Effing-Bliss insisted I move into the B&T the very day Terry was taken to hospital. A staff member had to be on the premises twenty-four seven and by eight or nine o’clock at night our manager was so wasted either Terry or Isaak had to pick up the slack. But that first night Julian was still sober enough to walk me through the lock-up routine.
“When you’re sure the last guest has left for the night, notify the guardhouse. The night security man will lower the barrier and then go off-duty. To get out after hours a password has to be keyed in to raise the arm. The password is changed weekly. No one can get in without the password unless they walk up the drive or up the beach. Anyone staying here overnight is nice and safe.” He rubbed his hands together. “I think that’s everything, now how about a nightcap in my room where we’ll be more comfortable?”
“Oh, I can’t. Clay will be calling and he’ll get real upset if I don’t answer. That man can just get the craziest ideas! And you don’t even want to know what he’d do if he found out I’d had a drink in your room.” I backed away from him still chattering. “He beat a man nearly to death once.” I gave a girlish shudder. “I have to be real careful not to set him off.”
Life experience has taught me a crazy boyfriend or a jealous ex-husband with a vicious temper is just about the best protection a girl can have…the upside of spousal abuse. I remember one night hiding under my bed as Daddy shot round after round into the air over our trailer, calling for the new man in Ruth Ann’s life to come out. When Daddy grew bored with the game and wandered off, Ruth Ann’s new boyfriend didn’t even stop to pack. Years later Ruth Ann still used that story to rid herself of a man who’d outstayed his welcome. She only had to tell them that Daddy was back in town to make them move on.
“But thank you for asking,” I babbled. “And you have yourself a good night.” I may have frightened Effing-Bliss off a little but I still wasn’t getting in the elevator with him. I jogged up the stairs ahead of him and dashed down the hall to safety. Outside my door was an orchid, one of the many that graced the tables of the B&T. Cute, but if Isaak was trying to soften me up he had to do better than a stolen bloom. I locked the bedroom door behind me.
Rather than clearing Terry’s things and putting me in his room, Julian had Lester carry my bags up to a guestroom. And what a room it was. “Why, Miss Scarlett, I do believe you are finally appreciated,” I told the jewel green silk walls. The furniture was all oversized carved mahogany with matching mahogany plantation shutters at the windows. The bathroom, the size of a normal bedroom, was in the same emerald colors as the walls and with a jacuzzi tub for two, an interesting possibility.
I picked up my cell phone to call Clay just as it rang. I stepped through the French windows onto a tiny balcony and said, “Ms. Travis, member of the idle rich and the most incredibly sexy woman on the planet, speaking.”
Clay said, “I already knew about the sexy bit, but I’m happy to hear about the improvement in your financial status.”
The deep velvet voice stirred and warmed me. A rich baritone, it was always a surprise to hear it coming from his lean sinewy body, a voice that always seemed to need something denser to contain it.
I hugged myself and smiled out into the night. This was the time of day I liked the best, the time I was most myself without caution or social artifice. I could say anything, trash reputations and pass on the most idle gossip and be as bitchy as I liked without guarding my acid tongue because it was never going to be repeated or judged. Clay was only amused.
The conversation turned naughty. In the middle of erotic sexual banter, heading towards pornographic, I slipped in that I’d moved into the B&T.
“Perfect,” he said. “You’ve finally found a bar you can move right into. I’m sure you’ll be in heaven. So, now that you’ve moved out, does this mean that we’re through?”
“What?” My gut knotted, a visceral reaction to his words.
“Well, I just think since you’ve moved out of our joint domicile, we must be history.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Is this your subtle way of telling me we’re over?”
“Never!”
“Well,” he paused, “you are gone.”
“You’re not here either.”
“That’s different.”
“I don’t see how. So you can just forget it, Adams! If I ever leave you, there’ll be no doubt in your mind what’s happening. I’ll make it nice and clear.” A soft chuckle. “So we’re still on?”
“Hell, yeah! And if you ever try to get away from me I might just turn into my daddy’s little girl. Sex, love and violence are real close kin on Daddy’s side of the family. And don’t forget, I know how to use that big old gun he gave me for my sixteenth birthday.”
“Okay,” he said in a husky whisper.
“I was only asking.” Silence while we both soothed our fears and found our footing.
“Clay, did you really think it was over?”
His answer took a while.
“I wasn’t sure.”
“Do you want it to be over? Have you grown tired of my charms?” I asked, begging for a little sugar.
“Don’t think I’ll ever get tired of your charms, or anything else about you,” he answered. “I’m quite out of control.” But he didn’t sound it, didn’t act it. Never did. This man would never let go.
“Never mind you,” I said, “Let’s go back to talking about what a hottie I am.” “You forgot smart and funny.” I smiled in the dark. “You always say that.” “Didn’t anyone before me ever tell you that?”
“Well, not before last call.”
“Well, you are.”
“Clay,” I wailed, “come see me. Abstinence is for nuns and I ain’t even Catholic.”
Without a lot of lights to disturb the sky the heavens were alive with twinkling and dancing diamonds out over the gulf. When we said goodnight I stood in the dark and thought about Clay. I just never knew where I stood with the man. Maybe I never would. I wasn’t used to that. Say what you will about the other men there’d been in my life — at least they made their feelings real clear. Sometimes a little overdramatic, but clear as all hell.
A dark shadow slid out from the landscaping and moved across the sand to the beach. Then the figure turned back to the B&T and walked a short way into the dunes. I slipped back through the doorway, shrinking out of his sight. Whoever it was out there, I was sure it wasn’t Effing-Bliss. The shadow wasn’t big enough for him. Other than that I couldn’t say who it was.
I turned off the lights. When I came back to the window I thought he was gone but then I saw him move. Settled down into the sand, he was just a round lump of a shadow extending out from the dune.
Chapter 52
The nightmares came back. Weird and dark with scarlet flowers and indistinct shapes bringing fear and panic. The first time they woke me I turned on the bathroom light and left the door ajar to let the light filter in to the bedroom. The second time I opened a slat on the shutters and studied the beach in the bright moonlight. Nothing.
Sunlight eased my fears. The nightmares haunting me since the hurricane now made me doubt my certainty of someone out in the dark watching me. It seemed just a sign of my new craziness but I didn’t unlock the shutters or remove the bureau I’d pushed in front of them and when I opened my bedroom door I did it cautiously, checking the hall before I left the room to go down to the beach.
The beach has a way of wiping away worries and out here things seemed simpler and saner. Fears faded. Already there was a warmth in the air that said we were in for another day of above-normal temperatures. Heavenly weather as long as it didn’t bring another hurricane. But the days were getting shorter, it would soon be Thanksgiving, and hurricane season would be behind us.
The tide was just on the turn, keeping the gulf as flat as a settlement pond. Waves lapped gently at the shore as I pulled off my sweats and dropped them on the sand. Tiny crabs scuttled down their holes as I did my stretching exercises. Then I set off at a gentle pace along the hard-packed dark sand at the edge of the water, scattering shorebirds ahead of me.
A half-mile down the beach a man with a fishing line out in the surf sat on an upturned bucket and wished me good morning as I dipped beneath his filament line. Next to the fisherman a great blue heron waiting for his breakfast rose into the air before me and settled down again as I passed.
Keep your changing colors and windswept mountain — just leave me the beach.
Back at the B&T, I climbed the tile steps to the pool carrying my sweats. Mist rose off the aqua blue surface when I slipped into the Olympic-sized infinity pool. As warm as a bath, it was heated for delicate bodies. I did lengths for a half-hour, without resting or looking up, so when I finished I was surprised to find Lester Catherst here watching me. This morning his hair had been forced down with something wet. Not an improvement. He didn’t speak or smile, just stared down at me like I was some kind of specimen.
Staff weren’t supposed to use the facilities, Julian Effing Bliss had made that perfectly clear, so I put my forefinger to my lips as I came out of the water. I didn’t know if Lester would keep my secret, there was just no expression on his broad flat face to give me a clue.
Water ran from me and the air chilled me, or maybe it was just those eyes fixed on me. I’d swim in the gulf in the future. I bent down to pick up my shoes and sweats. Suddenly a shadow covered me. I went into a crouch, raising my arm, prepared to defend myself with tooth and claw, a scream warbling up my throat as I swung to face Lester.
He held out one of the striped beach towels for members. He must have got it out of the pool house while I was swimming and had it ready for me. The dry scaly hand holding the towel mesmerized me; the white flakes that had broken loose and lay on top of his skin disgusted me. He poked the towel towards me, urging me silently to take it.
I set my stuff gingerly on a table and reached for the towel. “Thank you.” My voice croaked and caught in my throat, my heart beating in frantic triple time. “Thank you.” My skin shrank from the touch of the terry cloth his hands had handled.
“It’s such a beautiful pool,” I patted at myself, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on him, “I couldn’t help trying it out.”
Lester, head cocked to one side, breathed open-mouthed. There was an air of witlessness about him but there was nothing witless in his sharp ferret eyes fixed on me, measuring me.
An instinct as old as Eve was telling me to run like hell but Ruth Ann’s voice was still in my head from childhood and admonished me over and over to “be nice.” I told her to piss off and laid the towel across the table and picked up my stuff.
“Well, thanks again.” I backed away from him and added, “Have a great day.”
What was I thinking of? That guy was never going to have a great day. I turned and ran.