Where There's Smoke

by Sandra Brown

  Janellen had a delicate face and a fair complexion. Her mouth was too small, and her nose was a trifle long, but, like her brothers, she had spectacular blue eyes that more than compensated for her unremarkable features.

  Since Jody had obviously influenced her, her lack of style was no surprise. But even Jody’s clothing made more of a fashion statement than Janellen’s. She was downright dowdy. Her severe hairstyle was sorely unflattering. It was as though she worked at making herself unattractive so that she would go unnoticed and remain in the large shadow that Jody cast.

  Key brought up the rear. Unlike his mother, he didn’t march down the aisle undeterred. He stopped frequently along the way to swap greetings and anecdotes with people he obviously hadn’t seen in a while. Lara picked up snatches of these friendly exchanges.

  “As I live and breathe! It’s Key Tackett!”

  “Hey, Possum! You ugly son of a bitch, how’s life treating you?”

  While someone named Possum was expounding upon his successful feed and fertilizer business, Key happened to glimpse Lara. When he did a double take, her stomach muscles tightened. They held each other’s stare until Possum, so nicknamed no doubt because he bore an unfortunate resemblance to the marsupial, asked him a direct question.

  “Sorry, what?” Key pulled his stare away from Lara, but not before Possum and others sitting nearby noticed who had momentarily captured his attention.

  “Uh, I said…” Possum was so busy shifting his beady eyes between Lara and Key that he couldn’t restate his question.

  Thankfully, the high school principal chose that moment to approach the lectern on the stage. He spoke into the microphone. It was dead. After fiddling with the controls, he blasted everyone’s eardrums with, “Thank y’all for coming out tonight.” He finally adjusted the volume and repeated his welcome.

  Key promised to meet Possum the next day for a beer, then joined Jody and Janellen in the front row where the mayor had saved seats for them.

  The meeting got under way, the school principal presiding. He introduced the Fergus Winston family, who emerged as a unit from behind the gold velvet curtains. Lara observed them with interest. The teenage girl, who was introduced as Heather, seemed mortified to be seen with her parents in such a public arena. Mrs. Winston didn’t appear to be on the verge of collapse as the school principal’s solemn tone suggested. A picture of health, she was fairly bursting with vitality. The stage lights made her red hair look like flames. She demurely slid her hand into the crook of her husband’s elbow.

  Lara instantly distrusted her.

  Fergus was a tall man with a perpetual stoop. Thinning gray hair inadequately covered his pointed, balding head. There were deep laugh lines around his wide mouth, but he wasn’t smiling as he took the high school principal’s place behind the lectern and gave his account of their harrowing experience.

  By angling slightly to her left, Lara could see Key Tackett in the chair next to his sister’s. His elbows were propped on the armrests, and he was tapping his steepled fingers against his lips. His ankle—the one he’d sprained—was propped on the opposite knee. He was slouching in his seat, and his eyes moved restlessly about as though he was finding the proceedings exceedingly dull, as eager for them to conclude as a young boy in church.

  Lara looked again toward the stage and saw that she wasn’t the only one watching Key. Mrs. Winston had him locked in her sights, too. Her expression was sly, almost smug.

  “Well, that’s all I’ve got to tell y’all,” Mr. Winston concluded, “except to say to be on the lookout for any suspicious characters, any strangers around town, and to report any unusual happenings to the sheriff.” To applause, he relinquished the microphone to the sheriff.

  Elmo Baxter was a slovenly man who moved with the speed of a slug and had the world-weary expression of a basset hound. “I ’preciate Fergus and Darcy sharing their experience.” He shifted his weight. “But don’t y’all get the fool notion of sleeping with a loaded gun under your pillow. If you see signs of a break-in or notice a stranger hanging around your neighborhood, report it to my office. Me or Gus’ll check it out using proper police procedure.

  “Don’t go taking the law into your own hands, y’all hear? Now, me and the city council decided we need a Crime Watch committee like they have in big cities. This committee would organize folks in the different neighborhoods to keep a lookout on goings-on and help everybody stay informed. Naturally it’ll need a chairman. I’ll take nominations now.”

  “I volunteer myself,” Darcy Winston announced in a clear, loud voice.

  She received a burst of applause. Fergus squeezed her hand and looked down at her with naked adoration.

  “And I’d like for Key Tackett to serve as co-chairman,” Darcy added.

  Key jerked to attention. His boot landed hard on the floor, and Lara saw him wince. “What the hell did she say?” Everybody laughed at his stunned reaction. “I don’t even live here anymore. Besides, what do I know about committees?”

  The amused sheriff tugged on his elongated earlobe. “I reckon knowing about committees isn’t a requirement, but if a man ever knew about taking care of hisself, it’s you. Right, Jody?”

  She looked across Janellen at her son. “I think you ought to do it. Since when have you performed a community service?”

  “Since he led the fighting Devils to the state championship!” Possum leaped into the center aisle and began waving his hands high over his head. “Let’s hear it for the fearsome number ’leven, Key Tackett!”

  Others stood and joined the cheering. Antsy children used the interruption as an opportunity to escape their parents. Rowdy teens gave one another high fives as they raced for the exits. Regaining control was out of the question, so Sheriff Baxter placed his lips close to the mike and said, “All in favor say ‘aye.’ Motion carries. Y’all are dismissed. Be careful driving home.”

  Lara was swept along into the aisle. Standing on tiptoe, she was able to see Darcy Winston imperiously motioning for Key to join her on the stage. She looked like a woman fully capable of shooting a fleeing lover in order to prevent getting caught with him. There was calculation in her perpetually pursed lips and tilted eyes.

  “Excuse me.”

  Lara responded to the polite request coming from behind her and stepped aside, then turned to apologize for dawdling. She came eye to eye with Janellen.

  Janellen was caught in a hesitant smile that quickly turned into a small, round O of dismay. Unabashedly she gaped at Lara.

  “Hello, Miss Tackett,” Lara said politely. “Excuse me for blocking the aisle.”

  “You’re… you’re…”

  “I’m Lara Mallory.”

  “Yes, I…”

  Even if Janellen could have formed an appropriate response, Jody gave her no chance to speak. “What’s the holdup, Janellen?” When she too noticed Lara, her expression hardened with malice.

  “At last we meet, Mrs. Tackett,” Lara said, extending her right hand.

  Jody acknowledged neither her outstretched hand nor the greeting. She only nudged her daughter forward. “Move along, Janellen. I suddenly feel the need for some fresh air.”

  For several moments, Lara was immobilized by Jody’s angry stare. But the chance meeting hadn’t gone unnoticed, and soon she became aware of the studious avoidance of the crowd. Self-consciously she retracted her right hand. As she moved up the aisle, she was given a wide berth. She might as well have had leprosy. No one even looked at her.

  At the exit, she paused and glanced back at the stage. Key had joined Mrs. Winston there. Scornfully, Lara turned away. They deserved each other.

  Since Darcy was about as subtle as a carnival barker, Key was given no choice but to join her on stage. After making such a production of flagging him up there, it would have aroused curiosity if he hadn’t heeded her request.

  As he had moved toward the stage, he had tried to locate Lara Mallory in the crowd, and was shocked to see her talking to his mother.
/>
  He watched as Jody spurned her handshake and brusquely herded Janellen up the aisle. To her credit, Dr. Mallory didn’t quail or lose her composure. She didn’t burst into tears or shout epithets at their retreating backs. Instead she held her head high as she moved gracefully toward the exit.

  Key was tempted to charge after her and—do what?

  Ask her why she had picked on his brother when there were thousands of randy young bucks in Washington, D.C., just itching to get laid?

  See if she could clarify for him the haunting circumstances surrounding his brother’s death?

  Demand that she leave town by dawn, or else?

  He would look like a damn fool and he didn’t want to give her that satisfaction. Besides, he had a matter to settle with Darcy. Best to get that out of the way before tackling another crisis.

  He climbed the steps to the stage. “Just what the hell are you up to, Darcy?”

  “Hi, Key!” She was all smiles, and, despite his angry scowl, she manipulated him into an introduction. “Have you met my daughter? Heather, this is Mr. Key Tackett.”

  “Hello, Mr. Tackett.” The girl spoke politely, but she obviously had other things on her mind. “Tanner’s waiting for me,” she told her mother. “Can I go now?”

  “Come straight home.”

  “But everybody’s going out to the lake.”

  “At this time of night? No.”

  “Mo-ther! Everybody’s going. Please.”

  The stare Darcy fixed on Heather conveyed unspoken warnings. “Be home by eleven-thirty. Not a second later.”

  Heather protested sulkily. “Nobody else has to come in that early.”

  “Take it or leave it, young lady.”

  She took it. After bidding Key an obligatory goodbye, she joined a handsome young man waiting for her in front of the stage.

  While Darcy had been arguing with Heather over the girl’s curfew, Key had been watching Lara Mallory’s solitary progress up the aisle. There was something very noble about her carriage. Before she went through the exit, she turned and looked toward the stage.

  “Key?”

  “What?” Only after the doctor disappeared did he turn his attention back to Darcy. Having followed the direction of his gaze, she too was focused on the exit doors at the rear of the auditorium.

  “So, our scandalous new doctor put in an appearance tonight,” she remarked cattily. “Have you had the honor of making her acquaintance?”

  “Fact is, I have. She patched me up after you shot me.” Key got a kick out of wiping off Darcy’s complacent smile.

  “You went to her?” she exclaimed. “Have you lost your freaking mind? I thought you’d have the good sense to go to the hospital, where you’d be known, but at least it’s out of town.”

  “I was looking for Doc Patton. Nobody told me that he’d retired.”

  “Or that your brother set up his ex-mistress in business here?”

  “No. Nobody told me that either.”

  He tried to keep his voice free of telltale inflection, but Darcy wouldn’t have noticed anyway. He could tell the wheels of her scheming brain were in full gear.

  “She could report the gunshot wound to the sheriff,” she said worriedly.

  “She could, but I doubt she will.” He glanced toward the exit. “She’s got enough to worry about. Besides, she couldn’t prove anything. No bullet. It tore off a chunk of flesh on its way through.” He leaned down and spoke softly so they wouldn’t be overheard by those loitering about. “I ought to skin you alive for shooting at me. You could have killed me, you dumb bitch.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” she hissed, which was hard to do while keeping her deceptively friendly smile in place. “If I hadn’t acted quickly, Fergus would have caught us mother-nekkid and screwing like rabbits. He could have killed us, and no jury in this state would have convicted him.”

  “Sugarplum?”

  She spun around at the sound of her husband’s voice. Key hitched his chin at him. “Hey, Fergus. It’s been a long time.”

  “How’re you doin’, Key?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  Years ago there had been a rift between Fergus and Jody. It had something to do with the Tackett oil lease adjacent to Fergus’s motel property. The details were murky, and Key had never wanted to know them badly enough to ferret them out. He figured that Jody, in her lust for oil and the power and money that went with it, had somehow cheated Fergus.

  Their dispute was none of his business, except that Fergus had always looked at him like he was lower than buzzard shit, but that might have had more to do with how he had conducted himself during his youth. More than once he and Possum and their crowd had nursed their hangovers in the coffeeshop of Fergus’s motel. He vaguely remembered puking up pints of sour mash in the rosebushes in front of The Green Pine after a particularly wild bacchanal.

  Anyway, Fergus Winston didn’t like him, but Key had never lost sleep over it.

  “I’m not real excited about this committee job your wife just roped me into. By the way,” he said to Darcy, “I’m resigning. Effective immediately.”

  “You can’t resign. You haven’t even started.”

  “All the more reason. I didn’t ask to be part of any Crime Watch committee. I don’t want to be. Find yourself another co-chairman.”

  She flashed him her most dazzling smile. “Obviously he wants to be begged, Fergus. Why don’t you bring the car around to the front door? I’ll meet you there. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to change Key’s ornery mind.”

  Key watched Fergus amble into the wings of the stage, calling good night to the custodian who was patiently waiting for everybody to leave so he could secure the building.

  Darcy waited until her husband was out of earshot before turning back to Key. Keeping her voice low, she said, “Can’t you see an opportunity when it all but bites you in the ass?”

  “What do you mean, sugarplum?” he asked with mock innocence.

  “I mean,” she stressed, “that if we’re on the same committee, people won’t think anything about our being seen together.” His stare remained opaque. Exasperated, she spelled it out. “We could get together anytime we wanted and wouldn’t have to sneak around in order to do it.”

  He waited about three beats before bursting into laughter. “You think I’d sleep with you again?” As suddenly as it had started, his laughter ceased, and his face became taut with anger. “I’m royally pissed at you, Mrs. Winston. You could have killed me with that damn handgun of yours. As it is, I can barely climb into a cockpit with this bum ankle.”

  She gazed at him through eyes gone smoky. “Small price to pay for the fun we had, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Not even close, sugarplum. You act like that’s the golden fleece,” he said, glancing pointedly at her crotch, “but I’ve had better. Lots better. Anyway, if you think I’d touch it again after this stunt you’ve pulled, then you’re as crazy as you are easy.”

  The smoke in her eyes cleared. He saw fire. “I wouldn’t fuck you again, either!”

  “Then from what I hear, I’m in a minority of one.”

  Darcy was livid. “You’re a son of a bitch and always have been, Key Tackett.”

  “You’re right on the money there,” he said with a terse nod. “In the most literal sense of the words.”

  “Go to hell.”

  Since there were still people milling about and visiting in the aisles of the auditorium, there was nothing more she could do except conceal her wrath, turn on her heel, and flounce away. She gave clipped replies to those who bade her good night as she stormed up the aisle.

  Key followed at a more leisurely pace, feeling amused, pleased, and vaguely dissatisfied all at the same time. Darcy deserved his digs, but he hadn’t derived as much pleasure from insulting her as he had anticipated.

  Like a dutiful servant, Fergus was waiting for her beside their El Dorado, holding the passenger door open. As Darcy slid into the seat, Key overheard
her say, “Hurry up and get me home, Fergus. I’ve got a splitting headache.”

  Key felt sorry for Fergus, but not because he’d slept with his wife; hell, just about everybody in pants had at one time or another. But even though his motel made money, he would never be an entrepreneur. That required a certain attitude that was clearly lacking in his long, thin face, his bad posture, and in his conservative approach to business. There were the Jody Tacketts of the world, and there were the Fergus Winstons. The aggressors and the vanquished. Some steamrollered their way through life while others either moved aside for them or got rolled over. In life and in love, Fergus fell into the latter category.

  Such passivity was beyond Key’s understanding. Why would Fergus ignore Darcy’s unfaithfulness? Why was he willing to be an object of scorn? Why did he accept and forgive her infidelity?

  Love?

  Like hell, Key scoffed. Love was a word that poets and songwriters used. They vested the emotion with tremendous powers over the human heart and mind, but they were wrong. It didn’t transform lives like the saccharine lyrics claimed it could. Key had never seen any evidence of its magic, unless it was black magic.

  Love had caused his young heart to break when his father was killed, leaving him without an ally in a hostile environment. Love had kept his sister emotionally and psychologically chained to their mother. Love had cost Clark his promising career as a statesman. Had love also compelled Randall Porter to stay with his whoring wife?

  Not for me, Key averred as he crossed the parking lot, his stride as long as his injured ankle would allow. Love, forgiveness, and turning the other cheek were concepts that belonged in Sunday school lessons. They didn’t apply in real life. Not in his life, anyway. If, during a mental lapse, he ever got married, and if he ever found his wife in the arms of another man, he’d kill them both.

  Reaching his car, he jammed the key into the lock.

  “Good evening, Mr. Tackett.”

  He turned, stunned to find Lara Mallory standing beside him. A breeze was gently tugging at her clothing and hair. Her face was partially in shadow, the remainder bathed in moonlight. Although she was the last person he wanted to see at the moment, she looked damned gorgeous and for a moment he felt as though he’d been poleaxed.