Til Death Do Us Part

by Beverly Barton

  “But Plott knows where you are.”

  “Lenny Plott will find me wherever I am and we both know it. With his kind of money, he can buy whatever information he needs to track us down. I doubt there’s a place on earth we can hide that he couldn’t eventually find us.”

  “What are you saying?” Reaching down, Helene covered Joanna’s hand with hers.

  “Sooner or later, I may have to come face-to-face with Lenny Plott, and if that happens, J.T. will be there with me. I won’t feel safe anywhere without J.T.”

  “The man’s just a bodyguard, dear. I can hire half-a-dozen bodyguards for you, if having them around will make you feel safe.”

  “I don’t want just any bodyguard. I want J.T.”

  “What’s going on between you and that man?” Helene released Joanna’s hand. “Somehow he has convinced you that he’s the only person who can protect you.”

  Joanna stood, walked across the bedroom and looked out the window at the far distant horizon. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it, Mother? This little trip isn’t about keeping me safe, about protecting me from Lenny Plott. It’s about getting me away from J. T. Blackwood. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not blind,” Helene said. “I can see plainly why any woman would be attracted to him, but don’t you realize how wrong he is for you?”

  “Just what are you so afraid of?”

  “I’d think you’d be the one to be afraid.” Helene laid her open palms flat on each side of her hips, pressing down against the bed. “To my knowledge, you haven’t been with a man since the night that monster brutalized you. Do you honestly think J. T. Blackwood is the kind of man you need as your first lover? I’ve had his background checked out. Putting aside the fact that he was illegitimate and his mother was a Navajo, the man has spent his life in one brutal business or another. First the marines, then years as a Secret Service agent and for the past six years, he’s been a private security agent. The man is practically a hired killer. Just how gentle and kind and patient do you think a man like that will be in the bedroom?”

  “My love life is none of your business.” Joanna kept her back turned on her mother. “I know you love me and you want what you think is best for me. Maybe you really do believe I need a more gentle lover, but let’s be honest, shall we? You’re far more concerned that I might marry J.T. Then how on earth would you ever explain it to your friends? Oh, it might be all right to speak out for and even vote for racial equality, to have friends and associates who aren’t pure WASPs, but you don’t want your daughter marrying outside the inner circle, do you?”

  Knotting her hands into fists, Helene jumped up from the bed. “It’s that ridiculous diary of your great-grandmother’s, isn’t it? Someone should have burned that thing long ago. To think that woman actually filled a book with details of her illicit love affair with some wild savage.”

  “We aren’t going to agree on this.” Joanna turned slowly, took a deep breath and faced her mother. “You are not in charge of my life now. I am. I choose where I live. Not you. And I decide who I love, and who I marry.”

  “Has he asked you to marry him?”

  “No, Mother, he hasn’t, but that doesn’t mean I won’t ask him, one of these days.”

  “I don’t know what’s happened to you since you left Richmond. You were always such a sweet, easygoing child. You made all the right choices. You had a wonderful fiancé, a good job, a bright future.”

  “I did everything you wanted me to do,” Joanna said. “You made all my decisions for me. You planned my life. But you didn’t plan on Lenny Plott beating me half to death and raping me, did you?”

  “I would give anything if I could change what happened.” Tears misted Helene’s eyes.

  Joanna walked over, wrapped her arms around her mother and hugged her. “I know you would. But what happened can’t be changed. I’m a different person now. I’m stronger. I can never go back to being your sweet little girl.”

  “I want only what’s best for you.” Pulling back from Joanna, Helene cupped her daughter’s face in her hands. “I truly believe J. T. Blackwood is the wrong man for you.”

  “Let me make that decision,” Joanna said. “If I get hurt, I’ll have no one to blame but myself.”

  JOANNA HAD THOUGHT dinner would never end. She had forgotten what it felt like to watch her mother preside over a gathering, commanding all the attention, issuing orders and playing the Southern belle to the hilt. She only hoped that while she and Elena cleared the table and straightened the kitchen, her mother wouldn’t say or do something unforgivable.

  Joanna stacked plates in the dishwasher while Elena hand-washed the pots and pans.

  “I think your mother enjoyed dinner.” Elena placed a copper pot in the drainage rack. “She said she loved the spicy chicken and she raved about the homemade ice cream.”

  “No one could find fault with your cooking,” Joanna said. “If anyone ruined your dinner party, I did. Or perhaps J.T. He didn’t say ten words the whole time.”

  “He thinks your mother doesn’t like him.”

  “She doesn’t know him, she just thinks she does.” Joanna placed the dirty glasses in the top rack of the dishwasher. “But I’m beginning to think that I really don’t know J.T., either. He acts like he’s two different men. Every time we get a little closer to understanding each other, he withdraws and we wind up in an argument.”

  “J.T. is two different men,” Elena said. “Maybe even three different men. One part of him is the man John Thomas Blackwood made him, while another part of him is Navajo, and then I think another third of him is the man he longs to be, a man at peace with the other two-thirds of himself.”

  “I suppose there’s more than one person inside all of us, isn’t there?” Joanna filled the detergent dispenser, closed the door and turned on the dishwasher. “There’s still a part of me that’s the proper young lady my mother raised me to be and part of me is the independent, confident woman I’ve become since moving to Trinidad. But there’s also a dark, frightened part of me. That’s the part Lenny Plott and Todd created nearly five years ago. No matter how hard I try, I can’t completely let go of that fear and anger and distrust.”

  “I can only imagine what it must have been like for you, but you must know that even when Lenny Plott is arrested and put back in prison, you’ll never be free from him until you can destroy that dark part of you he created.”

  Joanna dried her hands, then tossed the towel to Elena. “I thought I had destroyed most of it, until he escaped and forced me to face the past, to face the truth about myself. I have so much love to give the right man, but I can’t trust enough to completely give my heart and my body to anyone.”

  Elena laid the towel on the countertop, put her arm around Joanna’s waist and gave her a hug. “Let’s join the others and see if your mother and J.T. have drawn swords yet.”

  Joanna laughed, but the sound was hollow. When they reached the end of the hallway, Joanna heard her mother’s voice. Jerking Elena back against the wall, she held a finger over her lips, silently asking Elena not to speak.

  “Joanna has always been a very sensitive girl,” Helene said. “She hated confrontations of any kind. She always cried whenever she overheard her father and me arguing. Not that we argued very often.”

  “I’m sure Joanna’s sensitivity is a great asset to her in her work,” Alex said. “Most of us artists have sensitive souls. We seem to feel things more deeply. I suppose we have to be able to do that in order to put a part of our souls into our work.”

  “No doubt.” Helene cleared her throat. “But I’m afraid that, in some people, sensitivity makes them rather weak and vulnerable, and thus easily hurt.”

  Joanna clenched her teeth tightly. What was her mother doing? There was always a method to her madness, a scheme behind the most innocent-sounding conversations. Elena squeezed Joanna’s hand.

  “Surely you’re not talking about Jo.” J.T.’s voice sounded deeper, darker
and rougher than usual.

  “I’m afraid I am,” Helene said. “She was always fragile and sensitive and a bit naive. Then, after Lenny Plott attacked her, she went completely to pieces. It took months of therapy before she’d go out of the house in broad daylight without someone with her.”

  “Isn’t a reaction like that fairly normal?” Alex asked. “I’m sure different women react differently after living through such an experience.”

  “Jo isn’t weak,” J.T. said. “She’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. It’s obvious to me that you don’t know the woman your daughter has become.”

  “You’re quite wrong about that, Mr. Blackwood. I know my daughter far better than you. She’s still just as fragile and sensitive and vulnerable as she was before she left Virginia four years ago, and I worry that she’s going to be hurt and terribly disappointed if she continues living in this dreamworld she’s created for herself.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Alex said. “Joanna is a very sensible woman. She—”

  “You’re referring to her interest in Annabelle Beaumont’s diary.” J.T. grunted. “And my connection to Benjamin Greymountain.”

  “Joanna needs the right kind of man. Someone as sensitive and gentle as she is. Another artist, perhaps. Someone who can offer her a safe, contented life.” Helene’s sweet Southern drawl sharpened into a louder, rather sour tone. “I thought that sooner or later she’d experiment with having a brief affair with some Indian and then she’d see the foolishness of having built some ludicrous fantasy around her great-grandmother’s illicit love affair.”

  Joanna ripped away from Elena and flew into the living room. “Go home, Mother! Go back to running the state of Virginia and leave me alone.”

  Helene’s face lost all color. She held out a hand to her daughter. “Joanna, my dear, I didn’t mean for you to hear. I’m so sorry. I simply thought it best for Mr. Blackwood to understand.”

  “To understand what, Mother? That I’m some weak, helpless, fragile little girl who lives in a fantasy world? That’s what you just told him, wasn’t it?”

  “Don’t upset yourself this way.” Helene took a tentative step toward Joanna. “I’m only trying to protect you from being hurt.”

  Joanna backed away from her mother. “In your own subtle way, you were trying to warn J.T. to stay away from me because I’m so fragile that if he dares to touch me, I’ll break.”

  “Joanna, dear, let’s not turn this into an ugly scene,” Helene pleaded.

  Hysterical laughter rose from Joanna’s throat, tearing holes in the tension-filled atmosphere. “No, we wouldn’t want to do that, would we? Whatever would people think? Wasn’t that your greatest concern after Lenny Plott raped me? Oh, you were heartbroken for me and hovered over me, smothering me with attention, but I knew. Damn you, I knew! You were so ashamed. Ashamed that your daughter had let herself become front-page news in a serial rapist’s trial. Ashamed to have to face your friends. Ashamed that I wasn’t strong enough to cope without therapy!”

  Joanna turned and ran from the room, into the hallway and out the front door. Elena called after her.

  J.T. looked directly at Helene Beaumont with his one good eye. “Call tonight and make reservations for the first flight to Richmond tomorrow. Alex will have one of the hands drive you to Santa Fe.”

  Without a backward glance, J.T. exited the living room, walked down the hall and entered his study. He flipped on the overhead switch, bathing the room in light. Quickly he picked up Annabelle’s diary, shoved it into his pocket and rushed down the hall and out the front door. He saw Joanna several feet away, standing in the middle of the yard, her arms wrapped around her middle.

  “Joanna,” he called out to her.

  “Go away!” Spinning around on trembling legs, Joanna faced him. “Leave me alone.”

  “I can’t leave you alone, Jo. I’m your bodyguard. Remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right. I hired you to protect me from Lenny Plott because I’m so weak and frightened and fragile and sensitive and—”

  “Stop talking nonsense.” J.T. walked down the steps and into the yard. “Your mother doesn’t know who the hell you are. She’s the one living in a fantasy world, a world where she can control you.”

  “She did control me. All my life. And I let her.”

  “She doesn’t control you now. You make your own decisions. Right?”

  “You know what the funny thing is, J.T.?” She watched, unmoving, while he walked toward her. “As different as you and Helene Beaumont are, you do agree on one thing.”

  “What’s that?” he asked, halting a couple of feet away from her.

  “You both think Annabelle Beaumont was a foolish adulteress and the great love she and Benjamin shared was nothing more than a lonely, unhappy matron’s fantasy.”

  “I’ve just started reading the diary,” J.T. said. “I’m not sure what I believe. Not anymore.”

  “Don’t you dare try to pacify me with lies, John Thomas Blackwood. Don’t pretend something you don’t believe.”

  “Nobody calls me John Thomas. I’m J.T. John Thomas was my grandfather.”

  “Sensitive, are we?” she taunted.

  J.T. grabbed her and held her by the arms, keeping a good foot of space between their bodies. “Yeah, honey, I’m sensitive about some things. Everybody is. And it’s all right for you to be sensitive.” Still holding her arm with one hand, he grasped the back of her neck with the other. His touch was strong, yet gentle. “Your sensitivity is one of the things I like about you.”

  “Don’t you dare be nice to me out of pity!”

  “Pity has nothing to do with the way I feel about you.”

  His kiss, like his touch, was strong yet gentle. Her momentary resistance disappeared as quickly as smoke in the wind. By the time his tongue entered her mouth she eagerly accepted him, responding with a desperate hunger.

  He ended the powerful kiss, but pulled her into his arms and pressed her face against his chest. “I want to make love to you, but I don’t want you to agree as an act of revenge against your mother.”

  “If and when I agree to make love with you, it will be for only one reason,” she said. “Because I want you.”

  “Why don’t we go to the bunkhouse? I’ll fix us both a drink and you can tell me more about Annabelle and Benjamin.”

  “You’re willing to do anything to cheer me up, aren’t you?” she said teasingly.

  J.T. let out a deep breath, pleased to see her smile. “Just about anything.”

  “All right, why don’t we go home to the bunkhouse? You can fix us both a drink, then you can tell me about what it was like in the Secret Service, and I’ll tell you something you want to know about me.”

  “What’s wrong, Jo, are you afraid if we talk about our great-grandparents, we might find ourselves following in their footsteps and—”

  She laid her index finger over his lips. “Shh.”

  J.T. kissed her forehead. “I read Annabelle’s first entry in the diary. The day she met Benjamin.”

  Pulling out of J.T.’s arms, Joanna backed away from him. “The day we met, when I first saw you sitting astride Washington, I thought I heard drums.” Joanna turned and ran across the yard and toward the bunkhouse.

  J.T. raced after her, catching her on the front porch. Grabbing her, he slowly turned her around. “You’re hell on a man’s nerves. Why did you have to go and tell me something like that?”

  “What difference does it make?” she asked. “You don’t believe I heard drums any more than you believe Annabelle heard them.”

  “I told you that I don’t know what I believe. Not now.”

  “Come on, let’s go inside and talk. You tell me about the Secret Service and I’ll tell you about—”

  “You tell me about your art. About when you first realized you wanted to be an artist and how you could draw better than anyone else in kindergarten.”

  She slipped her hand into his. “Thanks, J.T.�
�

  “For what?”

  “For not paying any attention to my mother. For not letting her run you off.”

  “Nothing and no one is running me off. I made you a promise, and it’s a promise I intend to keep. You can’t get rid of me, honey. I’m sticking to you like glue.”

  Hand in hand, they entered the bunkhouse—a woman who, more than anything, wanted to be able to trust this man; and a man who, for the first time in his life, wondered what it would be like to truly love a woman…this woman.

  CHAPTER NINE

  JOANNA AWOKE WITH a start. At first, she had no idea what had awakened her and then she vaguely remembered hearing the front door open. Was J.T. awake? Had he gone outside? She got out of bed, slipped into her thin silk robe and walked into the living room. The floor lamp behind the plaid chair was on, and an open book lay, spine up, across the overstuffed armrest. Undoubtedly, J.T. had been unable to sleep and had been reading. She glanced over at the front door, which stood open, with only the screen door closed. The shadowy outline of J.T.’s broad shoulders caught Joanna’s eye. He stood on the edge of the porch, staring out into the dark night sky.

  When Joanna neared the plaid chair, she realized the book perched on the armrest was Annabelle’s diary. Had J.T. been reading another entry? Joanna picked up the diary, turned it over and glanced down at the open page.

  I know I should feel great shame for having committed such an unpardonable sin. But I feel no shame, only an overwhelming joy. How could loving someone the way I love Benjamin be wrong? I knew we would consummate our love today. He took me to a cave in the mountains, high above the world, quiet and secluded. I was far more nervous with Benjamin than I had been on my wedding night nearly sixteen years ago. He sensed my unease, my doubts, my fears, and he soothed me with sweet words that I did not understand because he spoke them in his own language. But my heart knew their meaning.