“Schyler?”
“Hmm?”
“What are you doing out here?”
“Thinking.”
Hesitantly, Ken sat down beside her in the porch swing. It was after eleven o’clock. Tricia was indoors watching Johnny Carson.
“I guess I owe you an apology,” Ken said, staring beyond the veranda at the dark lawn.
Schyler’s breasts rose and fell with a deep breath. “I don’t want your apology, Ken. I want your help.” She turned her head and looked at him. “I need to do this. Don’t fight me. Help me.”
He reached for her hand and covered it with his. “I will. You know I will. I blew my top, that’s all. It’s not every day a woman just moves in and takes over, you know.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing? I don’t intend to usurp your authority.”
“That’s how it’ll look to folks.”
“I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”
He traced the delicate bones in the back of her hand with his fingertip. “Why do you feel like you have to do this?”
“I don’t really have a choice, do I? That note has to be paid or we’ll lose Belle Terre. You were right about Gilbreath. He is an asshole and would show no mercy if it came down to foreclosing.”
“I’m sure we could figure out another way to come up with the cash if we put our minds to it.”
“Probably. But time is so short, I can’t go exploring. I don’t want to borrow money to cancel this loan. That would only dig us in deeper and postpone the inevitable. And I don’t want to liquidate bits and pieces of Belle Terre. The very thought of parting with one saucer of the china collection, or selling one acre of land makes me shudder. Besides what that would mean to us personally, I have to think about the sharecroppers. I can’t sell their homes out from under them.”
“You can’t burden yourself with everybody’s problems.”
She smiled at him to relax the mood. “I need something to do. I’m going stir crazy around here between visits to the hospital.”
He pressed her hand affectionately. “I know you’re accustomed to staying busy, but I’m afraid you’re biting off more than you can chew.”
“Then if I fall on my face, or make a bigger mess of things, you’ll have the supreme satisfaction of saying, ‘I told you so.’ ”
“This is no joking matter, Schyler.”
“I know,” she said softly, ducking her head.
“I don’t think Cotton will find it funny either.”
“I’m sure he won’t.”
Cotton. He was her main motivation. He loved Belle Terre more than he loved anything. He had come to it an outsider and made it his. If Schyler was successful in saving it, maybe his love and affection for her would be restored. He might forgive her for whatever transgression she had unwittingly committed. Their relationship would revert to the loving one it had been before she left for London. As soon as possible, she wanted to present him with the canceled note and watch the love and gratitude well in his eyes. She didn’t want that for her sake, but for his.
“You’re an exciting woman, Schyler.” Her head snapped around at Ken’s soft proclamation. It so closely echoed what Cash had said to her only a few nights before. Unlike Cash, however, Ken was smiling gently. “You’re a pain in the ass sometimes, but exciting.”
“Thank you. I think.”
He inched closer, until his thigh was pressing against hers on the bench. The swing rocked slowly. “What I mean is, you’re hardheaded. Gutsy. That determination is aggravating as hell. But it’s the thing that makes you so damn appealing, too.” He reached out and stroked her cheek with a feather-light touch. “Remember all those hours we spent picketing this or that? Lambasting or advocating one cause or another.”
“We were a pair of crusaders, weren’t we?”
He shook his head in denial. “You were the crusader. I only tagged along so I could be with you.”
“That’s not true. You were every bit as strong in your convictions as I was. You just don’t remember.”
“Maybe,” he conceded doubtfully.
Honestly, she doubted it, too. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to believe that he was uncompromising, that his integrity had been as steadfast as the Rock of Gibraltar. “I’ve really stuck my neck out this time, Ken. I need your strength and support.”
He lightly closed his fingers around her neck. “You make me feel strong.” His eyes came to rest on hers. “I made a bad choice. I married the wrong woman, Schyler.”
“Don’t, Ken.”
“Listen to me.” Schyler heard the anxiety in his voice, felt it in his touch. He leaned closer. “I regret that indiscretion with Tricia every day of my life. She’s not you. She’s petty and shallow. Superficial.”
“Stop there, Ken.”
“No. I want you to hear this. She doesn’t even come close to being you. She’s nice to look at, she’s okay in bed, but she’s selfish. She doesn’t have your spirit and fire, your zest for living and loving.”
Schyler thrilled to the words, but squeezed her eyes shut as though to block them out. “Don’t say anything more. Please. I can’t stay here if you—”
“Jesus, don’t leave. I need you so much.”
Closing the short distance between them, he kissed her with passion and desperation. Her initial reaction was to stiffen woodenly, but gradually she relaxed. Her mouth accepted his probing tongue. His hand slid from her neck to her breast. He kneaded it through her clothes. He lifted his lips from hers and, whispering her name endearingly, covered her face with quick, light kisses. She submitted until he tried to reclaim her lips. Then she pushed him away and left the swing.
Encircling the corner column with her arms, she rested her cheek against the cool, fluted wood. “We might regret the way things turned out between us, Ken, but there’s no going back. Don’t touch me like that ever again.”
She heard the chains of the swing squeak as he left it. He moved up behind her and placed his hands on her waist, murmuring her name in her hair. She spun around to face him. “Don’t! I mean it.”
The light coming through the windows was sufficient for him to see the resolve on her face and in her eyes, which held his without flinching. Disappointment, then anger, caused his lips to shrink into a tight, narrow line. He stormed across the veranda and down the steps. Getting into his car, he gunned it to life and sped off. Schyler watched until the red brake lights disappeared at the bend in the lane.
She didn’t realize how exhausted she was until she tried to move away from the column. She had to push herself away from its support. Sluggishly she went inside and climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Once ready for bed, she settled against the pillows and pulled the telephone onto her lap. She would beat Mark’s alarm clock by an hour or so, but that couldn’t be helped. She needed to talk to him now.
“Hi, it’s me,” she said when the transatlantic call had gone through to the flat she shared with Mark Houghton.
“Schyler? God, what time is it?”
“Here or there?” She laughed, envisioning his blond hair sticking up all around his head and his clumsy, sleepy groping for the bedside clock.
“Just a sec. Let me light a cigarette.”
“You promised you were going to quit while I was away.”
“I lied.” In under a minute he was back. “You don’t have bad news I hope.”
“About Daddy, no. He’s stable.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“But I won’t be coming home anytime soon.”
“That’s not so wonderful.”
“He’s got to have bypass surgery.” She explained Cotton’s prognosis. “I can’t leave until he’s completely out of danger.”
“I understand, but I miss you. At home and in the gallery. Some of our customers won’t deal with anybody but you. If I don’t produce you soon, I’m afraid they’ll lock me in the Tower.”
She had first met Mark when he hired her to work as his assistant in his antiques gallery. He’d not only been her employer, but also her teacher. She had been an astute pupil with a natural eye and excellent taste. Before long, she knew as much or more about their inventory as he. That’s why his flattery was particularly gratifying, if not entirely truthful.
“I know several high-ticket customers who trample over me to get to you.” Toying with the coiled telephone cord, she collected her thoughts. “I’ll be overseeing the family business until Cotton gets better.” She threw out that piece of information like a baited fishing line.
He whistled. “Quite an undertaking. What about Ken?”
Mark knew the entire story, everything. “He resented my interference and objected to the idea at first, but I think he’ll come around once he gets used to it.”
“You can handle him and the work load.”
“Can I?”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute.”
“Don’t be so hasty. There’s more. A bank loan is coming due and the coffers are empty.”
There was a significant pause. Then, “How much do you need?”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“But I’m offering.”
“No, Mark.”
“Schyler, you know that anything I have is yours. Don’t be proud. How much? I’ll have my attorney draft a check in the morning.”
“No, Mark.”
“Please let me help you.”
“No. I need to do this on my own.”
I need to earn the right to live at Belle Terre is what she meant. She hadn’t realized it until that very second.
Belle Terre was hers by chance. If another child had been born hours ahead of her, a child who filled the criteria just as well as she, Macy and Cotton Crandall would have been given that baby instead of her. When Cotton died, she and Tricia would inherit Belle Terre. Tricia would consider it her due.
But not Schyler. No bloodlines linked her to the house and land. She would have to earn it. Pressed, she couldn’t have explained to anyone, not even to herself, why she felt working for it was necessary. It was simply a compulsion she had no choice but to act upon.
“Can you do without me for a while longer, Mark?”
He sighed with forbearance. “What choice do you leave me?”
“None, I’m afraid.”
“So there’s nothing more to discuss.”
“I need a hug,” Schyler said in a frightened, little girl’s voice. “Mark, what the hell do I know about managing a logging company?”
He laughed. “About as much as you knew about antiques before you came to work for me. You’re a fast learner.”
“In the case of the antiques, I had an excellent teacher.”
His voice grew husky with remembrance of good times shared. “I love you, babe.”
“I love you, too.”
She extended the conversation as long as it was economically feasible, telling him about Jigger Flynn and the pit bulls, which he found difficult to believe. “You mean this young woman, Gayla, is virtually enslaved? I thought the South was decadent only in Tennessee Williams plays and William Faulkner novels.”
“Don’t judge us all by Jigger Flynn.”
He expressed concern for her safety. That’s when she mentioned Cash. “I’ve known him forever. I mean, I’ve known about him forever. He’s somebody who has always been lurking in the background.”
“Are you sure you can trust him? He sounds almost as dangerous as this Flynn character.”
She plucked at the embroidery on the hem of the sheet. “I guess he’s trustworthy, in his own fashion.”
Trustworthy? Perhaps. He was certainly dangerous. Dangerous to be alone with if you were a woman emotionally overwrought and temporarily unsure of yourself, when you deliberately compared his kiss to the former lover’s and discovered that the former lover’s took a distant second place.
Out of sheer curiosity, she had let her lips respond to Ken’s kiss to see what would happen. And nothing did. But every time she even recalled Cash’s kiss, her heart started beating fast, her nipples tightened, and her insides quivered.
She thought about telling Mark. He was adult about these things. He wasn’t judgmental. He would understand. Nevertheless, she changed her mind. She couldn’t put into words exactly how she felt about Cash’s kiss.
“Schyler?”
“I’m still here, but I’ve got to hang up. Here I am on the brink of dispossession and I’m running up an astronomical phone bill.”
“Call collect next time.”
“I apologize for calling so early. Try to go back to sleep.”
“Hell, it’s time to get up now.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m not. Call again whenever you need to talk. Whenever you need anything.”
“I will.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Hanging up, she wished all the relationships in her life were as open and uncomplicated as the one she shared with Mark. She switched out the lamp and lay staring at the constantly shifting patterns of moonlight and shadow on the ceiling.
First thing in the morning, she would put out a notice that Crandall Logging was back in operation. The loggers who wanted to work would be immediately reinstated. She would call the independent loggers and tell them that she was actively buying timber. She could get their names from the files. Then the markets would have to be analyzed and contacted. Sales calls would have to be made.
So much to do.
So much to think about… namely that Ken’s kiss, for all its passion, hadn’t disturbed her nearly as much as Cash Boudreaux’s.