Where There's Smoke (49 page)

"I fail to see that, Darcy."

"Dr. Mallory had placed you in an impossible situation.
 
Because you re president of the school board, you had to be nice to her and honor her request for an audience.
 
Right?"

"Right," he answered warily.

"But I knew you didn't want her conducting sex seminars and handing out rubbers to the high school kids, including our daughter.

I was only trying to help you out of a tight spot."

"By dragging Jody Tackett into it?
 
Jesus."
 
He ran his hand over his pointed head.
 
"Haven't you learned anything about me in the years we've been married?
 
I want nothing to do with Jody.
 
I sure as hell don't want her bailing me out of a jam.
 
She's the last person on earth I want to be beholden to."

"I know.
 
I know, Fergus."
 
Her voice had taken on a wheedling tone.

"But desperate times call for desperate measures."

"I'll never get desperate enough to send for jody Tackett's help.

The one time I trusted her, I was screwed, blued, and tattooed.
 
For years afterward folks laughed over the way she'd duped me."

"They're not laughing at you anymore."

"That's because I've worked my ass off to make a success of my business.
 
My name means something in this town in spite of Jody Tackett."

"So, relax.
 
You've showed her up."

"It's not enough.
 
It'll never be enough."

She exhaled with exasperation.
 
"The feud is over, Fergus, and youve won.
 
She's old."

"Only a few years older than me."

"Compared to you, she's in her dotage.
 
Besides, she's incidental.

Dr.
 
Mallory is responsible for this mess."

"Most of what she said made good sense."

Darcy bit back a crude retort.
 
In a measured tone, she said, "I'm sure it did.
 
She's smart.
 
She's got degrees and diplomas hanging on her office walls."
 
She wiped her nose with the hankie.
 
"I, on the other hand, am just an ignorant housewife.
 
What do I know?"

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry.

Fergus lowered himself beside her on the edge of their bed and clasped her hand.
 
Over the years she had led him to believe that she was more sensitive to her lack of higher education than she actually was.
 
When the occasion called for it, she used it as leverage.

"I wasn't implying that Dr.
 
Mallory was smarter than you."

One eloquent tear rolled down her cheek.
 
"Well, she is.
 
She's a manipulator, too.
 
It probably comes from being around people in politics.
 
She's maneuvered Heather into thinking that she hung the moon.
 
Now you're taking her side over mine."

"No, sugar.
 
That's not it at all.
 
The point is that I hated your calling in Jody for reinforcement."

"It's not because I thought you needed it."
 
She reached out and stroked his face.
 
"God as my witness, that's not the reason I went to her."

"Then why?"

"Because I wanted to put Dr. Mallory in her place.
 
And who better to do it than her archenemy?
 
Don't you see, Fergus?
 
Jody did the dirty work for you, but you, as president of the school board, will get the credit for warding off that Yankee doctor and her so called progressive ideas."

Deep furrows appeared on his forehead as he reasoned it through.

"I never thought of it like that."

Darcy glanced up at him from beneath her eyelashes.
 
"Do you think Dr.

Mallory's pretty?"

"Pretty?
 
Well, yeah, I guess she is."

"Prettier than me?"

"No, sugar pie," he said, smoothing back her hair.
 
"There's not a woman alive as pretty as you.

"And I belong to you, Fergus."
 
Snuggling against him, she whispered,

"You're the best husband in the whole world."
 
Her hand curled around his neck.
 
"Would you think I was terrible if I wanted to make love right now?"

"In the daytime?"

"It's naughty, I know, but, gosh, Fergus, I just love you so much right now, I want to show it."

"Heather might "She'll be at cheerleading practice for another hour.

Please, honey?
 
When you show your strong side and shout at me a little, I get all weak inside.
 
Seeing that macho side of you makes me so hot.

I get .
 
. . wet.
 
Down there.
 
You know."

His large Adam's apple slid up, then down.
 
"I .
 
. . I had no idea."

"Feel."
 
She guided his hand beneath her skirt and pretended to swoon when he touched her between the thighs.
 
"Oh, my, God!"
 
she gasped.

Within minutes, Fergus had forgotten all about their quarrel and the reason for it.
 
Darcy kissed and stroked and thrust and panted her way back into his good graces.

If Fergus knew he'd been had, he was content to ignore it.

It took a fortnight for Lara to admit that Darcy Winston and Jody Tackett's threats might have substance.
 
After twenty-one days, she cried uncle.
 
Following the Tuesday morning of Jody Tackett's collapse in the supermarket, Lara didn't see a single patient.

Nancy dutifully reported for work each day, creating busy work for herself to pass the sluggish hours until it was time to go home.

Lara filled the days by reading current medical journals.
 
She told herself that this time was valuable, that she was fortunate to have time to keep abreast of new developments and research.
 
But she couldn't completely delude herself.
 
Doctors with full patient loads rarely had time for reading.

She heard nothing from the young attorney retained by Jack and Marion Leonard.
 
If they were pursuing a medical malpractice suit against her, she hadn't yet been notified.
 
Should it come to that, she was confident that once the facts were known, she would be exonerated.

However, the negative publicity generated by the litigation would be professionally devastating and emotionally demoralizing.
 
She clung to the hope that they had reconsidered.

The school board never contacted her.
 
Darcy had rallied friends and PTA members to petition the school board against allowing any offensive persons or projects to filter into the school system.

Daily, the newspaper was filled with letters to the editor, written by parents and community leaders who were incensed by the proposal recently submitted to the school board by Dr.
 
Lara Mallory.

The consensus of the letters was that Eden Pass wasn't ready for such immoral programs to be incorporated into its school curriculum and never would be.
 
The disapproval had been vocal and vehement.

Everywhere she went she was either ignored, sneered at, or leered at by rednecks who assumed she had loose morals because she'd openly discussed such a racy topic with the school board.

She was an outcast.
 
Eden Pass's Hester Prynne.
 
If she hadn't experienced it, she wouldn't have believed shunning this absolute was possible in contemporary America.
 
She began to believe that Jody's prophecy might be fulfilled: she would live to see Lara Mallory leave town.

But not before she got what she came for.

The Tacketts had made her a pariah.
 
They had sabotaged her medical practice.
 
But she'd be damned before she let Key ignore her demand.

He would take her to Montesangre.
 
Now.

Chapter eightteen. he here?"

The yellow Lincoln was parked outside the hangar.

"No, Doc, he ain't," Balky said, earnestly trying to be helpful.

"But he was s'posed to come back sometime this evenin'.
 
Less he decided to stay in Texarkana.
 
Can't never tell 'bout Key."

"Do you mind if I stick around for a while?"

"Not at all.
 
Might be a waste of time, though."

"I'll wait."' He shook his head in a way that suggested people were mysteries to him.
 
He had a much deeper understanding of engines and what made them tick.
 
Muttering to himself, the mechanic ambled back to the gutted airplane he'd been working on when Lara arrived.

She preferred waiting outside the hangar where the air was slightly less stifling.
 
It was half an hour before she saw the blinking lights of the approaching aircraft and heard the drone of its motor.
 
The sky was clear, deep blue on the eastern horizon, lavender overhead, crimson fading to gold in the west.
 
Key once had tried to explain the peacefulness he derived from flying.
 
On nights like tonight, she could almost relate to his mystical bond with the sky.

He executed a faultless landing and taxied the twin-engine Beechcraft toward the hangar.
 
She was standing on the tarmac when' he climbed out of the cockpit.
 
He saw her immediately, but his expression registered neither surprise, gladness, disappointment, nor anger, making it impossible for her to gauge his mood.

Flexing his knees and arching his back, he sauntered toward her.

"In Hawaii when your arrival is greeted by a pretty girl, you get lejed."
 
He smiled, his teeth showing white in the gathering dusk.

"Le-i-e-d, that is."

"I get it," Lara said dryly.

"Smart lady like you, I figured you would."

She fell into step with him as he moved toward the hangar's wide entrance.
 
"What do you do now?
 
I mean, now that you've landed and your job is finished."

"Hand the keys to Balky and walk away."

"That's it?"

"I'll pick up my money first."

"Who did you fly today?"

"A cattle rancher and his foreman from Arkansas came to look at a bull.

I picked them up in Texarkana this morning.
 
They spent most of the day negotiating a price with the owner of the bull, a man named Anderson who owns a large spread near here.
 
It's his plane.
 
He hired me to ferry them back and forth."

"It's a very nice plane," she said, glancing back at it.

"Worth about ninety-five grand.
 
A Queen Aire."

"Sounds like a mattress."

"It does, doesn't it?"
 
Grinning, he entered the building.
 
"Hey, Balky."
 
The mechanic turned and Key tossed him the keys to the airplane.

"Any problems?"

"Smooth sailing.
 
Where's my money?"

Balky wiped his hands on a rag as he moved into the small room where Lara had found Key asleep the morning of Letty Leonard's accident.
 
He went to the desk in the corner opposite the cot and switched on a gooseneck lamp.
 
From a drawer he withdrew a standard white envelope and handed it to Key.

"Thanks."