Shameless (The Contemporary Collection)

by Blake, Jennifer

  As he stepped free, his gaze was blank, turned inward upon some horror only he could see. His face drained of color, leaving the bronze of the sun on the surface like a stain. A white line appeared around his mouth. His voice rough, almost unrecognizable, he said, “The bathroom is at the head of the stairs, a robe is behind the door. Come down when you're ready.”

  He met her gaze for a single, searing instant, then turned and strode away, back toward the kitchen.

  It was a retreat, fast and definite. Cammie stared after him until her eyes burned and her fingers, pressing into the newel post, were numb.

  She had wanted to hurt him. She had succeeded, though how, exactly, she was not quite certain. Of one thing she was positive: the blow had been a direct hit, a hammer strike to the heart. In his eyes, turned up to hers and revealed by the light shining down from the stairwell above them, there had been such unrelieved agony that she felt sick remembering it.

  And she never wanted to see it again.

  2

  THE TEMPERATURE IN THE KITCHEN WAS several degrees warmer than it had been earlier, and the smell of brewed coffee was strong on the air. Two dessert plates had been set on the work table of time-polished wood, along with forks and napkins. A generous piece of pound cake lay in the exact center of each plate. In the middle of the table, next to the sugar bowl and cream pitcher, was a bottle of Courvoisier.

  Reid sat at the table staring at his knit fingers. His hair seemed darker than Cammie remembered it, though a part of the darkness was because it was still wet. Since her own long mane was more than half dry, he must have waited to have his shower until long after she had drawn her bath. He had changed into a soft, faded chambray shirt and a pair of jeans that were even a lighter blue. In comparison, his eyes were the color of fresh-mined turquoise, and were just as hard and opaque.

  He got to his feet as she entered, drawing out a chair and holding it for her before he walked to the cabinet to fill two ironstone mugs with coffee. Returning to the table with them, he set hers in front of her, then reached for the brandy bottle.

  “None for me, thanks,” Cammie said in haste.

  “Don't let's start that again, please.”

  He spoke without looking at her and without a pause in his task. There was the striated sound of a limit reached in his voice. It held her silent while he poured a generous measure of liquor into her coffee. She reached for the cream, stirring it into the concoction while she waited for him to sit down.

  Difficult tasks, she knew, should be plunged into without waiting. She caught the inside of her bottom lip between her teeth for only an instant before she spoke. “I'm sorry if what I said earlier touched a nerve. Going for the jugular with words has become a habit with me.”

  “It always was,” he said with a wry twist of his lips as he resumed his seat. “You were fairly lethal at sixteen.”

  “You mean — I don't remember much about that day.” A flush for the half-truth burned across her cheekbones.

  He gave her a direct look with a faint glint in its depths. “Don't you? I'd like to give you a direct quote, but I've managed to block out most of it. Finally. You insulted my ancestors, said I was a conceited jackass, that my kiss was too wet and I had bad breath.”

  “I didn't.” The words were blank.

  “You did,” he answered with certainty. “You also said that if I ever touched you again, you would scream bloody murder — or be sick.”

  Cammie looked down at her coffee. Her hands shook a little as she picked up the cup. “You caught me by surprise.”

  “You surprised me, too, something I vowed never to let happen again. Which is why I may have been a little rough earlier.”

  “I see. Mere self-protection.”

  “I've already joined the army once to get away, or rather to escape the things you said that day and the way you looked at me. It turned out to be a bit drastic. I prefer not to have to do it again.”

  “You're joking,” she said, her eyes wide. “Aren't you?”

  “Am I?” he said, his gaze steady as it held hers.

  She couldn't tell, which was almost as disturbing as the thought of how she might have affected his life. She took a deep breath. “If you expect another apology, especially at this late date, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. You — You moved in on me too fast.”

  “And got what I deserved. Let it go. I had other reasons for getting out of Greenley, and none of it matters anymore anyway.” He reached for his coffee mug, his eyes shielded by his long, golden-brown lashes as he sipped.

  It mattered to her; the shock was, how much it did. She could not press it, however, not after his dismissive words. She drank another hefty swallow of her coffee, shuddering at the bite of the brandy. Its potency ignited a glow of warmth in her stomach that began to spread. She drank again before she finally spoke.

  “The other reasons, did they have something to do with the paper mill?”

  His gaze was considering. “I don't think it's any secret that I never wanted to work there.”

  “What about now, with your father gone? Will you be taking his place?”

  “It seems to be expected.”

  “Not by everyone,” she said dryly. “Keith was hoping you would stay away. You know he stepped up to assistant manager while his brother has been filling in as manager?”

  Reid nodded. “Gordon hasn't said anything about either of them keeping the jobs.”

  “He wouldn't. Keith's brother is nothing if not diplomatic.”

  “Smooth,” he agreed.

  “A good businessman, of course,” she said in grudging tones. “I expect he's waiting to see what you decide.”

  Cammie had never cared for Gordon Hutton. He seemed to think his doormat of a wife was perfection in the species, and he'd always done his best to tell Keith how to handle her, too, so she'd fit the same mold. At times, when Cammie was especially outspoken, it seemed to her that Gordon could barely restrain himself from demonstrating his ideas.

  “Keith used to be a good kid,” Reid said, “back when we played football together. Lizbeth wrote me about you two getting married. And when you separated.”

  His assessment of Keith was generous; Cammie remembered those football games well. Her husband had played tailback to Reid's quarterback. Keith was fast and slick, but he was also a grandstanding jerk who had done his best to steal the glory.

  “Lizbeth?” she asked, her voice tentative.

  Reid indicated the buttery-rich pound cake that neither of them had touched. “Cook and housekeeper for the Sayers these thirty years, the closest thing to a mother I had after my own died. She kept me up to date on everything worth knowing in Greenley.”

  Cammie knew whom he meant, had seen her around town. Lizbeth was a statuesque black woman with long hair she wore braided around her head, and skin the tobacco-gold shade of brown known as bright by those of African blood. She glanced at Reid, to find him watching her closely.

  He looked away, rubbing his fingers along the handle of his cup. His voice neutral, he said, “So what happened?”

  “With the marriage?” A small, derisive smile curled her full mouth. “It was a mistake from the beginning. Keith and I started going together my last year at college. Everybody seemed to think we were the perfect couple. One day he gave me a ring, and I couldn't think of a good reason not to take it. The next thing I knew, I was brushing rice out of my hair and popping birth control pills.”

  Cammie gave Reid a quick look, but his expression had not changed. There was more to the story, of course. She sometimes felt as if she had lived for years in limbo, waiting for her life to begin. Marrying Keith had been a feeble attempt to jump-start it. It hadn't worked, which was not entirely Keith's fault.

  She went on, “Then I found out that I was expected to melt quietly into the background and never be seen or heard again.”

  “And you didn't do that.” It was a statement rather than a question.

  “Our fights over it have bec
ome town legends. Keith's skin is thicker than yours.” She hadn't intended to refer to that again; it must be the brandy loosening her tongue, she thought, and hurried on to cover the lapse. “But what about you? How is it you never married?”

  He moved his shoulders as if the muscles of his neck were tight. “I did. In Colorado, just after I left the army. It lasted exactly a month.”

  “A whole month?”

  He acknowledged the irony with a grim smile. “I tried to warn her that the Ranger training I'd been through, the uses it was put to in Central America and the Caribbean, was designed to dehumanize, to turn men into animals that act on instinct. She thought she could change all that. We had been married two weeks when she came up behind me in the bathroom. I was shaving with an electric razor, didn't hear her. She put her arm around me at the throat. Instinct kicked in. She was in the hospital two weeks; it was pure luck that she didn't die. She started divorce proceedings the day she got out.”

  “How terrible,” Cammie said slowly. “I mean for you.”

  “It wasn't too great for her.”

  “You never tried again?”

  He gave her a steady look. “I'm barely housebroken, not fit husband material for any woman.”

  For just an instant she saw him as he must appear to other women, the rugged physique, the broad forehead and firmly molded mouth, the straight nose with a slight bump at the bridge as if it had been broken. There was an old-gold-tinted shadow of beard on his lean cheeks and jaws, a scar half hidden in one eyebrow. His hands were big and sun-brown, but were well-made with neat, close-clipped nails. His self-assurance was bone deep, accepted and forgotten. Then there were his eyes. Clear, steady, they held self-derision and half-hidden pain, but they were not the eyes of an animal.

  “You underestimate yourself, I think,” she said finally.

  “You're wrong.”

  The words were flat, with the heavy sound of denied emotion. Was there a warning in them? If so, it had nothing to do with her.

  “That isn't all, is it — your marriage, how it ended?” She tilted her head to one side in careful consideration. “There was something else that happened to you.”

  He came to his feet so abruptly that his chair skidded on the waxed linoleum. “Finish your coffee. I'll take you home.”

  “To my car, you mean,” she said, veiling her eyes as she felt warm color surge into her face. She was not used to being dismissed, though it was possible she had asked for it. She had forgotten, for a moment, who he was.

  “I mean home,” he answered. As she raised a questioning gaze, he moved to the cabinet, where he picked up a wallet and keys, her wallet and keys, and tossed them on the table. “I went back to check on Keith, just in case, and to drive your car around here to save time. It was no go. Somebody had slashed your tires.”

  The thought of him making that trek through the woods and cold rain again just to save her a little trouble gave her an odd feeling inside. She disregarded it as, in tones of disgust, she said, “Keith.”

  Reid nodded as he reached for his coffee cup and drank the last swallow. “His tracks were there. I take it he isn't happy about the divorce.”

  “You could say that,” she said, and told him briefly about the way she had been hounded.

  “Someone should have a talk with him.” There was an edge of carefully repressed ferocity in Reid's voice.

  Cammie gave him a sharp look as she pushed back her chair and stood up. His face was shuttered, with no clue to what he was thinking or what he intended. She said, “I hope that won't be necessary, after tonight.”

  A wry smile came and went across his face, but he said no more.

  There was a Jeep Cherokee and a Lincoln Town Car in the garage at the Fort. Since there was a stretch of muddy road to be covered, Reid backed the Jeep out.

  Cammie, sitting stiffly beside him, pulled at the faded and shrunken robe of navy flannel she still wore, trying to cover her knees. The robe had to be a relic of Reid's high school days, she thought, since it was so short and worn. It gave her an odd feeling to think it might be a favorite piece of clothing, carried with him around the world.

  Still, she hated to think what people would say if they saw her in it; the busybodies would have a field day. She had not been worried enough about it, however, to struggle back into her clammy underwear or wet shirt and jeans. If she didn't give people something interesting to talk about, they would make up something worse.

  She and Reid spoke very little during the short drive. The pecking of the rain on the Jeep's roof and the swish of the windshield wipers were loud in the silence. Once she saw him glance at her, look back at the road, then turn his head toward her again. The planes of his face were tinted soft emerald by the dash lights, though his eyes remained in shadow. His gaze rested on her hair, spilling over her shoulder; they skimmed over her breasts, where they pressed against the soft flannel, and touched the opening at the bottom of the robe where it had fallen away from her knees again. As he lifted his eyes, they locked with hers across the width of seat that separated them.

  Cammie felt the brush of heat like an intimate caress where his gaze had touched her. She wanted to look away from him, but it was as if her regard was caught in an invisible snare. Never in her life had she been so aware of a man, of the powerful shaping and contained strength of his body. There was something elemental about him, and as enduring as the pineland hills of the game reserve itself. At the same time, he had internal barriers like thick and impenetrable second-growth timber, barriers that could be used for protection, or as an ambush for the unwary.

  It also seemed, watching him, that he could be right in describing himself as animalistic. There appeared to be an untamed and dangerous side to his nature, like the rare tawny cougar known as a swamp panther. And yet, she felt no fear of it. Rather, she recognized in the soft singing of the blood in her veins a perilous need to discover whether, if she came close, he would turn and attack or permit her to touch him, to share his wildness.

  Wrenching her head around, she stared out into the darkness. She clenched her teeth as she waited for that instant of insanity to pass.

  The house where Cammie lived loomed dark and still as they turned into the drive and wound their way up the hill toward it. Older than the Fort by several decades, it was identified in the public records as Evergreen, though most people called it the Greenley place. Georgian in concept, it rose two stories high, with fanlighted center doorways, evenly spaced windows, and upper and lower porches grafted on in the style typical of pre-Civil War homes built by Louisiana planters. Modernized and added on to over the years, it had a gracious aspect left over from a quieter and slower time.

  During its antebellum heyday the place had been surrounded by several thousand acres of cotton land. The more distant fields had gradually been allowed to go back to woodland, while closer acreage with road frontage had been sold off to pay mortgages or for ready cash. There was less than eight acres kept clear around the house these days, though to Cammie's mind, that was plenty to mow and trim in the summer.

  Keith had hated living in the old Greenley mansion. He had called it drafty and musty-smelling, and complained that something always needed repair. He wanted to sell it and build something contemporary and convenient, with lots of glass and open decks, preferably out on the lake east of town.

  Cammie had refused. She had inherited Evergreen when her parents died, and she loved it. She had to admit he was right about repairs; the house seemed to chugalug money. Still, the spacious rooms, the generations-old furniture, and the garden with its huge old plants, which had been put into the ground by Greenley women long dead, were constant joys. She couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

  Reid strode with her through the light rain toward the back door. Cammie saw his appraising glance as it moved over the house looming above them. She wondered if he was comparing it to the Fort.

  She also noticed, as they neared the steps leading up to the back porch, that his
narrowed gaze raked the dimness beyond the house and behind the glow of the security light at the end of the drive. Though she looked also, she could make out nothing in the dark and swirling mists of rain. No doubt his watchfulness was a habit, another of those instincts he had talked about. It was oddly comforting.

  Turning as they reached the shelter of the back porch, she spoke with brittle politeness. “I'm afraid I never did thank you for — for coming to my rescue this evening. I want you to know that I do appreciate it.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, the words low and deep and as empty as her own.

  She smiled, a mechanical movement of the lips. “Well, then, I guess I'll see you around.”

  He put out a hand to catch her arm as she turned from him. There was a frown between his eyes. As she stiffened and raised a brow in inquiry, he nodded toward the dark side garden. “Keith is over there. Watching you.”

  “You mean he's out there — now?” She flung a quick glance over her shoulder.

  Reid nodded. “His Land Rover is a half mile down the road, angled in behind the church; I saw it as we passed. He's about fifty yards to the right, back behind the camellias.”

  The idea of Keith skulking out there, spying on her, looking for some way to sneak back into her life, brought the rise of anger and a shadow of apprehension. Her voice tight, she said, “I can't believe this.”

  “The sheriff, Deerfield, is a cousin of yours, isn't he? Maybe you should call him.” Reid's voice carried a tentative edge that suggested he was less than satisfied with that solution.

  Nor was Cammie satisfied. If she made that call, the news would be all over town by morning. On top of that, Keith might well spread a biased version of the events of the night in his own defense. There was no telling what kind of lurid fiction would come of it all by the time both stories had made the rounds.