That Stubborn Yankee

by Carla Neggers

  His lanky frame became visible as he stiffly walked down the narrow, steep attic stairs. He was wearing jeans, a rumpled pale yellow cotton shirt that appeared to be buttoned up crooked and socks without shoes.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Beth demanded, not sure she really wanted to know.

  “Catching my breath. Want to give me a hand?”

  “No, dammit, I don’t want to give you a hand! I want you out of there—”

  “Beth, I can’t.”

  “What do you mean? Move it, Rockwood. I don’t like the idea of having strange men holed up in my attic. Now march.”

  He sighed. “I’ll need a hand.”

  “What, afraid my stairs will give out?”

  She grabbed his forearm and helped him down the stairs, even as she wondered about this helpless act. One thing Harlan Rockwood wasn’t was helpless.

  “Didn’t think all my working out was going to come in handy jerking my ex-husband around,” she grumbled, heaving him against the door jamb. “Honestly, Harlan. People are looking all over for you, and here you are—Harlan?”

  He couldn’t speak. She could see that. He had sagged against the doorjamb, wincing, as pale as death.

  “Oh, Harlan,” Beth breathed. “What now?”

  No longer fuming, she could see how his jaw and left eye were split and swollen. Coagulated blood and purple and yellow bruises marred his handsome, aristocratic face. He hadn’t shaved in several days, and his tawny hair stuck out in the wrong places.

  He was clearly in a great deal of pain. He held one arm across his abdomen and tried to smile. “It’s nothing serious.”

  “Are you going to be sick?”

  “No.”

  “The bathroom’s right behind you if you are.”

  “I know,” he said.

  She knew she sounded snappish and decidedly unsympathetic. Well, why not? If anyone had told her that morning that by nightfall she’d have fended off a private investigator, called her in-laws and hauled her ex-husband down her attic stairs, she’d have either taken the first plane out of Vermont or laughed herself into a padded cell.

  She recalled having nursed Harlan back to health after more than one good pummeling.

  As social as ever, he added, “I’ll be fine.”

  “Then go in and have a seat. I’d like to know what’s going on around here. My God, Harlan. If you didn’t already have a fat lip, I’d probably give you one. How long have you been upstairs?”

  “A couple of days.’’

  “A couple of days?”

  She gritted her teeth. No, she wouldn’t let Harlan get to her. If she had to put another thousand miles between him and herself, she would. She would sell Louie’s old place and move to Quebec. She’d...

  “I’m going crazy,” she muttered, watching Harlan limp to the couch. No, she wasn’t going to let him get to her. He was on her turf now, something he had managed to avoid throughout their marriage.

  Harlan eased himself onto the couch and patted the spaniel’s head. The tabby cat jumped up at once and curled up on his lap. Harlan scratched her ear.

  The squatter had obviously made a few friends in the past two days.

  “I want you out of my house,” Beth told him, deliberately not mincing words.

  He glanced up at her. “I’d like to explain.”

  “Nope. I’m not getting sucked into whatever mess you’re in. No way. You have your things upstairs, I assume? Allow me.”

  Ignoring his pain-wracked cough, Beth climbed the stairs to the attic. A naked bulb threw seventy-five watts of light into the center of the large, unheated room. Two eyebrow windows brought in little light, even in the daytime.

  Harlan had apparently managed to transform ten square feet under the light bulb into serviceable living quarters. Beth’s old sleeping bag was spread out on a twin-sized mattress she had stored. A footlocker served as a table. One of Louie’s cast-off metal lawn-chairs sat in the best light, with Beth’s copy of Scaramouche hanging open over the arm. Harlan had set one of her pottery plates on the floor, and an empty Chinese food container stood next to it. There was the empty bottle of her last beer! Presumably he’d remembered that whatever went into their refrigerator never came out again in recognizable form.

  His leather suitcase lay open at the end of his makeshift bed, everything in it neatly packed. Beth closed it and hauled it downstairs.

  She plunked it at his feet.

  He sighed. “You have no idea what it cost me to get that thing upstairs.”

  “Missed your valet, did you?”

  “Beth, you know I don’t have a valet.”

  While she’d been upstairs, he had gotten ice for his face, wrapped it in a plastic bag and applied it to his swollen eye.

  Beth didn’t give him any sympathy. “If you’ve been here a couple of days, you must be on the mend. I can have your bag sent, if you can’t carry it.”

  “How charitable,” he said dryly.

  “It’s the best you’re going to get from me.”

  “You’d throw an injured man out into the cold, cruel night?”

  “It’s not cold, and about the cruelest thing out there is a sleeping chicken. Besides, you, Harlan Rockwood, aren’t just any injured man. You’re my ex-husband—a sneak.” She clenched her fists at her sides, the shock of seeing him wearing off and the full measure of his effrontery sinking in. “I want you out of my house.”

  He kept the ice on his blackened eye. “You’re overreacting.”

  “That’s what a man says when he knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.” She jerked her thumb toward the front door. “Out.”

  He didn’t move, and Beth was reminded that Harlan Rockwood had never done anything in his life he didn’t want to do. When it suited him, he could be remarkably single-minded. “It hurts to walk,” he said.

  Beth was unmoved. “I’ll help you.”

  “I’d collapse before I made it out of your driveway.”

  “Then I’ll scrape you up in the morning.”

  He half smiled. “You talk a tough game, Beth darlin’.”

  “Don’t you Beth darlin’ me. Harlan, I’m not kidding. Look at it this way, you have a better chance of staying alive out in the cold, cruel night than you do staying in here with me.”

  “Classic hyperbole,” he said dismissively. ‘The last two days, your various critters around here and I have been talking, and we agree that for all your talk about skewers and stewpots and whatnot, at heart you’re a big softie.”

  Being called hard-hearted would have offended her less than being called a big softie. Harlan knew that. She crossed her arms over her chest and assumed a grim expression—the one she used when her dogs and cats assumed they had equal access to her counters.

  Harlan didn’t exactly run for the door. Calmly and deliberately, he removed the ice from his eye and gazed at his ex-wife. He didn’t say a word. He had wonderful eyes, even when they were rimmed with black and blue bruises. Nine years had added sprays of lines at their corners, but had not lessened their spark and vitality. They were emerald green, darker around the irises. Eyes that had once seemed capable of penetrating to her very soul.

  “Give me until morning,” he said softly, all wry-ness gone. “Then I’ll be out of your way.”

  Beth didn’t want to give him another five minutes, never mind until morning. It wasn’t a question of being hard-hearted. It was a question of self-preservation, of maintaining the precarious and treasured balance she had established in her life. Already it was teetering. She had been thinking far too much about Harlan Rockwood these past weeks. By morning he could be back under her skin. Then what?

  “You don’t have a good effect on my life, you know,” she admitted.

  “Sorry.”

  He wasn’t sorry. He loved it, she knew. Back in Nashville all those years ago, he had relished stirring up her life. She was the nose-to-the-grindstone Yankee; he was the easy-going southerner. Of course, it wasn’t that simple
. Nothing ever was. Intelligent, athletic and scion of a family that had ventured down the Cumberland River deep into Tennessee with the Robertsons and Donelsons, Harlan Rockwood often fooled people with his deceptively easygoing manner. It had taken a while for even Beth to realize he was every inch a Rockwood.

  Looking at his swollen, blackened eye and his bruised and bloodied jaw, she knew she couldn’t kick him out into the night.

  “All right.” She could hear the surrender in her voice. “You can stay the night. I want you out of here by 7:00 a.m. Don’t talk to me. Go on back upstairs, and I’ll pretend you’re not here.”

  “I thought you wanted an explanation,” he said mildly.

  “Changed my mind.” She spun around, headed for the kitchen and dug around on top of the refrigerator for a bottle of aspirin. She returned with it and a glass of water to the great room and handed them to Harlan. “There. Don’t think I’m hard-hearted.”

  “I don’t have to think it, I know it.” But he took the water and aspirin. “Going upstairs hurts even more than coming down.”

  “Should have thought of that before you snuck into my house.”

  “I didn’t sneak in. The door was unlocked.”

  “Because there isn’t a lock. I can assure you there will be one by noon tomorrow.”

  “You’re peeved because I pulled one over on you. I’ve had the run of your place for two days and you didn’t even know it.” Some of the old fire blazed in his eyes. “That galls you, doesn’t it?”

  “Not really.” Harlan Rockwood couldn’t put her over the edge, not anymore. “I’ve been putting in long hours at the mill. I know that hard work can make a person too tired to notice somebody creeping around in their attic.”

  “Call that an attic, do you? Feels more like a hayloft. It’s a comfortable little place you’ve got here.” He stretched out his long legs, obviously disinclined to move. “Except for your tub. I tried the shower, but nearly froze before I realized there was no hot water. So I followed your lead and tried that galvanized wash tub of yours. I don’t fit in it as well as you do.”

  “You spied on me?” Beth asked hollowly.

  “Didn’t mean to. There’s this little hole above the kitchen, next to the old chimney. I heard this racket— kettles whistling, dogs barking, scuffing and slamming—and thought I’d better investigate. There you were, easing yourself into a washtub of suds.”

  Beth just managed to keep herself from going after him with her poker. “Upstairs or out of here. Now, Harlan. I don’t want to know anything. I...” She inhaled deeply, trying to control herself. “Up or out.”

  “As you wish.”

  He slowly climbed to his feet, appearing, if possible, even more worn and battered than before. A boxer in college and law school, he had endured his share of beatings. That had been a long time ago. Now Harlan Rockwood was closing in on forty and the owner of world-renowned thoroughbred stables. After all, what did she know about him anymore?

  He was a stranger.

  She reddened at the thought of having this man— this stranger—peering down at her in her washtub in the middle of her sagging kitchen floor. Thank heaven for all those weeks of conditioning! She was trim and solid, and even if Harlan had seen her naked, it couldn’t have been that sorry a sight.

  Small comfort that was.

  “You can make it upstairs without my help,” she declared. “If you’ve been prowling through my cupboards for two days, you’ve managed before.”

  “Only because I knew you’d have just rolled me outside and let me rot like a dead cat if I’d collapsed.”

  “No. I bury dead cats.”

  To her annoyance, he grinned at her. ‘‘Your bark’s still bigger than your bite, Beth darlin’.”

  “Don’t count on it. You collapse and see what I do.”

  He hobbled to the attic door. Beth didn’t move as she listened to him mount the steep, narrow stairs.

  Then she heard a curse and the unmistakable sound of a lanky Tennessean tumbling down seven steps. Harlan groaned and cursed as he fell. Beth raced over to the base of the stairs.

  He was stretched out across several steps, still hanging on to the railing, which had become dislodged from the ancient wallboard. His gray color and the variety of curses coming from his oh, so proper mouth indicated he wasn’t faking. Picking her way through chunks of plaster and railing, she climbed the steps and crouched next to his chest.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  He managed to glare at her, a good sign. “No, dammit, I’m not all right!”

  “I withdraw the question.” He was clutching his chest. “Ribs?”

  He nodded painfully. “Think I cracked a couple.”

  “Right now?”

  “No—before.”

  Before. Someone had given Harlan Rockwood a good thrashing. Beth was thankful that he wasn’t planning to tell her who. She shuddered at the prospect of being drawn into Harlan’s troubles. Accidents didn’t happen to Harlan Rockwood, and he was never a victim. “Lucky you didn’t puncture a lung,”’ she said.

  “Trust you to put a pleasant spin on things.” He groaned as he tried to adjust his position, then gave up. “Give me a second to catch my breath....”

  “You should have told me you had cracked ribs. I’d have driven you to an inn instead of making you go back upstairs.”

  “Such a saint.”

  “Come on.” She looked for a spot to grab hold of to help him to his feet. There wasn’t a man alive whose body she’d known better than this one’s. “Let me give you a hand.”

  His pain-wracked gaze fastened on her without amusement. “Going to kick me the rest of the way downstairs?”

  “I might, if you don’t quit talking about me like I’m some kind of sadist.”

  He came close to a smile, even if it was a nasty one. “Florence Nightingale you aren’t.”

  He slung one long arm over her shoulder and pulled himself into a sitting position. He let go of the loosened railing. Harlan had always been remarkably stoic about physical injury. Staying crouched, they managed to get downstairs without further incident. Beth ignored his curses and tried to ignore the feel of his sinewy, male body against hers, focusing on the task at hand. I cannot get sucked back into this man’s world. I have got to send him packing.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Harlan removed his arm from Beth’s shoulder and made his way to the couch on his own. To her dismay, she had to admit that nine years had not diminished his raw sexuality. She’d just have to disregard it.

  His face pallid, he slumped back against the cushions and shut his eyes. “Why didn’t you just kill me?”

  She shrugged. “I figured quick and painful was better than slow and painful. Shall I call a doctor?”

  His eyes opened and fixed on her with seriousness. “No.”

  A chill went through Beth, and she looked again at her ex-husband’s battered face. “You’re in some kind of trouble, aren’t you?”

  He sighed.

  “Never mind.” Beth began to pace, folding her arms across her chest in a futile effort to ward off her anxiety. “I don’t want to know. I’ll do what I can to get you on your feet and out of here.”

  “I’m sorry.” He winced. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  Unable to stop herself, she asked softly, “Why did you?”

  He half smiled. “I’d had the hell beaten out of me. Where else would I go?”

  The hospital, the police and a hundred other places. He was attempting to charm her.

  Beth felt herself weakening.

  “If I can get my chest wrapped and rest a bit,” Harlan said, “I should be all right.”

  With brisk efficiency, Beth helped him off with his shirt, which could have used a spin through a washing machine. She tried not to dwell on the dried blood on the collar and sleeve.

  “Sure you didn’t just get run over by a train?”

  Harlan didn’t answer. His breath was warm on her face as he sl
ipped off his shirt, blanching in pain. He wore no undershirt. His chest and shoulder muscles were more developed than Beth remembered. She attempted to regard him impersonally, but couldn’t. Objectivity for her where Harlan Rockwood was concerned was impossible—and a primary reason why she had never gotten in touch with him after their divorce. With no children, they had easily gone their separate ways. Had to stay separate and whole and get on with their lives.

  If she had tried to stay in touch, maintaining the illusion of an amiable parting, they’d have kept on landing in bed together. How could she ever have fashioned a new life for herself tied, however tenuously, to her former husband?

  “I’ll see what I can find to wrap you with.” She jumped to her feet, glad to put herself at a safer distance from him.

  Given her zest for physical fitness, she had a drawer full of various sizes of Ace bandages. She grabbed three and returned to Harlan, half wishing he had been an apparition and had vanished. There he was, stretched on her couch, battered, beaten and impossibly sexy. A good thing he had cracked ribs. Without them, they might: have ended up together in her iron bed.

  Unexpectedly, Harlan was all business. ‘Tell me about your visit from Jimmy Sessoms,” he said as Beth briskly began wrapping his chest.

  “You didn’t eavesdrop?”

  “Tried, but I didn’t want to risk moving, in case either of you heard me upstairs. If you’d taken him in here instead of the kitchen, I’d have heard more.”

  “I’ll remember that next time,” she said sarcastically.

  Since there was no reason not to, Beth repeated her conversations with Jimmy Sessoms and with Eleanor and Taylor Rockwood.

  When she finished wrapping and talking, she sat back on the floor. Harlan looked thoroughly absorbed by his thoughts. Beth yawned. It was getting late, and she had to be at the mill early in the morning. How much did she want to know about the trouble Harlan was in?

  How much did she need to know?