Resisting Samantha (Hope Parish Novels Book 10)

by Zoe Dawson

  I started backing her towards the house.

  She giggled. “Stomach is full. It’s below-the-belt time, then.”

  I looked all innocent. “No, we have to assemble the bed first.”

  Chapter 15

  CHASE

  I paced like a bridegroom right before he was going to tie the knot. Samantha was still upstairs getting ready. We had plenty of time, and I was smart enough to know my nervousness didn’t stem from anything other than facing my family as a unit for the first time since I ran away from home ten years ago.

  “Stop pacing,” she yelled down the stairs. “Everything will be fine. We’ll go see your parents, eat cake, and schmooze.”

  “So absolutely nothing could go wrong, like maybe my brother messing up my tux?”

  “That’s what you’re worried about, GQ? Getting your tux mussed?” she said as she came down the stairs.

  “I’m worried my brother is going to…Christ…” I straightened and took her in in one big, delicious, sexy gulp. She took my breath…and I didn’t think she was going to give it back.

  The gown was made out of a pearl gray, flowy material, with fancy stitching on it. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

  She smoothed her hands over her hips. “I look presentable? It’s a trumpet-mermaid dress. Tulle always makes a woman feel like a princess. The Cinderella complex. Look at the back.”

  She whirled to show me a lace-up corset back. “I wish we were back home so I could find out what you have on under that dress…you look amazing, and that bow looks so damn tempting. What a tease.”

  She looked at me over her shoulder with wouldn’t-you-like-to-know mystery in her eyes and cocked her brows, giving me a soft, sexy smile. “You won’t get to unwrap me until we get home, but I think you’ll like what’s underneath. “Look, I’m wearing heels.”

  She lifted the skirt and placed her heel, modeling the pretty, open-toed shoes for me. “Cinderella would be jealous,” I said.

  She gave me an up and down perusal as I pulled at the cuffs of my white shirt like James Bond. “Devastating. You clean up good, Chase.”

  I rubbed my jaw. “I even shaved.”

  “If I had my way, I’d take you all scruffy and sexy-looking, straight from the bayou.” She moved closer and rested her hands against my chest. “You don’t have to make an impression, you know. This is your family. They love you.”

  “Jake—”

  “Loves you, too.” She said, her expression sincere and comforting. “Why do you think he’s acting out? He’s trying to compensate for his anger and bitterness, reconcile it with his love for you as his brother. It’s been ten years. You can’t expect him to get through and over ten years of your absence and all the crap he’s built up over time. Just be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day.” She reached up and adjusted my bow tie. “No matter what changes in our lives…,” her voice caught a little, “…family will always be family, and that love doesn’t die. Even when we do.”

  “We’d better go. We wouldn’t want to be late.”

  I reached for the door, ready to embark on making changes in my life that were long overdue. I would find out if Thomas Wolfe was right. Can you ever go home again?

  There were so many cars in front of my parents’ house, we had to park out on the road and walk up the driveway. I clasped Samantha’s hand as we passed through the tall, intricately vine-worked, black wrought iron gates that stood open in welcome.

  Majestueux, my family’s estate, stood at the end of a traditional allée or, in English, alley of ancient, moss-draped live oak, a testament to the old South and Colonel Beauregard’s money. My gut twisted with anger that this house and Suttontowne were part of that ugly legacy. The plantation was old, had probably been there long before the Colonel claimed it, renovated it, and made it his home. A lot of plantations fell to the carpetbaggers after the War of Northern Aggression, and it must have played to ole Beau’s pride to make this place into a showpiece. It sat just outside the city limits, on emerald green, manicured lawns, butting up against the bayou to its back, a testament to his pride in his position as founding father.

  Samantha stopped and swallowed. “Wow,” she said when she spied the big white columns. “You used to live here?”

  The stark white structure sported six twenty-four-foot-tall Doric columns supporting the four sides of the house and the jutting Caribbean-style roof. The doors, centered on both the upper and the lower levels of the house, showed off fan lights and sidelights, and were bordered by two sets of French doors with louvered shutters painted a rich emerald green. Three dormers with Palladian windows set off the gray slate roof. A glassed-in cupola capped the magnificent mansion.

  I chuckled. “Yep. I was born here.”

  She tucked her arm through mine. “Then I can see the kind of pressure you must have been under, and how the shattering of your birthright must have affected you and your family. Just because you don’t want it anymore, doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect you.”

  I stopped and she turned to look up at me. “You’re right,” I said. “I never really thought about it before. How I felt was right at the time. What I worked for, what I was, had merit.” I might not want the trappings of that golden boy from my past any longer, but everything changes and grows, or goes stagnant. I think, even as young as I had been, I realized that I had to get past all of it, work through the devastation of knowing my life was founded on a lie. But it didn’t make that life any less real or important.

  She pressed her hand over my heart. “You did what you needed to do to make yourself into someone you could live with. That takes enormous courage, Chase.”

  “I was scared. It was fear that sent me out into the bayou, not courage. I had a secret I didn’t know what to do with, but I knew it was wrong to keep silent. I didn’t want to be the one who shattered my families’ belief in themselves the way mine was shattered when I read that journal. Jake was right. I was a coward.”

  “If you hadn’t run away, you would have remained trapped in this…” she gestured to the house, “…life, with no way to find out who you were after the fall from grace. It would have been weak to stay on a path that would have made you go against what you believed in.”

  “I can’t help thinking that’s exactly what Jake did, is still doing, but he couldn’t admit it to himself…especially now, with me coming back.”

  “I think understanding that is what has made you the successful man you are,” she continued. “Hard work, sweat, and a strong, true heart. That’s who I know as Chase Sutton. That won’t ever change. Jake is unhappy, and that unhappiness goes deep. He fears you coming home.”

  “Why?”

  “He resents that you had the guts to leave when he didn’t. It will make him examine everything he hasn’t faced since the secret was revealed. He went on a bender that lasted a week. Everyone was talking about it. He got unruly and caused some fights, mostly big mouths who wanted to take a poke at him when it came out what the Colonel had done.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that.” I had been so isolated. I could have probably helped him then, if I had been aware and not estranged from the entire family. I’d already been through that fire, and had consumed enough alcohol to kill me outright.

  I looked at the house and thought it should be sold, torn down, eradicated, just like every other thing that paid homage to the Colonel. The house was primarily a place to entertain, and they hosted more than their share of parties in the high-society circles they enjoyed. Maybe things couldn’t change. Maybe I was a fool to think they might. Nevertheless, I had to try.

  We climbed a regal, horseshoe-shaped double stairway that ran from the ground floor to the upper gallery of the house, giving it its majestic name, and of course someone was there to open the door. The table normally in the foyer had been removed, the remnants of our fight nothing but an echo in the hall. My parents were there, and my momma’s eyes lit up when she saw us.

  “Samantha, sugar, you’re so we
lcome to our home.” She bussed my cheek. “Chase,” she said softly. “I’ve been waiting so long to get you back.” She brushed at her cheek.

  “Amy, darlin’, don’t start, or you’ll get us all going,” my daddy said, clasping and shaking my hand. He was happy I was here, there was no mistaking that. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Samantha. If Brax wasn’t my son-in-law, you’d be my first choice for a caterer.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Sutton.”

  “Oh, please. Call me Jim.”

  “I heard that,” Brax said, giving Samantha a narrow-eyed glare, pointing from his eyes to hers that he was watching her. She grinned at his playful rivalry. He greeted us and then moved on.

  River blindsided me with a tight hug, holding on to me for a few seconds longer than customary. “I’m so glad to have you here,” she whispered.

  Jake stood at the library door, his tie untied, a drink in his hand. His body was taut and looked ready for battle, even as he leaned against the doorframe as if he didn’t give a damn. He raised the glass with a sardonic look on his face.

  I mingled and mixed with the people at the party, including Aubree’s mom and her stepdad, the sheriff. I saw my Uncle Win with Aunt Evie. It was clear she was pumping Samantha for information about our trip to the bayou, then the conversation would most likely move on to Sam’s decorating challenge. She still had a house to fill.

  The party wound down to after-dinner brandies and more conversation. My mother almost wept when I gave her and Daddy the keys to the Amy as their gift. I could easily get another boat. My investments had gone through the roof this past year, and I probably didn’t really need to work as hard as I did.

  That made me look at Samantha and think about spending more time with her. It was time to seriously consider hiring regular staff.

  Brax wheeled out a six-tier cake, white frosting with lilies cascading down the side. My Daddy made a beautiful speech to my momma about how much he loved her and would gladly spend the next thirty years proving it every day. They cut the cake and passed it around.

  As the groups thinned out, my daddy asked me to stay afterward for a bit. He wanted to talk to me. I wondered if he was planning to mediate Jake’s and my difficulties.

  My momma had corralled Samantha, River, and Evie to talk about Samantha’s decorating challenges. I entered the library to find Jake leaning against the bar, still drinking.

  “Jake has a proposition,” my daddy said. “I’ll let him present it.”

  Jake smiled, and it was one I remembered. He had something up his sleeve.

  “What do you have on your mind?”

  “Plenty, but in the interest of keeping it cordial, I will refrain.”

  He was drunk, slurring his words. “Jake, get on with it.”

  “I was going to give the speech for this year’s Founder’s Festival, but I’m going to pass that honor over to you.”

  “No! I wouldn’t set foot in that sham of a festival.”

  “Chase, it’s tradition, and it raises money for the town. We’re expected to host it,” my daddy said.

  “You can’t be serious about expecting me to participate.”

  “That’s what it means to be part of this family,” Jake said with a smirk. “Or don’t you want to fully participate in our traditions and celebrations? You’ve been conveniently absent for a long time.”

  I looked at my daddy and saw the resistance. He wanted me to do this.

  Something clicked in my mind, and something cold and deadly started to unfold in my gut. I stared at my daddy, then Jake, my eyes narrowed, my gaze unwavering. My tone deadly quiet, I said, “Nothing has really changed, has it?”

  Jake finished off the amber liquid in his glass. “No, everything is just the same. Like I said, you should have just stayed in the bayou.” He slung his weight on one hip, his smile just a little nasty.

  My daddy’s face was white, and I could feel his indignation. “Chase, it’s an honor to be asked to speak.”

  “I will never deliver a speech lauding a man who betrayed his friend. Betrayed his descendants, was a murderer, and a thief. His statue should be razed to the ground, and this town should change its name. Colonel Beauregard Sutton should be forgotten, even as his ashes are now dust.”

  “What?” my daddy roared, straightening, his pride rushing to the family’s defense in a huff of anger. “You’re my son, and if you want to be a part of this family, you will never bring that up again.”

  I looked at Jake, and his self-satisfied expression made it abundantly clear. My family wanted me back on their terms. I should have known. “I wanted this to work, Daddy, but you won’t let go, and neither will you Jake. You’ll choke on your own pride before you’ll face those principles you’ve shunted to the side.”

  I turned to go.

  “Chase!” my daddy bellowed, and the tone and volume of his voice brought the women to the door. I met my momma’s stricken eyes, then my sister’s, whose tears were already welling.

  My chin came up and I stared at him, my expression tight with defiance. “I won’t come back on those terms. And that, for me, is final.”

  “Then I guess you’re no longer welcome here,” Jake said flatly. I expected to see triumph written all over his face, but there was nothing but relief. He turned away, refusing to meet my eyes and poured another drink.

  Samantha came to me and wrapped her arm around my waist. I was thankful for her support.

  Brax sauntered in from the kitchen, took one look at River Pearl, and pulled her into his arms, muttering, “Sonofabitch.”

  That summed it up and drove it deep. Thomas Wolfe had been right.

  You couldn’t ever go home again.

  ***

  I fully expected my sister to show up—River Pearl was like a dog with a bone—or Brax, but when my momma walked into the shop, I was blindsided.

  She looked around, her expression telling me that she approved of the place. She appeared as put-together as ever, always in command of herself.

  “I’m not going to change my mind,” I said, my tone flat.

  “I didn’t come here to change your mind. I happen to agree with you. That dead man has caused nothing but heartache for both the Suttons and the Outlaws.”

  That was another shocker. For a minute I was speechless while I stared at her.

  “I didn’t come here after all this time to ask you to do what you had so clearly rejected ten years ago. I love you, Chase. You’re my son, and our family is so fractured. Don’t you think I know Jake is unhappy? Don’t you think his ambush was a way to serve his own ends?” Her tone entreating, she came forward and put her hands on the counter, releasing a breath. “But your daddy has come so far. He just needs to let go so our own accomplishments and upstanding qualities shine through.”

  “What do you expect me to do?”

  “Fight. I want you to fight for this, because you’re a Sutton. Stand up for what is right. Make the changes you think you need to make. Be persuasive. Or just throw caution to the wind and take action. Something, Chase. I don’t want to wait another ten years for a second chance at having my family united.”

  She turned to go, then turned back. “I know you’ve got that in you. You always have.” She looked around the shop and smiled. “It’s beautiful, what you’ve created here. I am so inordinately proud of you, I could burst. Next time you’re doing some of that redfish fishing, you bring me ten pounds.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She nodded and closed the door quietly behind her.

  Samantha came out of the residence and leaned both elbows on the counter. “She’s right you know.”

  I reached out and mussed up her hair. “I know.”

  She scrunched up her face and batted my hand away. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Chapter 16

  SAMANTHA

  I woke up with a smile on my face, my arms around warm, firm skin. I loved this moment before I was fully awake, the co
mforting feeling of being this close to Chase. He gently caught me by the back of my head, carefully repositioning my weight on his shoulder, flexing his fingers. I opened my eyes to find him flat on his back with my head nestled in the crook of his arm.

  “Did I make your arm go to sleep again?”

  He smiled and pulled me tight to him for a quick hug. “Just some pins and needles. I can take it.”

  We were in the bed he’d helped me assemble, my bedroom now complete and simply gorgeous. Now I just had to get the rest of the house done. Still no dining table, and no comfy furniture to sit on. I envied his gorgeous living room with that excellent gray couch that a body could sink into. Not to mention the beautiful side chair with a leaf pattern of turquoise and greens and blues I loved. And the old trunk for the coffee table. I also adored his dining room set with the distressed, reclaimed wood.

  Evie, River Pearl, and Chase’s mom were going to help me look for what I needed. I hoped I could find the right pieces.

  Chase’s cell phone rang and he answered.

  He sat up straight in bed. “What the hell?!? I’m on my way.” He was shoving back the covers and grabbing clothes.

  “What’s wrong?“

  “That was Ethan. He was going to handle the shop today and check traps for me. All my traps have been vandalized, and someone broke into the shop last night and trashed it. I’ve been robbed.”

  A shiver went down my spine. The feeling of being watched, the weird things that had been happening in Imogene’s. Chase’s tires slashed, and now this. I was worried we were dealing with a stalker who was after both of us. But who?

  “I’m coming with you.” I threw the covers off and stepped in something gritty. I looked down and said, “What the heck?”

  Chase was almost dressed. “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s this gritty stuff all over the floor.” I bent down and realized I’d displaced a tin of fine, black grit.