She clawed at his back with her fingertips, wanting him even closer as her teeth grazed his cheekbone and her lips sought his. Oh, Con. Why do things have to be so complicated?
He moved inside her more slowly now, rocking her hot, wet and slow. Their hips rolled together, and she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him so tight, not wanting to ever let go.
I love you.
The words danced on her lips for a split second before she bit them back.
Those days were over.
But as Con showered her face with tender kisses she couldn’t help thinking that they might be at the start of a new day.
A series of hard thrusts and deep tongue kisses pushed her over the edge into an explosive climax. She heard her startled cry followed by Con’s groan as he followed her into a post orgasmic realm of breathless silence.
Afterward they lay there, her fingers in his hair as his head rested between her breasts. His hands, one on either side of her torso, held her as if she might try to wriggle away.
“I’ve missed you, Lizzie,” he said, after a long, peaceful silence.
“Missed me? We’ve been together every minute.”
He looked up, hair dipping to his shiny dark eyes. “I’ve missed being close, being intimate. Affectionate.”
She tousled his hair. “Me too.”
Something inside her pulled sharply. A tug of warning.
“Con, why did you come after me? I mean, if you really never loved me. Why didn’t you write the whole thing off as a deal gone south?”
How could she have been so sure he loved her if all the time he was just acting? No one was that good an actor.
A funny fluttering in her stomach accompanied the thought.
Con hesitated. Licked his lips. He slid sideways off her chest and moved up the bed until his head was level with hers.
He ran his thumb lightly over her lips, then pulled his hand back and shifted up onto his elbow. She heard him inhale.
“My father got my mom started drinking. She didn’t drink at all until she met him. He used to brag about it. How she used to be such a prim and perfect little lady until he…” His expression darkened and he looked away.
When he looked back at her, the fierce expression in his eyes made her flinch. “I’ve always prided myself on being nothing like my father. Anything he’d have done, I’ll do the exact opposite. You’ll not see me gambling, drinking myself under a table, starting fights. Never. I’ve never laid a hand on a woman and never will.”
He combed his fingertips through her hair, gentle. “But I did give you those first sips of champagne.”
Lizzie bristled. She wasn’t the naïve innocent he assumed. “You think I never tried alcohol before? I’ve been dragged along to cocktail parties since I was eight. I probably had my first spiked Shirley Temple before I turned ten. My mother started cocktail hour at four p.m. every day.”
“But you didn’t. You didn’t want to be like her. You were quite happy with a tall cool glass of chocolate milk—” he hesitated, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a smile.
She stiffened, gritted her teeth.
“And I loved that about you. A woman who knows her own mind! You didn’t try and impress me with pomegranate martinis and champagne with gold bits floating in it. I’d never met anyone like you, Lizzie. You far exceeded my wildest expectations.”
Lizzie’s mind raced, trying to process all this information, most specifically the exact usage of the word loved in this context. “Loved” as in “I loved her like no other woman” or as in “I loved her Mary-Jane shoes.” Her graduate-level classes in English Literature had not provided her with adequate interpretive skills.
“But,” he looked sheepish. “You were hard to get close to. Suspicious.” He raised an eyebrow. “Wary as a tiger someone’s just thrown a fresh, thick juicy steak at. Like, where’s the catch?”
“Little did I know,” she said coolly.
“Well, exactly.” Con shrugged and smiled. “You’re a smart cookie.”
“Not smart enough, apparently.”
“Hey, I had more tricks up my sleeve. Champagne being one of them. A glass here, a glass there, and soon you were bubbling over into my affectionate arms.”
His smile threatened to break into a grin.
“You know, you really piss me off, Conroy Beale.”
“I’m just being honest. I guess that’s new for both of us, but I think it’s the best way to go, don’t you?”
His wary glance, suddenly shy and boyish, snuck under her skin.
“I guess I do. So you felt guilty about getting me started drinking when your father did exactly the same to your mother.”
The whole concept gave her a chill. She was nothing like Con’s mother! Some poor downtrodden woman getting beaten senseless by a brutish husband. Goose bumps pricked her arms at the comparison.
“I didn’t want to see you going down the wrong road, making poor choices—”
“I hardly think I’d have ended up like her.”
“I don’t expect she did either. But there was nothing I could do to help her. I could help you.”
“You know, you make yourself sound almost heroic,” she said, trying to squelch the weird warm sensation growing inside her.
Con’s eyes looked distant for a moment. “She always used to say she came from a nice house, a nice family. Said she was rich even. None of us ever believed it, of course, since she was usually pretty buzzed when she came out with that stuff. But looking back, who knows?”
“Where did she come from?”
“I don’t know. She was from Louisiana, for sure, but she never talked about where exactly she came from. It was like her whole past just got left behind somewhere. Forgotten. Anyway, if she started talking about the past or anything like that when my dad was around…” he trailed off.
“He’d hit her.” Lizzie was surprised by how calmly she said it.
“Yes.” Con looked down. “It’s sad, I hardly know anything about her at all. Just that she tried to be a good mother to us, and she prayed a lot. Didn’t do her a damn bit of good to pray, that’s for sure.”
“What about your father, where was he from?”
“Right there. Rose up out of the swamp for all I know. His parents died when I was a kid. I don’t really remember them. Heavy drinkers too, though. The whole family was pretty much notorious as a bunch of total assholes. Lived on the same patch of swamp by the bayou forever. No stores would lend us credit, and they didn’t have any friends. If my parents had other relatives they were all long gone. I guess disappearing without a trace is kind of a family tradition. I don’t know how my mom got mixed up with the Beales, but she said my dad was very handsome and charming when he was young.”
“Like you.”
Con’s eyes met hers with a look that ate right into her. “Yeah.” He paused, then seemed to see through her into another world. “Like me.”
“Well, then I guess I can see how that would happen.” She stretched, trying to look casual, as tension crept through her muscles.
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m beat. You should get some sleep. You look tired. I know you had a rough night last night, even if you deny it.” He stroked the end of her nose with his thumb. “You’ll sleep just fine with my arms around you, though.”
She tried to brush off the sensation that rushed through her. “I’m not really sleepy. I think I’ll read for a while.”
“Alright. I’ll be right here if you need me.” He gave her a quick, soft kiss on the cheek, then settled his head on his folded arms. “Night night, Lizzie.”
“Night, Con.”
She eased off the bed and pulled on a satin wrap. Despite the heat, she still had goose bumps. Unease. Too much sensation, too much emotion, too much everything.
She unzipped her suitcase of personal items to rifle around in there for a good engrossing read. In its search for a thick paperback, her hand settled on the little pile of letters
she’d found inside the bedpost.
Her heart started beating faster. Why did she feel like she shouldn’t read them? She closed her hand around the small stack of envelopes. Her fingertips stung with anticipation, with anxiety. Why? For all she knew they were a bunch of unopened bills.
She glanced back at Con on the bed. He’d rolled over and now lay with his back to her and the light. For some reason she didn’t want him to see her reading them. Maybe because it felt like prying?
It wasn’t prying. It was…research?
Yes, research into the history of the house. The letters were addressed to a Mr. Thomas Milford at the address of the house. Still, she felt like a spy as she stuck the edge of her nail file into the corner of the envelope and ripped a neat slit along the top.
The thin, yellowed paper tore easily. It was one of those privacy envelopes with the printed interior, and Lizzie inhaled a shaky breath as she drew out the piece of paper inside.
A single sheet of pale blue paper. Just a few lines of careful script, written in blue ballpoint pen.
Chapter 18
Dear Father,
It makes me so sad that we parted on bad terms. I still feel like your little girl, even though I’m all grown up now.
An uncomfortable lump formed in Lizzie’s throat as a chill crept down her spine.
I know you don’t approve of my choice of husband, but I’m a woman now and old enough to make my own choices. He’s very kind to me. I’m sure you’d like him once you got to know him. He’s saving money and hopes to buy his own shrimp boat soon. There’s a lot of money to be made in shrimp and crabs, not that money is important to me. There’s a lot more to life than having money and holding on to it, and I do wish you understood that.
But I didn’t write to scold, just to say that I miss you and I hope one day soon we’ll be friends again.
K
Yeesh. Maybe opening these letters wasn’t such a great idea after all. A black hole had opened up in Lizzie’s stomach.
She glanced up at Con. His shoulders moved slightly with each long, slow breath. Asleep.
She spread the letters out on the floor. There were six of them altogether, and it suddenly seemed important to read them in order. By chance—or because it was on top—she’d started with the first one. She studied the postmarks and noticed with alarm that there was more than ten years between the first and the last.
Someone here had received letters for ten years and never opened them?
Her scalp prickled and goose bumps rose on her arms. Part of her wanted to gather the letters up, put them on top of the dresser and…what? Throw them away? Hand them over to Maisie?
Like someone who can’t take her eyes off a car wreck—because the car looked so much like her own—she picked up the next envelope and slit it open.
Dear Father,
I never received a reply to my last letter, so I thought I’d write again, just to let you know that things are fine with us. It’s odd to be so nearby, yet it’s as if there were a thousand miles between us. Things have been hard lately, due to a poor shrimp harvest caused by bad weather conditions and buyers refusing to pay full price for the shrimp that is caught. I don’t really understand the business but it looks like my husband will have to wait to buy his own boat. Anyway, we’re managing.
I have some wonderful news, I’m pregnant! I’m expecting my baby in spring, which is such a perfect time of year for a new life to enter the world. I just wanted to let you know that you’re going to be a grandfather.
Always your daughter,
K
Oh dear, it was going to be a sob story. Had she expected anything different? Didn’t anyone ever run off with the man they loved and live happily ever after, for crying out loud? Was that too much to ask?
Lizzie glanced back at Con. His shoulders moved slightly with the easy breaths of deep sleep.
Did she really want to see the rest of this car wreck?
She looked at the envelopes. They were all the same kind, as if taken from the same box. Who kept the same box of envelopes for ten whole years? This whole thing made her flesh crawl.
Come on, Lizzie. Maybe he gets his shrimp boat after all! Maybe he became shrimp king of the bayou and she was his queen?
She picked up the next envelope in date order. It had dirt on it, possibly from the cataclysm involving the bedpost. She brushed it off, and ripped it open with her nail file.
Dear Father,
I wonder if the magnolias bloomed well this year after all the cool weather? Did John ever paint the arbor green the way you planned? I always thought that would look so beautiful, like the honeysuckle was floating right in mid air.
Is your gout still bothering you? It’s so odd not to have talked to you in so long, and I do wonder often about how you’re doing. Two years is a long time.
My baby is so beautiful. We named him Conroy Anthony—
Lizzie heard a screeching sound in her head and black spots danced in front of her eyes. Conroy? How many Conroys could there be in this part of the world? She whipped her head around, breath coming fast, and was relieved to see Con still asleep. Now she really was prying. She read on greedily, holding her breath.
We named him Conroy Anthony after the sailor in that book I used to love when I was a girl. He has black hair just like mine and he’s just the sweetest, smartest baby. He laughed yesterday for the first time, and I’ve never heard such a beautiful sound. My husband is having to deal with the pressure of being a family man. Diapers are so expensive, and the baby will only settle when he’s cuddled up in bed next to me, which makes it hard for my husband to sleep so he has to take a drink to help him relax.
I’m sure things will settle down soon. I’d love to hear from you if you can find the time to write. You know where I am.
Your daughter,
K
There was a long gap between that letter and the next. Almost two years. Lizzie ripped it open with shaking fingers.
Dear Father,
It’s been so long since I heard from you that I suspect my letters aren’t welcome. Still, you are my father and you always will be. As a mother myself, I understand that.
Conroy has a brother who we named after his father. He looks so different from Conroy, his hair almost white blonde and blue eyes like sapphires. Unfortunately he’s been sick. He has a cough that won’t go away and the doctor charges so much that I could only take him the once.
The shrimp harvest was poor again, or so my husband tells me, I don’t understand these things too well. I got a job myself at the local store, but with a sick baby to take care of I just couldn’t keep regular hours. My husband didn’t like me working either, he thinks a man should provide for his family. I’m sure you’d agree.
I left everything behind when I got married, and I wonder if you kept my few trinkets, like the pearl necklace from Grandmother Adele and the gold locket with Mama’s picture in it? If you could forward those to me, I’d most appreciate it.
Your daughter,
K
Lizzie’s heart was sinking lower and lower. Was this how it always happened? One minute she’s seizing freedom and true love, and the next she’s wistfully remembering old garden arbors and wanting to fondle trinkets from her old life.
Who am I kidding? She wants those things so she can sell them for cash. Lizzie had a nasty taste in her mouth. She’d sold most of her trinkets already. The only one she couldn’t bring herself to part with was the Bulova watch she’d been given on her eighteenth birthday. Right now its reassuringly familiar face read three a.m.
She picked up the fifth envelope and slit it open. It was from almost a year later.
Dear Father,
You know I wouldn’t ask for help if I didn’t truly need it. The baby is very sick. He needs a course of antibiotics that costs more than we can possibly afford. Money has been especially tight this last year and I have not been able to work with the baby sick. I’ve prayed and prayed to the blessed virgin to
grant us some relief, but the troubles just seem to pile up, with my husband drinking away what little we have.
I know you said I was making a terrible mistake in my marriage, and if it wasn’t for my two beautiful boys I’d have to say you were right. I was young and romantic, as you said, and didn’t understand the harsh realities of life.
Please Father, if you could find it in your heart to send $275, either in cash, or as a postal order, in care of the Dee General Store, I’d be eternally in your debt and I promise I won’t ask for more. Please don’t send it to the house, and put my name on the envelope, not my husband’s.
Your daughter,
K
Lizzie pressed her hand to her mouth. How could anyone write such a letter? She’s asking for money from her cold hearted bastard of a father who won’t even open her letters? The thought turned her stomach. This woman sounded painfully young. She also didn’t sound too bright. Thank God I’m nothing like her at all.
The ballpoint pen was a reminder that this happened only a couple of decades ago. It had a horribly timeless ring to it.
She’d never write a “Dear Father” letter. What would she call hers though? ‘Dad’? She’d never called him Dad. And Daddy just sounded silly once you were over, say twenty-one, and your father had betrayed your trust and bankrupted you and called you a fat little nobody.
She had a sudden urge to throw up, but a few deep breaths took care of it.
One more letter. She glanced back at Con and noticed with alarm that he’d rolled over and was now facing her. His frighteningly handsome features were still relaxed in deep sleep, one arm crooked under his head and the other sprawled over the white sheet.
He wouldn’t want to see these letters. Wouldn’t want to know they existed. He’d looked at them like a nest of poisonous snakes when she first found them. Was it possible that he somehow knew?
A Bad Boy is Good to Find Page 19
