by Sandra Brown
Schyler knew that his eyes were boring a hole into the crown of her head, just as certainly as she knew that there was something sexual going on. But then, if rumor was correct, everything that Cash Boudreaux had done since he was about thirteen years old had been sexually motivated.
She wasn't flattered. She wasn't afraid. If he'd wanted to assault her, he'd had plenty of opportunities in the past twenty-four hours to do so. Mostly, she was offended. Obviously he had lumped her into the ranks of women who were flattered by his indiscriminate attention.
If she were being entirely honest, however, she had to admit that the prospect of experiencing something sexual with Cash Boudreaux had a certain allure. He was disreputable and dangerous, aggravating and arrogant. He was rude and disrespectful and treated women abominably. Perhaps that was his attraction, what made him desirable.
Geographically they'd grown up in the same place, but the realms of their upbringings were worlds apart. They had nothing in common except these sexual undercurrents, which were invisible but as real as the shimmering heat waves that radiated out of the ground, She was a woman. Cash Boudreaux was indisputably a man.
She raised her head and gave him a direct look, as if by doing that she could nullify the subliminal sparks. "Did you follow me here?"
"No. I just happened by. Thought I'd check on things."
"Check on things? I'm sure Ken is capable of handling things while Daddy is ill."
"Ken isn't capable of finding his ass with both hands."
"Mr. Boudreaux—"
'To keep everybody from discovering that, he shut the place down."
Her protests died on her tongue. "What! What do you mean he shut the place down?"
"I mean he told all the employees on the payroll that they were laid off until further notice. He told the independent loggers to find other markets for their timber. He said that Crandall Logging was temporarily out of operation. Then he locked the door and left. Don't you think that amounts to shutting the place down?"
Schyler fell back a step. She gazed about the office with dismay, realizing now why it had an abandoned look. It bore the empty sadness of a house that hadn't been occupied in awhile. "Why would Ken do that?"
"I just told you why."
"I'm serious."
"So am I." Cash flicked his cigarette out the door behind him. It made a red arc before dying in the dust of the deserted yard. "The day after they took Cotton to the hospital, your brother-in-law paid everybody off and hightailed it outta here."
"Does Cotton know about it?"
"I doubt it."
"So do I." She gnawed the inside of her cheek, trying to figure out what could have motivated Ken to shut down. Cotton had had to ride out economic crunches before, but he had never laid off employess. "That must have put scores of men out of work."
"Goddamn right it did."
Schyler pulled her fingers through her hair. "I'm sure Ken had his reasons. They just aren't apparent."
"Well, let me tell you what is apparent, Miss Schyler."
He stopped slouching in the doorway and advanced into the room. "About half the families in the parish are running out of groceries. Prospects aren't looking too good that they'll have money to buy more any time soon. While your brother-in-law is languishing around the country club swimming pool, swizzling glass after glass of Lynchburg, Tennessee's finest, kids are doing without breakfast, dinner, and supper."
Ken left the house every morning and returned every afternoon. Schyler had assumed he was at work during those hours. It galled her to think that he was living off the profits Cotton had put a lifetime into earning. But perhaps she was being unfair by jumping to conclusions. Ken had begun working for Crandall Logging when he married Tricia. When his parents were killed, he had sold everything in New Orleans, severed all connections there, and moved to Heaven. He had several years of his life invested in this business. There must be a logical explanation for his shutting down operation.
"Come up with any good excuses for him yet?"
"I won't have you disparaging my brother-in-law, Mr. Boudreaux," she lashed out.
He whistled softly. "Listen to her defend him. That's what I call real family loyalty."
Willfully restraining her temper, Schyler said, "I assure you that I'll look into the matter immediately. I know Cotton wouldn't approve of families going hungry, families who depend on him for their livelihoods."
"I know he wouldn't either."
"I assure you something will be done."
"Good."
She gave Cash a long, steady look. He irritated the hell out of her. He was no better than he had to be. He was a lowlife who seemingly had no scruples. She could use just that kind of man.
"I guess you're off the payroll, too."
"I don't think your brother-in-law likes me. I was the first one to get notice."
"Then I'm sure you're running low on money and could use some." He shrugged noncommittally. She drew herself up importantly. "I've got a job for you."
"You do?"
"Yes, I do. I'll pay you well."
"How well?"
"You tell me."
"Well, now that all depends on what the job entails." His voice was thick with lewd suggestion. "What do you want me to do for you?"
"I want you to destroy the dog that attacked me last night."
He didn't blink for several moments, only held her in a stare. His eyes, she noticed now, were hazel, but with more yellow and gray than green. They were like cat eyes, predatory cat eyes.
"Kill it?"
"That's what destroy usually means."
"You want me to kill one of Jigger Flynn's pit bulls?"
She raised her chin and answered firmly. "Yes."
He hooked both thumbs into his tooled leather belt and leaned down until his face was almost on a level with hers. "Have you lost your frigging mind?"
"No."
"Well, then you must think I've lost mine."
"I want that animal killed before it kills someone."
"Last night was a freak accident. Jigger doesn't let those dogs run free."
"So Ken told me. But that—"
"Ah!" He held up his hands to forestall her and looked at her through narrowed eyes. "You bounced this idea off your brother-in-law first?"
"Not exactly."
"You asked him to do it. He crapped in his britches at the very thought, so now you're coming to me. Is that it?"
"No!" She drew an exasperated breath. "I told Tricia and Ken about the dog attacking me. They noticed the bandage."
"Did you tell them where you got it?"
"No."
"I didn't think you would," he drawled.
Ignoring him, she rushed on. "I insisted that something be done about those dogs. Ken thought I should let the matter drop."
"Well, for once I agree with the son of a bitch. Let it drop."
"I can't."
"You'd better. Stay away from Jigger Flynn. He's meaner than hell."
"So are you."
An abrupt silence followed her raised voice. Cash treated her to another long, penetrating stare. She moistened her lips and forced herself to speak. "What I mean is, you have a reputation for. . . too much fighting. You went to war and stayed longer than you had to. You must be good with guns."
"Damn good," he whispered.
"I don't know anybody else to ask. I don't know anybody else who has. . . has. . . killed. . ."
"You don't know anybody else low enough to do your dirty work."
"I didn't say that."
"But that's what you meant."
"Look, Mr. Boudreaux, you've spent the better part of your life cultivating a short-tempered, violent image. By all accounts you're as testy as a cobra. Don't blame me for responding to your reputation. I know you must have broken the law before."
"Too many times to count."
"So why do you have a conscience against destroying a public menace, a killer dog?"
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"Not a conscience. Common sense. I have the good sense not to provoke Jigger Flynn's wrath."
"Because you're afraid of him," she shouted up at him.
"Because it's not my quarrel," he shot back.
Schyler could see that yelling was a one-way street leading to a dead end. She took another tack. One could always fall back on greed for motivation. "I'll pay you one hundred dollars." His face remained unmoved and unimpressed. "Two hundred."
"Stuff it, Miss Schyler. I don't want your goddamn money."
"Then what?"
His lecherous grin was as good as an invoice. And the sum total of it couldn't be measured in dollars and cents. "Read my mind."
Furious, Schyler shoved past him on her way to the door. "Jerk. I should have known better than to ask you."
He closed his fingers around her upper arm and brought her up against him hard. "You're quite a hothead, aren't you?" His eyes rapaciously scanned her face. "Are you just as eager to make love as you are to make war?"
"Not with you."
"Never say never."
"Let me go," she said through her teeth.
"Come with me."
"Come with you? Where?"
"I'll show you why no sane person would kill one of Jigger's dogs."
"I'm not going anywhere with you."
"How come? What are you afraid of?"
Chapter Nine
"Where are we going?"
Cash was behind the steering wheel of his faded blue pickup truck. Schyler still couldn't guess what had prompted her to accept his invitation. Perhaps because it had been posed in the form of a challenge. Before she took into account the possible consequences, she had locked the office, left her car parked at the landing, and stepped up into the cab of Cash's battered truck.
In answer to her question, he consulted the watch strapped to his right wrist. "It's early yet. Hungry?"
"I thought this had to do with Jigger Flynn."
"It does. Be patient. That's a common trait with you people. You're always in a hurry."
"'You people'?"
He looked at her across the stained, threadbare upholstery. "Rich folks, Miss Schyler."
She refused to acknowledge or address the disparity between their economic levels, so she took issue with the appositive he continued to use with such phony obsequiousness. "Why don't you drop the Miss and call me just plain Schyler?"
He casually took a hairpin curve in the road before turning his sly grin on her. "Because I know it annoys the shit out of you."
"And is that your main goal in life? To be annoying?"
"How come you don't spell it like it sounds?" he asked, ignoring her question. "Why not S-k-y-l-e-r?"
"I didn't have any choice. That's how Mother and Daddy entered my name on my birth certificate."
"When they adopted you?"
She wasn't surprised that he knew. Everybody in the parish knew. She was, however, automatically defensive. "I was only three days old."
"That's still not the same, is it?"
"The same as what?"
"As being their natural born."
Deliberately or not, Cash was rubbing salt into an old wound. "It's the same to me."
He shook his head. "Nope. It's not the same." Before Schyler could argue with him, he whipped the pickup off the road and braked to a hard stop. "There it is."
Schyler hadn't realized where they were going and drew in a sharp, quick breath when she noticed the ramshackle house. It had been in disrepair for as long as she could remember. It was constructed of unpainted cypress. The gray, weathered wood added to the overall dreary appearance of the place.
The window screens were torn; they curled outward toward the snaggle-toothed batten shutters. Forlorn lace curtains hung in the windows. They were tattered and dingy, as pathetic as an aging whore's last fancy dress.
A collection of hubcaps had been nailed on the exterior walls. Once shiny, they were now corroded. A potpourri of junk littered the yard. Tools and utensils lay neglected in the grassless dirt. A disemboweled car was providing a roost for several scraggly hens. An empty Frigidaire on the sagging porch was serving no purpose except to support a dusty wisteria vine, which valiantly struggled for life amid the decay. Behind the house was a dog kennel made of rusty, cyclone fencing. There were no dogs in it presently. In fact, the place appeared to be deserted.
"We picked a good time to come calling. Jigger's not at home."
Schyler rubbed her arms as though chilled. "I used to be afraid to even drive past this place."
"I don't blame you. Jigger's been known to do target practice on motorists from his front porch out of sheer meanness."
"How does he get by with things like that?" Schyler cried angrily. "I didn't know that the saying, 'Justice is blind,' meant that it turned a blind eye? Why hasn't he ever been prosecuted?"
"Simple. People are afraid of him."
"I'm not."
"Well, you damn sure ought to be." Cash slipped the truck into first gear and set off down the rough gravel road in the direction of town. "You didn't answer my question. Are you hungry?"
Schyler was glad to leave Flynn's place behind. Even deserted, it unnerved her. "I hadn't thought about it. I guess I am."
"I'll treat you to supper at a place you've never been to before."
"Oh?"
"Red Broussard's."
"Is the floor still covered with peanut shells?" she asked with a mischievous smile.
He looked at her with astonishment. "Don't tell me."
"Oh, yes. Daddy used to take me to Broussard's often."
Cash's grin faded gradually. "I forgot. Cotton likes Cajun food, doesn't he?"
"Yes, he does. And so do I."
"I never saw you at Broussard's."
"We usually went before sundown."
"Hell, the place doesn't start warming up until after sundown."
She laughed. "That's why he always took me before then."
The accordion music was loud, repetitive, and raucous. It seemed to expand and recess the walls of the clapboard restaurant like the wolf in the tale of the three little pigs, huffing and puffing and trying to blow it down. Cash was humming the French Acadian tune as he came around and opened the passenger door for Schyler.
"Saturday night," he remarked. "They're tuning up for a fais-dodo. Drinking, dancing, a party," he said by way of explanation.
She took offense. "I know what it is."
"You're acquainted with Cajun customs?"
"Belle Terre isn't an ivory castle, you know."
"No. I don't know." Having made that oblique statement, he placed his hand in the small of her back and nudged her toward the entrance.
"I hope I'm dressed properly," she remarked uneasily.
"Not quite." When she shot him a swift, worried glance, he added, "They might ask you to take off your shoes."
The square building was set on stilts. Dancing footsteps drummed through the floorboards and echoed in the hollow space underneath. Red Broussard, a barrel-chested, potbellied, bearded man with a Santa Claus countenance and garlic breath, greeted them personally, giving each a» boisterous shout of welcome and a rib-crunching hug. He pressed icy bottles of beer into their hands and ushered them toward a table in the corner of the room, affably elbowing aside dancers who blocked their path.
Schyler moved through the crowd self-consciously, but no one stopped to stare as she feared they might. No one seemed to think it noteworthy that she was with Cash Boudreaux. But then, this was his crowd, not hers. If she'd taken him to the country club tonight it would have caused quite a stir. It was much easier to move down a notch in society than it was to move up.
They reached their table and Red held her chair for her. The upper two-thirds of the walls of the building were screened. The hinged, exterior walls had been raised and propped open by two-by-fours. They were only lowered during a severe Gulf storm and the coldest days of winter. Maddened insects, frant
ic to reach the lights burning inside, kamikazied themselves against the screens.
"Boudin sausage, mon cher?" Red asked with a beatific smile that split his furry red beard and revealed nicotine-stained teeth.
Schyler smiled up at him. "No thanks." She hadn't been able to eat the sausage since a Cajun rig driver had bartered some timber for a hog and had insisted that Cotton oversee the slaughtering. Schyler had begged to go along. Over Macy's vehement protests Cotton had taken her. She'd regretted it ever since. "Crawfish, please."
Red threw back his rusty head and bellowed a deep laugh. Then, pointing a meaty finger down at her, he teased, "I seen de day you pack away dem crawfish, don't cha know. More dan your papa, oui."
"Bring us a platter, Red."
Red gave Cash's shoulder an affectionate and mighty wallop, then lumbered off toward the bubbling vats where the day's catch of crawfish was boiling in water seasoned with spices that made one's eyes water and nose itch. Over the music, Red shouted at his patrons to eat and drink some more.
Cash reached for the bowl of peanuts in the center of the table, cracked the shell between his fingers, and shook the roasted nuts out of the pod. He tossed them into his mouth, then took a swig of beer to wash them down. He swallowed gustily. His eyes, glowing in the light cast by the red glass candle holder, dared Schyler to do the same.
She accepted the silent dare, dropping the peanut shells onto the floor as Cash and every other customer had done. She didn't request a glass for her beer but drank directly from the bottle.
He said, "I thought you'd be horrified at the thought of coming here."
"Because I'm too snooty and would look down my aristocratic nose at the people here?"
"Something like that." He took a drink of beer, watching her. "So is this an act just to prove me wrong?"
"No. I miss the food."
That's all they had time to say to each other before Red sent a waitress over with a platter of crawfish. She scooted aside the candle and the bowl of peanuts and set the platter between them in the center of the table. Before moving away, she gave Cash a seductive sidelong glance.
Schyler watched her walk away. "Is she one of yours?" She selected a crawfish. Without needing a refresher course on how it was done, she broke off the tail, dug her thumbs into the seam of the shell and split it apart, then used her fingers to pull out the rich, white meat.