“Say that again?”
She opened her mouth but the words wouldn’t come. Every ounce of southern hospitality drilled into her from birth melted away. Once again in the slow-dance cadence of her life, in yet another defining moment when she could have set things right, Libby Delacourte was rendered speechless. Her throat closed. Dear God, she prayed silently. Make him go away. Make this not be happening. She squinted through her lashes, hoping against hope for the impossible. No such miracle for the likes of her. She shrank back, making herself as small as possible. She knew what he wanted, but she would die before she gratified his ego. She refused to touch him. No power on earth would make her touch him. She would pass out first. She would just hold her breath until she turned blue and fell on the floor.
He bent his head, his breath stirring the strands of hair near her ear. “Tell me you missed me, Libba Jane. Tell me nobody ever fucked you like I did.”
A million responses formed in her mind, but none of them the right one. Sweat beaded on her forehead and collected between her breasts. Minutes ticked by as the sick nausea of shock and shame and regret warred with an aching sorrow she had never quite come to terms with. Seventeen years had gone by and Russ Hennessey still believed he could charm her out of her skivvies with nothing more than a touch and a suggestive comment. She didn’t need loving that badly. She would never need it that badly. A sound on the street steadied her. Visions of how their compromising position would appear to anyone who walked in spurred her to action. Suddenly, Libby was herself again. Her voice came out clear and cold, a tribute to her years with the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office. “In your dreams, Russ Hennessey. I didn’t miss you. Not one bit. As a matter of fact, I forgot all about you the minute I wiped the dust of this town off my feet.”
His laugh was humorless. “You’re a liar and I’ll prove it to you.”
His head bent and his lips came down on hers, hard. She should have objected, pushed him away, delivered a scathing diatribe belittling his methods and walked out of the office. He wouldn’t stop her. But she did none of those things. Instead, everything inside of her went still. Time rolled back. She was a girl again, wanting nothing more than to exist within the sphere of Russ Hennessey’s presence. Her lips parted. He deepened the kiss and her arms encircled his neck. She heard a sound, gravelly and triumphant, escape from his throat.
Recalling the incident later, Libby didn’t remember who pulled away first. But all at once it was over, with no explanation, no apology or awkwardness or hint of possible future encounters. It was simply over with Russ leaning back against his desk and Libby standing against the wall with puffy lips, as if the drumming desire, the searing want, had occurred between two different people.
“You’re looking mighty fine today, Libba Jane,” he said softly. “What brings you here this morning?”
She mentally pushed away the kiss. Why had she come? Sanity returned. “The lab report came back. Smith Island is still open for crabbing.”
“What about the bay?”
“Prohibited until more tests can be run. I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “I expected as much.”
She bent her head. He watched the dark curtain of hair swing across her cheek. “Do you have any idea how long this will take?”
“I’m sorry, Russ,” she said again. “I’m a novice here. I’ll e-mail Cliff and get back to you.”
“Thanks for stopping by.”
“It’s been—” she paused “—interesting.”
He grinned, the mocking, white-toothed grin that once would have turned her knees to jelly. “You could say that.”
She turned to go.
“Libba.”
She paused at the door. “If I were you, I’d try to talk your daughter into accepting Skylar Taft’s invitation. Apparently she’s the one who counts around here. Without her approval, Chloe doesn’t have a chance of fitting in.”
Libby groaned. “Easier said than done. I’ve already told her she doesn’t have to go. If I insist, she’ll resent me more than she already does.”
“Why is that?”
“Chloe’s a daddy’s girl,” Libby explained. “Eric wasn’t around much while she was growing up, so every encounter with him became special. Now that he’s settled in Los Angeles, Chloe was looking forward to spending more time with him. Then I uprooted her to come here.”
“Why did you come back?”
Libby shrugged and leaned against the door. “Lots of reasons. Mostly, I just didn’t fit there. I was tired of the smog and the traffic, of waiting forever on a weekend night to eat in a restaurant. Sometimes I couldn’t even get into a movie unless I stood in line for an hour ahead of time. It’s hard to get ahead when everything is so expensive. It just got to be too much. Then my mother got sick. It seemed like the perfect excuse to come home.”
She hadn’t intended to reveal so much of herself, but his interest encouraged her confidences. It was comforting talking to someone from her past, someone who’d known her better than anyone, even if it was Russ.
“There aren’t any movies in Marshyhope Creek,” he reminded her.
“Salisbury is close enough. What about you? Why did you come back?”
“I’ll tell you sometime.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I’ll tell you everything, over dinner.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
Libby considered his offer. Did she want to involve herself with Russ Hennessey again? It was a question that needed more than a minute to mull over. Curiosity won out. “All right,” she said. “I’ll meet you.”
“You don’t want the natives to know you’re slumming?”
“I don’t want Chloe to know I have a date,” she corrected him. “Eric and I haven’t been divorced that long.”
“Fair enough, although I wouldn’t call it a date. I’ll make reservations at the Sealark for eight.”
“What would you call it?”
“A fact-finding mission.”
She smiled. “I’ll be there.”
He watched her leave. His invitation was spur of the moment, surprising him, like the kiss. What it meant he hadn’t figured out yet. If he was smart he’d be gun-shy around Libba Delacourte. She’d wiped her feet on him once already and here he was again, honing in on her like a carrier pigeon. The trouble was she turned him inside out. If he was to make any kind of life for himself, it was about time he figured out why.
Fifteen
Chloe’s mouth worked as she struggled against tears. She’d expected Bailey to agree with her. He was supposed to be her friend. She sat on the floor of the shed he used as a studio watching while he painted over a canvas.
“Why are you doing that?” she asked.
“I have to reuse them. I can’t afford to buy a new one every time.”
She watched his hands, caught by their sure, capable movements, pleased with their brownness and the lean length of his fingers gripping the brush. “I don’t want to go,” she said sulkily.
“Then don’t.”
“But you think I should?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer at first, busy with whiting out colorful splashes of paint on the canvas. Finally, when it was completely covered, he set his brush to soak, turned to Chloe and ran his clean hand through his straight black hair. He sounded impatient. “How do you know what you don’t like unless you try it?”
“I know I won’t like sitting around with a bunch of gossipy girls.”
“You don’t know that at all,” Bailey said. “Who knows, you could be about to meet your new best friend.”
Chloe thought she’d already done so. It was lowering to think that Bailey didn’t value their friendship as much as she did. “What if I hate them?”
Bailey stared at her, noting the smooth line of her slender brown legs, the points of her collarbone where the tiny gold ankh rested against the pulse in her throat, her slante
d bluer-than-blue eyes and the gold-dusted hair with their black tips floating around her head. He wondered how long it would be before she recognized her own power. “You won’t have lost much,” Bailey answered logically. “It’s only one night and it’s still summer, so you won’t have to wait a week before you get another day off.”
“That’s true.” Chloe was waffling. There was really no good reason to stay home from the party except for the fact that she wasn’t comfortable hanging with a group of people she didn’t know. But she wouldn’t admit to being shy. It was a flaw, and while adults from her parents’ generation might be okay with it, boys from hers were not. Confidence was far more attractive, and although she played a good game on the outside, her insides turned to mush at the thought of crashing a high school slumber party. Still, she didn’t want Bailey to know she was afraid, especially since he didn’t seem to be afraid of anything.
“I can always say I’m sick and come home.”
“You could,” he agreed, “but they’d probably see right through you and it would be worse than if you stuck it out and pretended to have a good time.”
“Where did you get to be so smart?”
He shrugged and changed the subject. “It’s a hot afternoon. Are you thirsty?”
Chloe nodded.
“Do you want a beer?”
She hesitated briefly and then decided on the truth. “I don’t do alcohol.”
His face stilled, closing against her. “Suit yourself.”
“Maybe we could drive into town and see if Verna Lee has more of her spiced tea,” she suggested.
“I guess we could.”
Chloe beamed and scrambled to her feet, happy he was choosing to extend their time together. Bailey Jones intrigued her. Every time she saw him, he left her wanting to know more.
She climbed into his ancient truck. “I like Verna Lee.”
He nodded, struck a match on the dashboard and bent his head to light a cigarette.
“Do you like her?”
He blew out a swirl of smoke and considered her question. “She’s nice enough.”
“She’s real,” Chloe said. “More real than anybody here, except maybe my grandfather.”
Bailey frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Chloe waved her hand in a general sweeping gesture. “Everybody here is syrupy. They pretend to be nice, but they don’t mean it. I feel like they’re judging everything about me, my clothes—” she fingered her spiky black tips “—my hair, the way I talk. Verna Lee is different. She says what she thinks.”
Bailey was quiet for the length of time it took to reach the heart of Marshyhope Creek where Perks hugged one corner of the street and the hardware store the other. He pulled into a diagonal parking space and sat for a minute, finishing his cigarette. He ground out the butt and opened the door.
Chloe opened her side and slid out of the seat. She felt ill at ease. Their camaraderie was gone. It had slipped away somewhere between the highway and the city limits.
Verna Lee’s welcome almost made up for Bailey’s lassitude. “Hi, you two,” she called out from one of the deep couches. She was alone, her only company a latte and a magazine. “It’s been such a slow night. I was wondering if I should even bother to stay open. Now I’m glad I did.”
Chloe nudged Bailey. “See what I mean?” she whispered.
He ignored her and spoke to Verna Lee. “We came for some of your spiced tea.”
“I made up a batch today.” She stood, a fluid, graceful straightening of her long, shapely legs, and moved around the counter to the refrigerator. “Mint or lemon?”
“Lemon,” they said in unison.
Verna Lee carried the glasses toward the couch where she had been sitting. She motioned for Chloe and Bailey to join her. “Come on down here and sit for a bit.”
She waited while they settled in. “I thought you two might find each other,” she said.
Bailey said nothing, his black eyes unreadable. “Thanks for the herbs, Miss Verna Lee,” he said softly. “Mama sleeps better with them.”
Verna Lee’s smile faded. “You need to find a way out of here, Bailey. Your mother needs treatment in a hospital. Alternative medicine can only do so much.”
“I know,” he said in a low voice. “But she won’t leave the land.”
“She doesn’t have to sell it.”
Bailey made a swift, flat motion with his hands. Even Chloe knew the subject was closed. The mood had grown ugly. She tried to turn it. “It looks like we’re staying here, Verna Lee,” she said quickly. “My mother has a job.”
The black woman’s eyes moved over Bailey one last time before resting on Chloe’s face. “I heard. How do you feel about that?”
“I’m not actually staying permanently,” Chloe replied. “It’s just a temporary move for me. As soon as it’s legal, I’m going back to L.A.”
Verna Lee sipped her latte. “How long will that be?”
“A couple of years at the most, or until I can convince my dad to let me live with him.”
“That’s a long time,” Verna Lee said slowly. “If I were you I might try to work myself out of a holding-pattern attitude. You might like it here and then you’ll have two places where you’ll feel at home.”
Chloe didn’t know whether it was the tea or the company, but suddenly she felt comfortable explaining her position. “I’ve been invited to a party and I don’t know anyone. Bailey says I should go, but I’m not sure.”
“Why not?”
“What if it doesn’t work out?”
“If you don’t go, you’ll never know.”
“But if I do go and it doesn’t work out everyone will know. By staying home, it looks like it was me who decided.”
Bailey was staring at her as if she had half her clothes on. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Chloe flushed.
Verna Lee shook her toffee-colored mane over her face. “Tell me if I understand. You’re afraid they won’t like you, so you’re going to reject them first.”
Chloe hung her head. “When you put it like that, it sounds terrible.”
“It sounds safe, Chloe. Why do you think the worst of people before you’ve given them a chance?”
“I’ve seen kids from other places try to fit into a new school. It doesn’t work.”
“Never?” Verna Lee asked.
“If they’re guys and good in sports, sometimes it’s okay, but girls are a different story. My friends are awful to them.”
“What about you?” Bailey asked. “Are you awful, too?”
“Not directly,” Chloe admitted, “but I don’t step in and defend anyone. If I did, I’d be dead, too.”
“I think you may find that things are a bit different around here,” said Verna Lee.
Chloe raised her eyebrows and looked at Bailey. “I don’t think so. Bailey told me I shouldn’t be seen with him if I wanted to fit in. Tell me how that’s different.”
Bailey drained the last of his tea. “They don’t like me because I’m dirt poor and because my mother won’t sell her land. You’re Coleson Delacourte’s granddaughter and your mama was the town’s golden girl until she ran off with your daddy. They’ll be rolling out the red carpet and licking your feet no matter what you do.”
“Unless I show up in a truck driven by someone who’s dirt poor and whose mama won’t sell her land,” she snapped back.
Verna Lee laughed. “Come on, you two. Chloe, do whatever you want. It’ll work out. Everything usually does.”
Bailey stood. “We’ll let you close up, Verna Lee. No sense in your staying open just to entertain us.”
“It’s my pleasure. Stop by anytime.” She waved his money away. “Put that back in your pocket. Your money’s no good here.”
“I can pay,” he said tightly.
“I know you can, but I’m not going to charge my friends for staying to have a glass of tea with me.”
Their eyes
met and held. Finally, Bailey sighed and stuffed the money back into his pocket.
“Say hello to your mama for me, Bailey. Tell her I’ll be out to see her real soon.”
“I’ll do that.”
Verna Lee hugged Chloe. “Come back, now.”
“I will,” Chloe promised.
Bailey dropped her off at the end of the long brick path leading to her grandparents’ home. He’d been silent on the way back. When she opened the door to slide out of the truck, he broke his silence. “I don’t need anybody to fight my battles.”
Chloe’s mouth dropped. In the time it took for their eyes to lock, her shock had turned to cold, furious anger. “You’re a jerk, Bailey Jones. No wonder no one likes you.”
He gunned his engine and drove on, and even though she stepped back away from the truck, he left her covered in a layer of fine, red dust.
Libby knocked on Chloe’s bedroom door. There was no response. “Chloe,” she called softly, “are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“May I come in?”
Libby heard a sigh, the creak of bedsprings and then the door opened. “What do you want?”
“I wanted to tell you that I won’t be home for dinner. I’m meeting a friend.”
“So? Why tell me?”
Libby frowned. “You sound upset. Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
Chloe’s eyes flashed blue fire. “Nothing that a ticket home wouldn’t cure.”
Her mother shook her head and turned away. “You’re impossible. Good night. If you’re still up, I’ll stop in later.”
The door clicked shut. She heard the muttered words “Don’t count on it” through the oak panel. Chloe had always been a challenge, but this defiance was new. Libby hoped it was a short stage. Her patience was running thin. For the second time in her life, she had to quell the urge to slap her child.
Russ was bereft of speech. He’d seen Libba in school clothes, in denim shorts and in and out of her underwear, but never in his life had he seen the adult Libba Delacourte dressed up. She stood there at the entrance to the bar looking like the girl he remembered, yet she wasn’t really that girl at all. She had moved to a place that didn’t include him. She reminded him of all that was decadent, rich and forbidden, New Orleans chicory and cream, thick coffee and heat-baked sidewalks, chocolate and powdered-sugar beignets.
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