Kane watched from the parlor window as Regina Dalton marched down the drive and got into her car. She moved with swift steps and no trace whatever of sexy hip sway. She had forgotten him, had no idea he might be watching her movements. Regardless, the sight of her skirt conforming to her slender form, the flash of skin above her knee as she slid into the car seat, caused a drawing sensation in his groin. That kind of instant juvenile reaction was extremely inconvenient under the circumstances. It wasn’t the right time or place and certainly not the right person. The Fates had a warped sense of humor.
“I won’t belabor the question of your misconduct,” Kane’s grandfather said as he moved to join him at the parlor window, “but I will point out that I’ve been handling my affairs for some time without your interference. If—and I do mean if—I had been about to make a valuable gift to that attractive young lady, I would consider what you just did an act of unmitigated gall.”
“I know,” Kane said in moody acceptance as he gazed after Regina Dalton’s rental car driving away.
“Another question altogether is why you believed I’d succumb to an itch for a female young enough to be my granddaughter.”
Kane sent a brief smile over his shoulder at his grandfather. “You always did like redheads.”
“She does have amazing hair, doesn’t she? So bright it makes a man want to touch it to see if he’ll get burned. Not that either of us paid much attention.”
Kane, recognizing the sly dig behind the last words, made a sound between a snort and a sigh.
“That’s what I thought.” The older man chuckled. “I could put her off so she stays around a while.”
“Not,” Kane said evenly, “on my account.”
“Too bad.” As a large yellow tomcat appeared from under a rattan table and glided forward to wind around his leg, the older man reached down and picked him up. Draping the animal over his arm and smoothing the fur, he went on. “You should have driven her back to her hotel.”
“I think she’d had enough of me for one day.”
“Very likely. Can’t say I blame her, either, considering the hand you had in her injuries.”
“It was that damn cat.” Kane thrust his hands into his pants pockets as he turned and leaned his backbone against the window frame.
“Samson here may have started it, but you compounded the problem. What set you off?”
Kane was silent a moment, then he said, “I came in the back way, through the kitchen. Dora told me you had someone with you. I was going to join you, but stopped a second outside the door you’d left open like a gentleman, not wanting to barge in if your business was private. Something about your guest, the way she was smiling at you, struck me as all wrong.”
“Seductive, you mean?” His grandfather’s eyes narrowed.
“It seemed that way at the time.” Kane lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “Are you sure she’s legitimate?”
“You think she might not be?” His grandfather watched him with lively interest as he stroked the huge, apparently boneless, cat.
“I don’t say I’m infallible, but I have an instinct for phonies. It goes with the built-in lie detector tucked into a corner of my brain.”
“Maybe the lady scrambled them both,” Lewis Crompton suggested blandly. “The kind of charge she packs can make all sorts of things go haywire.”
“Hell, Pops.”
“Actually, it does me good to see you’re not immune,” he went on as if Kane hadn’t spoken. “You used to be a rounder and a half, like your dad and all the rest of that Benedict crew out at the lake. Your grandmother, rest her soul, lay awake many a night when you were a teenager, worrying about what crazy-wild thing you’d do next. That was when she wasn’t laughing over your stunts.”
“Wild?”
“Wild,” Pops said with finality. “Remember the time you and your cousin Luke stole the gym teacher’s Frederick’s of Hollywood underwear and hung it from the water tower because she dared suggest Luke’s girl—April Halstead, that would have been—dressed too sexy? And what about that boat race on the lake where the loser had to cook dinner for the winners—in the nude. Your cousin Roan lost, didn’t he? That was the same summer you, Luke and Roan spent on the NASCAR circuit with that killer car the three of you hot-rodded and called The Whirlwind because it was always spinning out.”
“All right,” Kane agreed, holding up a hand. “You made your point.”
“You grew out of it….”
“With good reason.”
“True. A woman can take the wildness out of most men, but especially the Benedicts. They fall hard, and none are more faithful when they decide to settle down. Your problem was choosing the wrong female. But you went too far the other way after it ended, got downright stodgy.”
Kane gave him a warning look. His grandfather wasn’t the only one who didn’t appreciate interference in his private life.
“You can’t deny Francie did a number on you before she took herself off.”
“No,” Kane returned. “Though what it has to do with Regina Dalton, I can’t begin to guess.”
“She got to you,” his grandfather said simply, a gleam half-concealed in the swamp-fog gray of his eyes. “She touched off whatever imp of Satan it was that used to move you, make you act before you thought things through. Did my heart good to see it after all this time.”
“That wasn’t the idea.”
“I know it wasn’t. You judged that young woman and found her guilty between one heartbeat and the next. That’s not like you at all.”
Kane let that pass. “I suppose you checked her credentials before you let her waltz in here?”
“Did that,” the other man agreed with a nod. “She came highly recommended, has worked with the big-name jewelers and auction houses, particularly in the past year or so. She’s careful, she’s thorough, known as one of the best at authenticating Victorian pieces. I feel lucky she was able to fit me into her schedule on such short notice.”
“And why,” Kane asked as he watched his grandfather, “was time so important? It wouldn’t be because you’re in a hurry to raise money?”
The older man grimaced. “I wondered when we’d get to that.”
“I imagine so. Last I heard, Gran’s jewelry was to be handed down.”
“You’re our only grandchild, in case you haven’t noticed. You don’t seem in any hurry to provide a wife or great-granddaughters to wear cameo earbobs, so handing them down doesn’t look likely any time soon.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Kane warned. “You’re selling the collection to pay the legal fees for the suit, the fees due me.”
Lewis Crompton set the cat on the sofa back nearby before he answered. “That it’s your firm I owe the money to has no bearing. I take care of my obligations.”
“Not like this.”
“I don’t think that’s for you to decide.”
“Not even when it’s my children being robbed?”
Lewis Crompton gave him a grave stare. “Unfair, Kane. Besides, there’s your partner to consider and that female paralegal you hired for this case. Not to mention the Benson girl who answers the phone for you.”
“Melville and I do have other clients,” Kane said shortly.
“Sure you do, but you’re not chasing around all over gathering evidence for them, now are you? Or getting ready to face a barrage of high-powered New York legal eagles for their sake? I won’t have you paying for my defense out of your own pocket. That’s final.”
Lewis Crompton was as proud and stubborn an old coot as had ever lived. Kane admired and respected him for it; the last thing he wanted was to hurt him. Still, he couldn’t stand by and see him reduced to selling the family jewelry. “It’s not going to bankrupt me.”
“I know that, but I don’t intend to be a charity case.”
Their gazes caught and held, gray eyes and dark blue, boring into each other. Neither would back off. That was until Kane finally swore and curled his fingers into a fist. “If I ever get my hands on the greedy little bastard doing this to you, I’ll kill him.”
“Fine,” his grandfather said dryly, “and I’ll bury him, give him a royal send off to show him how it’s done.”
Kane spared a tight smile. “Serve him right, to be put six feet under in one of his own cheap tin caskets.”
“At the very least. Though I’m not the only one he’s pushing to the wall.”
The attitude was typical of his grandfather. He was also right. The farmers and truck drivers and field workers up and down the delta were worried about the prices the big funeral service company would charge once Crompton’s Funeral Home was out of business. Sam Bailey over at the feed store had mentioned it just yesterday. It was a crime, Sam said, to make people mortgage their futures to bury their loved ones. He was behind Lewis Crompton a hundred percent in the trial coming up.
Crompton’s Funeral Home was a part of the community, an established tradition since 1858. It had come into being when a great-grandfather who’d run a livery stable had taken a glass-sided hearse with black plumes at its four corners in trade for a used buckboard. He had soon discovered he could make a little extra by transporting the departed to their final resting places. One thing had led to another until he’d become a full-fledged undertaker.
As generation after generation of Cromptons cared for those who had gone on, the family became more intimately involved with the events that made up the lives of their friends and neighbors. To provide service, ease grief, and help conceal the deepest secrets and improprieties brought out by death became a sacred and immutable trust.
No faceless funeral conglomerate could ever hope to deliver that same degree of discretion and comfort. The organization headed by Gervis Berry had mounted a huge public relations campaign designed to convince customers of the quality of its organization, but the truth was, it was a sham. Close inspection revealed shoddy merchandise, cut-rate services, and underhanded practices as the order of the day.
Melville, Kane’s partner, was particularly incensed by the practices he was turning up in the course of his investigation. Melville was African-American, and many of the more bald-faced offenses of Berry Association, Inc. seemed to be directed toward his people. Fending off the takeover bid against Crompton’s Funeral Home had become a crusade for him. Not only had he accepted the firm’s continuing out-of-pocket expenses without complaint, but often footed the bills himself.
That didn’t make it right, of course. Not in Lewis Crompton’s eyes.
“I’ve been thinking,” the older man said, breaking the silence. “Maybe we should offer a settlement.”
“Now? Just as things are getting started?” Kane couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.
“Can’t think of a better time.”
Kane watched him a moment. “Because of the money, I suppose?”
“Because it’s dragging on too long, getting too complicated. I don’t like what it’s doing to you, either. You look as if you haven’t slept in a week.”
“And you’re wondering if I’m going off the deep end, thanks to the little incident just now.”
“I didn’t say that,” his grandfather protested. “From what I can tell, you and Melville have Gervis Berry dead to rights. I think we can win this thing. But I’m not a vindictive man, and I’ve better things to do with my days than spend them in court. I’d like to offer a fair settlement. You could tell Berry I’ll drop my suit in return for his pledge, in writing, that he’ll go away and leave us alone here in Turn-Coupe. Plus enough to reimburse you and Melville and make good the damage he’s done, say a couple of million.”
“I don’t think he’ll go for it, Pops. Berry has no idea of fairness in the sense you mean. Any offer to settle will be seen as weakness, and he’ll move in for the kill.”
“A big mistake.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was a poker hound in my younger days, used to play cutthroat with your Granddaddy Benedict. If Berry wants to up the ante, well, I can do that. How many million do you think it would take to bankrupt Berry’s corporation?”
Kane stared at his grandfather, then a slow smile curved his lips. “You old devil.”
“Think we could win if we ask that much?”
“We could sure try.” His smile faded. “Berry won’t take it lying down, you know. Things could get nasty.”
“We’ll handle that when we come to it. In the meantime, you write up that offer so it’s all official.”
“If it’s what you want.”
“Good.” Pops rubbed his hands together with a dry, papery sound. “Now. Are you going to see that Miss Regina gets back to her motel room all right, or are you just going to stand there?”
To that question, there was only one correct answer. Kane gave it.
A half hour later, he pulled up at the entrance of the Longleaf Motel on the south edge of town. There was no doubt about where Regina Dalton was staying, since there was only one motel in Turn-Coupe. Built in the fifties, the main office had a certain retro stylishness in its inset of glass-brick wall and its sweeping, finlike roof angles. That benefit didn’t extend to the boxlike rooms behind it, though they were neat and clean. The clipped shrubbery and beds of bright annuals fronting each unit were a reminder that the owner, Betsy North, lived on the premises.
The car Regina had been driving sat outside a middle room. There were no others in evidence at this time of day, but Kane didn’t care to risk disturbing a stranger. He got out of his gray Nissan and walked into the motel office.
Betsy rose from her desk behind the counter and came to meet him. Round-faced, nicely plump, she had frosted blond hair and a comfortable manner. A third cousin of some kind on the Benedict side, she and Kane had attended high school together, known each other for years. They exchanged the usual pleasantries, then Kane asked casually, “You have a Regina Dalton registered?”
“Yep,” Betsy answered, her gaze bright and not at all fooled by his offhand manner. “Checked in yesterday afternoon. From New York. Leastwise, that’s what it says on her registration.”
“She in her room?”
“Just drove up.”
He nodded. “I suppose her car’s parked in front of the right unit?”
Betsy cocked her head to one side. “I’m not supposed to tell you that, though I might be persuaded if you were to drop a hint about why you want to know.”
Kane liked Betsy. Beneath her nosiness and love of being in the thick of things was a heart as wide and warm as all outdoors. She’d had a hard time these past few years, after her husband was killed while working on an offshore oil rig. She’d bought the run-down motel with his insurance settlement, cleaned it up, got rid of the trash and one-night-stand business. Now she was doing fairly well.
Neither fondness nor kinship was enough to make him satisfy her curiosity, however. The excuse he gave—delivery of a message from his grandfather—was a disappointment to her, he could tell, but she confirmed the room number for him anyway.
As he left the office, Kane knew very well that news of his visit would be all over town by daylight tomorrow. The best thing he could do to keep the gossip down would be to make his visit short and his departure as conspicuous as possible.
Outside the door with the correct number plate, he raised his hand to rap out a polite summons. While he waited, he shoved his hands into his pockets. This hadn’t seemed like a good idea when Pops had suggested it and felt like an even worse one now.
He wasn’t sure what had come over him back at Hallowed Ground. He’d thought he’d conquered that kind of impulse long ago. Pops’s explanation for the lapse was good enough, he supposed, but the incident bothered him. Not that he regretted it, in spite of everything.
It had been a long time since a woman had stirred him that profoundly. For a few seconds, he’d lost track of where he was, what he was supposed to be doing, everything except the enticing female in his arms. He wasn’t sure how far he might have gone, given the slightest encouragement. That uncertainty bothered him more than anything else.
There was no answer to his knock. His second try seemed to echo for miles, and he felt as if a million eyes watched him hovering outside the motel door. He was wondering if he ought to get a passkey from Betsy to find out if Regina had passed out from her head injury when he finally heard movement inside.
“Who is it?”
He bent his head to catch the cool, precise sound of her voice through the door. Giving his name, he added, “Just checking to be sure you’re okay.”
“I’m perfectly fine. Good-bye.”
A moment before, he’d wanted nothing more than to get away. Now, the fact that she wanted to be rid of him made him reluctant to go. “You’re certain? No dizziness? No headaches?”
“Nothing whatever. If you don’t mind, I was about to take a nap.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Sleepiness can be a sign of concussion. Maybe somebody should stay with you for a while.”
“You, I suppose?”
A grin quirked his mouth as he heard the sharpness in her voice. There had been a time when he enjoyed feistiness in women. “I’m the only one here.”
“I don’t,” she said with exactitude, “need your help. The last thing I require is for you to stay with me. Go away.”
“Not until I see for myself there’s nothing wrong.”
The safety chain rattled inside, then the door was flung open. “Fine. Look, then.”
She had taken off her suit and put on a chenille robe piped in satin, one faded to a color somewhere between gray and green and so soft from countless washings that it molded perfectly to her slender curves. Beneath its hem, her feet were bare. The makeup had been washed from her face, revealing the powdery paleness of her skin and bringing its dusting of freckles into prominence. Her eyes were no longer turquoise but a soft hazel color. Around their pupils were rust-gold flecks that made them sparkle with the same vibrant life as her cloud of coppery hair.
She looked fine, and perfectly dressed for a long, slow afternoon in bed with a man who could take the frost from her voice and the suspicion from her face. One word, a single come-hither gesture from the lady, and he’d volunteer for the position in one of her New York minutes. Strange, when he didn’t trust her an inch.
“Satisfied?”
The inquiry was not quite so belligerent as it had been before. She put a hand to the opening of her robe, drawing it closer together.
Kane cleared his throat, erasing the obvious answer from his mind. Instead, he said the first thing that came into his head. “Why do you wear contacts? You don’t need them.”
“Not,” she said stiffly, “unless I want to see something farther away than six feet.”
She released the front of her robe and reached higher to clasp the chunk of golden amber that hung on a chain at her throat. Before her fingers closed on it, Kane saw that a winged insect, like a firefly, was caught in the jewel-like resin. Perfectly whole, exactly centered in the heavy filigree setting, it appeared almost alive in its entrapment. He said, “I mean the colored lenses you had on earlier. You have beautiful eyes. Why change them? What are you trying to hide?”
“Nothing!” she said sharply. “Though I fail to see what difference it makes to you.”
She was absolutely right. It was just that the artifice bothered him in a way he couldn’t explain. In an effort to hold her at the door long enough to nail it down, he nodded at her necklace. “Nice. Something you found while working?”
For an instant, it seemed she wouldn’t answer. Then she said, “A gift.”
“He has good taste. It suits you.” Deliberately, Kane let his gaze wander from the amber to her freckles, which were the same burnished shade, then to her hair, which reflected identical highlights.
Color flooded her face and she looked away. “He wasn’t—that is, he was an elderly gentleman.”
“Really? A relative?” Kane felt his chest tighten. His grandfather was also an elderly gentleman.
“Yes, if you must know.” She avoided his gaze, veiling her expression with gold-tipped lashes.
Her voice, the words she used, disturbed him; still he tried the effect of an understanding smile. “Family is a good thing to have. I speak from experience, being related to three-quarters of the people in Tunica Parish.”
The vitality seeped from her face, leaving it grim. She stepped back to close the door. “Yes, well, if you’re happy now, I’ll go take my nap.”
“I don’t think I am,” he said just before the latch clicked. “I’ll check back with you tomorrow.”
There was no answer. Kane stood for a long moment before he turned and walked away. A frown meshed his thick brows as he crossed to his car.
He’d been right the first time. Something about Miss Regina Dalton didn’t add up. The feeling nagged at him, ringing in his mind like an unanswered summons from some distant and inaccessible room.
It was, he was fairly sure, the warning bell for his internal lie detector.