Dark River Road

by Virginia Brown

  She didn’t wait for the invitation but slid past him, put the beer on the table and turned around to look at him with an expression of feline satisfaction usually reserved for a cat with a cornered mouse.

  “Might not be a good time,” he said. “The air conditioner’s out and it’s hot in here.”

  “Honey, getting hotter by the moment. Here. Have a beer. That’ll cool you off a little.”

  She twisted a can free from the plastic loop and tossed it to him. He caught it easily, one hand still holding the edge of the towel around his waist. “Look, Cathy. This isn’t a good idea. I don’t need any trouble.”

  “No? Then why’d you come back?” She pulled the tab on her beer then rubbed the can over her chest, and he remembered how she’d done that the first night they’d ever had sex, down on the river at Makeout Point. It’d worked pretty well on a fifteen year old boy.

  “Business reasons.”

  “Um. Business, huh.” She draped herself on the bed, propped up against the pillows and looking at him with a calculating smile. “It might be interesting to know just what business brings you back here.”

  He had no intention of telling her about working with Doc. Word would get out soon enough about that. Leaving the door half-open, he set his unopened beer down on the table by the empty pizza box.

  “So where’s Brad?”

  “How should I know? He does his own thing now. Works at the casino for Chris. He gets all he wants elsewhere, and I’m free to do the same.”

  “Chris Quinton?”

  “Yep. He runs the casino for his grandfather, but you probably already know that.”

  He did. He’d done some checking of his own before he came back, knew that old man Quinton had bought into a casino up in Tunica, was raking in money hand over fist and getting richer by the day. Back in the late eighties he’d spearheaded the campaign to legalize riverboat gambling in Mississippi, after purchasing several tracts of land along the riverbanks above Mhoon Landing. The first casino had opened to great success, but those built on land closer to Memphis were where profits were best. And Quinton had been right there with his hand in the till. Not surprising.

  “I didn’t know Brad worked for him,” he said.

  “Sure. Boyhood loyalties. They’re all making lots of money and happy about it.”

  “Nothing like the bond formed by mutual greed.”

  Her head tilted again. “You really are cynical, aren’t you.”

  “Did you think I’d changed?”

  “Maybe. Still have those blue eyes that give women shivers, and your hair’s still dark and a little too long so that you look dangerous, but you’ve changed in other ways. You’re—harder. All sharp edges now, when once you at least had this . . . kind of sweetness.”

  “We all grow up.”

  “Some of us. Brad didn’t.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure I have. You were always grown.”

  Drops of water ran down the side of his face from his wet hair, and he raked a hand through it. “Yeah. Maybe I was at that. Look, this isn’t exactly the right time for this.”

  “For what?” She uncurled from the bed, short hem of her dress riding up so high he could see she wasn’t wearing any underwear. “For catching up on old times? Or for—other things?”

  She’d moved close, beer in one hand, long painted nails gliding lightly over his bare chest and lower, to the top of the towel around his waist. All good intentions aside, he couldn’t help a sharp intake of breath when her fingertips feathered over his belly and made his muscles tighten. It reminded him just how long it’d been since he’d been with a woman, even while he knew this wasn’t what he wanted.

  He caught her wrist when she tugged at his towel, held her, fingers gripping tightly. Her eyes widened, but instead of putting her off, it made her lean closer. “Um. You’re not so easy this time, Chantry.”

  For a moment he just looked down at her, recognizing the haze of desire in her eyes, and wondered if it was in his, too. Some things a man just couldn’t control that well, and his body had reacted on its own. But he still had free will, still knew better than to start something he wouldn’t want to finish.

  He might have said something to ease the moment, but a voice from the doorway took care of that for him.

  “Looks like I got here just in time. Or are you just beginning?”

  It took him a minute to recognize her. There wasn’t much resemblance in the green eyed girl and the cool eyed woman who stared back at him now, but everything registered at once, how it probably looked to her, the fact that he cared how it looked, and Cathy’s sudden laugh.

  “You really have shitty timing, Cinda. Go away.”

  “Certainly. Sorry for the interruption.”

  “Cinda—wait.” He let go of Cathy’s wrist and grabbed at the door, catching the edge before she could slam it shut. “It’s not what it looks like.”

  She turned to look at him, blonde hair catching the last rays of the late afternoon light, her eyes cool and remote. “No? It hardly matters to me if it is or isn’t. I just came by to deliver some information on real estate listings for rental homes. You were at my office earlier today and there seemed to have been some kind of miscommunication. It’s all straightened out now. Nancy Owen will handle it for you.”

  “That . . . was your office?” A stupid thing to say, but he couldn’t come up with anything that wouldn’t sound even worse.

  “Yes. Here. Some listings. Please call Nancy if you find any of them interesting.” She thrust a folder into his hand. It had a card stapled to the top, but he didn’t even glance at it, just tossed the folder to the table by the empty pizza box.

  “Thanks. I’ll look over it and call you.”

  She was already walking away. Tall, slender, with the curves of a woman. He didn’t try to call her back, just let her go. There wasn’t much he could say right now anyway.

  “Well,” Cathy said when he turned back around, her hands on her hips and her head to one side, “that was awkward.”

  “Just a little.”

  “Guess all those rumors were true, huh. Not that I didn’t figure they were anyway. Never can tell, though. Sometimes it’s just a case of ‘love the one you’re with.’ I can take a hint. Maybe later?” She walked to the door, turned around to smile at him. “It’s been too damn dull around here lately. I have a feeling that’s all about to change. Welcome home, Chantry Callahan.”

  Right. Some homecoming.

  CHAPTER 28

  It was all over Cane Creek that he was back, and no doubt all over town that he’d been in a motel room with Cathy Chandler by now, too. Cathy wouldn’t mind. In fact, she’d probably love it, but Chantry minded. Not that it wasn’t familiar, being accused of something he didn’t quite do. If it wasn’t so damned irritating, it might even be funny.

  Donny Caldwell thought it was. He grinned at Chantry, shook his head. “You ain’t back twenty-four hours and you already got folks stirred up. Five ball in the corner pocket.” Leaning over the pool table, he sunk the ball, then rechalked his cue stick. “Damn, dude. Cathy and Cinda at the same time? How did you manage that?”

  “Obviously not like you think.” When Donny missed the next shot, Chantry cleared the table. Then he looked up. Donny was staring at him with an odd expression, but he couldn’t tell if it was because he’d won the game or hadn’t answered his question.

  The waitress came over with their beers, something new at the Wreck Room since he’d last been here, but the smoke in the air was the same. Still thick and heavy. He paid for their beers and lit a cigarette, waited for Donny to say what was on his mind. He always had when they were kids, knowing he just had to find the right time and way.

  “Hey look,” Donny finally said, “it ain’t none of my business, but ol’ man Quinton’s not gonna be happy to hear you’re back. Once he hears Cinda was at your motel room . . . well, shit’s gonna hit the fan.”

  “It’s going to hit it anyway. Nothing new about that. Rack �
�em up. Unless you don’t want to play another game.”

  “I got time for another game.”

  It was late when they left the Wreck Room, the night air sultry with heat residue from the day but not unbearable. Crickets hummed, a dog barked somewhere in the distance, but none of the night noises of bigger cities marred the silence. No sirens, no noisy cars with booming stereos that rattled house windows and teeth. It was a different kind of noise here, the kind he’d listened to as a kid. Familiar.

  “Nice car,” Donny said when they stopped by his Ranger Rover, and Chantry nodded.

  “It does okay.”

  “It’d probably do a little better with air in the tires.”

  All four tires were flat. Not slashed, just flat. Maybe he should be mad or surprised, but he wasn’t. He just gave Donny a wry look. “Any place open this late to get some air?”

  “There’s a gas station over on Market where you might can buy some canned air. If not, I got an air compressor at my house. Not that it’d do us much good unless we towed your car over there on a flatbed.”

  “Right. We’ll try the canned air first.”

  Donny’s truck was an older model and smelled like sour milk, but it got them to the gas station where Chantry bought eight cans of compressed air to fix flats. He hated using it on his tires, but he sure wasn’t going to leave it parked all night on the dark street outside the Wreck Room.

  “Any idea who mighta done this?” Donny asked while Chantry put air in the tires.

  “Multiple choice. Take your pick. You’ve got a whole town to choose from.”

  “Could be a kid’s trick. We did the same kind of stuff when we were kids.”

  “Not me. That was you. I was into other stuff.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. You were always grounded or on probation.”

  “No, just had other interests.” Chantry finished the last tire and stood up. “Gotta drive it to distribute the stuff evenly. Going with me?”

  “Naw, better go on home. Patty’ll be wondering what’s going on.” Patty Jablonski, now Patty Caldwell, had been a pretty, plump blonde several years behind them in school. He vaguely remembered her but was pretty sure she remembered him a lot better. After everything that had happened, she’d have had to sleep through the entire ninth grade not to have heard the gossip.

  When Donny turned left to head south to the new subdivision built a few years back for first time home buyers, he turned right to air up his tires. Then he headed north, just cruised along the highway for a while with the windows down and night air blowing over his face. There was a lot more traffic on the road than he remembered, probably because of the casinos. Quinton County wasn’t isolated any more, if it’d ever been. And now old man Quinton had his hands in the revenues of both counties.

  He thought about that, then about Cinda. She was still in Cane Creek. That surprised him. He’d never asked, hadn’t wanted to know, hadn’t figured it’d matter. They’d just been kids the last time he’d seen her, and she would have moved on with her life, like he had. But somehow when he’d let himself remember her, he’d thought of her in exotic places like she’d talked about going one day, far away from Cane Creek, maybe even living in the mountains. Not still here in the flat delta land living in her grandfather’s shadow. It was vaguely disappointing. He’d wanted to think of her being elsewhere. Out of Quinton’s reach.

  But maybe that wasn’t possible.

  Rainey had once said Quinton was like a big toad gobbling up secrets and people, and he doubted he’d changed that much. Or could change that much. It’d be like turning a dog into a cat. Damn near impossible.

  So what the hell was he doing back here? Why had he even come back to Mississippi at all when he could have gone to veterinary school anywhere? He’d had offers from other clinics for his residency, but somehow he’d always known he’d come back to Doc. It wasn’t so much loyalty as it was curiosity. Mama had been fond of saying that curiosity killed the cat, and he’d always replied that satisfaction brought it back. Maybe they were both right. But sometimes satisfaction was elusive and the cat stayed dead.

  It was after midnight when he returned to the Best Western, and he parked his car under a big light and set the alarm. The repairman must have come while he was gone, because it was cold in his room. He altered the temperature setting, then grabbed the ice bucket and headed to the ice machine he’d spotted on the first floor. Except for the noise from some of the big rigs parked in the lot, it was quiet, only a few trickles of headlights on the highway. Behind the motel stretched a cotton field, dark where the motel lights didn’t reach. A shaft of light suddenly speared the field in an arc as someone started a car, twin beams sweeping across the parking lot as it turned toward the exit.

  When he got back to his room, his phone was ringing. He answered it. A man said, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave Cane Creek.” Then the line went dead. Not exactly a real big surprise. Someone still thought of him as a threat.

  He thought about the curious cat and knew who it had to be.

  Sunday in Cane Creek hadn’t seemed to change much on the surface. A church bell rang, the C&P rattled down the tracks with freight, and cars filled the parking lot of the New Cane Creek Baptist Church. Chantry’s wasn’t one of them. He passed by on his way to Tyler’s Drugs, and thought of Mama lying under an oak in the cemetery. He hadn’t visited her grave since the day of her funeral, and when Miss Pat and Doctor Mike wanted her moved to the family plot in Memphis, had flatly refused to even consider it. Mama had chosen to live in Cane Creek, and it was where she needed to stay, whatever her reasons for coming here. With the distance of fourteen years, he figured now that his main reason for protesting then may have been he just couldn’t bear the thought of living through her death again.

  Services were letting out as he passed, people coming out to stand on the wide front steps and talk, kids running around to release pent-up energy. It wouldn’t surprise him if Reverend Hale came out to drag him back into the pastor’s study to lecture him on the evils of sin. He had more than a few new ones to add to the list. No doubt the good reverend did as well. Chantry slowed the car slightly. Then he could almost see Mama coming down those steps in her white dress with lavender sprigs, and gave the car a little more gas to get past. Despite the blast of cold air from the air vents, his palms got sweaty. Old ghosts. Mikey was right. He’d said Chantry just replaced old ghosts with new demons, and wouldn’t ever get past any of them until he figured out what he really wanted in life. What was important. Advice from a twenty year old. Just what he needed.

  There was a new Walmart in Cane Creek, but Tyler’s appealed more to him so maybe Mikey was right about some things. Eldridge Tyler was behind the pharmacist’s counter, and looked up with a faint frown as if trying to place him, then his brow suddenly cleared and he got this look on his face like he’d just been pole-axed. Chantry ignored him. He’d probably have to get used to that during the next six months. He damn sure didn’t intend to let it run him off.

  When he left Tyler’s, he went to the Sonic for a cheeseburger, then back to the motel room to make some phone calls. He still had to have a place to live, and now that Cinda had obviously gone to the trouble to be sure her agent found him a place, the least he could do was check it out. A phone number was written on the outside of the folder under a card stapled to it.

  A woman answered when he dialed the number, and he said, “Nancy Owen?”

  There was a pause and he thought maybe he’d dialed wrong, but then came the reply, “Chantry? This is Cinda. Nancy’s number is on the card I left you.”

  “This is your number written under it, then.”

  Another pause, then she said, “Yes.”

  For a moment he didn’t know what to say. She’d written her number down, but that was before she’d seen him with Cathy. He got that much. He just wasn’t sure if she’d included her number for him on a personal or professional level. It was awkward. He felt sixteen again, unsur
e of anything but that he wanted to see her. He gave it a shot.

  “Since I’ve got you on the phone, why don’t you show me the rental properties. I don’t think Nancy and I are going to get along too well anyway.”

  “Nancy is an extremely competent agent. I’m certain she can help you.”

  “She looks at me like I’m going to slit her throat. I’d rather deal with you. Unless that’s a problem?”

  There was another silence then she said, “Not for me. It might be for Cathy.”

  Jesus. “It’s not. Is today convenient?”

  “I’ll pick you up at two in front of the motel. There are only three suitable properties, so it shouldn’t take long to show them to you.”

  At two he went outside just as Cinda drove into the parking lot in a tan Escalade SUV. It looked new, but had mud splatters on the sides and a car tag that read Ridgeway Realty on the front bumper. He slid onto the front seat. She flicked him a glance and impersonal smile, handing him a folder as she put the vehicle into gear and rolled toward the exit.

  “There aren’t many rentals available in Cane Creek these days. The casinos keep us pretty busy.”

  “Guess you get the overflow from Tunica County.”

  “A lot of it, yes. Occasionally, we’ll have something available. Nancy just wasn’t certain if these were cleared yet for rental. Inspections, leases, that sort of thing.”

  “And she wasn’t certain Bert Quinton’s granddaughter would want her to rent to me. Sure. I get it.”

  Cinda’s silence verified his comment. After a moment, she said, “Which one would you like to look at first?”

  “You choose. I can’t tell anything from this.” He didn’t want to waste time looking at the typed descriptions when he could be looking at Cinda. She’d changed, but he’d have known her anywhere. Her blonde hair was a little darker but had light streaks through it, and she wore it to her shoulders in a loose cut that made it swing around her face. All traces of the girl were gone except for her mouth. It still had slick shiny stuff on it and still made him want to kiss her. That could be a problem. He looked away.