The Virgin and the Vengeful Groom

by Dixie Browning

  “Something else we have in common,” she murmured, pulling the plug at the foot of the tub.

  But Curt at least could remember his father. Remember the stories he’d told, anyway. Lily didn’t even know her father’s name. Worse, she was pretty sure her mother hadn’t known. She remembered asking once, after she’d learned that some kids had one father who lived with them all the time and hardly ever even hit them.

  Her mother had looked at her and started crying, and then whatsisface had come in and started yelling at her, and Lily had crept away to hide in her favorite hiding place with the sticky all-day sucker and a book she’d stolen from the library.

  “Lily! Wake up in there, we’ve got company.”

  Company. Oh, Lord, the sheriff. Curt’s cowboy boots.

  “Coming!” He probably needed to get in here, she thought, feeling guilty for trying to soak away this mess she’d got herself in. It was almost as if Bess had been egging her on, whispering “Go for it, girl!” Or the nineteenth-century equivalent.

  Lily was coming to know the woman almost too well. She knew, for instance, that after remaining a spinster for most of her life, Bess had married herself a husband. One Horace Bagby, Esquire. That last she intended to look up as soon as she got back to Norfolk, but she thought it meant he was a lawyer.

  “Lily?”

  “I said I’m coming!”

  Draped in a bath towel for lack of anything better, she hurried to her room and scrambled into the first thing she could lay hands on. Her hair was a tangled mess, and there were red patches on the side of her neck and one cheek, not to mention her breasts.

  When she emerged from the house, the three men were standing out beside Curt’s truck, the two uniformed deputies looking barely old enough to shave. Curt was wearing the khakis he’d been wearing before she’d practically torn them off his body, along with a faded denim shirt. All three men stood as if they were saluting the flag. Stiff, solemn.

  Curt waved her over, and she forced a smile, then thought better of it. They’d been robbed, after all. This was serious business. Only trouble was, she couldn’t seem to keep her mind on his lost cowboy boots when she had her own losses to deal with. Deep breath. Think of it as research. Weird things a writer might someday need to know.

  Such as the fact that deputy sheriffs didn’t sweat. Even with the sun down, the temperature was still in the high eighties. Not a bead of sweat in sight. Creases down the backs of their shirts and the front of their pants so sharp they had to have been preordained.

  Curt made the introductions. One of the men murmured acknowledgment, and the other one nodded solemnly.

  “Anything you want to add?” Curt asked her. He’d obviously taken a pain pill. She could usually tell, because the twin creases between his eyebrows weren’t quite as pronounced.

  “You told them about the boots? And the first time? The other night?”

  He nodded. She tried to ignore the speculation in the eyes of the two young men, but it was clear what they were thinking. Does she or doesn’t she? Has she or hasn’t she?

  She had. Although judging from Curt’s expressionless face, he’d already forgotten about it. Maybe the whole episode had been only one of her wilder flights of fancy. Except there was the soreness between her legs and a growing misery that felt sort of like the flu, only worse.

  One of the lawmen slapped a mosquito. The other one jotted down something on a small pad, then tore off the page and handed it to Curt. Seeing that they were about to leave, Lily turned away, resisting the urge to invite them in for a sandwich and a glass of iced tea. Anything to postpone the inevitable confrontation.

  The old house looked more desolate than ever in her present frame of mind. The least he could do was to plant a damned flower or something! “It’s not that he doesn’t care, Bess, he simply doesn’t know any better. His mama never taught him to appreciate the finer things of life.”

  She waited on the front porch, swatting mosquitoes, waving them out of her face, watching the man standing in the driveway. She’d never seen any man who looked so alone. She felt like crying, but instead she lifted her eyes and stared at the sky. Jupiter was rising, followed by tiny, distant Saturn. She knew because she had looked it up in a book on planets and constellations in an effort to learn how the wishing star myth had started. That had been for her second book, the one where she’d killed off nearly half a village and then made the chief of police fall in love with the prime suspect.

  She knew better now than to wish. Once upon a time she’d had a silver-plated spoon with the silver mostly worn off. She remembered sleeping with it, feeling safe as long as she could rub her thumb in the smooth bowl. Make a wish, Lily. Make a wish on the spoon, and it’ll come true.

  It never had, of course. She’d known better, even then, but she’d desperately needed something to cling to, and a magic spoon had seemed better than nothing.

  “You okay?” Curt had waited until the two men had driven off before heading back to the house.

  “Sure,” she replied, shrugging as if to prove it. Then she spoiled the effect by shivering.

  “Ah, honey, don’t do that.”

  “I’m not doing anything,” she snapped.

  He opened his arms, and she was tempted. More tempted than he would ever know. Fortunately, she had better sense. “I’m just hungry,” she snarled, ready to pick a fight. Anything was better than throwing herself at him and howling her heart out.

  His skeptical look said he wasn’t buying it, but he let her get away with it, all the same. “I guess we never got around to finishing supper, did we?”

  “No, I don’t believe we ever did,” she replied with saccharine sweetness. She could toss everything in her car and leave, or wait until tomorrow so that she could spend a little more time wallowing in humiliation, rejection and all those other rotten, nonproductive emotions.

  It was a no-brainer. She would do what she had always done, which was to stand tall, pretend like crazy and then go home and rewrite the script, giving herself a better part. Maybe she should’ve been an actress instead of a writer.

  “I’ll make more sandwiches.” Lily, in the role of gracious hostess.

  “Fine. I’ll pry loose enough ice cubes for your tea.”

  “By the way, I’m thinking of leaving tomorrow,” she said airily a few minutes later. After working side by side in silence, tossing together a makeshift meal, they had adjourned to the living room.

  Curt nodded and sipped his beer. He’d had three today. Two past his limit, especially when he was back on pain pills.

  She was leaving. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known it. Hell, he’d counted on it—it was the only reason he’d let her come here. He’d told himself he could handle anything for a limited time. He’d proved it too often for there to be any doubt in his mind.

  “So…if you’re sure you don’t want Bess’s novels, I might as well take them off your hands,” she said with a careless air that wasn’t at all convincing.

  “Sure. What about the diaries. You want those, too?”

  “I’ll take whatever you don’t want.” She took one bite of her sandwich and laid it aside.

  The trouble was he no longer knew what he wanted. He’d come to the island because he’d needed a place to hole up, recuperate and make up his mind whether to get out of the Navy and look for another line of work, or stay in and hold down a desk. He was in line for a promotion. His diving days might be over, but he still had a lot to offer.

  But somewhere along the line, things had changed. The parameters had shifted. Lily had happened. At this point he could lay it all on the table, the good and bad, including what had happened the last time he’d asked a woman to marry him—and try to make sense of what was happening now.

  Not that there was any comparison. He hadn’t even gotten that far with Lily. As for Alicia, he could no longer remember what the big attraction had been. He only knew that when he’d found out she was keeping score—that he was the fifth SEA
L scalp she’d nailed to her bedpost—he’d walked out. Dropped the diamond he’d been about to give her in the kitchen sink and switched on the disposal. A real class act all around.

  He cleared his throat. “Lily, listen, we need to—”

  When the phone rang at his side, he thought, Saved by the bell. A moment later he handed it to her. “It’s for you.”

  Lily hesitated. He could see the fear in her eyes. “No one knows where I am but Davonda and Doris—my agent and my housekeeper.”

  “It was a woman,” he said, and watched the relief come flooding back to her eyes.

  “Hello? Doris? What’s wrong, has something happened?”

  Curt listened unabashedly to the one-sided conversation, watching her expressive face. How could eyes so clear hide so many secrets? He could have sworn she was on the level, but then, he’d believed Alicia, too. From the first time he’d laid eyes on Lily, all dolled up like an admiral’s wife, she’d been pitching him curves. She used words he’d never even heard, and then tripped over terms that were common coinage. She wore pearls and sneakers with holes in the toes. She seemed perfectly content in an unpainted ruin in the middle of nowhere, with a refrigerator that held only two ice trays, yet according to the biography in the back of her books she lived in seclusion in a swank area in Virginia and traveled frequently abroad.

  The apartment he’d seen was adequate—even pleasant. Swank, it was not.

  What if everything she had told him about herself was a lie? The crack-baby story—all of it?

  He heard her say, “I’m so sorry—yes, I know, but—well, yes, of course. These things happen. Doris, are you sure you’re all right? Because you sound like something’s worrying you. Is it your feet? My plants?”

  Light from the overhead fixture shone down on her hair, giving it a look of polished mahogany. He could see his marks on her skin, and wished he’d taken the time to shave first. Next time he would.

  Next time, hell, there wouldn’t be a next time.

  “Problems?” he inquired when she handed him the phone. She was frowning.

  “I’m not sure,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ve lost my housekeeper.”

  “Hire another one.”

  “Doris and I were—that is, I thought we were friends.”

  “Even friends can retire.”

  “I never thought of her as old enough to retire. She has a son who lives at home—from a few things she’s said, I think he’s probably old enough to get a job and move out, but he won’t, so she really needs to work.”

  “Maybe she just doesn’t like working for a celebrity.”

  She gave him a look that was pure Lily. He’d come to expect them—even to provoke them. “You think I’m some kind of prima donna? Ha! Doris has never even read one of my books. I’ve given her autographed copies of every one I’ve ever written, even the paperbacks. She says she doesn’t have time to read, but I happen to know she reads every word of the Star and the Enquirer.”

  Their eyes met in shared amusement—one of those odd moments of intimacy that had nothing to do with sex. Curt heard himself saying, “I’m going to miss you.”

  She studied the frayed toe of one sneaker, seemingly unaffected, but he was on to her now. So he pushed his luck. “Why not hang around a few more days? I’ve got a guy coming next week to fence in the cemetery and straighten the tombstones. If that’s really Bess out there, I’m pretty sure she’d appreciate your, um…”

  “It’s Bess. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s her name on the stone—and the one that’s fallen over is probably Horace. I wonder what he was like. Bess never said in her diaries.”

  “Well, there you go—we’ll prop up Horace’s monument, police the grounds and have us a rededication, or whatever it’s called. I’ll even order flowers for the occasion.”

  She appeared to be considering it. Curt couldn’t believe he was going to such lengths to keep her around, when only a couple of weeks ago she’d been number one on his hit list—the woman who’d stolen his legacy. Less than an hour ago she’d made him forget the lessons of a lifetime.

  “Do you know a Jackson Powers?”

  “A what?”

  “It’s a who. I think he might be a distant cousin or something. I came across a postcard from Virginia Beach from this guy named Jackson Powers? It was addressed to your father—that is, to M. C. Powers here at Powers Point.”

  There might have been a time when the discovery of a long-lost relative would have meant something to him, but at the moment he had more important things on his mind. Such as how to keep Lily here until they could resolve this thing between them. He was pretty sure she couldn’t be pregnant, not after only one shot, but all the same…

  “Hang on a minute, I’ll go get it. I used it as a place mark in the diary I’m reading.” Headed for the door, she was moving like a saddle-sore dude after her first trail ride.

  He made a mental note to buy one of those test kits from the drugstore. Maybe two or three, in case the first one screwed up. It wasn’t going to happen, but still…another Powers at Powers Point? How many generations would that make?

  He was starting to smile when he heard her scream.

  On his feet before he had time to think, he was already halfway down the hall when he thought of grabbing his gun. No time. He’d have to rely on the element of surprise, if he hadn’t already blown it. Flattened against the wall, he edged to a position that would give him the clearest advantage. He was flexing his fingers, his mind racing through possible scenarios. If the guy had a gun on her, there might be one split second when his attention would be diverted. He would just have to make it count.

  No gun, no guy—nothing. She was alone. Standing in the middle of the floor, staring at her canvas tote, a look of utter horror on her face. “It—Curt, my bag moved. It moved! I saw it!”

  The air went clean out of his balloon. He looked first at Lily, then at the canvas satchel hanging on the back of the chair, then back at Lily again. “You’re imagining things. Maybe if you’d turn on a light—”

  “There! It did it again!”

  “Lily, you’re hallucinating. All this business with Bess—the break-in—you’re a little overwrought, that’s all.” He didn’t mention the other possible source of stress.

  “I am not overwrought!” As if to prove it, she snatched the bag with two fingers, shuddered, turned it upside down and then flung it aside. “You see? There’s my clutch purse, my cheese crackers, a Moon Pie, my pen and… Oh, God,” she whispered.

  The mouse looked around, sniffed the air, then scampered under the bed.

  Curt couldn’t help it, he howled.

  “Don’t laugh. Don’t you dare laugh!” Lily whapped him on the chest with the side of her fist, and Curt caught her and held her against him before she could do any more damage. An angry Lily was not without resources.

  “I hate rats! I’ve always hated rats, I’ll hate rats until the day I die!”

  He didn’t bother to remind her of the way she’d calmly informed him that he had mice. No big deal, oh, no. No big deal at all.

  He made a conscious effort not to laugh again; made another conscious effort to ignore the feel of her, all soft, warm flesh and delicate bones, pressed against his body. Predictably, heat began to pool in his lower regions. Talk about timing. To think he’d once been a highly trained, tightly disciplined fighting machine. Any discipline he’d ever possessed was long gone, shot to blazes. And the worst of it was that he couldn’t even bring himself to regret it. Good thing his days as a team leader were over.

  “So what about it? Want to hang around a few more days? Help me exterminate a few mice and fix up the cemetery?” He couldn’t believe he was actually begging her to stay.

  Yes, he could. That was the trouble—it was entirely too believable.

  “I’m not spending another night in this room until that mouse is out of here,” she vowed.

  “Hey, we’ve got options. We’ll shut Mickey up in your room, and
you can share mine.” Before she could come to her senses—or he could—he closed the door and led her along the hall to his bedroom. Cross ventilation be damned, he could plug in the electric fan for one night. “See, I don’t keep food in my bedroom, so there’s nothing to attract mice. We’ve already checked out my closet—no unauthorized personnel there, right? So first thing in the morning I’ll get us some traps and lay in a supply of cheese.”

  “Peanuts.”

  “Peanuts?”

  “They like peanuts even better than cheese.” She was glued to his side, her usual independence nowhere in evidence. It wouldn’t last, but at the moment it suited his purposes just fine.

  “I could offer to sleep on the couch, but I don’t have one.”

  She nodded. They both knew where this was leading. Since he’d taken her to bed that afternoon, he hadn’t been able to think about anything else. It had been all he could do not to tell those two deputies to buzz off, that whatever was going on, he could handle it.

  “Lily? You okay with this?” If she wanted out, then he’d have to let her go. He was counting on Bess to help him keep her here, though—at least until he worked up his courage to take the next step. At this point he wasn’t even sure what it was, but he had his suspicions. Oh, yeah, he had those.

  “Lily?”

  “All right,” she snapped.

  “Want a shower before you turn in?”

  “I had one. It’s your turn.”

  “We could share—that is, if you’re afraid to stay here alone?”

  That drew a tiny smile, one of her gutsy, independent ones. “Me? Afraid? In your dreams.”

  In his dreams. That about said it all.

  While Curt hastily smoothed the covers on his bed, Lily thought of all the things she’d read, and even written, about love scenes set in bathtubs, hot tubs and whirlpool baths. Somehow, an ancient claw-footed tub with iron stains and chipped porcelain seemed somewhat lacking as a setting for romance.