by Sandra Brown
No, all that could wait until later, when Cotton wasn't swaying on his feet.
"The fire looked much worse than it was, Daddy," Schyler concluded anxiously. "Most of the timber was saved. We'll deliver it to Endicott in good time, but we don't have to worry about the deadline at the bank."
Cotton seemed not to have heard a single word. He raised his hand and pointed a finger at Cash. "You're trespassing."
"Daddy, what's the matter with you? Cash has done the work of ten men for you tonight."
His pointing hand began to shake. "You. . . you . . . " Gasping, Cotton clutched his pajama jacket and fell back a step.
"Daddy!" Schyler screamed.
Cotton went down on one knee, then fell backward onto the veranda. Schyler dropped to her knees beside him.
"I'll call the doctor," Gayla said and ran inside. Jimmy Don bolted after her.
"Daddy, Daddy." Schyler moved her hands over her father frantically. His pasty face was beaded with sweat. His lips and earlobes had an unhealthy bluish cast. His breath whistled through his waxy lips.
Schyler raised her head and looked up at Cash in desperate appeal. His taut expression startled her. His face was suffused with color, as though he had an overabundance of blood while Cotton didn't have enough.
Kneeling, he reached down and secured a handful of Cotton's pajama top in his fist and yanked him up. "Goddamn you to eternal hell if you die now. Don't you die, old man. Don't you die!"
"Cash, what are you doing?!"
Cash shook Cotton. His white head wobbled feebly. His eyes were fixed on Cash's tortured face. The younger man's sun-tipped hair had fallen over his brows. Tears were making his hazel eyes shimmer.
"Don't you die until you've said it. Look at me. Say it!" He clenched the pajama top tighter and pulled Cotton up closer to him. He lowered his head and ground his forehead against Cotton's. His voice cracked with yearning when he pleaded through clenched teeth. "Say it! Just once in my whole godforsaken life, say it. Call me son."
With an effort, Cotton lifted his hand. He touched Cash's stubbled cheek. The bloodless fingertips caressed it, but the name he rasped wasn't his son's. Drawing a rattling breath, he sighed, "Monique."
And then he died.
His hand fell away from Cash's face and landed with a thud on the boards of the veranda. Gradually the muscles of Cash's arms relaxed and he lowered the sagging form. He kept his head bending over it for a long time, staring into the sightless blue eyes that had always refused to see him.
Then he pushed himself to his feet and staggered down the steps of the veranda. He drove away, but not before Schyler, speechlessly kneeling at Cotton's side, had had a glimpse of his shattered expression.
Chapter Fifty-seven
Every sunset at Belle Terre was beautiful.
Today's was more gorgeous than most. It had rained earlier in the day, but the sky overhead was clear now. On the western horizon enormous violet thuoderheads looked like a cluster of hydrangea blooms. The sun was shining through them to create a sunset that was celestial.
It reaffirmed one's belief in God.
Schyler gazed at the spectacular sunset through her bedroom window. Long shadows were cast along the walls and floor. Dust motes spun in the glow of the warm, fading sun. The house was quiet. It usually was. She and Mrs. Dunne didn't create much noise.
Gayla had moved out. She and Jimmy Don were living as newlyweds in a duplex nearer town. Gayla was planning to enroll in a nursing school in the fall. Jimmy Don was working for Crandall Logging. He had taken over the bookkeeping responsibilities that Ken Howell had once had. His parole officer was pleased. Schyler had high hopes for the couple. They would make it, especially since they had been extricated from the blight of Jigger Flynn.
Schyler had been shocked to hear the horrible and mysterious circumstances surrounding his death. Though it was one of the grisliest murders to ever occur in Laurent Parish, not a single clue had turned up. Most everybody had formed an opinion and had made their list of possible suspects, but none were coming forward. Jigger had cultivated enemies like most folks cultivated summer gardens. Few lamented his ghastly demise. His murder would be entered in the record books as an unsolved crime.
Cotton Crandall's funeral was one of the largest the parish had experienced in decades. The First Baptist Church had been filled to capacity. Extra chairs had been set up in the aisles. When they were filled, the crowd stood on the grounds outside. The service had been abundant in pomp and circumstance. The preacher had never been so eloquent. The whole choir had sung. When they reached the last verse of "Amazing Grace," even those who had called Cotton an opportunist who had married well had tears in their eyes.
But his funeral wasn't what had people all abuzz; it was his private interment. He hadn't been buried beside his wife in the Laurent family cemetery as everybody had expected him to be. He'd been laid to rest in an undisclosed and undisturbed spot on Belle Terre. Only Schyler knew where. Only she knew that another grave lay beside his.
She also knew Cotton approved her decision.
The day before his funeral, she had gone to New Orleans to entomb the body of Ken Howell with his family. Pitifully few attended. Tricia remained tearless. She had refused to look at or speak to her sister. She was led away by policemen as soon as the brief service was concluded. Schyler was paying for Tricia's defense attorney. Beyond that, her sister wouldn't accept her help. She had refused to see her when Schyler tried to visit her in jail.
During the darkest days of her bereavement, Schyler had telephoned Mark in London. He'd been sympathetic and consoling, but there was a difference in their friendship now. Each knew it and each was saddened by it, but each accepted that they couldn't return to the way they'd been before.
So Schyler was very much alone in the large house and never more alone than this evening. She'd taken a lingering bath in the old tub. Her clothes were carefully folded into neat piles on the bed. All that was left to do was place those neat piles in her suitcase and go to bed. But she would put that off as long as she could because tonight was the last night she would ever spend under Belle Terre's roof.
When the sun finally gave up its valiant struggle to survive one more second and sank beyond the edge of the earth, she shook off her despair-induced lethargy and turned away from the window.
He was standing in the doorway of her bedroom, one shoulder propped against the frame, silently staring at her. He was dressed as always in jeans and boots and a casual work shirt, which made her feel even more uncomfortable being caught in nothing more than her slip.
"I see your manners haven't improved since the last time I saw you," she remarked. "Couldn't you have at least knocked?"
"I've never needed to knock to get into a lady's bedroom."
He levered himself away from the door and swaggered into the room. He withdrew an envelope from the breast pocket of his shirt and tossed it onto her dressing table. "I got your letter."
"Then there's nothing left for us to say to each other, is there?"
He picked up a crystal perfume bottle and sniffed its contents. "I think so. That kind of news is usually delivered in person."
Schyler felt naked, not just her body, but her spirit. His presence in the feminine room was unsettling. He prowled it, touching things, making her feel violated. "I thought it would be best for us not to see each other. My attorney advised me to notify you by mail."
"Did he vote in favor of your decision to sign over Belle Terre to me?"
"No."
"Because I'm Cotton's bastard."
"That wasn't his objection. He. . . he thought I should let Daddy's will stand as it was written."
"Dividing the property equally between you, me, and Tricia?"
"Yes."
"But you didn't think so?"
"No."
"How come?" He sprawled on a linen-covered chaise and propped one booted foot on the end of it. The other he left on the floor. His bent k
nee swung from side to side.
"It's difficult to explain, Cash."
"Try."
"My father. . . our father. . . treated you abominably."
"You're trying to right his wrongs?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"A kid born on the wrong side of the blanket has no rights, Schyler."
"You were more than that to him."
He laughed bitterly. "A living guilty conscience."
"Perhaps. When he left New Orleans, he didn't mean to desert you and your mother. He loved her. Fiercely. His will proved that he loved you, too."
"He never even had a kind word for me," he said angrily.
"He couldn't afford to." That got his attention. The insolent knee stopped wagging. His eyes held hers, begging to be convinced. "He loved you, Cash. He just couldn't let himself get too close. He knew if he allowed himself to show his love just a little, it would be obvious to everybody." Schyler's brow wrinkled in puzzlement. "I don't understand why that would have been so bad. Why didn't he acknowledge you when he was alive?"
"He had sworn to Macy that he wouldn't. That was their bargain. Cotton could have my mother as his mistress, but he couldn't have his son."
"But after Mama died, why didn't he recognize you then?"
"Macy's deal was for life. Cotton's life. At least that's what he told Mother and me when I wanted him to marry her. Macy had no choice but to leave him Belle Terre. She just made damn certain he wouldn't be too happy in it."
"He placed Belle Terre above his own happiness. Above his own son," Schyler said sadly. "He loved you, Monique, me. But he loved Belle Terre more than anything."
Looking down at him she said quietly, "And so do you, Cash. That's why you've stayed here all this time. In the back of your mind, you knew Belle Terre was rightfully yours. You've been waiting all your life to claim it, haven't you?" He said nothing, just stared at her. "Well, you don't have to wait any longer. I gave up my share of it to you. It says so in that letter.
"Everything's in the clear," she went on after a short pause. "The deed to the house is no longer tied up as collateral. It's written out in your name now. Endicott's check covered the bank note. You've got plenty of operating capital. With an honest bookkeeper taking care of the budget, I'm sure that you'll make Crandall Logging what it was in Cotton's heyday. Probably even better. Daddy taught you well. And what he didn't teach you, you learned on your own. He always said you were an instinctive forester. The best. He was proud of you."
She smiled at him faintly. "You'll probably want to change the name of the business, won't you, now that you've inherited Belle Terre?"
"I'd rather have a woman than a house."
Schyler took a quick little breath. "What?"
He rolled his spine off the chaise and stood up. He moved so close she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. "I didn't sleep with Tricia," he said. "I never wanted to. In any event, that bitch wouldn't have let my shadow fall on her before that night. I knew she had probably been sent as a decoy. I was just going through the motions until she cracked under pressure and I could get information out of her."
He reached around Schyler with both hands and took hold of her hair, pulling her head back. "You love this place, Schyler. Why'd you give it to me?"
"Because I've always felt like it was on loan to me. I sensed, always, always, that it didn't really belong to me. I didn't know why. Now I do. You're Cotton's flesh and blood. His son." She shook her head at her own stupidity. "You're so like him. Why didn't I see it?"
She gazed into his face, loving it so much it was painful and she had to look away. "After he died, I finally remembered what had been said the night you brought me home from Thibodaux Pond. It had never made sense before. Daddy told you to stay away from the house. You shouted back, 'I've got more right to be here than they do.' You were referring to Tricia and me, weren't you?"
"Oui, I lost my temper."
"But you were right. You belonged here. Not us."
"I've been obsessed with Belle Terre since the first time my mother said the words to me." He brushed a kiss across her lips. "But I'm not going to be like my daddy. I'm not going to place Belle Terre above everything else. It's not what I want most. I knew what I wanted most when I saw you asleep under that tree."
"Cash?"
"Why'd you give me Belle Terre?"
"You know why," she groaned against his lips. "I love you, Cash Boudreaux."
He kissed her. His lips were warm and sweet as they parted above hers. His tongue gently explored the inside of her mouth. He combed his fingers through her hair, then let them drift over her shoulders and down her chest to her breasts. He caressed them, touched their centers with his fingertips, then slid his hands down her ribs to her waist. Holding their kiss, he pulled her forward as he backed up. When the backs of his knees made contact with the mattress, he sat down on the edge of the bed and positioned her between his spread thighs.
He kissed her breasts through her slip, flicking the ivory silk charmeuse with his tongue. "You aren't going anywhere," he growled as he planted a kiss between her breasts. "You're staying here with me. And when we die, our children will bury us here together. On Belle Terre."
Tears stung Schyler's eyes. Joy and love pumped through her. She tunneled her fingers in his hair and held his head against her.
Cash nuzzled the giving softness of her belly. "Schyler?"
"Yes?"
Several ponderous heartbeats later, he whispered, "I love you."