by Sandra Brown
“Now see here,” the minister blustered, “I resent that implication.”
Lara ignored him. “Primarily, I’m backing down because I’m afraid the fight might kill you.”
Jody focused on her for the first time since entering the room. “Well you’re wrong. I won’t die until I see you on your way out of town. My town. Clark’s town. I won’t rest until you’re gone and the air is fit to breathe again.”
Lara calmly stacked the typed pages of her presentation and zipped them into a black leather portfolio, tucking it and her handbag under her arm. “Thank you, gentlemen, for giving me your attention this morning. Unless I hear from you otherwise, I’ll assume that my proposal was rejected.”
None of them had the guts to look her in the eye. She derived some satisfaction from that as she turned and walked from the room.
Darcy followed her out. Lara didn’t stop until she had reached the main entrance of the building. There, she turned to confront Darcy. “I know why Jody Tackett hates me,” she said. “But why do you? What have I ever done to you?”
“Maybe I just think people ought to stay where they belong. You had no business coming to Eden Pass. You don’t fit in. You never will.”
“What do you care whether I fit in? How am I a threat to you, Mrs. Winston?”
Darcy made a scoffing sound.
“That’s it, I’m sure,” Lara said. “For some unfathomable reason, you regard me as a threat.” Could Darcy’s hatred for her relate to Key Tackett? It was an uncomfortable thought, which she kept at arm’s length. “Believe me, Mrs. Winston, you’ve got nothing that I want.”
Darcy licked her lips like a cat over a bowl of cream. “Not even a daughter?”
Lara reeled, unable to grasp the extent of the other woman’s cruelty. “I didn’t give you enough credit,” Lara said. “You’re not only selfish and spiteful, you’re deadly.”
“Fucking-A, Dr. Mallory. When it comes to getting what I want, I pull no punches. I have absolutely no scruples, and for that reason I’m dangerous. You can pack up that bit of information and take it with you when you leave town.”
Lara shook her head. “I’m not leaving. In spite of what you or Jody Tackett or anybody else says about me, no matter how vicious your threats become, you can’t drive me out.”
Darcy’s lips broke into a beautiful smile. “This is going to be fun.”
Laughing, she turned and retraced her steps to the administrative offices. Her laughter echoed eerily in the cavernous foyer.
Darcy blew her nose into a monogrammed handkerchief. “I can’t stand having you mad at me, Fergus.”
After seeing Jody Tackett home, she returned to her house to find Fergus lying in wait for her. She’d seen him this angry with other people, but never with her. It alarmed her. Fergus was her safety net. He was always there to fall back on if things went wrong.
“Please don’t yell at me anymore,” she begged tremulously.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”
Darcy sniffed, then blotted her running mascara. “What I did, I did for you.”
“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 you’ve 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 Eighteen
“Is 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 leied.” He smiled, his teeth showing white in the gathering dusk. “L-e-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.”
“Sure ’nough.”
Balky left them. Key opened the envelope and counted the bills inside, then stuck it in the breast pocket of his shirt.
“He paid you in cash?” Lara asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“No invoice? No record of the transaction?”
“I struck a verbal agreement with my client. Why involve anybody else?”
“Like the IRS?”
“I pay taxes.”
“Hmm. The FAA?”
“Mounds of paperwork for every little trip. Who needs it?”
“Don’t you have to file a flight plan, stuff like that?”
“Up to twelve hundred feet is uncontrolled airspace. The ‘see and avoid’ rule applies.”
“You always keep to the twelve-hundred-foot ceiling?”
He had tired of the patter. “Interested in flight instruction, Doc? I’ve got my instructor’s license and could have you soloing in no time. I’m expensive, but I’m good.”
“I’m not interested in flight instruction.”
“You just happened by to shoot the breeze?”
“No, I wanted to talk to you.”
“I’m listening.” He took a beer from the refrigerator, propped one elbow on the top of the outdated appliance, tilted his head back, and took a long draft.
“It’s about a job.”
He lowered the can and looked at her with interest. “We’ve eliminated flying lessons, and I gather it’s not another emergency flight to the hospital.”
“No.”
He regarded her for another long, silent moment before tilting the beer toward her and asking, “Want one?”
“No, thank you.”
He took another swig. “Well? My curiosity’s killing me.”
“I want you to fly me to Montesangre.”
He calmly finished his beer and tossed the empty can into the trash can with an accurate hook shot. He sat down in the swivel chair, leaned back, and propped his feet on the corner of the desk, pushing aside the gooseneck lamp with the heel of his boot.
Lara remained standing. There was no place for her to sit except on the cot. He didn’t offer it to her, and even if he had, she would have declined.
“You’ve asked me that more than once, and I’ve said no. Is there something wrong with your hearing?”
“I’m not joking.”
“Oh, you’re not joking,” he said, tongue-in-cheek. “Excuse me. Hmm. Well. Then are you figuring on parachuting out?”
She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Of course not.”
“Surely you aren’t suggesting a landing on Montesangren soil. ’Cause to be suggesting that, you’d have to be plumb crazy.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I, Doc. How’s your Spanish? Maybe you need t
o brush up on it. Do you know how Montesangre translates?”
“Yes. ‘Mountain of blood.’ I know firsthand that it’s a literal translation. I felt my daughter’s blood running warm and wet over my hands.”
He swung his feet to the floor and brought the chair upright. “Then why in hell do you want to go back?”
“You know why. I’ve been trying to go back for years, ever since I regained consciousness in that Miami hospital. I can’t get into the country through proper channels. They’re blocked.”
“So you’re looking at me as an improper channel.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“In a manner of speaking, folks are getting blown away down there.”
“I’m fully aware of that.”
“And you still want to go?”
“I have to go.”
“But I don’t.”
“No, you don’t. I was thinking you might regard it as an adventure.”
“Well, think again. I’ve been called many things, but never a fool. If you want to go down there and get your ass shot off, that’s your business, but I’m kinda fond of my ass, so you can X me right out of your plans.”
“Hear me out, Key.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You owe me this.”
“As you’ve said. I don’t buy it.”
“You’ll be gratified to know that I haven’t had a single patient in the clinic since the morning of your mother’s seizure. Jody fought off my attempts to help her. You brusquely denounced me in front of the crowd.”
“I didn’t have time to use tact. My mother was near death.”
“Precisely. And when word got around that the Tacketts preferred death over my medical assistance, the few patients I had cultivated disappeared. Months of hard work was destroyed. The confidence that had been so hard won was invalidated with a few harshly spoken words. Since then I’ve twiddled my thumbs.”