserably unhappy in Montesangre.
 
Only the birth of her daughter had made life there livable.
 
To her, Ashley must have been like a consolation prize, a sign of God's forgiveness.

Having lost Clark, she'd transferred all her love and attention to her baby.

Suddenly Key withdrew his foot from the accelerator.
 
The Lincoln began to slow down.
 
He stared sightlessly into the darkness that was gradually lifting on the eastern horizon.
 
But the imminent sunrise didn't register on him.
 
Nor did he realize that the Lincoln was straddling the center stripe as it rolled to a stop.

Other things Lara had said echoed in his head.

Blond and blue-eyed.

Her smile was like sunshine.

She beamed.

Key knew of only one other person who'd been described in such radiant, solar terms.
 
Clark Tackett the Third.

"Son of a bitch," he whispered as his hands heedlessly slipped from the steering wheel and landed in his lap.

Lara Mallory's beloved Ashley had been his brother's child.

Billie Hoskins went to work with his feather duster on the cans of pork 'n' beans, chili, tamales, and tuna in aisle 6. As manager of the Sak'n'Save supermarket, he could have delegated dusting the shelves to one of the stockboys, but he enjoyed doing the menial tasks pricing, stocking, sacking-because the work was clearly defined and easily dispatched.
 
It was mindless labor that he could do while thinking about something else.

He'd served in the United States Navy for fifteen years before mustering out, and while he didn't miss the months at sea, he looked back fondly on the freedom from responsibility he'd enjoyed as a sailor.
 
He'd never desired to be an officer and was still better at taking orders than issuing them.

One spring while on shore leave in Galveston, he'd met a young woman on the beach, fallen in love, and married her within a month.

When it came time for him to reenlist, she urged him not to and relocated them to her hometown of Eden Pass so that she could be close to her mother.

They probably would have been better off staying in the service, Ollie thought now as he moved to aisle 5, where the shelves were neatly stocked with flour, sugar, spices, and shortening.
 
His wife's family had never welcomed him into the fold.
 
Ollie hailed from "up north somewhar," and, in their estimation, the only thing worse than being a Yankee would be to have an ethnic heritage.
 
That he was Anglo made him tolerable barely.

After twenty years, he still wasn't crazy about his in-laws, and vice versa.
 
The bloom of love had long since faded from his marriage.

Now, about the only thing he and his wife had in common was their boy, Tanner.

In their individual ways, they doted on him.
 
His mother frequently embarrassed him with her overt demonstrations of affection.
 
She'd been unable to conceive after Tanner a condition that she implied was Ollie's shortcoming, not hers so she fussed over him like a mama bear with her cub.
 
It tickled her pink that he was Heather Winston's steady.
 
Having her son dating the most popular girl at the high school somehow elevated her social standing among her friends.

Ollie had nothing against Heather.
 
She was as cute as a button, friendly, full of pep.
 
He only hoped that Tanner didn't let the romance get out of hand.
 
He'd hate to see his son's future compromised by healthy lust.

Frequently Ollie looked at Tanner and marveled over the genetic quirk that had produced from his seed, and his wife's lackluster bloodline, such a smart, good-looking boy.
 
Thank God he was athletic.
 
If he'd wanted to play an instrument in the marching band, or had aspired to be a chemist or a rocket scientist, his relatives would have shunned him as a weirdo.
 
But Tanner could kick and throw and carry a football, so he was affectionately walloped and jabbed and hugged by his rowdy cousins and uncles.
 
They claimed him as theirs and conveniently forgot that Ollie was physically responsible for his origin.

Ollie didn't mind.
 
Tanner was his, and he nearly busted his buttons every Friday night when number twenty-two charged onto the football field wearing the crimson and black of the Fighting Devils.
 
The approaching season promised to be Tanner's best one yet.

Ollie finished straightening the cans of Crisco, rounded the sale display of Nabisco cookies at the end of the aisle, and entered aisle 4 coffee, tea, and canned beverages.
 
Two women were moving along the aisle.
 
The younger was pushing the cart while the older consulted a shopping list.

"Good morning, Miss Janellen, Mrs.
 
Tackett," Ollie said pleasantly.

"How are you this morning?"
 
He'd never quite gotten the knack of saying "y'all."
 
This deficiency in his vocabulary still branded him a Yankee outsider.

"Good morning, Mr.
 
Hoskins," Janellen replied.

"Ollie, have the butcher cut us three T-bone steaks, one inch thick.

And I don't mean seven-eighths.
 
Last time they were cut much too thin and were so tough we couldn't chew them."

"I apologize, Mrs. Tackett.
 
I'll make certain it's done to your liking this time."
 
Just as Miss Janellen could always be counted on for a smile, he could depend on Jody Tackett to be a bitch.
 
Lying, he said, "It's good to see you up and about."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

He was only trying make friendly conversation.
 
By the way she snapped at him, you'd think he'd insulted her.
 
"Why, no reason," he said, feeling his bow tie growing tighter around his neck.
 
"I'd just heard you weren't feeling well these days.
 
But you know how gossip travels."

"I'm feeling great.
 
As you can see."

"Mama and I haven't been shopping together in a long time."

Sweet Janellen was trying to smooth over the awkward moment.

"We thought we'd treat ourselves."

"Well, it's certainly good to see you both.
 
I'll go tell the butcher about those steaks and have them waiting for you at the checkout counter."
 
He poked the handle of the feather duster into his rear pants pocket, turned, rounded the end of the aisle, and bumped into a grocery cart pushed by another woman.

"Dr.
 
Mallory!"
 
he exclaimed.

"Hello, Mr.
 
Hoskins.
 
How are you today?"

"Uh, fine."
 
Lord have mercy, Ollie thought; Jody Tackett and Dr. Lara Mallory were on a collision course.
 
He didn't want his store to be the scene of any trouble.
 
"Did you see those watermelons in the produce section, Dr. Mallory?
 
They came in from South Texas early this morning."