Spike turned on him. “You’d be surprised how much help it can be. It wasn’t a local paper, or one for New Orleans. I wish we had the one Doll saw in Wade’s drawer. He paid up before he left, by the way. Left the money with Wally and said he’d been called away unexpectedly. At least we can rule out Charles Penn.”
“We can probably rule out Jim Wade, too,” Guy said. “I don’t know his deal with the photographs, but he’s been traced to San Francisco. He’s a P.I. And he’s also left the country.”
33
Time had about run out.
Paul looked at Cerise, sleeping facedown beside him, and then at his watch. He needed to get out of here, but he had not done what he came to do.
He sat up.
A line of pale light under the door came from the front windows of Cerise’s upstairs stockroom. He heard gusts of wind rattle the sashes. Yesterday they’d talked about expecting a big one to hit, but if it already had there would be a lot more noise.
Cerise rolled to her back and pulled herself up beside him. Even in the dimness he could see that her eyes were wide open. She had not been sleeping after all. “You’ve got something on your mind,” she said, running her fingers through the hair on his chest and down a still-healing mark she’d made on his arm. “I knew it when you got here.”
“You didn’t say anything,” he pointed out.
She sighed hugely and shifted, worked herself higher to prop her breasts on his naked torso. “I’m not stupid,” she told him. “Why would I risk an argument before we had sex? Anyway, I thought what we did would put you in a good mood.”
Paul slithered away from her. He put on the low-wattage lamp and searched out his clothes.
“Paul,” Cerise said in a wheedling voice. “It’s too early to get up.”
“You don’t have to. Go back to sleep.” He dressed rapidly and went into the tiny bathroom, where he shut the door and turned on the light over the sink.
Cold water felt good even if it didn’t improve his frame of mind. He cleaned his teeth, combed his hair, slapped on after-shave even though he didn’t have time to shave. Next he retrieved the white plastic bag he’d stashed under the sink the night before and slipped his toiletries inside.
He opened the door to find Cerise waiting for him.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “You’re taking your things. Why?”
“Okay.” He’d better manage this well. “Let’s talk.”
She didn’t move and he couldn’t get past her if she didn’t, not without knocking her aside.
“Let’s talk,” she repeated. “So talk.”
She had put on a white terry robe. Paul settled his hands on the rough material covering her shoulders and turned her away from him. He walked her forward. “Sit on the bed and be comfortable.”
“I don’t want to sit on the bed.” Cerise shrugged him off and spun to face him again. “Do you think I don’t know what the bag means? You don’t want to come back.”
“You’re going to make this hard, but I knew you would.”
“Make what hard, Paul? You haven’t told me a thing yet.”
He glanced at her breasts, mostly revealed in her gaping robe. She did have a body worth remembering. “I should have told you as soon as I got here but you made it impossible to concentrate. You were all over me and I’m only human.”
“Yes, you are. That’s what I like best about you.” She looked up at him through her lashes.
“It’s over between us.” Playing this game had been dangerous and a mistake. All he wanted was Jilly and he intended to have her.
Cerise raised her chin slowly and brushed her blond hair back with one hand. She actually turned the corners of her mouth up.
“Well,” Paul said, “evidently we’ve both come to the same conclusion. Thank God we’re grown-ups.”
Her hand, the palm open, landed so hard on the side of his face that his neck snapped to one side. The second blow came, to his ear, and this time he got her hard little knuckles.
“That’s enough.” He caught both of her wrists and she cried out. “Shut up. Now,” he told her.
“You think you can treat me like a nobody. Just use me for fucking practice then walk away when there’s something else you want. I’ve got news for you, Paul Nelson. If you insist on breaking off with me I’ll make you wish you were dead.”
He had asked her to meet him just outside of town to the south—on the overgrown track beside the bayou where a once-white wall marked the end of the Edwards property.
Jilly liked the early morning, the earlier the better, even on a day like this one when a storm brewed. She couldn’t have come later than five o’clock because pretty soon after that the work got crazy at All Tarted Up.
Paul had quite a trip to make from Rosebank, but he’d insisted they had to meet and sounded mysterious in a way that set Jilly’s heart jumping. There had also been excitement in his voice.
A rain-laced wind buffeted her. Cypress trees bent and swayed over the slick green surface of the water, and a sky of a duller green packed down on the landscape. It looked like the major bad weather they’d been threatened with for days would come. By the time she got back it would be a good idea to haul out the shutters.
She studied the wall, mostly grayish from damp and pocked with places where bits of stucco had fallen away. Algae grew in the wavery cracks. The long-empty mansion was in the middle of the property. She’d never been inside.
Her tummy flipped. It had flipped a lot of times since Paul’s call last night. Why pretend? She hoped, even expected him to ask her to marry him and she wanted to, more than she’d ever wanted anything. She loved him so. Her bloodlines seemed to please rather than concern him, which was a good thing since they pleased her, too. He told her how beautiful she was and that she wouldn’t be who she was, or look the way she did, if her father hadn’t had one piece of good judgment and married her mama.
She paced in the lee of the wall. He warned her he could be a little late.
His rooms at Rosebank were like Aladdin’s cave to Jilly. The first thing a person saw on going in was a big Chinese desk Vivian and her mother had found for him among the wealth of beautiful old antiques available in the house. The motley bookshelves placed around the walls sagged under the weight of books Paul stacked there. He had written a whole shelf of guidebooks himself, and his laptop and printer always stood ready amid a littering of papers and reference books.
Paul’s artistry, and it was artistry—just the way he explained what he did—bemused Jilly. She couldn’t imagine writing a book about anything. Paul, sweet man that he was, said she was a kitchen artist and she had a personal flair that showed her own artistry.
She heard him a moment before she saw him, wheeling his scooter along the path. He looked ahead at her and waved. “Hey, you,” he called out.
“Hey,” she shouted back.
“I love you,” he cried.
Tears welled in Jilly’s eyes. She folded her arms tightly across her middle, afraid to respond until she could speak without breaking down.
“Ever been in there?” he said, nodding toward the estate.
Jilly shook her head. She hardly trusted her voice.
“We should take a look sometime. I hear it could be beautiful.”
“Sure.”
Paul’s blond hair, thick and cut short, ruffled in the wind. He wore a green windbreaker that flattened to his strong, fit body, and muscular legs flexed inside his jeans when he leaned over and pushed the scooter. Jilly and Paul had taken the better part of two years to know each other well, but they had built a closeness that was worth every moment.
“Whew, this wind doesn’t make things easier,” he said, kicking out the stand for the scooter and leaning it close to the wall. Paul turned to her at once and caught her face between his hands. “Do you have any idea just how much I love you?”
Jilly pressed her trembling lips together and shook her head, because she wanted to hear him tell her.
He looked at her carefully. “Yellow is great on you, even if you should have a sweater or something on.” The way he looked at her sleeveless dress showed his appreciation—and turned her legs to jelly.
With her arms wrapped around his body, Jilly nestled into his neck and kissed him there. Paul seized her chin and lifted it. His lips crushed hers, parted hers, and she held on to him. He stroked her back, squeezed her bottom and pressed his solid arousal against her pelvis. Heat flushed through Jilly and she wanted to be elsewhere with him, alone.
“We’ve waited long enough,” Paul said. “I want us to be together.”
She buried her face in his windbreaker. They said there was someone for everyone and at last her man had come along.
Tree limbs whined and cracked and Paul held the two of them steady.
“I can’t stay long,” Jilly said. “I need to get the storm shutters up, just in case.”
“No, you don’t,” he told her. “I’ll do it.”
The feeling she had was like none other. She knew what he wanted to say and she was ready.
“Jilly?” Inclining his head, Paul looked at her closely, seriously. “The only way a relationship works is if there’s honesty. I want you to expect honesty from me and I already know I have yours.”
“You do.”
“I haven’t always been so smart, sweetheart, but I want to start fresh—from this day on. I’ve thought about this carefully and we could carry on without a word from me about something I’m not proud of, but we’ll be even closer if I’m completely open.”
Her stomach contracted and prickling climbed her spine. “You couldn’t do anything bad,” she said. “You don’t have it in you.”
“I have done something bad.” His big hands settled on her shoulders. “I’ve been an irresponsible fool and for all the wrong reasons. I’ve been afraid, Jilly. You’re a gentle woman and I decided you could be shocked if I let myself go with you.”
Jilly looked into his clear eyes. She didn’t know what he meant.
“You drive me wild,” he muttered. “The way you turn me on makes me want to…I want to do things with you that you might find too much. That scares me so I’ve held back. And if you tell me it’s what you want, I’ll always hold back. As long as you’re mine, I’ll learn to be what you want me to be.”
“I’m not a delicate flower,” she told him. “I don’t even know what you could do that I wouldn’t like.”
Holding her hands, he straightened and looked at her hard. Paul studied every inch of her until goose bumps rose on her skin.
“We’re good together,” he said quietly. “We’ll learn how to please each other even more. God, I want to take you away now.”
Jilly smiled up at him. “I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve been afraid to want it too badly.”
“You know I’m asking you to marry me?”
She knew, and if she were any happier she’d pop. “I want to,” she told him.
Gusts on the surface of the bayou broke the opaque water into choppy eddies. The sky should be brightening by now, but a muggy pall slid over everything, holding back the light.
“I said I’ve been a fool,” Paul said. He put an arm around her shoulders and held her close. “Let me get this off my chest so we can deal with it and move on.”
He sounded more serious than when he’d first arrived. She could deal with anything he was likely to tell her, Jilly thought.
She stroked his jaw. “Out with it. Tell me your wicked secret.”
“This isn’t funny,” he said, and his tone turned her cold. “I’ve been seeing Cerise.”
Jilly gripped his sleeve. “Seeing Cerise?”
“It wasn’t my idea. She chased me.”
She might be naive on occasion, but that was a line she’d heard before. “So you’ve been seeing both of us? At the same time?”
He cleared his throat. “Don’t say it like that. She never meant anything to me but…She threw herself at me. I was weak.”
“You slept with her,” Jilly said quietly. “That’s what you mean.”
“Yes. I wish I could take it back but I can’t.”
A deep sickness turned inside Jilly. She wanted to get away.
“Please believe me, sweets. It’s all over and I didn’t have to tell you but I had to. I owe you that. Jilly, I love you so much.”
She looked at him sharply. He sounded close to tears. “How long have you been sleeping with her?”
His face twisted. “A while.”
“How long?”
“Several months. There, now you know.”
“When was the last time?”
“No,” he said, almost moaning. “Leave it alone. Let us put it behind us. I don’t care about her. I’m guilty, guilty of using her. But she used me, too, and there never could be anything more between us.”
The weather grew wilder. Through blurred eyes, Jilly glanced at the gathering movement everywhere. “The last time?” she said.
Paul tried to hug her, but Jilly stood straight and as tall as she could. Her heart thundered.
“Last night,” he said through his teeth. “I went to do the right thing. To break it off like a gentleman, but it wasn’t that simple. She cried. She lashed out at me. I owed it to her to calm her down.”
“By making love to her,” she said flatly.
“This doesn’t have to be a drama. Stuff like this happens every day.”
“Not to me. You came to me from her, didn’t you? You spent the night there.”
He averted his face. “Yes. Do you think I feel good about that?”
“I’ve got to get back to the bakery.”
“You can’t leave me like this.” He grasped her hands. “Jilly, I messed up. A lot of people mess up. I made it worse by taking too long to deal with the problem.”
“She threatened you, didn’t she? She said she’d tell me your dirty secret so you decided you’d rush to me and get your version in first. Not a bad idea, I guess.”
“It isn’t,” he said, his expression clearing. “But it’s never a bad idea to come clean. I promise you that as long as I live I’ll never be unfaithful to you again. Jilly, will you marry me?”
Aghast, she closed her eyes.
“Open your eyes.” He sounded panicky. “Don’t treat me like a monster. I’m human, that’s all, but now I’ve come to my senses and I know you’re all I could ever want. Jilly, please.”
“You and Cerise must have talked about me. She knew you were seeing me while she was sleeping with you.”
“She knew, yes, but we didn’t talk about you.”
Her energy seeped away. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it doesn’t.” He released one of her hands to lift his jacket and reach into a pocket in his pants. In his hand he held a blue velvet box. “I showed this to Cyrus. I had to show someone and it couldn’t be you until the time was right. He thinks it’s lovely.”
He showed her a solitaire diamond that glittered white. Looking into her eyes, he took the ring and slid it onto her unresisting finger. “It’s happening, Jilly,” he said, his voice unsteady. “I’ve dreamed of this. I’ll be so good to you. So good for you. I know how much you love it here and I like it, too. We’ll buy a place we both like. I can work as well here as anywhere.”
“You said you were at Rosebank,” she said slowly.
“Last night? I was when I called you. Honestly. I left to deal with the other and it took longer than I expected.”
She was afraid she’d throw up. “Do you even know there was another attack on Ellie last night?”
His frown pulled his brows together. “No. Tell me.”
“A man tried to rape her.” She told him as much of the story as she could. “You’d have known all that if you hadn’t been with your lady friend. Maybe you’d even have been able to help.”
“Goddammit.” His eyes screwed up and he clenched his teeth. “I want to get my hands on the bastard. He’s a meddler, a m
enace. Hell, I made a big mistake and I’m sorry. But nobody else knows, and Cerise wouldn’t have the guts to let everyone know what kind of woman she is.”
“Too bad your finer feelings come and go,” Jilly said. “If you could have kept your zipper closed, you’d have known what happened to Ellie at the time.”
He hung his head. “My God. I didn’t speak to anyone after you so I didn’t know a thing.”
“You spoke to Cerise.”
“I’ve admitted that several times. Goddammit.” He released her and paced. “What’s the matter with the law? Between the cops and the sheriff’s office and everyone else they’ve got swarming around this town they should have had the guy several times over by now. No woman is safe here. It’s only a matter of time before he turns his sights elsewhere. I’m going to see the sheriff and have it out with him. I’ll let him know I’ll blow this thing wide open in the press if things don’t get better—now.”
Jilly couldn’t look at him.
“Did they get anything on him this time?” Paul asked. “Did Ellie see his face? Where was that brother of yours?”
“My brother’s name is Joe. He was at his own place last night. I don’t know why because it’s none of my business. You don’t seem to care, but Ellie’s doing okay. Really shaken up, but getting it together.”
“Yes, yes. Thank goodness for that.” He stopped in front of her and smiled. She could see that smile anytime she wanted to. All she had to do was think about his face. “Until this guy is caught, I don’t want you out of my sight. Maybe I never want you out of my sight. Let’s set a date.”
All my dreams come true. No, not this time, probably never. “I can’t accept this.” She took off the ring and held it out to him. “You can’t expect me to deal with everything you’ve told me and start planning a marriage at the same time.”
“I don’t want that. I bought it for you and I’ve got the wedding bands. You’ll love them.”
“Will you listen to me? I’m not going to say never, but if we can be together at all it’s going to take time. First I have to come to terms with what you’ve told me and think my way through it. Then I’ll be ready to decide.”
Still he ignored the ring and he grinned, his old, cocky grin. “Let’s be blunt. I can’t live without you and you can’t live without me. I’ve been an ass and I’m paying for it, but you aren’t the kind of woman who makes a man suffer on and on. Be honest with yourself. You want me and you’re excited about getting married. We’ll have a great life and I’m going to give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Let me put the ring back on you.”
Now You See Him Page 27