Hot Southern Nights
By
Patt Bucheister
Contents
AUTHOR'S NOTE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
Copyright © 1995 by Patt Bucheister.
Back cover art copyright © 1995 by Sanjulian.
Floral border by Lori Nelson Field.
ISBN 0-553-44497-2
AUTHOR'S NOTE
With the advent of grandchildren into my life, I have become re-acquainted with the wondrous world of fairy tales and nursery rhymes. After rereading the story of Little Red Riding Hood recently, I had the idea of writing a romance about a red-haired woman with a red hooded coat who lived in her great-great-great-grandmother's ancestral house. The hero would, of course, be the cranky wolf who eventually would forsake his bad habits and become the love of her life.
In the process of putting that terribly clever brainstorm on paper, I took a day off to attend the one-hundred-and-thirty-year anniversary tour of the Civil War battle of North Anna near Richmond, Virginia. (My husband and I are members of the Roanoke Chapter of the Civil War Roundtable and the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Battlefields.) While walking over the same ground where many of our ancestors had fought and lost their lives, I decided it would be interesting to drop a few names and places from a popular Civil War romance into my modern-day fairy tale. So come with me into a story that will provide a feast for chocolate lovers and Civil War buffs, along with the story of two people who learn the magic of Hot Southern Nights.
Patt Bucheister
ONE
Like a baby taking his first steps, filming a documentary sometimes stumbled along for a while before it finally hit its stride. Director Sam Horne knew from experience that even a small film was likely to have moments when nothing ran smoothly. The large-scale one he was finishing up in northern Virginia—the longest documentary of his career, a four-hour film on the battle of Fredericksburg during the Civil War—had already taken six months of planning, writing, rewriting, taping, and negotiating.
On the day he was scheduled to shoot some simple background shots, nothing was running, walking, or even crawling.
What frustrated him even more was knowing that shooting the most dramatic part of the film would be stalled if he couldn't get a certain stubborn lady to cooperate with him. He wanted to use her plantation home as the setting for the encampments of the Confederate and Union armies— which would be played by experienced reenactors —and as the makeshift hospital for treating wounded Confederate soldiers. Until he got her signature on a lease agreement, he had to make do with fill-in shots.
It was like settling for an appetizer when he wanted to get down to the meat and potatoes.
Every time Sam complained about the delay to his business partner and producer, Darren Fentress, Darren told him he was too used to having his own way. Sam was honest enough with himself and with Darren to admit there was some truth in what his friend said. By nature, Sam didn't settle for second best. There was Sam's way and the right way. In his mind, they were the same thing.
His drive for the best in everything, from script to the most talented actors, had been partly responsible for the awards he'd won since his first film went public when he was twenty-eight. Now, ten years later, with an Emmy topping off his successes, he had the clout to get anything he wanted in order to make a film.
He wanted Maddox Hill Plantation.
Finding private land that could be filmed from any angle without evidence of the twentieth century was extremely difficult. At Maddox Hill, power and phone lines were underground, and aside from the modern vehicles belonging to visitors and the staff, the house and grounds would photograph beautifully, as if it were actually the nineteenth century.
Maddox Hill Plantation met every one of his requirements: space, location, ambience, appropriate terrain, and historical significance. In other words, it was perfect. Sam loved perfection.
His desire for perfection was coupled with an ability to visualize every scene he wanted to film down to the smallest detail. His innate curiosity was also behind his insistence that every fact be checked twice, then scrutinized again. Sam was considered brilliant by his contemporaries and even by his competitors, and was well liked and respected by his crew. He never asked anyone to work harder or longer than he did himself.
Patience, however, was not one of his finer attributes. He didn't expect every little thing to go smoothly every second. But he did expect them at least to go.
This particular day was turning into one that would try the patience of a saint. Not even his mother would call Sam Horne a saint.
His crew had set up to do some filming in Fredericksburg, but the only thing they'd accomplished was to push Sam's level of tolerance over the edge as there was one delay after the other. The weather was part of the problem. Although the battle of Fredericksburg had taken place the thirteenth of December in 1862, Sam needed every day in November with decent lighting he could get if he was going to stay on schedule. The lighting this day had been erratic at best.
From his position next to the main camera, Sam glanced up at the sky and scowled at the dark clouds rapidly filling it. Mother Nature wasn't cooperating.
Another woman, he groused silently. It figured.
Instead of having three hours of light left to work with, it looked like he had maybe thirty minutes before the sunlight would be replaced entirely by overcast skies.
Pure unadulterated stubbornness kept Sam from ordering the crew to pack it in. After all, the actors and the production crew were all getting paid for a full day's work. He wanted at least a few minutes of film to show for it.
His original plan when he'd set out from the hotel that morning had been to film various background shots depicting the Civil War era. At the moment two male actors and one female actor dressed in mid-nineteenth-century costumes were positioned in front of the Hugh Mercer Apothecary Shop in the picturesque Old Town section of Fredericksburg. Sam had planned to move down the street to include F. Kennedy's Mill House, but they wouldn't have enough time now.
Setting up a shot in public had its drawbacks, mainly curious onlookers and the occasional sidewalk critic who had a suggestion or two to make. Due to a bureaucratic mix-up with a city permit, the police hadn't been allowed to eliminate vehicle traffic completely from the intersection of Caroline and Amelia streets until an hour ago. Pedestrians were controlled by wooden barriers and polite but firm warning signs, reinforced by private security guards at certain key places, but it had been a difficult challenge to prohibit both foot and vehicular traffic on the brick streets.
Old Town Fredericksburg with its quaint specialty shops was popular at any time of the year. The cool November air didn't discourage the career shopaholic or the avid tourist who was determined not to miss a single attraction. Civil War scholars and students of all ages flocked to the battleground outside of town every day of the year and ventured into Old Town as part of their visit.
The sights of Fredericksburg, though, couldn't compete with a film crew at work.
Sam was aware of the crowds gathered behind the barriers, but he wasn't intimidated by their presence. Most of the time he ignored them. Like the technical problems and delays that inevitably cropped up when filming, Sam accepted the audience as part of the business of making documentary films—as long as they didn't interfere.
He turned to Darren, who as usual was standing nearby. The tall New Yorker was Sam's right hand, his sounding board, his trusted adviser, and on occasion his conscience.
"Don't say it," Sam muttered.
"Who me?" Darren put one hand on his chest, pretending to be mortally wounded. "I'm not the sort of person to continually remind you that we would be able to film the good stuff first if you had consented to have a backup location if Maddox Hill didn't work out."
"I'm so glad you're above that type of petty behavior, Darren. You might get your way yet if I can't convince Miss Southern to let us use her plantation."
"Which would be another delay while we start all over searching for another location. Why don't you just take hundred-dollar bills and throw them up in the air? It will be faster."
"Let's play filmmaker instead and get what we can before the light disappears completely."
Looking past Sam, Darren drawled, "Unless you plan on rewriting history by having Little Red Riding Hood involved in the War Between the States, you might want to hold off for a few more minutes."
Sam grinned. "You shouldn't have had all that coffee with your sandwich for lunch. The caffeine's rotted your brain cells. Red Riding Hood wasn't at the battle of Fredericksburg."
"Maybe not, but she's making an appearance in your shot." Darren jerked his head at something to Sam's right. "See for yourself. She just sneaked through the barrier with a basket of goodies to take to Grandma's house."
Humoring his friend, Sam glanced around, then did a double take. A woman carrying a white wicker basket was casually walking along the brick street, directly in front of the costumed actors. She was wearing a bright red jacket that fell to midthigh and had a folded hood lying on the back of her shoulders.
If the woman noticed that the clothes worn by the three people near the apothecary shop were about a hundred years out of date, she didn't appear to think they were unusual. She glanced their way, then returned her attention to the street in front of her.
"Hey, lady!" Sam yelled at her. "Take a different route to Grandma's house. You're in the way."
She obviously heard him. Anyone within a block radius would have. Sam's deep voice had a resonance that carried a fair distance without the aid of a loudspeaker.
The woman in the red hooded coat looked in his direction, her glance brushing over Sam and the five other men clustered beside the camera aimed at the shop. She either didn't think the peculiar shouted message had been directed at her, or she didn't care. She kept walking.
"Dammit, Red! Where the hell do you think you're going?"
He had been referring to the jacket she wore, but she apparently had heard the nickname before for a different reason. As she turned her head toward him again the bright lights from one of the panels aimed at the actors glinted in the auburn strands that brightened her brown hair.
She stopped and glared at him. "Are you yelling at me?"
He clamped his hands on his hips. "Do you see anybody else who's blocking our shot?"
Her gaze shifted to the camera, then around to the trio in period costume. Bringing her gaze back to slam into his, she said, "So take your picture. I'm not in the line of fire."
"It's a wide-angle lens. Trust me, you're in the shot. Move sometime today, Red. We're not getting any younger, and daylight, what there is of it, is fading fast."
"The last time I read the paper, this was still a free country. Save your Big Bad Wolf act for someone else."
Sam's mouth quirked at her retort, although humor wasn't the emotion he was trying to get across to the woman. His amusement deepened when he saw her stiffen as she caught a glimpse of his mocking smile.
She gave him a blistering look that would have singed his skin if he had been standing closer. Lifting her chin defiantly, she started walking again to the other side of the street, ignoring him once more.
Unfortunately, the route she chose meant she would still be in the way of filming.
Sam's hands on his hips became fists as he glared at her. "Red, you're really beginning to annoy me. What do you think you're doing?"
Giving him a cool look over her shoulder, she said casually, "I believe it's called walking."
"Cute. Real cute," he snapped. "Now get your sweet little tush out of the way."
She bristled like a cat. "I'm not in your way, and leave my tush out of this."
"The hell you aren't," he growled. The frustrations of the day and the disappointing results of his last phone conversation with a local lawyer centered on the only outlet he had at the moment. Her.
"Can't you see we're trying to film a scene here? Can't you go around us?"
She stopped walking again and gestured with her hand as she spoke with exaggerated patience, as though he were brain-dead. "I'm here. My car is over there. The shortest distance between those two points is where I'm walking. If you would stop yelling at me, I will march my sweet little tush to my car and drive away."
"Dammit, Red! We're losing the light."
She looked down an exquisitely shaped nose and drawled, "You're losing your mind."
Sam heard Darren chuckle and gave his partner a quelling glance that only made Darren laugh outright. Sam jerked his head around to the woman, more determined than ever to accomplish something that day. Even if it was just to get rid of the nuisance the woman had become.
When he turned to look at her again, he was just in time to see her trip on one of the thick cables strung across the intersection to the panel of lights.
Sam was moving before he even thought about it. He was only a couple of feet away from her when she lost her balance and went down onto one knee. The basket fell out of her hand, some of its contents spilling onto the brick street. Asphalt was nasty enough to fall on. The rough edges of the bricks could do much more damage to soft skin.
And her skin looked especially soft, he noted.
"Are you all right?" he asked as he bent over her.
"I've had more fun at the dentist," she grumbled. She examined her knee. The skin was scratched and raw in a patch the size of a walnut. "Aside from needing a new pair of panty hose, I'll live. Go back to your picture taking. I should be out of range by now. I'll just crawl away."
Sam reached for her arm and became even more irritated with her when she pulled away from him.
"Don't be so damn stubborn, Red. Let me help you up."
She shook her head. "I need to pick up the stuff that spilled out when I fell. If it will ease your conscience, you can help me gather everything back into the basket."
It took a lot to surprise Sam, but this woman managed to accomplish that feat with remarkable ease. "Lady, you must have bumped your head when you fell. I don't feel one bit guilty about you falling, because it wasn't my fault. You weren't watching where you were going, which seems to be your usual operating procedure."
"I've walked across this street hundreds of times. Cables and wires aren't usually part of it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they belong to you?"
Sam wasn't paying that much attention to what she was saying. For some ridiculous reason, he was staring at her lips, fascinated by the way they moved to form her words. What he considered really dumb was that he was wondering how those lips would taste.
Giving himself a mental shake, he muttered, "Perhaps if we put flashing neon lights on the cables, you might see them next time."
Brett Southern smiled as she watched the bad-tempered, dark-haired man bend down and reach for a small plastic item near his foot. The baby rattle looked tiny in comparison with his large masculine hand. But then, he was a rather impressive man altogether, she reflected. He also had the ego to go with his size, considering he gave orders like a drill sergeant and expected to be instantly obeyed.
She set the basket upright and began piling the contents back into it. As she replaced them she was relieved to see that the only item in need of repair was her panty hose. All the candy lollipops had somehow survived. Even the blue-and-pink ribbon was still tied to the basket's handle in its complicated bow.
Once every item had been retrieved, Brett stood up. The man did too. He held a small container of baby powder in his
hand, but he didn't immediately give it to her. He was looking at her with a strange expression on his face.
She felt her breath catch in her throat as she met his intense gaze. She'd never seen eyes quite like his before. They were a light brown, like doeskin. The color of his eyes was the only feature of his that could qualify as being soft, however. The way he held his head and lean body reminded her more of a proud stag accustomed to authority, ready to challenge anything or anyone that might have the nerve to cross his path.
Growing uncomfortable under his stare, she lifted her chin. "Are you going to give me that baby powder or do you need it?"
He blinked, shook his head, and handed her the container. "When's the baby due?"
She gaped at him. "What baby?"
He jerked his head toward the basket looped over her arm, brimming once again with pink and blue baby items, then in the general vicinity of her stomach, which was covered by her red jacket.
Frowning, he said, "Maybe you should get checked out by your doctor. You might have jarred something loose when you fell."
Good Lord, he thought she was pregnant. She bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing out loud.
When she'd left her shop a few minutes ago, she'd wanted something to take her mind off her meeting later with her attorney. She'd gotten her wish. The man who'd started yelling at her from the moment she'd stepped off the curb was providing entertainment of a sort, even though she was sure that wasn't his intention.
"Nothing was damaged, bruised, or jarred loose," she said soothingly. "You don't need to worry that I'll sue you."
"Sue me?" he exploded. "Lady, you are certifiable. It wasn't my fault you weren't watching where you were going."
The voice of reason interjected from a few feet behind him, calling Sam's name. Turning, Sam saw Darren was struggling to keep a straight face.
"If we're going to get anything on film today, we'd better get to it, Sam. Those clouds are really rolling in. We have maybe ten, fifteen minutes left of decent light."
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