Southern Comforts

by JoAnn Ross

  “You own a hundred acres of riverfront property? As well as this house?”

  “It’s not all riverfront. It’s also mortgaged up to the rafters. Which is why I agreed to work with the dragon lady. Would you like a grand tour?”

  “I’d love to see the inside.”

  Chelsea stopped in front of the door and couldn’t help smiling at the small metal plaque. “Rebel’s Ridge?”

  “I didn’t name it,” he said, somewhat defensively.

  Chelsea laughed. “It’s perfect.”

  He’d been a rebel when she’d known him at Yale, and although anyone would have to consider him respectable now, the fact that he’d turned his back on a prestigious career to return home to this small southern town proved Cash still marched to his own drum.

  “It was named during the war,” Cash said. “Confederate soldiers were garrisoned here to keep a lookout for Union troops coming down the river.”

  She grinned up at him, enjoying his seeming embarrassment. “It still suits you.”

  Cash shrugged. But secretly, he guessed he agreed. Which was why, although he’d always considered naming houses pretentious, he’d replaced the plaque after sanding and re-painting the siding.

  “Oh!” She stared in delight as she walked into a cool cream-walled entry hall. “It’s so much larger than I expected.”

  “The house itself is about eighteen hundred square feet. The fifteen-foot ceilings help give a feeling of spaciousness and all the windows make the veranda seem part of the interior.”

  Although the outside of the house was deceptively simple, the inside boasted exquisite plaster work. Chelsea admired the plaster cornices and medallions along the edge of the ceiling and framing the doorways.

  She expressed appreciation for the hand planing on the walls and ceilings, and the pine woodwork that he told her had once been painted a bright robin’s egg blue.

  “The only thing on it now is a clear sealant,” Cash said. “I wanted the beauty of the wood to show through.”

  “Well, you certainly succeeded there.” She ran her hand across the double doors to the parlor and found them as smooth as a baby’s bottom. “It’s truly lovely, Cash. You should be so proud. I understand now why Roxanne’s thrilled you agreed to restore Belle Terre.”

  Her obvious admiration should not make him feel so damn good. Like some rooster strutting around the barnyard showing off for a bunch of hens. No. Cash scowled at that image, thinking it fit her Yankee lover more than him.

  How about a stallion galloping around the paddock, showing off for a mare? Better, Cash decided. But he still didn’t enjoy realizing exactly how much her approval meant to him.

  “I must’ve peeled off twenty layers of wallpaper before I could replaster,” he said as he led the way upstairs to the bedrooms. “These holes are from minié balls.”

  Chelsea ran her fingertips wonderingly over the indentations. “From the war?”

  “One of the final skirmishes of Sherman’s campaign took place right here. Two days before those businessmen surrendered Savannah to him. Five Confederate infantrymen and a dozen Union solders were killed. There’s a stone marker outside.”

  Chelsea glanced out the window. The house, as its name implied, had been built on a ridge overlooking the river in one direction, the abandoned farmland in the other. “What are those?”

  Cash followed her gaze to the cluster of buildings in the distance. “Old plantation outbuildings. That one to the left is the barn. Then the blacksmith shop. And the smokehouse.

  “And those three white tabby buildings used to be slave quarters. After the war, when the slaves were freed, they become sharecropper cottages.”

  Something had changed in his voice. It had become rougher. And possessed an edge she was not accustomed to hearing in his deep tone. “Cash?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry. My mind was wandering again.”

  He wondered what she’d say if he’d told her that he was picturing a young boy, playing marbles in the dirt in front of one of those spartan cabins, while his mother rolled out dough for peach pies in the tiny, ill-equipped kitchen.

  He continued showing her the upstairs, which was in more disarray than downstairs. “I’m taking things a room at a time. I figure I should finally have the place finished just about when I’m ready to collect Social Security.”

  “They say everyone needs a project,” she teased.

  “At least I know what mine is through the next millennium.”

  They went back downstairs. Then he took her out to the backyard. The marker for the fallen soldiers was located in the shade of an old willow tree.

  As she stood beside the simple gray stone, the bygone era seemed very real to Chelsea for the first time.

  “This is so sad.” She sighed as she looked down at the stone. There were no names. Just the date of the battle. And a single line dedicated to the bravery of the Yankees and Rebels who’d fought and died there that day.

  “War always is unfortunate. But civil wars are more tragic than most, because neither side is fighting for territory or domination. But for opposing ideals.” He shook his head. “There’s no real winning a war like that.”

  “I’d never thought of it that way,” she admitted. “But I suppose you’re right.”

  The tour concluded, they walked down the steps to the boat dock. When he’d mentioned taking her out on a fishing boat, she’d pictured an old wooden or aluminum rowboat with an outboard motor. This boat was a sleek, low Fiberglas craft that reminded her of a fighter jet. She stared in amazement as he pointed out the electronic gadgetry: hydraulic pedestal seats, the water temperature gauges, the aerated fish wells, the flickering orange lights of the depth finders and electric trolling motors.

  “Surely you don’t need all this to fish?”

  “Of course you don’t. But it makes it more fun.”

  “Like your Batmobile makes driving more fun?”

  This time his grin was more sheepish than cocky. “The Ferrari was an impulse, one I don’t regret. But I’m about ready to trade it in on a car I can drive in the rain.” When she glanced over at him curiously, he elaborated. “I’m too tall to drive with the top up.”

  “Maybe you should consider moving to the desert. Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas.”

  “I suppose I could do that. But I’ve decided that I’m just a southern boy at heart, so I’m stuck here. It’d probably be easier just to get the Jag I was looking at last week.”

  Once again, Chelsea was amazed by how much Cash’s situation had changed. Although she’d suspected he was talented—they didn’t let just anyone into the Yale school of architecture—never could she have imagined her rebel lover living so comfortably in a world of expensive cars, sleek boats, and two-hundred-year-old plantation homes.

  Unwilling to admit how that thought confirmed his earlier accusation, that perhaps his appeal had initially been his lack of wealth, which made him so different from the boys she’d grown up with, she decided the time had come to at least give him credit for accomplishing so much.

  “I’m impressed.”

  “By a Jag? This from a girl who was probably handed the keys to a sporty Mercedes convertible on her sixteenth birthday?”

  “It wasn’t a Mercedes.” It was a BMW. Her mother drove the Mercedes.

  “A Beemer, then.”

  She couldn’t help laughing at how accurately he’d hit that target. “Ah, we’re back to the pigeonholing problem,” she accused lightly. “And no, Jags don’t impress me. Nor do Ferraris, fancy homes, or speedboats.”

  “So, since it isn’t my conspicuous consumption of consumer goods, what is it about me that impresses you? Other than my devastating good looks and animal magnetism?”

  Even though the last two had to count for something, Chelsea understood he was joking. “I’m impressed by how hard you must have worked to achieve all this.” She waved her hand, encompassing the little corner of paradise he’d carved out for himself. “I had no idea arch
itecture paid so well.”

  “It does in the Bay Area.”

  “Yet you left.”

  “I told you. I’m a southern boy at heart.”

  He did not tell Chelsea that had proven the biggest surprise of his life. For years he’d plotted and schemed and saved to escape the stultifying rigidity of southern society. Where a man was judged by who his family was, and not for who he was. Where the content of the social register was more important than the content of a man’s character.

  “So you came home.”

  He threw back his head and laughed at that. “In a way.”

  He didn’t elaborate on his reaction. And Chelsea didn’t ask. But as he headed the boat downriver, Cash wondered what she’d say if she knew that he’d been born in one of those little tabby slave cottages and had lived there until that rainy spring day his father had died under a John Deere tractor.

  The day of the funeral his mother had gotten evicted by the landlord and they’d moved into town, where she managed to find work doing laundry and cleaning other people’s houses while he delivered papers, swept out the pool hall, did odd jobs for Fancy and ran errands for her girls.

  The first place he’d gone, after returning to Raintree, had been the whorehouse. He’d been disappointed, but not surprised to discover it had been condemned in his absence. And razed to make room for a Piggly Wiggly supermarket.

  Cash still couldn’t decide if that was progress or not.

  “Whooee,” George whistled appreciatively as he stared at the opulent surroundings. “I gotta tell you, Cora Mae, you done yourself proud. Hot damn if this place isn’t nearly as fancy as Graceland.”

  He picked up a Lalique rabbit, one of her prized zoo collection; the crystal split the afternoon sun streaming in through the windows into rainbows that danced on the floral papered walls.

  “And it’s a helluva long way from that tar paper shack you and your mama and stepdaddy lived in.” He exchanged the rabbit for an elephant.

  As he ran a finger down the crystal trunk, Roxanne stared at his torn and ragged cuticles, his grease-encrusted hands with the dusting of black hair on the back and felt a surge of revulsion so strong it made her shudder. How could she have ever allowed this man to touch her?

  “Keep your voice down,” she instructed him. “I don’t want my housekeeper hearing our conversation.”

  “Then perhaps you better give her the rest of the day off,” he suggested. “Because you and I have a lot of unfinished business to take care of. And believe me, sugar, after ridin’ that bus all the way across the country, I’m damn well not going to leave until we get things settled.”

  Although his yellow smile appeared harmless enough, Roxanne saw the seeds of violence lurking in his red-veined eyes and knew he meant it. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” She plucked the crystal from his hands and replaced it to the shelf. “And don’t touch anything.”

  It took some doing, but she managed to convince her housekeeper that she’d be safe. Now, if only she could convince herself, Roxanne considered grimly as she returned to the library and found him sprawled in her Queen Anne wing chair, drinking whiskey from one of her Waterford tumblers.

  “That happens to be an iced tea glass.”

  “Always hated iced tea.” He took a drink and breathed out a long satisfied sigh. “Even if it is the goddamn national drink of the South. But the glass is just about the right size. Saves refilling.”

  “I’m so pleased you’re pleased.” Although Roxanne did not usually drink—she hated risking any loss of control—these were not usual circumstances. She tossed some Irish whiskey into one of the shorter old-fashioned glasses, then sat down in the chair across from him.

  “Since I have no desire to rehash old memories with you, George, let’s just knock off the bullshit and get down to the bottom line. How much will it take to make you go away?”

  “Now, sweetie pie,” he complained, “you’re taking all the fun out of this. This here’s the South, Cora Mae. Just because you’re making money hand over fist like some Wall Street banker don’t mean that you gotta start acting like a damn tight-assed Yankee.

  “I may not know as much ‘bout bidness as you do, but ain’t you supposed to start softening me up a little before we get down to the nitty-gritty?”

  “I’d rather suck mud from the Okefenokee Swamp.”

  “That could be arranged.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Just makin’ conversation, sugar.” He stood up, tossed back the liquor and headed toward the door. “But if you don’t want to hear me out, mebee I can find someone who will.”

  Although sweat was beginning to puddle between her breasts, a lifetime of acting allowed Roxanne to keep her tone cool. “You’re forgetting one thing. You can’t tell people about me without risking being brought up on murder charges yourself.”

  “You know, I’ve had plenty of time to consider that possibility,” he agreed. “But the thing is, honey bun, if there is any evidence around about your stepdaddy’s unfortunate and untimely demise, it’s gonna point straight at you.”

  “That’s not true! You killed Jubal.”

  “There’s not a lick of proof of that,” he reminded her. “In fact, now that I think on it, the only thing that might just suggest Jubal Lott’s death wasn’t from that mugging the night he got drunk down at the Dewdrop Inn, is that letter you wrote me beggin’ me to kill him. And saying that if I didn’t, you’d have to do it yourself.”

  “But you did kill him.” She’d never forget that day. Never forget how terrified she’d been. And how happy.

  “I’ve got an alibi sayin’ different. In case it ever comes up.” He rubbed his jaw. “I also still got that letter.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Her crisp tone belied her pounding heart.

  “You can believe what you want. But it’s the truth.”

  “Let me see it.”

  “You don’t think I’d carry it ‘round with me? All these years?” He shook his head. “Hell, Cora Mae, you know me, I’d lose my head if it weren’t screwed on real tight. That’s why I tucked it away somewhere nice and safe. Never know when something like that’s gonna come in handy.”

  She’d suffered nightmares about this moment. More times than she’d cared to count. The fears that she managed to keep at bay during the day crept back at night, invading her sleep, torturing her dreams, leaving her sitting bolt upright in bead, drenched in sweat.

  She closed her eyes, took a long breath meant to calm and made her decision. “Name your price.”

  He did. And it was, as she would have suspected, ridiculously low, considering the circumstances. “Fine. I’ll need some time to get to the bank. I will, of course, want this to be a cash transaction.”

  “Cash works for me,” George said agreeably. This was turning out to even easier than he’d hoped. “There’s one more little thing.”

  Caught up in the logistics of how she was going to explain the need to transfer fifty thousand dollars in cash from her corporate account to her personal account, it took a minute for his words to sink in. “What now?”

  “Well, you see, I got myself in a bit of trouble a while back—”

  “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” she muttered.

  “Now, honey bun, there’s no need to get nasty. The thing is, I ended up doin’ a little time for what was mostly a misunderstanding.”

  That explained his pasty complexion, she decided. It was obviously prison pallor. “I don’t see why your legal difficulties should have anything to do with me.” A horrible thought occurred to her. What if he’d broken out of prison? What if the authorities were searching for him right now? What if they tracked him here?

  “The thing is, I’ve got this probation officer who thinks I oughta be workin’.”

  “What a novel concept.”

  He did not seem to take offense at her remark. “You always did have a smart mouth on you, Cora Mae. ‘Course these days your words are
more the fifty-cent kind, ‘stead of the nickel ones you used to toss at me. But they still hit the mark.”

  “You were telling me about your probation officer.”

  “Yeah. Well, the way I figger it, I need a job or I’m gonna have to go back to Arizona. And you’re fixing up that old house, so you’re bound to need guys handy with a hammer.”

  He paused, not bothering to add how Jubal had died after having his head bashed in with a sixteen-ounce claw hammer. There was no need. Not when they both remembered that night so vividly.

  “I figure this is another one of those cases of us being able to help each other out.”

  “There is no way in hell I would hire you. Which is a moot point, because I’m not even involved in such petty details.”

  “Now it may be a petty detail to you, Cora Mae. But it’s goddamn important to me. I need this job. And you’re gonna get it for me.”

  His eyes had turned to hard black stones. For the first time since he’d arrived, she was looking at the cold-blooded killer she knew him to be.

  “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can. And you will.”

  “Who will I say you are?”

  “How about your husband?” When that earned a glare, he laughed. “Now, honey bun, you’re underestimating yourself again. Like that lady on “Good Morning America” said, you’ve got one helluva imagination. So, think something up. But think fast. Because the clock’s tickin’ on this one.”

  “Why can’t you just take the money and go away?”

  “And end up on “America’s Most Wanted” for jumping parole? Nope. That wasn’t one of your better ideas. Guess you’ll have to try again.”

  “I suppose I could say you were a cousin of one of my office employees.”

  “There you go.” He grinned. “So, how about we have a drink to celebrate? You got any champagne?”

  Chapter Nine