Belle Pointe

by Karen Young

  “I could have. I should have.” She dropped her gaze, unable to meet his concerned gaze. Unwilling to explain the urgency that drove her to try and find her birth parents. She felt ashamed and guilty, but even now she knew deep down that she would not quit.

  “I need to talk to Melvin Sykes about the fire,” Franklin told her. “Beatrice, why don’t you take Anne back to the house in our car? I don’t know how long I’ll be here tonight.”

  “I’ll take her,” Buck said. “There’s something we need to talk about. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll drop her at your house later…” His gaze moved to Anne. “That is, if you don’t have a problem with that plan.”

  Beatrice spoke before Anne could. “That’s good. That’s fine. I’ll just check on Paige before I leave. That girl has a lot of explaining to do.” Unable to resist, she gave Anne another heartfelt hug, kissed her on the cheek and reluctantly let her go. “I love you, Anne.”

  As Anne hesitated, looking into her stepmother’s eyes, Buck caught her elbow. “My car’s there,” he said, already steering her away. “Next to yours. Is it okay to go to the lodge?”

  Her chin went up and her voice was as cool as his attitude as she freed her elbow. “I’ve been scolded enough for coming here alone tonight,” she warned, primed to resist.

  He held up both hands. “No scolding.”

  She gave him a narrow-eyed look. She had been far too happy to learn he’d been looking for her, but his curtness since rescuing her was a chilly reminder that for the past two weeks he’d avoided her. “Can whatever you want to say be done without throwing in a lecture as to how foolish I am…”

  “No lectures.” Hands still up, he added, “I promise.”

  It was her call. Without another word, she got in the car.

  They were well on the way to the lodge when he turned to look at her. “Are you really all right?”

  “My throat is a little raw from inhaling smoke, but other than that, I’m fine.”

  “I’ve got some Gatorade in the fridge at the lodge. Drinking that’ll probably help.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “No wine.”

  “I’ll try to make it through the night without it.” She gazed straight ahead.

  “There’s something else a lot better than wine to help both of us make it through the night.”

  She turned to look at him. “I thought you had something urgent to talk to me about.”

  “Getting you in the sack is urgent to me.”

  “Buck—”

  “Just kidding. Well, I’m not kidding, but it’s hard not to make a pass when we’re alone together and it’s midnight.”

  “Just tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “Let’s get to the lodge, then we’ll talk.”

  A brief glance at the set of his jaw and she let it go. As she forced herself to concentrate on the look of the dark world outside, all she wanted was to move over and be close to him. To be warmed by his body. To be comforted by his strength. She was still shaken by how close she’d come to losing her life in that basement tonight and how sad it would have been because she and Buck were barely speaking. While she struggled in panic and fear trying to save Paige and herself, she had known a deep, despairing regret that she would miss living out her life with Buck. The thought had filled her with anguish.

  “Where’s the damn laptop?” Buck asked as he made the turn that led up to the lodge.

  “What?”

  “Your laptop. Isn’t that why you went back tonight?”

  “Oh. Yes.” She lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know. I forgot all about it when I got inside and realized there was a fire.” She pushed back her tousled hair and caught the smoky scent. “Ugh, my hair smells like smoke. I need a shower.”

  “Not a problem. I think I can find a clean T-shirt.”

  Her mind veered away from the thought of being naked in the shower with Buck nearby. “I hope Paige doesn’t have a concussion.”

  He pulled up at the lodge and cut the engine. “I’d be surprised if she did. I’ve had a few and she was way too sassy.”

  Fumbling at the unfamiliar door handle, she got it open before he reached her side of the SUV, but he was there to catch her on the long step down to the ground. That was the trouble with these huge gas hogs, no ordinary woman could exit an SUV gracefully. They were made for men, tall men.

  She drew a shaky breath as she felt him brush a kiss to her temple. It was silly, but she felt the quick start of tears in her eyes and her throat went tight. Now that she was standing so close to him, she gave up the battle. Slipping her arms around his waist, she buried her face in his chest. “I was so scared,” she admitted in a whisper. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  For a minute he was silent, holding her tight. “I almost had a heart attack when I knew you were inside and all I could see was a solid wall of smoke.”

  “I couldn’t even remember the reasons I had for leaving you.”

  “I can help you out there.” With her body molded to his, he smiled against her temple. “I’m grumpy, moody, egotistical and I cuss too much.”

  “And pigheaded with a bad attitude.”

  He laughed, low and rough, tickling her ear. “Okay, as nice as it feels standing here, we still have to climb those freakin’ porch steps.” Giving her a final hug, he turned, settled his arm around her waist and started the climb.

  It was slow going. Buck’s knee had been sorely abused and as much as he hated it, he needed to lean a little on Anne to make it to the top.

  “Ty’s not going to be happy when he looks at that knee tomorrow,” she predicted, as he unlocked the door.

  “I get a break. He’s not coming tomorrow. He’s at some kind of seminar in Memphis for two days.” He reached for one of several canes in a tall umbrella stand just inside the door. “By the time he gets back, it’ll be okay.”

  Anne wrapped her arms around herself. “What did you want to talk to me about, Buck?”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute, just looked at her. Then, using the cane, he pushed away from the door and headed to the kitchen. “Let’s get you that drink, then we can talk in the den.” He made a motion toward the fridge, but she stopped him, knowing he needed to get off his knee.

  “I’ll do it. Why don’t you get settled someplace that’s comfortable?”

  “I’m okay.” He propped against the door facing and watched while she filled a glass with ice before pouring the bright yellow-green drink.

  “I hope this isn’t as vile tasting as it looks,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  “We must have had gallons of that stuff on hand at home,” he said with surprise. “You’ve never tasted it?”

  “No. I’m not the one who needs electrolytes. You’re the athlete.”

  “Yeah. C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  In the great room, she watched him ease down on the leather couch and reach to drag over a large ottoman as a prop for his leg. She picked up a cushion and offered it to him. Although he tried to conceal it, she saw a flash of pain on his face as he elevated his knee on the cushion. She recognized the act: grit the teeth and bear the pain. No whining.

  Shaking her head, she set her own drink on the coffee table and walked into his bedroom, going straight to the bathroom medicine chest. Scanning the contents, she found one narcotic for pain, but she knew he wouldn’t take that since he hadn’t yet gotten around to telling her what he wanted to say. Since he was having trouble spitting it out, it couldn’t be good news. As she shook four tablets from a bottle of ordinary aspirin, her hands were unsteady, a dead giveaway that she was nervous, too. Whatever it was, the good news was that he wanted to share it with her.

  Eighteen

  When she returned bearing aspirin and a bottle of water, he was stretched out on the couch with his knee elevated. Without even a grunt of protest, he took the aspirin, tossed all four back at once and washed them down. “Thanks.”

  She reclaimed her own
drink, which wasn’t as bad as she feared, and sat on the edge of the ottoman facing him. “Last chance,” she said. “Talk to me.”

  “The hell of it is I don’t know how to say this. There’s no way I can make it sound anything but dreadful.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure.” He raked a hand through his hair, looking trapped. She knew only his bum knee kept him from jumping up to pace. “Pearce came over last night. It was late. He’s made it plain he wants me to get active in his campaign, but I’ve been dodging him. Except for the sessions with Ty for physical therapy, I’m up at daylight and on my way to Belle Pointe and I don’t get back until late. On purpose. He tries calling my cell, but when I see it’s Pearce, I just don’t answer.”

  “Why are you so reluctant to tell him you aren’t going to support him?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. It sounds dumb, doesn’t it? Or spineless. I guess it’s family loyalty, something bred in me, in all us Whitakers. By not supporting Pearce, he—and my mother—would see it as out-and-out betrayal.” He rubbed the back of his neck wearily. “The thing is, I know Jack Breed-love, and not Pearce, will be the better representative for the people in this area.”

  “I agree.”

  He sent her another quick sidelong glance. “By the way, did you see the way Jack looked at Claire tonight?”

  “Like he wanted to grab her and disappear? Yes, I saw it. What’s more, I think Claire would fall back in love with Jack in a heartbeat. I don’t think she ever really got over that teenage love affair all those years ago, Buck.”

  “Seems like Jack didn’t either. My God, what a Pandora’s box if they aren’t careful. She’s a married woman, Anne,” he said, frowning.

  “An unhappy married woman,” Anne said.

  “With a drinking problem. Talk about a recipe for disaster.”

  Anne settled in the corner of the couch. “She’s sober right now, two weeks and counting.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She dropped in at the Spectator today to talk about Paige’s new and better attitude. She wanted to thank me, claiming I had something to do with it, which I doubt. Paige’s turnaround makes a lot more sense to me when Claire mentioned she’d quit drinking and had joined AA the day after that awful Sunday-night dinner at Belle Pointe.”

  He did a double take. “Alcoholics Anonymous? No kidding?”

  “I don’t think I’m betraying a confidence telling you. She said Pearce planned to lock her away in some rehab facility to keep her from embarrassing him, but she’s not going to let him.” Anne took another sip of the sports drink, made a face and gave it up. “It’s not Jack and Claire you wanted to talk about, is it?”

  “No. Pearce wanted to know what you were really up to by fooling around in the archives. He’s worried about what you’ll find and possibly misconstrue.”

  “Then there must be something to be found, because that’s essentially the same thing his mother said when she tried to warn me off.”

  He studied the label on the water bottle. “Finally he got around to asking if you’d found an account of the hunting accident.”

  “I can see why he wouldn’t want people to be reminded of any tragedy with his name attached. But it was ruled an accident and accidents happen. Voters are pretty forgiving about stuff like that.”

  “I think I’m the wild card in this,” Buck said, setting the bottle aside. “Since I didn’t tell everything I should have when the accident happened, he’s afraid I might decide to talk now, maybe tell you.” With a lift of one shoulder, he met her eyes. “Especially since I won’t endorse him in this campaign.”

  Anne was frowning, still confused. “So you wanted to bring me out here to say…what? That Pearce is antsy about what I’ll dig up and possibly reveal in another article? He wants you to tell me to stop?” Her face changed as the answer came. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re supposed to tell me to find some other way to pass the time while I’m in Tallulah. What did you have in mind, Buck? That I should take up quilting? Or pottery? Maybe learn to make organic soap? Or hey, I could start clerking in my stepmother’s store.”

  Now it was Anne who felt a compulsion to spring up and pace. Instead, she took in a calming breath. “Read my lips, Buck. Nobody’s going to keep me away from my job as a journalist or those archives.”

  Buck turned his head and looked out the pitch dark window. A long, long minute passed. Finally, releasing a tired breath, he said simply, “I wish.”

  “You wish?” She gave a ladylike snort. “You wish? Well, make another wish because no matter what you say, I’m sticking!”

  Heedless of his knee, he shifted on the couch to be able to face her squarely. “I wish you had it right in everything you said because that would make it so simple. And ordinary. What I suspect is a lot worse.” He paused, looking away. “I went over to Franklin’s house tonight to tell you that you needed to be careful poking around in those archives. I was going to ask you to be discreet in discussing what you found, and not because I worried over you misconstruing anything about the Whitakers or Pearce or…or anything personal. Frankly, I worried that Pearce seemed desperate enough to do…something.”

  He seemed to find it difficult to look her in the eye. “And whatever he did, it would be made to look like an accident.”

  “What are you saying?” Eyes wide, she pressed her fingers to her mouth. “Is Pearce the person who set the fire tonight? Did he do it to destroy the Spectator’s archives?”

  “Pearce is at a fund-raiser,” Buck reminded her in a flat voice.

  It was a minute before she got it. “Someone else did it for him?”

  “Considering what’s at stake, I think he’d get one of his stooges to do it.”

  “What if Paige had died?” She was horrified. “His own daughter.”

  “And my wife. He would have attended the funeral looking grief-stricken and made all the appropriate gestures of sympathy to Claire. And me.” Eyes closed, he leaned back against the couch. “He’s done it before.”

  Jim Bob Baker.

  Now Anne did get to her feet. Hugging her arms, she stood over him, struggling to take it all in. “And you know all this…how, Buck?”

  “I don’t know it. What I have are strong suspicions because of the way he reacted last night. I think what spooked him was that I asked about that remark Baker made about our mother.”

  “Something about getting what she deserved, wasn’t it?”

  Bucked turned his head on the couch to look at her. “‘If I talk, your mother’s going to get the punishment she deserves.’”

  “Do you know now what he was talking about?”

  “No, I don’t. Pearce claimed he didn’t remember anything like that. I told him I didn’t believe him, but he stuck with his original story. He went on about Baker gouging Belle Pointe in a contract to gin the cotton crop, same as he did all those years ago. But I don’t think Pearce would have killed him over something like that.”

  “Are you convinced now that he actually did murder him? You know what that means, Buck?”

  “I don’t know what to think. What I heard last night when he warned me about stirring up trouble for him was a definite threat. Then, just to be sure he had my attention, he threw in your name. Now, there’s a fire that would have destroyed the archives but for a stroke of luck. If I’d been fifteen minutes later, you and Paige—” He dropped his head in his hands. “My own brother. His young daughter. It’s just so freakin’ crazy!”

  “It’s criminal, Buck. You have to go to Jack Breedlove.”

  He lifted his head and met her eyes. “And tell him what? I don’t have a shred of proof, only suspicion. And they’re political opponents. What if I’m wrong? It would destroy Pearce’s candidacy. I don’t want him to win, but I don’t want to be the one to bring about his destruction. I have to get the facts and I have to do it on my own, Anne.”

  “Maybe your mother—” But she stopped, s
haking her head. “I can’t see her telling you anything that has even a remote possibility of damaging Pearce. You’re right, you’ll have to do it on your own.”

  “I was thinking I might get some help from you.”

  “Me? How could I help?”

  “As a journalist, you’re trained to look beyond the obvious. And there’s just nobody else I can trust.”

  “Thanks, I think,” she said dryly. “If you’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel and I’m all you’ve got to choose from, I guess I’ll do it.”

  Before she finished, he was sitting up straight looking at her in exasperation. “You once told me I didn’t trust you. I denied it then and now in telling you all this, I think I’m demonstrating the deepest kind of trust between a man and a woman and still you don’t like it.” For a second, silence stretched between them. And when he spoke again it was plain that he was baffled trying to please her. “I can’t win with you, Anne.”

  Her heart turned over at the bleak look of him. It dawned on her that their relationship had changed. Buck had changed. Somewhere along the way, with her pregnancy and miscarriage, her flight to Tallulah, his attempt to follow and bring her home, some subtle shift in power had occurred. Buck was more attuned to her needs, not so blindly focused on his own.

  She sat down close and reached out, cradling his jaw in one hand. He immediately covered it with his own. “We keep messing up, don’t we?” she said in a soft voice. “You trust me with a deep secret and I try to find some flaw in why you’d do that. I’m sorry.”

  He caught her hand and kissed her palm. “I’m just so tired of being without you. I’ve run out of ways to convince you to work with me to fix what’s wrong. We have to be together to do that. I don’t know why you can’t see it.”

  She sat silent and unmoving for a long minute, considering. “Okay.”

  He went still, eyes narrowed as they searched hers. “Okay…what?”

  “Okay, we’ll try to fix things and we’ll be together while we work on it.”

  He was still suspicious. “Can we sleep together?” He waited a beat, then said, “Oh, shit. Forget I said that. You’re not ready for that yet, are you?”