That Jones Girl (The Mississippi McGills, Sequel)

by Webb, Peggy

  THAT JONES GIRL

  (Sequel to the Mississippi McGills)

  PEGGY WEBB

  Copyright 2013 by Peggy Webb

  Cover Design 2013 by Kim Van Meter

  Publishing History/Bantam/ April 1991

  Copyright © 1991 by Peggy Webb

  All Rights Reserved

  Smashwords Edition

  PROLOGUE

  Tess Jones Flannigan Carson OToole was sound asleep. Sprawled across her bed, she slept as if she were on an island splashed with vivid color and surrounded by an ocean of raucous sound. Her hair was a spill of red on the pillow, her silk gown a ripple of purple. One high-heeled slipper, hanging precariously from her toe, sparkled with gold sequins. The hands on her clock radio pointed to 2:00 p.m., and a rock and roll song blared.

  Tess slept on.

  A Siamese cat sat on the windowsill, switching his tail and watching his mistress. After a long perusal, he leaped from his perch to a nearby chair and from there made a flying leap to the pillow. He sat like a silent Buddha for a while, then leaned down and licked his mistress’s bare shoulder.

  She stirred. The cat’s pink tongue glided over her skin again.

  “OToole. Is that you?”

  Tess rolled over slowly, yawning and stretching. Giving a cat-smile of satisfaction, OToole made himself at home on the pillow and began to wash his paws.

  “I guess I’d oversleep every day if it weren’t for you.” She leaned over and rubbed his head. “Thanks, OToole.”

  OToole continued his bath as if he didn’t care whether she thanked him or not. Tess laughed. Her cat was just like her last husband: A bulldozer could have rolled over the bed, and neither of them would have shown a speck of emotion. After she’d packed Robert OToole’s bags and sent him on his way, she’d acquired the Siamese, named him OToole to remind herself that she’d already made three mistakes and she’d better be careful with husband number four—whoever he might be.

  Tess battled her way out of her fluffy bed—everything was duck down and soft and deep and cuddly, just the way she liked it. She walked around her bedroom lopsided, searching for her other shoe. It was hanging from the hat rack, its sequins sparkling in the bright sunlight that poured through the window.

  Tess took it off without blinking an eye, as if shoes were supposed to be on a hat rack. Humming a New Orleans blues song, she put on her shoe, tossed her peignoir carelessly over her shoulders, and went into her den, trailing purple chiffon and ostrich plumes.

  Her intercom buzzed.

  “Telegram for Miss Jones.”

  She smiled. It was probably from one of her fans. She was always getting mail and flowers from her fans.

  “Come on up.”

  The delivery boy from Western Union handed the telegram to Tess and stayed to watch her read. She was his favorite singer and probably his favorite person in all of Chicago. Miss Tess Jones had style.

  A tiny frown creased her forehead as she read.

  “Bad news, Miss Jones?”

  “I’m afraid so.” She folded the telegram into a neat square, her long fingernails bright red against the stark white paper. “A good friend of mine back home has died.”

  “Gee, that’s too bad.” He took off his cap in deference to the dead. “I’m sorry, Miss Jones.”

  “Thanks, Henry.”

  “I guess you’ll be going home for the funeral?”

  Tess Jones Flannigan Carson OToole did an extraordinary thing, astonishing Henry so he almost dropped his cap: She smiled.

  “I’ll be going home, all right, Henry. But not for a funeral. I’ll be going home for a celebration.”

  Then she explained to him.

  “There were six of us, three boys and three girls, best of friends, the rowdiest group on the college campus. If a water balloon fell on a professor, everybody knew that one of us had done it. If a rival college’s mascot was stolen, the group was automatically given credit.” She paused, smiling at the good memories.

  “We lived high and fast and hard and well. And we made a pact that when one of us died, the survivors would gather and have a great going-away party.”

  “A going-away party, Miss Jones?”

  Tess reached out and patted his cheek. “Death is merely a journey from one realm to another. Remember that, Henry.”

  After Henry had gone, Tess leaned against the door, tapping the telegram with her fingernails. Suddenly she shivered. But not for death, not for Babs. Babs had died the way she had lived—with style. According to Johnny’s telegram, she’d crashed her plane into the Rockies. Death had come instantly, quick and clean and neat.

  No. She shivered not for Babs but for herself. All the members of the group would come. There was no doubt about it. Flannigan would be there. If Johnny could find him, Mick Flannigan would be in Tupelo, Mississippi.

  She leaned against the door, remembering. Mick Flannigan, her best friend forever, her first lover, her first love. The man who had walked out on her ten years ago after only six months of marriage.

  “Damn you, Mick Flannigan.” Tess wadded the telegram into a ball and tossed it across the room. “I didn’t cry for you then, and I won’t cry for you now.”

  Trailing purple chiffon and ostrich feathers and the heavenly scent of jasmine, she went to her telephone to make arrangements.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Mick Flannigan was not prepared for his first sight of Tess.

  He lounged against a Greek column on Johnny and Babs’s front porch and watched Tess get out of the taxi and come up the brick pathway. She had been beautiful ten years ago, but now she was astonishing. Her red hair was longer and fuller. The setting summer sun caught sparks in it, giving her a halo of flame. Her eyes were the same—green, long-lashed, and mysteriously slanted. Her walk was the same too. She still walked as if she owned the world.

  It was her face that caught his attention. Time had sculpted the cheekbones, refined the features. At twenty-five Tess had had the soft, dewy look of a rose in first bloom. Now, she was one of the exotics, a passion flower, sleek and perfect and rare.

  Regret sliced through him, and then he reminded himself that it was too late for regret. Ten years too late.

  He took his cigar from his mouth and exhaled deeply, watching her through the smoke rings.

  With one slim foot poised on the top step, Tess stopped. She turned her head slowly, like a wild creature sensing a trap.

  Flannigan stepped out of the shadows.

  “Hello, Tess.”

  Her nostrils flared briefly, then she offered her hand, a princess doling out favors to one of her lowly subjects.

  “Flannigan.”

  That was all she said. “Flannigan.” She used to call him Mick unless she was mad at him—or unless they were making love. In the throes of passion she would say his name over and over. “Flannigan... Flannigan... Flannigan...” He wondered what was going through her mind now.

  He took her hand in his and held it for a long moment, gazing deeply into her eyes. They told him nothing. He didn’t know what he had expected, but certainly something more than this cool greeting that she might have given a complete stranger.

  Turning her hand over, he leaned down and pressed a kiss in her palm. For the sheer wickedness of it, he circled his tongue over her warm skin, lingering until he felt her hand tremble.

  He flicked his tongue out again, and she trembled once more, but she didn’t pull away. The lady had guts. He had always admired that about her.

  “Ten years hasn’t changed you at all, has it, Flannigan? You’re still using your charm on everything in skirts.”

  “Are you charmed, Tess?�
� He straightened up and smiled at her.

  It was the smile she remembered so well. She used to think that surely the angels bent down and sighed when Mick Flannigan smiled. Now, she thought it was practiced, too smooth, too perfect, too calculated.

  “Not anymore, Flannigan. I got over being charmed by you when you picked up your bags and walked out on me.” His smile vanished, and now it was her turn. She gave him her most brilliant, most enchanting stage smile, the one she used to win over cold audiences. “But what the heck—bygones are bygones. There’s no need for us to let our little mistake spoil this weekend.”

  She reached over and pinched his cheek. “Will you be a sweetheart, Flannigan, and bring in my bags?” She started into the house, then turned and said over her shoulder, “Be careful with the cage. I don’t want to upset OToole.”

  “Who the hell is OToole?”

  “He was my third husband, but now he’s my cat.”

  She swept into the house without a backward glance.

  Flannigan felt as if he’d just survived a hurricane. Her third husband. She changed husbands as often as she did nightgowns. And she’d named her cat after that fool OToole, whoever he was. He wondered if she’d named anything Flannigan.

  Not that it mattered. He clamped his cigar between his teeth and strode down the walk. Her belongings were piled high—four bags in all, including the cat cage—waiting for some besotted fool to carry them in. Not that he was besotted by her, not by a long shot. But it amused him to see that Tess was still giving commands. She had always had a following of people, mostly men, waiting to do her bidding.

  He propped a booted foot on one of her bags and took a long, thoughtful drag on his cigar. She had called their marriage “a little mistake.” Funny how that hurt. All these years he’d thought that first love was the sweetest and the best, and she’d thought it was “a little mistake.”

  “What difference does it make now? The past is over and done with.” He blew three smoke rings in the air, then clamped his cigar between his teeth and picked up her bags.

  The group would be waiting for him.

  Johnny Kalinopolis sat in his den, surrounded by his friends who had come from all over the world to help him send his beloved Babs off in style.

  Tess had purposely stationed herself on the sofa next to Johnny so her back would be to the front door. She didn’t want to see Flannigan when he came into the house. Darned his hide, he still looked good. He had always been devastatingly handsome. That hadn’t changed. He still had eyes so blue they looked like a bit of the sky, and his black hair was still wild and tousled, curling just enough to make a woman itch to get her hands in it.

  But it wasn’t his looks that had her running a bit scared. It was something else, something she couldn’t define. Some gut instinct told Tess that this older Flannigan should be wearing a warning sign—a neon billboard reading danger, do not touch.

  She turned her attention back to the group. Lovey and Jim Hawkins had been the first to marry. With the rest of the group standing by, they had said vows their sophomore year of college. And now Lovey was in an easy chair with Jim sitting on the ottoman at her feet, holding her hand. Tess envied them.

  “You two look as much in love as you did the day you got married,” Tess said. “Remember that day, Lovey?”

  “How could I forget?” Lovey laughed. “Jim was terrified.”

  “But not of marriage, my pet.” Jim patted her stomach, big with their fourth child. “I was afraid you were going to deliver the baby right there in the JP’s office before we could say the vows.”

  “Didn’t you have any confidence in your friends?” Johnny leaned over and punched Jim’s shoulder. “I was all set to deliver, and Mick was standing by in case I needed any help.”

  “He was standing by in a hearse.” Lovey hooted with laughter. “Do you remember the look on the doctor’s face when I climbed down from that crazy old vehicle, trailing rose petals and a white veil. I wonder whatever happened to the hearse?”

  “It went to its final resting place at the bottom of the Tombigbee River.” Mick’s booming voice preceded him into the room. His boots, tromping across the hardwood floor, punctuated his words. “Both of us were loaded with scotch at the time.”

  He piled the bags at the foot of the stairs, put out his cigar, then strode toward the sofa. When he was standing only a few inches from Tess, he paused, smiling down at her.

  “I believe I have something you want, Tess, my girl.”

  “Flannigan, I wouldn’t want anything you had if it were delivered to me on a silver platter.”

  The room became hushed with expectation as Johnny, Lovey, and Jim watched their two old friends square off. Their tempers were legend. In the halcyon days of their youth their stormy courtship had often been a source of amusement and wonder to the rest of the group.

  They watched as Mick suddenly leaned so close to Tess, his lips were almost against her cheek.

  “Nobody’s ever tried to put it on a silver platter. I guess they couldn’t find one big enough.”

  “I see that age has not diminished your ego.”

  “Or my charm.” Mick straightened up, laughing. Then he produced the cat cage from behind his back. “This is what I was referring to, my love. Your cat.”

  “I knew that all along.” She reached for the cage, but Mick held it beyond her grasp.

  “I never do a favor without exacting a price.”

  “Name it.” Tess stood up and faced him, nose to nose. Women used to fall like tenpins for Mick Flannigan, especially the timid, shy women, Tess mused. The only way to survive around him was to be strong. She had survived Mick Flannigan once: This time she planned to triumph. “No price you can name is beyond my pocketbook—or my power.”

  “Then this should be easy for you.” Keeping the cat cage in his hand, Mick made himself comfortable in an easy chair. “Sing for me.”

  “That’s a great idea,” said Johnny, rising from the sofa. “Wait a minute. Let me get Babs.” He disappeared from the room and came back carrying an urn. Holding his wife’s ashes, he sat back down on the sofa. “Now, the group is complete. Carry on.”

  “Jim, will you play?” Tess walked across the room and leaned against the baby grand piano, facing Mick. “What would you have me sing?”

  “It Had to be You.” Mick’s expression never changed as he named the song Tess had been singing when they had first met.

  She had been singing in a small club off campus to earn her way through college. Mick Flannigan had walked through the door, his blue eyes never leaving hers as he made his way to the table beside the stage. From that moment on she sang just for him.

  Now, looking into his eyes, she knew that all the songs of her life had been sung for Mick Flannigan. Even after he’d left her, the haunting memory of him in that smoky, crowded nightclub had stayed with her.

  Doggoned your hide, Mick Flannigan, she thought. I won’t fall under your spell again.

  “Key of C, Jim.”

  Tess’s eyes never left Mick’s as the first blues notes rose from the keyboard and drifted around her. The music entered her body, her heart, her soul. A languor stole over her, and she began to sing. With her hips pressed intimately against the piano, she lifted her mass of hair off her neck with one arm. All her movements were natural and uncalculated. She was lost in song, totally unaware of her impact on her audience.

  Mick felt as if his heart were trapped under a boulder. He reached for his cigar, hoping his hands didn’t shake. Dear Lord, he thought as he struck a match on the heel of his boot. She still makes love to her audience when she sings.

  He watched her through a cloud of blue smoke, but the smoke screen didn’t diminish her impact. He cursed himself for asking her to sing. He was too old and too wise to be playing with fire, especially the Tess Jones brand of fire. That Jones girl had always been too hot to handle. And that Jones woman... His mind boggled trying to think what it would be like to handle her.

&
nbsp; Whoa, Flannigan. Back off.

  He settled back into his chair and tried to feign polite interest. He hoped he was fooling his friends. They had told him, one by one, that divorcing Tess was a mistake. He had to prove them wrong.

  “Mick. Mick?”

  Suddenly he realized that Tess had finished singing and Johnny was talking to him.

  “I’m sorry, Johnny. What did you say?”

  “I asked if you still played the harmonica.”

  “Yes. In fact, it’s the same old blues harp I used to tote around in my pocket back in our days at Mississippi State.”

  “Do something together for us, you and Tess, like you used to do.”

  Mick was on the verge of refusing, then Johnny added, “Babs loved hearing the two of you. She used to say listening to you and Tess make music was like dying and going to heaven.”

  “Tess?” said Mick, glancing across the room for confirmation.

  “I’m game if you are, Flannigan.” He stood up, then Tess added, “But you have to do something for me first.”

  “I’m your slave. Name it.”

  “Let OToole out of the cage.”

  “Your third husband or the cat?” Flannigan quipped as he unlatched the cage door.

  “Sometimes I think they are one and the same. Both of them are beasts.”

  The rest of the group laughed and Flannigan smiled, but he didn’t think it was all that funny. As a matter of fact, the more he thought about it, the more he hated the idea of Tess’s third husband being a beast. Did that mean he had been a tiger in bed? He suddenly discovered that he didn’t like the idea of Tess in anybody’s bed, let alone a beast’s. Three husbands. Dammit.

  He had never married again. Over the years he’d pictured Tess unmarried, too, working hard at her career, perhaps pining a little for him. He wished he’d never found out about her other husbands.

  He stalked across the room, not stopping until he was so close to Tess he could see that wicked amber starburst in the center of her green eyes and smell the jasmine on her skin.

  “You remember how we did this, don’t you, Tess, my girl?”