“What’s my point?” Shrugging, Tallie huffed. “The point is that we agreed you and I don’t have a future. We’re wrong for each other. Bad for each other. I want marriage and babies and a white picket fence. I’m a simple girl, an old-fashioned girl. I couldn’t change. I couldn’t stop being myself.” Pausing, she stared at Peyton, waiting to see if he would say something.
“And?”
“And you’re a complicated man with a complex, sophisticated life-style who has finally admitted to himself that he’s attracted to me. Right?”
“Right.” Peyton nodded affirmatively.
“But you want an affair.” Tallie swallowed. “You want us to have sex, to work me out of your system.”
“You make me sound heartless, sugar, as if I don’t care about you.” Peyton cradled her cheek in his hand, running his thumb across her bottom lip.
“We can’t have an affair, Peyt. It would ruin your chances of running for governor, and it would break my heart.”
Sharp pangs of regret, remorse and guilt assaulted Peyton. All these years, he had told himself that he was protecting Tallie by keeping their relationship nonsexual. Hell, he’d been fooling himself. He’d done it as much to protect himself as her. He’d always thought of himself first—what was best for him. Just like his father. Exactly like the great Senator Marshall Rand.
Even tonight, he hadn’t considered Tallie’s feelings as much as his own. She was right. He was the one who’d changed the rules in the middle of the game because he’d gotten sick and tired of the old rules. The night he’d been shot, he’d had every intention of making love to Tallie, knowing full well that she wasn’t the kind of woman who’d be happy just having an affair.
Taking her left hand, Peyton put it on top of the towel; then he eased back in the seat. “You must think I’m a real bastard.”
“I think you’re wonderful,” she said, not looking directly at him, but at a safety light in the parking lot glowing brightly over his shoulder. “I’ve always thought you were wonderful.”
“How can you say that after the way I’ve treated you?”
“You’re confused right now, that’s all. You’ve come to a crossroads in your life and you’re afraid you’ll make the wrong decision. I think I’m a part of that confusion. If I were anybody besides the Bishop boys’ little sister, the girl who’s had a crush on you since she was sixteen, you’d have already carried me off to bed, and we both know it.”
“Damn, have I been that obvious?” Peyton thought he’d hidden his true feelings for her quite well over the years; obviously he hadn’t.
“I just figured it out recently,” she admitted. “You want me, but you know I don’t fit in your life. You don’t fit into my life, either.” She laughed, the sound mixed with tears. “If we have an affair, the newspapers will have a field day. And we can’t get married. You don’t love me, and people wouldn’t vote for a man whose wife—”
Peyton covered her lips with his index finger. “Ah, Tallie, do you know what I fear the most in this life? I’m afraid of turning out just like my father. Of becoming a cold, heartless, uncaring bastard who steamrolls his way over everyone, who doesn’t care what other people think or feel or need. I’m already so much his son. Spence hated me for years because he thought I was just a carbon copy of the old man.”
“You’re not your father.” Tallie dumped the ice pack onto the floorboard, then reached out to take Peyton’s face in both hands. “You may look like him, talk like him, smoke those damned cigars and charm the birds from the trees the way he did, but you’re your own man.”
“Do you know I contemplated asking Donna Fields to marry me because I knew she’d make the perfect wife for a politician. I don’t love her, and she doesn’t love me. That’s just the sort of thing my father would have done. As a matter of fact, I doubt he loved my mother, just her family’s money and connections.”
“Stop doing this to yourself.” Tallie caressed his face, loving every sharp, hard angle and plane of male perfection. “You’re strong and brave and smart and caring. You’ll make a wonderful governor. The best this state has ever had.”
“You’re just saying those things because you—”
“Because I love you. Yeah, I know. So if a great girl like me loves you, then that must mean you’re a pretty great guy yourself.”
“Tallie...”
She kissed him, her lips warm and soft and inviting. He returned the kiss as he reached out, gripping the back of her head in his hand, drawing her closer. But he ended the kiss before it got out of hand, before he lost control.
“I’m not going to break your heart, little heathen. I’m going to get out of your life before I do any more damage to it.” Peyton opened the car door, stepped outside, then bent over, leaning into the passenger’s side. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”
“Peyt?”
“Goodbye, Tallulah Bishop. I’m going to miss you.” He slammed the door and walked away.
Tallie sat there for endless minutes, the pain in her hand numbed by the agony in her heart. It was really over this time. No doubt about it. She’d seen the last of Peyton Rand.
Seven
Spence handed his brother a sandwich off the tray of edible delights Pattie had prepared earlier in the day, before she’d left for her Saturday shopping spree with their daughter, Allie. Peyton accepted the food, bit into the ham and cheese, then laid it down on the napkin beside his beer can on the end table. His cigar, the tip an inch of fragile ash, rested in a ceramic tray. He tried to focus his attention on the television set where his favorite team’s game was in progress. But while he watched Caleb Bishop, the team’s star pitcher, all he could think about was Caleb’s baby sister—the woman he wanted desperately, the woman he’d cut out of his life forever.
“Who’d ever thought Caleb would be a pro making millions? I remember when he was just a skinny kid who was disappointed because he hadn’t bagged a deer the way Jake and Hank had done.” Spence delved his hand into the bowl of party mix, popped a handful into his mouth and munched loudly.
“Yeah, well, Caleb was always an athlete, not a hunter. If he’d spent as much time hunting as he did playing ball, he’d have gotten his buck. Probably more than one.”
“When’s the last time you saw Caleb?” Spence asked.
“I guess it’s been two or three years.” Peyton picked up his beer, downed the last drops, then crushed the can. “I drove to Atlanta for one of the games, and Caleb took me out on the town.”
“When’s the last time he’s been back to Crooked Oak?”
“He’s only been back once or twice since he left for college. He came back for Claude’s funeral. I know he calls Tallie pretty often, and he flies her out to see him a few times a year.”
Spence leaned back on the big leather sofa beside Peyton. “Once the Bishop boys left Crooked Oak, they left for good, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, it seems that way,” Peyton said. “But look at you, little brother. When you left Marshallton, you swore you’d never come back, and now here you are one of the town’s leading citizens. Who knows, one of these days all three Bishop boys may return to their roots.”
“Well, if they have as good a reason to return as I did, then they’ll—” The jarring ring of the telephone interrupted Spence midsentence. Reaching over to the end table on his side of the sofa, he picked up the portable phone. “Hello. Yeah, well, he just happens to be here watching the game with me. Sure, hold on.” Spence turned to Peyton. “Sheila Vance.”
Spence handed Peyton the phone. “Sheila? Peyton Rand here. Is something wrong? Is Tallie all right?”
“She was fine when she and Susan left about thirty minutes ago,” Sheila said. “I’ve been debating about what to do. I tried to talk them out of it, but they wouldn’t listen.”
“What did you try to talk them out of doing, Sheila? Where have they gone?”
“Susan received an anonymous phone call from someone saying that Lobo
Smothers was going to be setting some new traps in Kingsley Woods today.”
“Hell!” Peyton knew without asking another question precisely where Tallie and Susan had gone and what deep trouble the two women would be in if they actually did run across Lobo Smothers.
“Tallie took her camera. She and Susan are determined to get pictures of Lobo setting the traps.”
“Did Tallie take Solomon? Did she take a gun?” Surely she hadn’t gone off after Lobo without some form of protection.
“Solomon was in the car with them, and I think she took her...shotgun.” Sheila’s voice broke as she gulped back a sob. “I tried to contact Mike, but he’s on the scene of a bad wreck out on Old Grady Road. I didn’t know what to do, Mr. Rand. But the more I thought about it, the more worried I got. Anything could happen to them out there in the woods with a man like Lobo Smothers.”
“Don’t worry, Sheila,” Peyton said. “I’ll take care of everything.”
When he returned the receiver to its cradle, Peyton slammed his fist into the fat back cushion of the sofa. “Damn that woman! She’s going to get herself killed.”
“What’s Tallie done now?” Spence asked.
“Gone off to Kingsley Woods to try to catch Lobo Smothers setting illegal traps. And she’s taken Susan Williams with her.”
“I suppose you’re going to drive down to Crooked Oak and—”
“I’m calling Lowell Redman and have him meet me at the old campsite near the creek.” Peyton grabbed the phone, hammering out the numbers with brutal force. If Lobo Smothers harmed one hair on Tallie’s head, he’d kill the S.O.B. And if Peyton got to Tallie first, he was going to... What? Shake some sense into her? Although both alternatives soothed his raging senses, a third alternative appealed to him even more—an alternative that included keeping Tallie Bishop in bed for at least twenty-four hours.
* * *
Kingsley Woods covered several hundred acres of land between the small town of Marshallton and the community of Crooked Oak near the Mississippi border, close to the Tennessee River. For as long as Tallie could remember, Kingsley Woods had been a paradise for local sportsmen, hunters and fishermen alike. But Lobo Smothers, who lived in a shack deep in the woods on land his family had owned for generations, chose to desecrate the animal haven by hunting and trapping illegally for fun and profit.
Tallie and Susan crept through the dense forest of trees and underbrush, Solomon following their lead. For nearly two years, the sheriff’s department had tried unsuccessfully to assist the game warden in catching Lobo Smothers in the act. Every lead came to a dead end. Every warning came too late. Lobo always seemed to be one step ahead, and Tallie figured that someone had to be tipping him off.
“Listen.” Susan stopped dead still.
“Be quiet,” Tallie said, issuing the warning to both Susan and Solomon.
Tallie crept closer to the sound, the rustling of leaves, the cling-clang of metal. When they neared a small clearing, Tallie and Susan hunkered down, hiding behind a tall hedge of wild bushes.
“It’s him,” Susan whispered.
Tallie saw Lobo Smothers, his broad back hunched over a metal trap. Sweat stains marred his blue chambray shirt. Long, matted strings of reddish-brown hair clung to his thick neck. It was all she could do not to run toward the man, screaming and hitting and venting her rage. This dirty, uneducated ruffian killed not only for the money but for the joy it gave him, totally unconcerned with the suffering of the poor animals who died slowly and painfully in his traps or the illegality of his actions.
“It makes me sick to my stomach just watching him setting that awful thing.” Susan closed her eyes.
“I told you not to come, didn’t I? I could have done this without you.”
“I couldn’t let you do this all alone,” Susan said. “I may be squeamish, but I’m not a coward.”
“You’re just way too softhearted.” Tallie laid her shotgun on the ground beside her, removed the camera hanging around her neck, released the lens cap and aimed directly at Lobo Smothers.
“You’re as softhearted as I am.”
“Yeah, but I grew up with a rough old grandfather and three big brothers, so I toughened up over the years, whereas you grew up with that spinster aunt of yours and all her animals.” With her camera aimed, Tallie snapped picture after picture. She and Susan were secure in their position yards away from Lobo Smothers, the telephoto lens on Tallie’s camera affording them the luxury of distance.
“What’s he doing now?” Susan whispered, scratching her arm.
“The insects are pretty bad in here, aren’t they?” Tallie replaced the camera strap around her neck. “He’s finished here. He’ll be moving on any minute now. Let’s follow him and see what else he’s up to.”
“But you got the pictures of him setting that trap, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but I have a feeling he’s going to be checking the traps he’s already set.” Grabbing Susan by the arm, Tallie helped her to her feet, then reached down to retrieve her shotgun. “Listen, if you don’t think you can stomach seeing an animal caught in one of his traps, why don’t you go back to the car and wait for me.”
“No way! I’m going with you.” Susan followed Tallie as faithfully as Solomon did. “If you get in trouble, I want to be there to help if I can.”
“Do you really think he’s going to check his other traps?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Tallie said.
The two women followed a discreet distance behind, but Tallie had spent enough time in these woods when she was growing up to be able to keep track of Lobo without losing him and without alerting him to their presence.
Within five minutes, Lobo had stopped again. A small red fox, caught in one of Lobo’s vicious traps, had obviously tried to gnaw off his trapped hind leg before he’d died. The sight of the poor little animal turned Tallie’s stomach. She closed her eyes to block out the sight.
“Don’t look, Susan.”
“Oh, dear Lord,” Susan moaned, then stepped backward, pressing her hands against a nearby tree as she gagged.
Solomon, standing alert beside Tallie, turned toward Susan when Tallie watched her friend closely. She’d known it was a mistake allowing Susan to come with her. Susan just wasn’t cut out for the gritty reality of life.
“Are you all right?”
“Take pictures,” Susan whispered. “Don’t worry about me.” Clutching her stomach, Susan doubled over. Bending down on her knees, she vomited.
Tallie crept closer to where Lobo was removing his catch from the trap. Snap. Snap. Snap. If this wasn’t enough evidence for the game warden, then Tallie didn’t know what it would take to put Lobo behind bars.
She couldn’t wait to see Lowell Redman’s face when she showed him the pictures. And just imagine what Peyton would say when she showed him. Wrong, Tallie! You won’t be showing anything to Peyton. He’s out of your life now. It’s what he wants and it’s what you want. You both agreed. Remember?
“Is he gone?” Susan asked when she returned to Tallie’s side.
“Yeah, I figure he’s going to keep moving from trap to trap.”
“Are we going to keep following him?”
“Just to one more trap,” Tallie said.
“I didn’t see where he went.” Susan glanced all around. “Do you know the right direction?”
“He went east. Come on.”
It didn’t take Tallie long to realize that she’d lost Lobo, that somewhere along the way, he’d reversed his steps. Was it possible, she wondered, that he knew he was being followed? Lobo might be uneducated, but he wasn’t ignorant, at least not when it came to Kingsley Woods, to hunting and fishing and trapping and keeping one step ahead of the law.
“What’s wrong?” Susan asked when Tallie stopped near a rotting log.
“He’s disappeared. He could have heard us or spotted us or just sensed he was being followed.”
“What are we going to do?”
�
�We’re going to get the hell out of Dodge.” Tallie grinned at her friend, but realized her humor had been lost on the ashen-faced Susan.
“Do you think he’ll come after us?” Susan rubbed her hands up and down her jean-covered hips.
“I doubt it,” Tallie lied.
Within a few minutes, they’d made their way back to the scene of the newly set trap. Both of them out of breath from running, they paused momentarily.
Tallie heard Solomon growl. Jerking her head around, she saw Lobo Smothers braced against a huge oak tree, a self-satisfied smile on his dirty face.
“What are you two gals doing out in the woods?”
Susan grabbed Tallie’s hand. “Tallie?”
“Enjoying the scenery,” Tallie said.
“Taking some pictures?” Lobo pointed to the camera hanging around Tallie’s neck. “You wouldn’t of happened to’ve taken some pictures of me and my animal traps, would you?”
“I didn’t think you set illegal animal traps.” Tallie placed her hand on Solomon’s neck, knowing full well that she might have to give her Great Dane an attack order at any moment. The shotgun she carried was loaded, but she intended to use it only as a last resort. It wasn’t filled with birdshot, and if she aimed it at Lobo, she was likely to kill him.
“Just give me the camera and you gals can be on your way, all safe and sound.” Taking a step away from the tree and toward Tallie and Susan, Lobo curved his lips into a snaggletoothed grin.
Tallie didn’t want to relinquish the first real evidence anyone had ever gotten on this low-life scum, but there was a real possibility that he would try to harm them if they refused his request. Of course, they did have a couple of advantages. Solomon. And a loaded shotgun.
Tallie didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. Susan rushed forward, flinging herself at Lobo Smothers.
“Run, Tallie, run!” Susan screamed. “Don’t let him have your camera.”
Oh, hell’s toenails! They were done for now, Tallie thought. Whatever had possessed Susan to act so foolhardily?
Lobo swung Susan around, gripping her by the waist and lifting her off the ground. His grin widened into a vicious smirk. “Yeah, Tallie, go ahead and run. Take your little camera and leave your friend behind. I’ve been wanting to get to know Miss Susan for years now. By the time you get back with help, me and Miss Susan will have become mighty close friends.”
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