by Sandra Brown
"Are we home?" Schyler sat up, groggy and disoriented.
"Not quite. I want to show you something."
"There's nothing to see," she said querulously.
Beyond the car in any direction was dense woods. Judging by the long slanting shadows the tree trunks cast on the ground, it was getting close to sunset.
Cash pushed open his door and got out, taking the unopened bottle of champagne with him. "Come on. Don't fee a spoilsport. And don't forget your shoes." Schyler put her heels back on and got out but leaned against the side of the car unsteadily, holding her head. "You okay?" Cash asked as he came around the rear of the car.
"A bowling tournament is being played inside my head. My eyeballs are the pins."
He laughed, disturbing the birds in the nearest tree. They set up a chattering protest. "What you need is the hair of the dog." He wagged the bottle of champagne in front of tier face and she groaned. Taking her arm, he led her forward, into the temple of trees that surrounded them.
"These aren't hiking shoes, Cash," she complained. Her high heels sank into the soft ground. Milkweed stalks broke against her legs, spilling their white sap on her stockings.
He strengthened his grip on her arm and helped her along. "It's not far."
"To what?"
"To where we're going."
"I don't even know where we are."
"On Belle Terre."
"Belle Terre? I've never been here."
They were working their way up a gentle hill. The ground was garnished with purple verbena. Wild rosebushes were tangled around lesser shrubs, their pink blooms fragrant in the dusty, shimmering heat of late afternoon.
They crested the hill. Cash said, "Careful. It's steeper going down on this side."
At the bottom of the hill, Laurent Bayou made a gradual bend. Between there and the higher ground on which they stood grew hardwoods and pines, then, along the muddy basks of the bayou, cypresses. Late sunlight dappled the floor of the forest with golden light. It was lovely, wild, and primeval—a place for pagan worship.
"Cash!" Schyler exclaimed in fright when a winged animal went sailing from one tree to another not far from them. "Was that a bat?"
"A flying squirrel. They usually don't come out until dark. He's getting a head start."
She watched the squirrel's acrobatics until it disappeared among the leafy branches. Stillness descended. One could almost hear the beetles crunching paths through blow- downs. Iridescent insects skimmed along the brassy surface of the water. Bees buzzed among the flowering plants. A cardinal flitted through the trees like a red dart.
Schyler stood in awe of this spot unsullied by man. It was Nature in balance. Left alone it had beautifully perpetuated itself century after century, eon upon eon. She must still be drank, she thought ruefully. She was waxing poetic. She commented on her observations to Cash. He didn't seem particularly surprised or amused.
"It does that to me, too. We're seeing a transformation take place." She looked around her but didn't see any drastic changes in progress. He laughed. "We'd have to stay here several centuries to see it completed."
She consulted her wristwatch. "I probably should get back before then." He actually laughed at her joke. She liked that. It was the first time he had laughed without it being tinged with sarcasm. "What transformation?"
He propped his foot up on a boulder as his eyes swept the forest surrounding them. "I speculate that the original forest was destroyed by fire. It happened, oh, maybe a hundred years ago. See back there behind us," he said, pointing. "What kind of trees do you see? Mostly."
"Oak. Other hardwoods."
"Right. But after the fire, the first ones to grow back were pines, loblolly mainly. They were probably as thick as a nursery in just a few years after the fire. The saplings brought in birds, who carried seeds from the hardwoods of neighboring forests."
"And they took over."
He looked pleased that she knew. "Do you know why?"
She searched her memory, but shook her head. "I remember Cotton telling me that the deciduous usually outlive pines."
"The pine seeds germinate quickly in sunny soil. But deprived of sunlight, the saplings die out."
"So the taller the hardwoods get, the shadier the forest floor gets and—"
"You end up with what we've got here. The pines eventually giving way to the hardwoods."
"Then why don't all forests eventually become deciduous?"
"Because man tames most of them. This," he said with a sweep of his hand, "happens when a tame forest reverts to wilderness."
"It is untamed." She was impressed with his knowledge. Gazing up at him she said, "You like it best this way, don't you?"
"Yes. But it's damned hard to earn a living by admiring a view." He extended her his hand. "Come on."
He led her down the steep incline. They waded through pine needles that were ankle deep. He guided her to a blowdown near the water's edge. She could now see that the bayou wasn't really stagnant at this point, as she had thought when looking down on it from above. But the current was so lacking in energy, the water appeared motionless.
"I thought you didn't allow blowdowns to remain in the forest."
He tore the foil off the bottle of champagne, carefully putting it in his pocket. He disposed of the wire the same way after twisting it off. "Ordinarily I don't. Not here." He looked around him with reverence and awe, as one does in a cathedral. "Everything here is left alone. Nature works out its own problems. Nobody messes with the natural order of things here."
"But this is part of Belle Terre."
The cork popped out. The champagne spewed over his hand and showered Schyler. They laughed.
In that same jocular vein, she asked, "Aren't you taking a rather proprietary attitude over my land?"
He looked down at her for a long moment. "I'd kill anybody who tried to bother this place."
Schyler believed him. "You shouldn't say that. You might have to."
He shook his head. "Cotton feels the same way I do about it."
"Cotton?" Schyler asked, surprised.
"My mother is buried up there."
Schyler followed the direction of his gaze to the top of the hill they'd descended minutes earlier. "I had no idea."
"The priest wouldn't let her be buried in consecrated ground because she. . ." Cash took a drink of the champagne straight out of the bottle. "He just wouldn't."
"Because she was my father's mistress."
"I guess."
"She must have loved him very much."
He blew out a soft puff of air that sufficed as a bitter laugh. "She did that. She loved him." He took another drink. "More than she loved anything. More than she loved me.
"Oh, I doubt that, Cash," Schyler protested quickly. "No mother would put a man who wasn't even her husband above her child."
"She did." He set his foot on the log, almost but not quite touching her hip, and leaned down, propping himself on his knee. "You asked me why I've stuck around all this time."
"Yes."
"You want to know why I still live around here where everybody knows me as a bastard."
"I've wondered, yes."
His eyes penetrated hers. "Before she died, my mother made me promise never to leave Belle Terre as long as Cotton Crandall was alive. She made me swear that I wouldn't."
Schyler swallowed emotionally, "But why . . . why would she ask you to do that?"
He shrugged. "Who knows? I guess I'm supposed to act as his guardian angel."
"Guarding him against what?"
"Himself maybe." He switched subjects suddenly. "Want some champagne?"
"I shouldn't."
"What the hell?"
He nudged her shoulder with the bottle. She took it from him and drank. The wine foamed in her mouth, in her throat. "It's too warm."
Schyler passed the bottle back to him, but was arrested by the intensity with which he was watching her. The forest, which ha
d been full of activity only moments ago, fell absolutely still. Nothing moved. She could feel the heat waves emanating up from the ground, through the dead log, through her clothing and entering her body through her thighs. Her ears began to ring with the profound silence. Despite the drink of champagne she'd just swallowed, her mouth was as dry as cotton.
"We'd better go." She stood up. Cash lowered his foot to the ground, but he didn't make a move to retrace their path. He continued to stare at her. Nervous, and eager to fill the silence, she started babbling, "Thank you for helping me out with Endicott and for showing me this place. I would have never known it was here. It's beautiful. It's—"
He still had the bottle of champagne in his fist when he threw his arm around Schyler's neck and trapped her head in the crook of his elbow. He sealed her lips closed with a hot, wet kiss.
Schyler's arms closed around his lean torso. Her fingers dug into the supple muscles of his back. They turned toward each other until one's body was imprinted onto the front of the other.
They shared an eating kiss, where lips and tongues tried to taste as much as they could as quickly as possible. They came up for air and gazed deeply into each other's eyes. Their breathing was harsh and uneven.
"I broke all my rules with you." Cash watched his own hand slide down to her breast. He cupped it, lifted it, used his thumb to bring the nipple to a hard peak against her clothing. "I didn't use a rubber. I never do that," he confessed, mystified by his own neglect. "My motto is fuck 'em and forget 'em." Swiftly his eyes came back to hers. "I can't forget it. I've tried." His hand slid over her belly; he pressed the v at the top of her thighs. "Damn you, I want it again," he said gruffly.
"Me too."
"Oui!"
"Yes. Where?"
"Here."
"Here?"
"Oui."
"Oui."
They started kissing again. His tongue probed the silky recess of her mouth with carnal implication. The muscles of her cheeks contracted, squeezing his tongue. He groaned and rubbed his erection against her belly. She reached down to touch him and made of her hand a gentle, caressing, sliding fist. He uttered a hoarse cry. As one, with mouths clinging, they dropped to their knees on the forest floor.
He pressed her shoulders between his hands and angled her backward. She landed on a bed of fallen leaves and pine needles that rustled more enticingly than satin sheets. Responding to a primitive masculine need to possess and dominate, Cash stretched out on top of her.
Schyler reacted with the same degree of passion, though her response was purely feminine. She opened her thighs. He burrowed, hard and urgent, against the warm, vulnerable softness of woman. The elements that made them different made this wonderful. Each released a long, soughing sound that was usually reserved for climaxing.
Raising her hips, Schyler straggled to work her skirt up her legs and out of his way. Cash was roughly rubbing his face against her breasts, his mouth open, moist and hot. He grappled with his belt buckle, but his desperation to be inside her made him clumsy and ineffective.
Between choppy gasps for breath, he cursed with frustration. Schyler knocked his hands aside and attacked the stubborn buckle herself. But she wasn't very dexterous either. Their hands batted at each other in their rash to undo his belt.
And then, simultaneously, they realized that their agonized sighs weren't all that they heard. Abruptly, Cash rolled off her and sat up.
"Cash? Did you hear—"
"Shh!" He held up one hand for quiet.
They listened. It came again—a low, unrecognizable sound.
Cash stood up. As fleet-footed as a deer and as silent as a shadow, he slipped away from Schyler and through the trees in the direction of the noise. His training as a jungle fighter served him well. He didn't even disturb the leaves of the plants he skimmed past. He drew his knife from the scabbard at the small of his back. He crept along the muddy banks of the bayou and circled the ropy trunk of a cypress.
"Jesus."
Schyler, leaving the love nest their bodies had ground into the undergrowth, scurried after him, sliding in the mud. "What is it?" she asked, stepping around him. "Gayla!"
Chapter Thirty-five
The young black woman looked up at them fearfully. Her eyes were red. Swelling and bleeding scratches had distorted one whole side of her face. Her clothes were in tatters. The exposed skin was covered with abrasions and cuts. She was missing one shoe.
Cash scanned both banks of the bayou and the hill above them. His eyes were as sharp as a machete. Schyler dropped to her knees in the mud. "Gayla, my God, Gayla." She repeated the name softly and reached out to touch her childhood friend. Gayla flinched.
"Don't be afraid, Gayla. It's me, Schyler." Distraught, Schyler glanced up at Cash. "She doesn't know me."
"Yes I do, Schyler." Gayla ran her tongue over the deep and nasty cut on her lower lip. It had dribbled blood onto her chest. "Don't look at me. Just go away. Please."
Tears welled in her chocolate-colored eyes. She gathered her limbs against her body and curled inward in an effort to make her shame invisible. Schyler lifted Gayla's head onto her thigh and laid her hand along the smooth uninjured cheek. It was the only feature that made her recognizable. Schyler hoped the disfigurement done to her face would be temporary.
"Oh, I'm going to look at you plenty," Schyler whispered, "because I've missed you so much. We're going to talk. We're going to reminisce about old times and, when you're feeling better, we're going to giggle like girls."
A tear slid into one of the scratches on Gayla's cheek. "I'm not a girl anymore, Schyler. I'm a—"
"You're my friend," Schyler stressed.
Gayla closed her eyes and began to cry in earnest. "I don't deserve to be."
"Thank God none of us gets what she deserves." While she continued to hold Gayla, gently stroking her head, Schyler looked up at Cash. He'd been scouting around the immediate area. "Do you see anybody?"
"No." He knelt down and assessed a madman's handiwork. He touched Gayla's shoulder. "Did Jigger do this to you?" Gayla nodded. "That filthy son of a bitch," Cash mouthed. "He must have beat her up, then dumped her. Looks like she slid down the hill."
There was forest debris ensnared in her tight cap of hair. Twigs and leaves clung to her clothes. Her bare arms and legs were streaked with dirt.
"No, Mr. Boudreaux." Gayla pronounced his name correctly, in a musical, contralto, West Indian voice that was made even huskier because of her tears. "I slid down the hill, but Jigger didn't dump me here. I ran away from him."
"You came all this way on foot?"
"Yes."
"Is he looking for you?"
"No. I don't know. Just leave me alone. Forget you saw me. Let me die lying right here and I'll be happy. I can't go back. He'll kill me. I don't want to live, but I don't want to give him the pleasure of killing me."
"He's not going to kill you. He's not going to do anything to you because I'm going to protect you. And I'm damn sure not going to leave you here to die," Schyler said sternly. "Can you carry her up the hill?" she asked Cash. "If we can get her that far, I'll stay with her while you go call an ambulance."
"No!" Gayla nearly came up off the ground. "No, Jesus, no, please. He'll find me and kill me."
"You'll be safe in the hospital, Gayla."
Gayla, bordering on hysteria, shook her head emphatically, despite the pain it must have caused. "Jigger beat me, then locked me in the toolshed. But I got out. When he discovers I'm gone, he'll go crazy."
"He's already crazy."
"He'll find me no matter where I am. He'll kill me for running away, Schyler. Swear to God he will. He's told me he would and he will." She clutched double handfuls of Schyler's blouse. "If you help me, he'll hurt you, too. Go away, please. Don't touch me. I'm dirty. You don't want to mess with a whore like me."
"That's enough!" Schyler cried. "I'm not afraid of Jigger Flynn. Let him come anywhere near us and I'll shoot him myself." Gay
la began to weep again; Schyler softened her tone of voice. "If you won't feel safe in the hospital, we'll take you to Belle Terre. I promise to keep you safe there."
Cash nudged Schyler aside. "Come on, Gayla. Can you put your arms around my neck? Yes you can," he urged gently, when she shook her head no. '"Try. That's it. Clasp your hands now. That's good." He slid his arms beneath her back and knees and lifted her up.
"Cash, she's bleeding," Schyler gasped. The back of Gayla's dress was soaked with bright red blood. "Gayla, what did he do to you?"
"She fainted," Cash told her. Gayla's head was lolling against his shoulder. "It's just as well. This is going to be a rough trip."
He started up the hill. Schyler picked up the bottle of champagne that he'd dropped and scrambled after him. Her high heels were caked with mud. Branches snagged the cloth of her expensive skirt. She paid them no heed. She was wondering how Gayla had survived tumbling down the steep hillside.
After what seemed like a trek up Mount Everest, they reached the car. Schyler hobbled ahead and wrenched open the back door. She jumped inside. "Lay her head in my lap. Get to the hospital as fast as you can. I don't care what she said, she's got to get to the emergency room."
Cash laid Gayla on the back seat as Schyler had instructed, but he didn't withdraw his head and shoulders from the door. He stayed bent over, looking at her. "Well, what is it? Get going," she ordered curtly.
"They'll take care of her injuries at the hospital, but they'll have to call the sheriff about this." He nodded down at die unconscious woman. "He'll conduct a routine investigation, but he won't do a frigging thing to Jigger. In a few days the hospital will release her. Jigger will be waiting for her. Next time it'll be worse."
Schyler stared down into Gayla's brutalized face and knew that he was right. "All right, let's take her to Belle Terre. I don't know if I can get a doctor to come out there—"
"I can."
Cash slammed the door and ran around to the driver's side of the car. Within seconds they were under way, speeding down the highway through the closing twilight.