Dangerous Ladies

by Christina Dodd

  “That’s a new theory.”

  How could he be so obtuse? “There has to be a reason for him to care so much, and by all accounts he loved Isabelle; he just didn’t know how to open his soul to her.”

  “You got that from what Four said?” The wind whipped past as Devlin cruised toward the edge of town and onto the southbound road toward the line of mansions.

  She had to be more careful about revealing what she knew. “While you were talking to Sam on the phone, I talked to Scrubby.” That was true. She had talked to Scrubby—just not about Bradley Benjamin’s marriage.

  “Did you two incredibly intuitive souls talk about me and my inner feelings, too?”

  “No,” she snapped. “We only talked about people we were interested in.”

  “Good.”

  He didn’t say anything else, slowing where the pavement gave way to well-groomed gravel. He took the dip smoothly, then sped up again, not quite as fast this time.

  She wished she hadn’t succumbed to irritation. Because she wanted to know about his inner feelings. She always thought people were like pieces of art glass—strong enough to handle and use, delicate enough to shatter under a strong blow, and filled with swirls of color that fascinated the eye. But while most people—and most glass— allowed light through, she could discern nothing of Devlin’s heart and soul through the smoke and mirrors he held before him.

  And she was a curious girl. She loved people. She loved to ask them about themselves. Loved to listen to their stories. Flattered herself that she understood them . . . and she was lying to herself if she thought her curiosity about Devlin was anything similar to her curiosity about other people. With Devlin, she wanted to know everything about him. She urgently wanted to know what made him tick.

  “Are you nervous?” He looked at her sideways. “I’m actually a very safe driver.”

  “What?” He drove so confidently she relaxed into the seat and watched the ocean. “No, I’m fine.”

  “You’re tapping your foot.”

  “Oh. It’s a nervous habit. When I’m thinking. So tell me about your childhood.” Smooth. Very smooth.

  He laughed. “I wondered how long you’d be able to keep your questions to yourself.”

  “How long did I?”

  “Maybe a minute.”

  “It was longer than that.”

  “You’re right.” He waited two beats. “At least sixty-five seconds.”

  “That’s better. So . . . your childhood.”

  “Comfortable. My grandparents were disappointed with my mother, but they didn’t throw us out in the snow. We lived with them until I was five. At that point I got big enough to beat the tar out of my older cousins when they made fun of me and my mother. Mother had to move out to avoid blood on the antique rug in Grandmother’s dining room, but by then she had her interior decorating shop established and her toe in the media. I went to an exclusive school—that’s where I met Four—and before long I was beating the tar out of a variety of boys, some of whom were still my cousins.”

  “What is wrong with the people here?” Meadow burst out. “It’s not the fifties! Women are allowed to have a baby with or without the option of marriage, and that child is valuable, a piece of God put on this earth.”

  “You’re an innocent. People always love to gossip, and children always love to be cruel to kids who are different. It’s an eternal law, never to be changed.” He sounded so sure.

  How had he come from being that boy so free with his fists to a man closed to honest emotion?

  “In addition to the onerous weight of human nature, I was born in Charleston. Charleston is old-fashioned. Then there was my mother’s conviction that my father, Nathan Manly, was going to divorce his wife and marry her. So she lorded her conquest of him over her fellow debutantes—my mother is the slightest bit competitive.”

  Meadow heard a heavy dose of irony in his voice.

  “Put all of those ingredients into the situation and you have a recipe for social . . .” He hesitated.

  “Disaster?” She marveled that he was at last opening to her.

  “Difficulties. Fortunately for my mother, her talent and ambition have allowed her to triumph over her former rivals, although not in the traditional way, with a rich husband and two socially correct children. And if challenges form character, then I have enough character to make up for Four’s lack of it.”

  “I don’t think it works that way. I think he’ll have to develop his own. And what you need to develop is—” She stopped herself. She was thinking out loud again, and every time she did that, she got into trouble.

  “What do I need to develop?”

  Patience. Kindness. A belief, however unproven, that men are good at heart. Automatically, she said, “You’re perfect as you are.”

  “A lovely thought. But you don’t believe it.”

  “You’re exactly who you should be at this point in your life.” She knew the correct things to say.

  He cast her a sardonic glance. “Where did you learn to babble such nonsense?”

  “It’s not nonsense!” She did believe it was true. The trouble was, she wanted to fix people. As her mother pointed out time and again, Meadow could only fix herself, and until the moment when she’d achieved nirvana, that should be her lifelong project.

  But it was so easy to see what was wrong with other people and give them good advice.

  “Right.” The road wound away from the ocean, following a curving path into the woods filled with cedar and moss-draped live oaks. He pulled off to the side. Turning to face her, he put his arm across the back of her seat. His gaze captured hers. “I’ve confided in you. Now you tell me—when, my dear amnesiac, were you in a cancer ward?”

  “A cancer ward?” she repeated. “What makes you think I was in a cancer ward?”

  “When Bradley Benjamin instructed Four on smoking cigars, you ripped into him with a passion and a sarcasm reserved for serial killers.” Shade dappled the Jeep and offered a false mellowness to his face.

  She stared at Devlin, caught in the horror between a lie and the truth. Should she tell him?

  My mother has cancer, she needs treatment, and if I don’t get her a quarter of a million dollars fast, she might—probably will—slip out of remission and die.

  Would he understand?

  Maybe he would. But even if she found the painting, he wouldn’t let her take it. He owned the house and all its contents. The painting, if it was still there, was his.

  What was it Four had said? The milk of human kindness has curdled in Devlin’s veins.

  She believed it. She’d heard his hard-nosed handling of Sam, seen his impatience with Four, witnessed his satisfaction when Bradley Benjamin had suffered his attack. She couldn’t take the chance and trust Devlin. Not with her mother’s life at stake.

  Devlin still sat there, waiting for his answer.

  She looked away. “I know things. I know my first name. I know I don’t like it when you summon me like I’m one of your maids, and you shouldn’t treat any human being like that. I know what I think about life. I know what I think about smoking.”

  He leaned back. He looked her over, his eyes black with disappointment. “But you don’t know anything about how your thinking got the way it is.”

  “No.”

  “Right.” His arm slid away from her seat. “I give only so many chances, Meadow.”

  Her heart gave a hard, frightened thump. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.” He faced forward, put the car in gear, and got the Jeep up to speed. As he drove the narrow curves the tires spit gravel, and the silence felt like a weight on Meadow’s guilt-ridden soul.

  Maybe she should trust him. Her heart said she should. It was her fears that held her back. “Devlin, listen—”

  She didn’t know exactly what she was going to say.

  Then it didn’t matter.

  He tried to make the bend. The steering wheel balked. He swore. He hit the bra
kes. His arms strained as he fought the turn.

  They weren’t going to make it.

  15

  Fear and adrenaline surged through Devlin’s veins. The steering was stiff—he’d lost it at the crucial moment in the curve. He worked the brakes, fought to control the skid on a damp gravel road.

  The ditch was about a foot deep and full of last night’s rain. The front tires smacked hard and deep. Water flew. Branches snapped as the Jeep ripped through them. The stand of cedars rushed toward them.

  They hit a good-size tree head-on.

  The air bags ripped the wheel out of his hand.

  They skidded sideways. The side panel smacked another tree.

  And they stopped.

  The air bags deflated. The warm and comforting scent of cedar—no longer warm and comforting—filled the air.

  In the sudden lack of motion, lack of sound, he could hear his heart thundering in his ears. Or was it Meadow’s heart he heard?

  She clutched her head.

  Damn it. That concussion! “Meadow. Are you all right?”

  She didn’t answer. She was conscious, but she wasn’t talking. And if Meadow wasn’t talking, there was definitely something wrong.

  He unhooked her seat belt. “Is anything broken? Can you move everything?” Two minutes ago he’d been furious with her. Twice today he’d given her the chance to tell him everything, and she’d refused. More than twice today she’d laughed with other men, charmed other men.

  Then she’d had the nerve to look at him warily, as if he could be as dangerous and unforgiving as Bradley Benjamin and his cohorts.

  A thought niggled at him—maybe he was more like them than he wished.

  But he dismissed it when she said, “I’m fine.” She wiggled various body parts to show him, but she kept her hand on her head.

  He lifted her chin to look into her eyes. They were tear-filled. Pain-filled. “Meadow. Are you all right?” He enunciated each word slowly.

  “I’m fine,” she said again.

  Yeah. Sure she was. She looked like hell. Her red freckles stuck out in stark relief to her white complexion. She closed her eyes, as if keeping them open were too great an effort, and leaned her head against the headrest.

  He sure wasn’t mad at her anymore.

  “Damn it!” They were halfway between the Secret Garden and Amelia Shores. He pulled out his cell phone and looked. They had no service. They were alone out here with no protection. . . . His head whipped around.

  A car was coming.

  He leaned into the Jeep toward the pistol he kept locked in a box close at hand—and relaxed when Four’s stupid damned MINI honked from the road.

  “What happened?” Four climbed out, a long-legged clown out of an absurdly tiny car, and rushed toward them. “Did you miss the corner?”

  “Yeah. I missed the corner.” Devlin leaped out and hurried to Meadow. “Honey, I’m going to send you with Four.” He slid his arms around her.

  “I can walk,” she said.

  “But you don’t have to.” He headed for the MINI.

  Four took one look at Meadow, then backed away as if he were afraid she’d hurl—and hurl on him. “Is she okay?”

  “Take her to the hospital.”

  Four tiptoed after them and opened the passenger-side door.

  “I’m fine. I’m just tired,” she said, but she didn’t open her eyes.

  Last night she’d been lively even after hitting her head. Today she looked drawn, exhausted; and with a pang, Devlin realized he shouldn’t have taken her to town, shouldn’t have relied on her to tell him whether she was tired. Meadow didn’t complain. Not while there was life to be lived.

  Devlin slid her into the seat. “I want Dr. Apps to check her out. Don’t take no for an answer.” Taking Four’s shoulder, Devlin looked him in the eyes. “Don’t leave her alone, and don’t let anything happen to her. Or I’ll kill you.”

  “Right. I know. Don’t blame you a bit. She’s great.” Four’s breathless agreement could be anxiety for Meadow—or it could be guilt.

  Had Four had a hand in this accident?

  No. No, Four might be mad at Devlin, but he wasn’t vicious. He never had been.

  “What are you going to do?” Four asked.

  “Call Frank Peterson,” Devlin said tersely.

  Four knew Frank, the mechanic and handyman. “I don’t think he can fix that car.”

  “No. Probably not.” But he could answer the question Devlin wanted answered.

  Because this accident wasn’t an accident.

  Miss Louise “Weezy” Woodward, teenage volunteer at the Amelia Shores Regional Hospital, hustled out of the waiting room like her tail feathers had been scorched. She stopped by the nurses’ station. “Mrs. Peterson, did you see that Devlin Fitzwilliam while his girlfriend was in having a CT scan? I offered him a cup of coffee and a smile, and he about ripped my throat out.”

  “Of course he did. He’s madly in love with her. Haven’t you heard?” Jazmin Peterson, nurse in command on this floor, grinned at the chance to impart the news and take pretty Weezy down a few notches. “That’s his wife.”

  “His wife?” Weezy’s cheeks turned as bright pink as her hospital jacket. “He’s not married! He can’t be. Who told you? When did he marry?”

  Jazmin leaned on the counter and drawled every single syllable. “It is the most romantic thing. I heard all about it from my Frank, who’s working out at the hotel doing odd jobs—and there are a lot of odd jobs to do, too, with stuff going wrong all the time, and half of it fishy stuff, if you know what I mean.”

  “I heard old Mr. Bradley Benjamin was so mad he swore to kill Mr. Fitzwilliam.”

  “I heard that, too. But Mr. Benjamin came through here not too long ago, and he’s in no shape to kill anyone.” Jazmin nodded wisely. “If he don’t have a angiogram pretty soon, he’d better start preparing for the long journey home.”

  “Never mind him!” Weezy grabbed Jazmin’s arm and shook it. “Tell me about Mr. Fitzwilliam and how he got married without any of us knowing it.”

  “A long time ago, Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam met and got married in Hawaii, then they had a big fight and she left him. That’s why Mr. Devlin’s been so ugly to everyone for so long.”

  “He was dying of frustrated desire,” Weezy said.

  “Yes, until she showed up on his doorstep last evening. They shared one night of passionate reunion; then he almost killed her by driving into a tree. That poor man. He’s swimming in guilt.”

  “That is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.” Weezy pressed her hand over her heart.

  “And all true.” Frank had said there’d been gossip that Mrs. Fitzwilliam broke into the house, but Jazmin figured that was just crazy talk, and she wasn’t the kind of woman to spread crazy talk.

  Weezy, who was Amelia Shores to the bone, asked, “Who is her family?”

  “No one knows. She’s some Yankee girl, but I’ll tell you one thing for sure—she’s not rich. I saw the calluses on her fingers myself.” That had made Jazmin like her a lot.

  “What’s young Mr. Benjamin doing hanging around here?”

  “I don’t think but he’s in love with her, too,” Jazmin said wisely. “He’s the one who brought her in, and you should have seen him. He was white-faced and shaking like a leaf.”

  “That is not fair. She can’t have the two of them!” Young Weezy stomped her foot.

  “I guess she can.” Jazmin gestured down the corridor. “There they go now.”

  They watched the wheelchair roll toward the exit. Mr. Fitzwilliam walked beside the wheelchair, holding Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s hand.

  Four walked behind them, weaving slightly.

  “Do you suppose he’s been hitting the bottle again?” Weezy asked. “You know he always keeps that flask in his pocket.”

  “And fills it up at Waldemar, according to my Frank. He just hangs around out there like some sorrowful ghost. Rumor has it he’s the reason Mr. Bradley Ben
jamin had to sell the house to Mr. Fitzwilliam.”

  “No! Why?”

  “Young Mr. Benjamin’s not got a head for business.”

  Dr. Apps stepped into the doorway of the examining room and watched her patient leave.

  Jazmin lowered her voice. “Dr. Apps must have agreed to send Mrs. Fitzwilliam home. She didn’t want to—Mrs. Fitzwilliam was arguing like crazy—but Mr. Fitzwilliam said he would make sure his wife stayed in bed if he had to stay there with her. Dr. Apps looked as if he’d slapped her, and got real quiet.”

  “Dr. Apps had aspirations toward him.”

  “She wasn’t the only one.” Jazmin looked meaningfully at Weezy.

  “Well, why not?” Weezy plumped her ample boobs with her hands. “I’m a good-looking girl, and there aren’t that many handsome millionaires in this town.”

  They didn’t call her Sleazy Weezy for nothing.

  “Devlin Fitzwilliam is not a handsome millionaire.” Jazmin chuckled. “He’s a handsome billionaire—and honey, you are so out of luck.”

  16

  J ordan hustled into the kitchen, and Mia flinched. She always flinched when he was around. He was so critical. He bellowed so loudly. And now that he’d said she was going to be his saucier, the stakes were higher. If she messed up he would throw her out, and she needed this job. The divorce had left her with nothing except bills and two teenagers who hated her because their no-good daddy had skipped town.

  “Come on!” Jordan clapped his hands. “We’re going up to stand on the porch and wait for Miz Fitzwilliam.”

  “They’re not keeping her at the hospital?” Christian asked.

  “Yes, but they’re releasing her in the morning, so we’ll stand there all night.” Jordan rolled his eyes. “Of course they’ve released her. Now, vite! They’ve turned in the gate.”

  The two assistants took off their aprons and headed after their boss.

  The sunshine made Mia blink, and so did the size of the crowd. She worked in the kitchen. She had no idea there were so many employees at the Secret Garden.