White Hot

by Sandra Brown

  “You bet,” she said, returning his flirtatious smile.

  “Do you know Sayre Lynch?”

  The two of them exchanged obligatory smiles. Speaking in a low voice, the waitress said, “That Slap Watkins has stunk up the place. Want me to wipe down the table for you, Beck?”

  “I think it’s okay, but thanks.”

  “They should have kept him in prison.”

  “Give him time, he’ll go back.”

  “Until then, I wish he and his buddies would find another place to hang out. Burgers will be ready soon. Nice to meet you,” she said to Sayre before turning away. But Sayre questioned her sincerity. In fact she seemed reluctant to leave Sayre alone with Beck Merchant.

  The waitress probably wasn’t the only heart in Destiny that he kept aflutter, and Sayre could understand why. He had an undeniable sex appeal—the green eyes, the rakish blond hair, the smile that suggested he could talk you into being naughty. He looked as good and as comfortable in the old jeans and chambray shirt he was wearing now as he had in his funeral suit. Altogether, a very attractive package.

  But so was Chris. He wore clothes well, too. He was movie star handsome. But many reptiles were as beautiful and alluring as they were poisonous. Chris was a snake who struck even as he charmed.

  She trusted Beck Merchant no more than she trusted her older brother, and possibly even less. Chris came by his meanness naturally, whereas Beck was paid to be mean.

  “Selma would be heartbroken to learn that we’d come here to eat after she tried all day to feed us,” he remarked.

  “She loves us. Always has. Much more than we deserve to be loved.”

  Folding his arms on the table, he leaned forward. “Why don’t you think you deserve to be loved?”

  “You’re a lawyer, Mr. Merchant, not a psychoanalyst.”

  “I’m only making casual conversation.”

  “I believe Slap Watkins used that same line.”

  He laughed out loud. “Then my technique needs some work.” He twirled the straw in his glass for several moments. “Sayre,” he said slowly, “I apologize.” He looked up, met her gaze. “For telling you about Old Mitchell like that. It was a cheap shot. Even when I’m angry, I usually play more fairly than that.”

  Disliking her own mistrust of what appeared to be a sincere apology, she said nothing, merely raised one shoulder in a half shrug of acknowledgment.

  The waitress arrived with their orders. The burgers and fries were everything they should have been—greasy, hot, and delicious. For several minutes, they ate in silence, but she was keenly aware of him watching her. Finally she said, “What is it, Mr. Merchant?”

  “What?”

  “You keep staring at me.”

  “Hm, sorry. I was just thinking, would it have killed you to thank me?”

  “For what?”

  “For fending off Watkins.”

  He nodded through the plate-glass window. She turned to see the man climbing onto a motorcycle. He stomped the starter, then peeled out of the parking lot. Just before roaring onto the highway, he raised his middle finger at them.

  “That sums up what he thinks of us, doesn’t it?” Then, looking across the booth, she said, “I could have handled the situation, but probably not without making a scene and becoming the talk of the town tomorrow. So, thank you.”

  “Glad to oblige.”

  “He said he had whipped your ass before. True?”

  “That’s his version.” He finished his burger and pulled two paper napkins from the dispenser to wipe his hands. “Chris and I were reunited because of Slap Watkins. Two coffees,” he told the waitress, who had returned to take away their plates. “If Frito is in your way, send him out here.” She told him the dog was snoozing and went to get their coffee, which Sayre was glad he had ordered. It would be the perfect chaser for the rich food.

  “Chris and I met at LSU when I pledged the same fraternity. He was a senior. We had a passing acquaintance before he graduated. We didn’t see each other again until three years ago.”

  He acknowledged the arrival of their coffees with another smile for the waitress, then as Sayre raised the steaming cup to her lips, he warned, “It’s caffeinated chicory coffee.”

  “I drank it from my baby bottle and still have it shipped to me in San Francisco.” She took a sip, then asked, “What happened three years ago to reunite you?”

  “The Gene Iverson case. Indirectly anyway. How much do you know about that?”

  “Only what I read in the company newsletters.”

  “Those newsletters that you don’t want sent to you, but which you read anyway?”

  On that point he had her, although she would never admit it. She faithfully read the newsletters, not because she cared about Huff and Chris’s welfare but because she cared about the men and women who worked for them and about the future of the town. Without Hoyle Enterprises, there would be no local economy. Hundreds of families would be without income. Even though she didn’t want to profit from the foundry, she felt a moral responsibility to keep a close eye on it, warts and all.

  She said, “The information in the newsletters is filtered through Huff and Chris, particularly if it’s even fractionally negative. In other words, my source on the Iverson case was biased and unreliable. What can you tell me about it?”

  He leaned back and studied her for a moment. “Your brother was indicted for murder, yet you never bothered to learn the facts of the case. Doesn’t your concern come a little late?”

  “I’m not concerned, I’m curious. I don’t give a damn about Chris and what he does. I feel the same about Huff. I wrote them off ten years ago, and if that sounds harsh and unfeeling, that’s just too damn bad.”

  “Where did Danny rate?”

  “Danny,” she said, made sad again at the mention of his name. “Whatever Huff and Chris dished out, he took lying down. I’m sure you witnessed his subordination to them every day. Danny never stood up for himself.”

  “But you did.”

  Not until ten years ago, she thought. Not until she had struck rock bottom. Not until she had determined that, in order to survive, she had to leave her family and their town and never return.

  “I got lucky,” she said. “I finally found the wherewithal to defy Huff and leave. But Danny didn’t.”

  Beck hesitated, then said, “Maybe he took his leave in another way, Sayre.”

  “Maybe.”

  “But when you left here ten years ago, you didn’t think too well of him for being such a pushover.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  In fact she had left hating them all. But after years of therapy her feelings toward Danny had softened—just not enough to take a phone call from him that had come out of the blue.

  Thoughtfully she sipped her coffee, but when she replaced the cup in the saucer, she realized that Beck Merchant was looking at her with disconcerting interest. She berated herself for talking to him about issues so personal that until now she had confided them only to her therapist.

  “We were talking about the Gene Iverson case.”

  “Right.” He sat up straighter and cleared his throat. “What do you want to know?”

  “Did Chris kill him?”

  His left eyebrow shot up. “You don’t mince words.”

  “Did he?”

  “The evidence against Chris was purely circumstantial.”

  “That’s not an answer,” she said. “No, allow me to rephrase. That’s a lawyer’s answer.”

  “The prosecution’s case was weak enough to deadlock a jury.”

  “And it was never retried.”

  “It shouldn’t have been tried in the first place.”

  “No body, no murder?” That had been at the crux of the articles she had read. Gene Iverson’s body had never been found. He had disappeared without a trace.

  “If I were a prosecuting attorney,” he said, “I would never go into a murder trial without a dead body, no matter how compelling the circums
tantial evidence was.”

  “How did you become involved?”

  “I’d read about the trial. Thought it was a bum rap for reasons I’ve expressed. I came down here to lend support to my fraternity brother, assist him any way I could. But by the time I got here, the trial was over. I found Chris and Danny celebrating in that old honky-tonk out on the highway. You know the place?”

  “The Razorback?”

  “That’s the one. Chris was buying drinks for everybody to celebrate the outcome of his trial. Slap Watkins was there. He started spouting off about money buying justice, and rich people never serving time, and so forth. Didn’t set well with Chris. Or Danny. In fact, he threw the first punch in defense of his older brother. All hell broke loose. I plunged in and, despite Watkins’s claim of victory, tilted the odds in the brothers’ favor. We mopped the floor with him.”

  “So you’ve rescued all three of us from the ugly clutches of Slap Watkins.”

  “So it would seem,” he said, smiling. “I’m a handy man to have around.”

  “Huff and Chris certainly think so.”

  He propped his forearms on the table and leaned forward. “Right now I’m interested in what you think.”

  The statement was deceptively simple. She sensed an underlying meaning that was more complex. “I think it’s time I said good-bye.”

  When she opened her handbag, he said, “I’ll cover your dinner. I have a tab here.”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  “Afraid of being indebted to me?”

  She tucked a twenty-dollar bill beneath the sugar dispenser, then looked straight into his teasing eyes. “I’m not afraid of anything, Mr. Merchant.”

  He left the booth when she did and followed her to the door. “Dogs?”

  “What?”

  He whistled sharply. “Are you afraid of dogs?”

  He barely had time to complete the question before Frito shot through the swinging double doors. He was a beautiful animal—golden fur with white feathering on his underside. He wagged his tail so exuberantly that Sayre was forced to dodge it or risk being knocked down.

  He greeted his owner with such enthusiasm it could have been months rather than minutes since he had last seen him. Then he turned his unbridled affection onto Sayre. He danced around her feet and bathed her hands with happy licks, only settling down when told to “be nice!” He obeyed and squatted on his haunches but quivered with uncontrollable energy and implored Sayre with large brown eyes to pet him.

  Which she did. “He’s wonderful. How long have you had him?”

  “Couple of years. Since he was seven weeks old. One of the workers brought a litter to the foundry. I took one look inside the box and was suckered into taking him home.” He scrubbed his knuckles across the top of the dog’s head. “We had several clashes when it came to housebreaking, but now I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

  As she watched him shower affection on his dog, Sayre conceded that Beck Merchant had sexy eyes, an engaging grin, and a cute pet. One could easily be taken in. But she rejected the notion that he was a nice guy. At the end of the day, he was still Huff Hoyle’s chief legal adviser, capable of corporate treachery and God only knew what else. She would put nothing past him, not even faking this love for his dog in an effort to disarm her.

  They stepped outside, where it felt like a steam room compared to the air-conditioned diner. The sultry air engulfed her, for a moment robbing her of breath. She grew dizzy. Her ears began to buzz.

  He touched her elbow. “Are you all right?”

  She pressed her hand against her struggling lungs and inhaled deeply through her nose, exhaled through her mouth. The dizziness subsided. The buzzing in her ears, she realized with chagrin, was one of the neon tubes in the window spelling out the fare of the diner. “I’m not quite acclimatized.”

  “It takes a while.” Looking down at her, he said, “But you won’t be here long enough for that, will you?”

  “No. Not that long.”

  He nodded, but he didn’t move away from her and his gaze remained on her face.

  “Before I go,” she said, “I wanted to ask—Ouch!”

  “What?”

  “Frito stepped on my foot.”

  The dog had been trying to nudge his way between them when one of his paws landed hard on her instep.

  “I’m sorry.” He opened the cab of his pickup and motioned Frito inside. The retriever leapt in as though he’d done it a thousand times, then poked his head through the open passenger window, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, looking adorably guileless.

  Sayre hobbled to the bed of the pickup and supported herself there while she checked her foot.

  “Any permanent damage?”

  “No. It’s all right.”

  “I’m terribly sorry. He thinks he’s a lapdog.”

  Although her foot was throbbing, she said, “It startled me more than hurt.”

  “What were you about to ask?”

  It took her a second to remember. “How you got from assisting my brothers in a brawl to becoming chief counsel for Hoyle Enterprises. After the night at the Razorback, how long before Huff hired you?”

  “As soon as I recovered from my hangover.” He chuckled. “Actually, Chris invited me to stay for a few days, go fishing, hang out. Over the course of the visit, it became clear to him that I was unhappy with the law firm I was in. By the end of my stay, Huff had made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Relocation was no problem for me. I hadn’t come to Destiny intending to stay, but ultimately the decision was a no-brainer.”

  He had sunk his fingers into Frito’s dense pelt and was idly rubbing the back of his neck. The dog’s eyes were closed. He looked drunk with pleasure.

  Snapping her attention back to the subject, Sayre asked him what had happened to Calvin McGraw. He had been Huff’s lawyer for as far back as Sayre could remember. Beck Merchant had replaced him.

  “Mr. McGraw retired.”

  “Or Huff retired him,” she countered.

  “I don’t know what their arrangement was. I’m sure Huff offered him an attractive retirement package.”

  “Oh, I’m sure of that, too. Ensuring McGraw’s silence would have been expensive.”

  “His silence?”

  “About bribing the jury during Chris’s murder trial.”

  Beck’s fingers stopped their mindless movement, and gradually he withdrew his hand from the nape of Frito’s neck. The dog whined a complaint, but his owner seemed not to notice. His attention was focused on Sayre. Purposefully he walked toward her and didn’t stop until he was standing directly in front of her, effectively trapping her between him and the truck.

  She recoiled. “Back up.”

  “Not yet.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Confessing. I lied to you.”

  “I would expect that. You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “The mosquito.”

  She stared up at him with incomprehension.

  “This afternoon, down at the bayou, when I brushed the mosquito off your cheek? There was no mosquito, Sayre. I just wanted to touch your face.”

  He wasn’t touching her now, except with his eyes, and their touch was almost as effective as fingertips. He shouldn’t have been standing this close to her. It was an inappropriate distance between strangers. Furthermore it was physically uncomfortable. It was too sultry for two people to be standing this close, close enough to feel each other’s body heat, forced to share the inadequate air.

  “I don’t remember that,” she lied. Pushing him aside, she headed for her car, which was parked a short distance away. By the time she reached it, he had caught up with her. Hooking her elbow, he brought her around.

  “First of all, the hell you don’t remember. Second, you’ve been tossing out some mighty bold allegations tonight. You intimated that Chris got away with murder, then accused your father of jury tampering. Those are serious crimes.”

  “So is ta
mpering with evidence.”

  He raised his shoulders. “You’ve lost me.”

  “Yellow mud.” She pointed toward the pickup truck. “Your tires are caked with it. So are your boots.” Simultaneously, they looked down at the muddy boots poking out from beneath the stringy hems of his worn jeans. Looking into his face again, she said, “There’s only one place in the parish where the soil is that ocher color. On Bayou Bosquet. Where the fishing camp is.”

  His jaw bunched. “Your point?”

  “You went out there tonight, didn’t you? Don’t bother lying. I know you did. I just wonder what you did while you were there.”

  “You know,” he said, “if your design business ever tanks, maybe you could sign on with the FBI.”

  “Deputy Scott told us that until further notice the cabin at the camp was considered a crime scene. He said it had been cordoned off.”

  “With bright yellow tape.”

  “Which you ignored.”

  “Did you know that dogs are color-blind? Frito didn’t realize it was crime scene tape. He charged right past it. I had to go get him.”

  “Even though he immediately responds to hand gestures, verbal commands, and whistles?”

  A weighty silence yawned between them. He knew he’d been caught.

  chapter 8

  He was pudgy and pink.

  No two ways about it, George Robson thought.

  The full-length, well-lighted three-way mirror in his bathroom unmercifully revealed all his physical flaws. He didn’t like what he saw. Each day it seemed there was less hair growing on his head and more on his back. His breasts sagged, his stomach was flabby. Beneath it, his penis looked no bigger than a thumb.

  Less time on the golf course and more time in a gym would help the pecs and abs. There wasn’t much he could do about the other. That was what had him worried. He had a beautiful, young wife to satisfy, and unfortunately, this was the equipment he had to do it with.

  Modestly, he put on a pair of undershorts before joining Lila in the bedroom. She was propped up in bed looking through one of her fashion magazines. He crawled in beside her. “You’re prettier than any of the models in that magazine.” He wasn’t just saying so. In his estimation it was true. Lila was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.