Southern Comforts

by JoAnn Ross

  “But what if someone else gets the millwork you’re interested in?” Cash had explained to her how sought-after such handcrafted woodwork was on the flight from Savannah.

  “There are other houses. Other millwork.”

  Knowing how much this particular one meant to him, Chelsea was moved he’d be willing to make such a sacrifice for her.

  “I’ll be fine.” She reached up, placed both hands on his shoulders, went up on her toes and gave him a brief, soft kiss.

  Her lips were soft and sweet and only made him want more. Resisting the urge to crush her to him, Cash asked, “What was that for?”

  “To thank you.”

  “For threatening to beat the guy up? Hell, darlin’, you don’t have to thank me for that. That was the fun part.”

  Once again he had her smiling at a time when she should have been furious. Or in tears. “I enjoyed that part immensely. But I was talking about everything. Thank you for being you.”

  Cash was momentarily stunned at how much those simple words meant. “You make it easy.”

  They stood there, toe to toe, in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious to the pedestrian traffic swirling around them. “I booked a two-bedroom suite at the Paramount, thinking you might need a place to stay,” he said. “Unless you’d planned to stay at your mother’s—”

  “No.” She cut him off quickly. If there was one person she didn’t feel up to right now, it was her mother. “The suite sounds wonderful. Except for one thing.”

  “What’s that? If you don’t like the Paramount, we can try the Plaza, or the Four Seasons, or—”

  “No.” She pressed her fingers against his mouth, once again stopping him in midsentence. “The Paramount is fine.” Although she’d never actually been in the hotel known for its artistic, cutting edge celebrity clientele, anywhere Cash was would be more than fine with her. “It’s just that you won’t be needing that second bedroom.”

  He gave her a long look. “If it’s because of the worm—”

  “It’s you.” Her eyes revealed what her heart had already accepted. “It’s always been you.”

  Cash let out a huge breath he’d been unaware of holding. “Lord, do you know what it does to me, to have you say something like that, right before I have to leave you?”

  She laughed, amazed and pleased that it was proving so easy to be honest with him. Honest with herself. “About the same thing it does to me to say it.” Her warm, loving smile lingered in her eyes, tilted the corners of her generous lips upward. “Go to your meeting, Cash. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  She could not have said anything that would have given him more pleasure. “I like that idea. Meanwhile…”

  He drew her against him and crushed his mouth to hers, kissing her with passion. With promise. With a power that had explosions going off inside her.

  Mindless of the fact that she was on a public street, only blocks away from the apartment where she’d grown up, forgetting that Nelson, or any one of their friends could come out that door at any moment, she clung to Cash, her avid lips responding with equal fervor as the air around them grew thick and hot.

  “Lord,” Cash said on a ragged breath, as the staggering kiss finally ended, “I thought Manhattan didn’t have earthquakes.”

  “It doesn’t.” Unsure her trembling legs would support her on their own, Chelsea continued to cling to him.

  “Are you saying that was us?”

  “I think so.”

  “Lord,” he repeated with a slow shake of his head. “I think we may be in trouble.”

  “I think you may be right.” She’d forgotten how enjoyable trouble could be, under the right circumstances. “You know that suite you’ve booked?”

  “Yeah?”

  Chelsea detected a slight tensing of his body that revealed he still didn’t quite trust how easy this was turning out to be. “It does have a broom closet, doesn’t it?”

  He laughed at that. A deep, hearty sound that managed to exorcise the last of his tension. “We can do better than that,” he promised her as he trailed a circle of fire around her lips with his fingertip. “Much, much better.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dorothy was relieved at how much easier life was when Chelsea was around. Although she’d ostensibly been hired to write a complimentary biography, Roxanne was media savvy enough to realize that less flattering bits and pieces of her life could ultimately appear in an exposé article for Vanity Fair.

  Which was why, whenever Chelsea was in the vicinity, Roxanne somehow managed to keep a tight rein on her flash-fire temper. The same way she did whenever Cash was present. Indeed, her public behavior remained so unrelentingly charming, Dorothy decided that it was too bad they didn’t give Academy Awards for Best Performance by a Diva of Domesticity.

  Unfortunately, with both Chelsea and Cash in New York, together? Dorothy wondered, all Roxanne’s pent-up fury burst out, like acrid pus from a boil.

  “That is not the color I chose,” Roxanne screamed at the painter after he showed her a sample piece of wallboard.

  “You said you wanted the exterior to be the color of buttermilk.” He stood back, crossed his arms and studied the painted board. “That looks like buttermilk to me.”

  “It’s not buttermilk, you blind idiot! It’s milkweed!”

  “Milkweed?” He shot a disbelieving glance as if to say, Can you believe this broad? to Dorothy.

  “Milkweed,” Roxanne affirmed viciously. “Having developed the shade for my decorating line for Mega-Mart, I’m more than a little familiar with it. Buttermilk has more yellow in it.”

  He shrugged. “You want more yellow? You got it. All you had to do was ask.”

  “And all you had to do was follow my instructions and get it right the first time.” She jabbed a finger in his direction. “You’re fired.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Her eyes were crystal lasers as they bored into him. “Are you deaf as well as stupid? I refuse to work with someone so obviously lacking in artistic vision. That being the case, you’re fired.”

  It was the painter’s turn to get hot. “You can’t fire me! I have a contract to paint your damn house, signed by the general contractor. And last time I looked, lady, you sure as hell weren’t him.”

  She drew in a harsh breath, as if stunned that any mere workman could dare question her authority. “Then I’ll fire the fucking general contractor!”

  Before he could respond, the phone rang. Dorothy scooped it up.

  “Hey, sweetheart, give me the boss lady,” George Waggoner said.

  “I’m afraid she’s busy at the moment. She’s meeting with the painter.”

  “I don’t care if she’s meeting with the fucking president of the Confederacy,” he shot back. “Put her on the line.”

  When she’d first met George Waggoner, Dorothy’s flesh had crawled. He was evil. And dangerous. Which was why she’d been stunned when Roxanne insisted Mac McBride place him on the construction crew at her own expense.

  Even more appalling was the way this man, who was, after all, only a distant cousin of a former secretary, had been granted seemingly unlimited access to Roxanne.

  He’d already dropped by the house twice. Once more than was necessary to thank her for her intervention on his behalf. He drank Roxanne’s whiskey. And he called several times a day.

  “I’m sorry Mr. Waggoner—”

  “Is that George?” Roxanne dropped her diatribe in midsentence.

  “I’m sorry, Roxanne,” Dorothy said. “I tried telling him that you’re too busy to take any calls, but—”

  “That’s all right. Tell him I’ll be with him momentarily.” Her gaze raked over the painter one final time. “You have one more chance to get this right. Don’t fuck it up.”

  He flushed, a bright, angry red from the collar of his work shirt to his forehead beneath the white painter’s cap. But obviously realizing what a publicity plum it would be for his own business to remain part of this project, he
held his tongue.

  “Yes ma’am.” He left her office, closing the door on something just this side of a slam.

  “Stupid incompetent man,” Roxanne muttered after he was gone. “It’s becoming more and more impossible to find decent help.” Her scowl deepened as she glanced at the floor samples on her desk. “Dorothy, I want you to return these to Savannah and tell the man that they are not the Carrara marble I requested.”

  “He assured me they were Carrara when I picked them up,” Dorothy said without thinking. Nearly biting off her tongue, she realized she’d allowed herself to become lax since Chelsea’s arrival.

  Roxanne lifted a brow. “So now you’re an expert on stone?” Sarcasm dripped from every tightly enunciated word.

  “No, Roxanne, of course not. I was only telling you what the store owner told me.”

  “Well, he obviously lied. Which is not all that surprising, considering the profit he stood to make if I hadn’t caught him. This is obviously domestic marble.” She picked up a piece and glared at it with such disdain Dorothy almost expected it to crumble to dust in Roxanne’s hands. “If I wanted domestic marble, I could go to Tennessee.” Her scathing tone suggested that she’d just as soon visit Bangladesh. “I want the Carrara marble samples in my office first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “It’s getting late.” Dorothy didn’t need to look at her watch. She’d been counting the hours until she could escape all day.

  “So?”

  “The store will be closed before I can get to the city.”

  “Then you’ll have to call the owner and instruct him to stay open, won’t you?”

  Damn. She was going to be late getting home to make dinner again. Which was going to make her evening as upsetting as her day. Heaven forbid that her mother microwave one of the meals Dorothy had prepared and put in the freezer last Sunday.

  Dorothy wondered, as she so often did these days, how it was that her life could have come to this. She was only thirty-three years old, dammit. No longer young, but far from old. Not even middle-aged. It was Saturday. She should be home getting ready to go on a date.

  A fantasy billowed in her mind. She pictured herself, dressed in a lovely flowered silk dress slow dancing with Cash Beaudine. His lips were brushing over her temple. Her cheek. Her mouth. His body was strong and hard and aroused.

  You are, he murmured while nibbling on the stunningly tender flesh of her earlobe, the most beautiful, desirable woman I’ve ever met. I want you. Dorothy. In my bed. All night long.

  It had been a very long time since she’d had sex. Ages. She tried to remember the face of the man—a butcher down at the Piggly Wiggly—and couldn’t. But she could remember his hands. Rough textured and rough handling.

  In her fantasy, she was looking up into the face of this man who’d been starring in so many of her dreams lately. Oh yes. Cash, she said on a soft, shimmering sigh.

  “Dorothy! Are you listening to me?”

  The strident voice caused her sensual fantasy to burst like a soap bubble. “I’m sorry, Roxanne, what did you say?”

  Roxanne gave her a long, hard, warning look. “I swear, Dorothy, I don’t know where your mind is these days.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just having a few problems at home.”

  “Well, see that you don’t bring them to work,” Roxanne responded with a decided lack of interest.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Scooping up her handbag and the floor samples, she escaped, like the painter before her.

  One of these days, Dorothy Rose, she promised herself as she dialed the number of the tile warehouse on her cellular phone from the car, it’ll be your turn.

  As soon as she was alone, Roxanne scooped up the receiver. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Now, Cora Mae,” George drawled sapiently, “is that any way to greet your husband?”

  “We had a deal, George. I did my part. Now why don’t you leave me the fuck alone?”

  “Tsk, tsk. What would all your fans say, if they could hear you? That’s not exactly how a properly brought up southern lady is supposed to talk.” Then he chuckled. “Oh, that’s right. I keep forgettin’. Your upbringing wasn’t exactly proper, was it, sugar?”

  Roxanne ground her teeth, reminding herself that this was the trouble with blackmailers. Once they got their claws into you, they just wouldn’t let go.

  “I’m not going to give you any more money, George.”

  “Now, Cora Mae, did you hear me asking for money?”

  No. But that would come. “I’m extremely busy at the moment. Do you think we could just cut to the chase, for once?”

  “You know, honey pie, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that along with changing your name you’d become a Yankee, the way you’re always cutting to the chase, and gettin’ to the bottom line. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that stress can kill you?”

  “Blackmail’s not exactly an occupation for someone hoping to be long lived, either,” she snapped back.

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Are you threatening me, Cora Mae?”

  There it was again. That rough low tone that brought to mind a diamondback’s deadly rattle. George Waggoner was a loser and a drunk. But he could also be dangerous. Jubal Lott lying six feet underground in the paupers’ cemetery was proof of that.

  “Of course not.” She tried to mask her impatience, and her sudden fear. “It’s just been a bad day.”

  “Mebee you need to get out,” he suggested. “How about you and me finding some out-of-the-way honky-tonk and doin’ a little two-step?”

  She’d be dancing with the devil before she two-stepped with this man. “I think I’ll pass on that, George.” She caught a glimpse of herself in the gilt-framed mirror across the room. Her face was the color of ash, her brow was deeply furrowed.

  Smoothing the lines with a fingertip, she tried again. “Would you please just tell me why you called?”

  “It’s about the job.”

  “What about it? If you don’t like it, too bad. Because—”

  “Oh, I liked it okay. Used some muscles I haven’t for a few years, but it felt good to be sore at the end of the day. Even if it did remind me of our old days cuttin’ cotton.”

  She flinched. Damn him! She didn’t want to be reminded of those days. Something else he’d said filtered into her consciousness.

  “You said liked.”

  “Well, see that’s the problem, Cora Mae. I got myself in a little trouble this afternoon, and that bastard McBride fired me.”

  She closed her eyes and sank down into her chair. “I’m sorry, George. But what does this have to do with me?”

  “You gotta get me back on that crew.”

  “I can’t. I’ve already pulled too many strings as it is.”

  “I guess you didn’t hear me, Cora Mae. I said you have to get my job back for me. Or it’s back to the pen. And believe me, sugar, this time I won’t be going alone.”

  When she’d first left Georgia—and her husband—not a day had gone by that she hadn’t expected to hear those words. As time went on, she’d started feeling safer. Until she’d finally managed to convince herself that she’d gotten away scot-free.

  After all, the sheriff had ruled her stepdaddy’s death a homicide by unknown assailant or assailants. Jubal Lott had been a rough-talking, hard-drinking, brawling bully. He’d also been a pain in the behind of the rural community thirty miles outside Athens, where Cora Mae Padgett and George Waggoner had grown up. That being the case, there hadn’t been all that much incentive for the law to go looking very hard for Lott’s killer.

  “What, exactly, did you do?” she asked, hoping that it stopped short of mayhem. Or murder.

  “Nothin’ that bad. I took a few nips at lunch. Which I got a right to do,” he complained. “Bein’ off the clock. But that asshole caught me and said he’s got a no alcohol on the job policy.”

  “That makes perfect sense to me.”

  “Mebee to you.
But the way I see it, it’s none of his goddamn business what I do on my own time. So, I popped him one.”

  “Popped him? You hit him?”

  “Knocked him flat on his ass,” George agreed with a self-satisfied chuckle. “He landed in a wheelbarrow of concrete mix. You should have seen it, Cora Mae. It was, as they say, one of them Kodak moments.”

  “Dammit, George, how do you expect me to smooth something like that over?”

  “Are you kidding? Look at you, Cora Mae. Look at the con job you managed to pull off with that Roxanne Scarbrough act. You’re not gonna convince me you can’t sweet-talk that man into taking me back.”

  She’d begun to tremble. Sinking into the chair, Roxanne fought for control. And won. “I’ll do my best.” Her voice was not as strong as she would have liked.

  “You’d better, sugar. Because it’s your tight little butt that’s on the line here. Not mine.”

  The dial tone buzzed in her ear, sounding like a hive of angry bees.

  Seeing her atypically terrified face reflected in the mirror reminded Roxanne of the last time she’d been so frightened. The night Jubal died. And all the years before that, when he’d come home drunk and force himself into her room, onto her bed, and between her legs.

  “Dammit!”

  Shaken to the core with new fears and old pain, she yanked the phone out of the wall and sent it flying across the room. It hit the target dead on, shattering the glass.

  The crooked shards of glass remaining in the gilded frame made her face look like something Picasso might have painted.

  She made her way on unsteady legs to the bar, where she poured a generous amount of whiskey into a glass. As she tossed it back, downing it in long thirsty swallows that both burned and calmed, Roxanne failed to see Jo, standing silently in the shadows just beyond the slightly open office door.

  It wasn’t easy clearing her things out of the apartment. Chelsea tried to stick to basics: clothes, a handful of personal belongings that held significant sentimental meaning, like the scrapbook of newspaper clippings written by Dylan Cassidy and the stuffed panda bear her father had sent her for her birthday after accompanying Richard Nixon on his historic trip to China.