That Stubborn Yankee

by Carla Neggers

  “I’d forgotten that comment I made to my father,” Harlan said after a few minutes. “I should never have involved you, Beth. I had no idea Mother would hire a private investigator. I thought Vermont was the last place anyone would look for me. If I could leave now,

  I would. But I wouldn’t get far, and I can’t risk having anyone find out I came here, for your sake.”

  Beth felt increasingly jittery. ‘Then you want me to pretend I never saw you tonight?”

  His expression was graver than anything she had ever seen on the face of fun-loving Harlan Rockwood. “Yes.” Then he leaned toward her, reached down and took her hand in his. The effort drained even more color from his face. “7:00 a.m. Then I’ll be out of your life for good. I promise.”

  The last thing she needed was Harlan Rockwood back messing around in her life, and yet his words made her feel unreasonably sad and alone. Disregarding her ambivalence, she said, “Okay, it’s a deal.”

  “I’ll just stretch out right here,” he went on, “and sleep on the couch, if you don’t mind.”

  “You’re too tall. You can sleep in my bed.” Then she added quickly, “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  He squeezed her hand and managed to smile. “Sleeping in your bed without you would only frustrate me.”

  She smiled. “Even now?”

  His sad, sensual smile seemed to express his own sense of loss. “You mean after nine years or in my condition?”

  “Both.”

  “Nine years is a long time. I don’t mind telling you I’ve never met a woman like you, Beth. Whatever went wrong between us, we did have our moments.

  As for my condition...” He winced when he tried to move, then grinned that luscious, rakish grin of her dreams. “Hell, I’d die happy.”

  She covered him with a quilt. “Enjoy the couch.”

  Harlan awoke at dawn feeling stiff and sore and more miserable than he had in years. Sleeping on the couch mere yards from Beth had brought its own measure of frustration. He threw the old quilt she’d covered him with onto the floor. He had to have been insane to come here. He couldn’t have anticipated Jimmy Sessoms’ visit; nonetheless, he should never have taken the risk of involving his unwilling ex-wife in his problems. It was inexcusable—an act of desperation and selfishness.

  He had to get out of Vermont.

  He was bruised and broken, all right. The pain in his chest had lasted through the night. At least his facial wounds were showing signs of improvement. He could probably manage to eat a decent breakfast today. Those two mornings listening to Beth hum and putter around in her kitchen had been more than he could bear. She would listen to a news program on public radio while she made coffee and pulled together breakfast.

  Listening to her bathe at night had been sheer torment.

  Of course, he hadn’t seen as much of her in the washtub as he had pretended last night. Not nearly enough. The angle was all wrong, and as much as he hated to admit it, he was too much of a gentleman to spy on an unsuspecting lady. Besides, if Beth had caught him, he’d have ended up in far worse shape than he was now. He grabbed his shirt and slipped it back on, leaving it unbuttoned.

  Across the room, her brass bed was a tumble of ratty quilts, one dog and two cats. Obstinate and opinionated though Beth might be, no one had ever made him feel quite so alive. No one had ever matched her fiery spirit—or her ability to annoy him.

  Harlan knew he should be on his way, but he had to have one last look. She was lying on her side, her tousled, sandy hair covering most of her face. She had on an electric-blue T-shirt nightgown, twisted and pulled tight across her breasts. He could see the outline of her nipples against the soft fabric and felt himself stirring, remembering.

  His gaze lingered on the curve of her shoulders and arms, and he saw how fit and strong she was. He had always admired her boundless energy. In her habitually half-buttoned work shirts and jeans she appeared very, very sexy. None of that had changed. What you saw was what you got. Some people didn’t understand her honesty, considering her unmannerly and unbecomingly direct, preferring pretense to a laugh that was sometimes too loud and opinions that were sometimes too strong and uncompromising.

  Beth had never been good at minding her manners. In fact, she had never even bothered to try.

  Ancient history. Even nine years ago, Harlan hadn’t concerned himself with what anyone else thought about her. It was what she thought about herself and about him that mattered.

  He didn’t dare touch her. Leaving her while she was asleep was difficult enough. If he woke her, he couldn’t be sure he would keep his promise to be gone by seven. It was just after five now.

  She was a tough woman, this stubborn Yankee he had once loved. Once? His throat tightened.

  He had never stopped loving her. Until her friend Char Bradford had come to Tennessee and asked his advice on horses, he had worked hard at keeping Beth out of his mind. He had gone on with his own life after their divorce, fully expecting to marry again, raise a family and have the kind of relationship that had eluded him with Beth. For better or worse, she had been his first true love. He’d continually compared other women who wandered into and out of his life with his memories of her. He wasn’t so much still in love with Beth as not out of love with her.

  Char’s arrival in Nashville had changed all that. He’d wondered if Beth had put her friend up to contacting him—if Char’s interest in thoroughbreds was a part of a scheme they had cooked up for Beth to subtly worm her way back into his life.

  He had been so far off base that he could have strangled himself. Char’s interest in thoroughbreds had been genuine. Beth had no more use for her ex-husband than she did for an old pair of shoes. Even less, given her frugal Yankee ways.

  In her own way, the thirty-something woman asleep under her piles of quilts and pets was the same beautiful, outrageous and impossible person who’d taken so much pleasure in driving him crazy at twenty. The Beth he had fantasized about wasn’t the real Beth.

  The real Beth hadn’t mellowed with age.

  One of her tabby cats playfully nipped at his hand. Harlan backed off. No matter how much she could sometimes irritate him, he was acutely aware that he desperately wanted to crawl under that mountain of quilts and make love to Beth, the real one.

  It was impossible to believe they hadn’t made love in nine long, long years.

  He sighed, glad of the distraction of his cuts and bruises, even grateful for the hell of a mess he was in. He hadn’t divorced Beth because he had stopped loving her. He had known that then, and he knew it now. He had divorced her because he couldn’t bear to destroy her.

  He still couldn’t.

  He left quietly. Outside, he hardly noticed the cool rain. Her 1965 Chevrolet Bel Air started reliably, as it had back when Beth had roared into Nashville sitting behind its wheel.

  “No one,” she informed him then, “touches my car.”

  She had let him drive it only once. He doubted her attachment to the old jalopy had lessened over the years, but what was he supposed to do, call a cab?

  Apparently the Bel Air was Beth’s only mode of transportation. All the same, even if he wrecked her favorite car, she could afford to buy a new one. Her pioneer ways were a deliberate choice. She would be taken aback, to say the least, when she discovered he’d borrowed—she’d say stolen—her car.

  By then he’d be long gone.

  Chapter Three

  Beth calmed herself to a slow boil by the time Char picked her up at eight o’clock. In all her years with Harlan Rockwood, she had never been so angry with him as when she’d awakened to the roar of her car engine. She’d gotten to the window in time to see the Chevy backing down her driveway. Harlan had never gotten used to its three-speed transmission. To no avail, she’d run after him. Fuming, she’d briefly considered calling the police, but she didn’t want to become a subject of town gossip. Instead she’d called Char.

  “Thanks for coming,” Beth said as she climbed into her friend
’s new car. Their winning horse had enabled Char to trade in her old jalopy for a four-wheel-drive Jeep, which she needed with a house in the hills of Vermont and three children. Beth shut the door hard. “It’s been a rough morning.”

  “Where’s the Chevy?” Char asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “What, it died on you? Don’t expect me or anyone else to mourn, Beth. No car can run forever.”

  “It didn’t die on me.”

  “Then what?”

  “Never mind. You didn’t tell Adam you were picking me up, did you?”

  “He’d already left for the mill.” Char flashed her dark eyes at her best friend. “What’s the big deal if he knows or not?”

  “No big deal. He hates my car.”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  To get to the mill, they had to drive through Mill Brook Center and Old Mill Brook, then past the defunct boys’ academy owned by the Stiles family, and now in the process of being converted into commercial and residential space. Beth kept her eyes on the scenery, hoping to discourage Char’s questions.

  “Isn’t that your car?” Char asked.

  Beth swung around as the Cherokee flew past Bert’s Garage, and Char slowed down. Beth’s Chevy was parked near a gas pump. Harlan Rockwood was standing, slightly hunched over, in visible pain, having a chat with potbellied Bert, the biggest gossip in town.

  Char said, “Well, well, well,” and pulled in behind the Chevy.

  “Not a word.”

  Beth leaped out of the Cherokee, and heard Harlan curse when he spotted her. Bert hollered a good-morning as she ran around the front of the Cherokee, squeezing between its gleaming bumper and that of the Chevy.

  “Put it on her tab,” Harlan said, pointing to Beth as he vaulted into her Bel Air.

  “Wait!”

  He blew her a kiss as he screeched away from the gas pump.

  “Don’t I know that fellow?” Bert asked.

  “Not now, Bert. I’ve got to go after him.”

  “What about the bill?”

  She groaned. It was exorbitant. The last few days, she’d been running the Chevy on fumes. If Harlan had run out of gas, it served him right. She thrust a twenty at Bert, then jumped back into the Cherokee.

  She looked at Char. “I suppose you’re not interested in following him.”

  “You suppose correctly.”

  “Told you it’s been a rough morning.” Beth sighed. “He’d run the Chevy into the ground before he’d give up.”

  Easing out of Bert’s, Char kept her eyes on the road, apparently wanting to avoid looking at Beth. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me what Harlan Rockwood is doing in town, never mind driving your car.”

  Beth let her silence serve as an answer.

  WITHOUT A WORD to her brothers about Harlan Rockwood plunging back into her life and stealing her car, Beth struggled to lose herself in her duties at Mill Brook Post and Beam. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about Harlan, her car, his bruised face, or the trouble he was in. She failed miserably and spent the better part of the morning brooding.

  Ten minutes into her eleven o’clock meeting with Julian and Adam, she sensed they were on to her.

  “Beth?” Adam asked.

  Beth wriggled in her chair. Caught wool-gathering. That had to be a first. “What?’’ she asked curtly.

  “Do you have anything to add?”

  She didn’t have the slightest idea what they had been discussing. “No.”

  Beth and her two older brothers prided themselves on being able to work together on an equal basis. To be sure, Adam was more single-mindedly devoted to Mill Brook Post and Beam than either of his two younger siblings, but that could change. During the past year Beth had seen both her brothers marry. Anything could change.

  Except me. I’ve got my house and the mill, and that’s it for me. I’m not changing. Someone’s got to stay steady around here.

  Wishful thinking. The changes in her brothers’ lives had transformed her own life. Her best friend was no longer available at a moment’s notice to watch horror movies and eat popcorn on a lonely Friday night. Neither were her brothers. They accepted her, but sometimes she couldn’t help feeling like a fifth wheel.

  Now, on top of everything else, Harlan Rockwood had swiped her car. The one constant element in her life for the past sixteen years was in his hands.

  He wouldn’t treat her Chevy gently.

  No one in Mill Brook would be sorry to see her old car go. Half the town said it was an environmental hazard; the other half said it was art eyesore. She could afford a car with a catalytic converter, antilock brakes, automatic seat belts.... But she wanted her Chevy back.

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Beth flopped back into her chair. It was too quiet. She noticed Adam’s hazel eyes pinned on her. She unfolded her arms and sat up straight, smiling and muttering something about the weather. Equals or not, every now and then Adam couldn’t resist playing the big brother.

  This time it was Julian who piped up first. “What’s eating you, Beth?’’

  “Nothing.”

  Her answer was too curt. Her brothers gave her their we’re-on-to-you look.

  “I know things are hectic around here,” Julian said. “If you’ve got a problem, speak up, You’re not the type to sulk, Beth. Makes me nervous.”

  “I’m not sulking.” She swallowed, then added more steadily, “I just didn’t sleep well. It’s this heat.”

  “Are you getting spooked out there alone in that shack?” Julian asked.

  She scowled at him. “No. There was... there was a bat in the attic. He kept flapping around and waking me up, so I finally had to get rid of him.”

  “You shoot him?”

  “I wish.” She did, too. “No, I threw a blanket on him and tossed him out the window.”

  Adam gave her a big-brother glance before he spoke up. “What makes you think the bat was a he?”

  “Only a male bat would flap around in my attic and keep me awake.”

  “Not much on men this morning.”

  Beth started to protest, but stopped herself. A quick mental replay of her morning conversations turned up several unflattering generalizations about men— all, she would argue in her current mood, deserved.

  Julian grinned at Adam. “She must have a new boyfriend if she’s so down on men.”

  If Beth had been in a cheerier frame of mind, she would have protested that she got along fine with men, so long as she and they stuck to saws and logs and nuts and bolts and greasy old engines. When she was just one of the boys, she did fine. It was when romance and lust entered into her relationships with men that everything went out of whack. Since she was already in a lousy mood, she didn’t rise to Julian’s bait.

  Adam leaned back, looking every inch the stolid mountain man. Sometimes Beth couldn’t believe her best friend had married him. He said, ‘Why don’t you tell us why Char drove you to work this morning?”

  “She told you?”

  “Yes.”

  There had been a time in the past when she could have counted on Char not to give Adam the time of day, much less tell him who’d driven whom to work that morning. Now that Char and Adam were married, Beth had to clue her best friend in on what tidbits of their conversation were to be kept private and what weren’t. Char was usually closemouthed about most things, but Beth had set herself up by refusing to explain what Harlan Rockwood had been doing at Bert’s Garage in her Chevrolet. So Char had sicced Adam on her.

  Pretty soon the whole damned town would be wanting to know what had happened to Beth’s ‘65 Chevy. Was it really gone? Beth could hear the applause now.

  Either she had to accept the loss of her car or deal with the thief herself. Easier said than done. First she would need more information and a clear head. She had hoped that concentrating on work would get her back on track. Instead, all morning she’d brooded and asked herself unanswerable questions. Who’d beaten up Harlan? Why? How’d he g
et to her place in his condition? Would she ever see him or her car again? Did she care?

  She hadn’t wanted to tell Adam or Julian anything about last night. If they didn’t laugh themselves silly or, worse, side with Harlan, they’d go after him. She wanted to reserve the pleasure of revenge for herself. She also wanted her car back, and Adam and Julian weren’t likely to see that as a reasonable goal.

  “I had car troubles,” she lied. She had to throw them some kind of bone, because stonewalling and elaborate tales would only confirm that something really nasty was up in her life. Char had apparently kept quiet about Harlan, or Adam wouldn’t have waited until eleven to speak up. Beth forced herself to smile. “Let’s reschedule this meeting, okay? I need another cup of coffee to clear my head.”

  A whole pot wouldn’t do the trick.

  “Okay by me,” Julian said. His teasing grin had faded, and she saw her brother study her with concern.

  She smiled tightly and started across the wide, pine-board floor of the eighteenth-century mill to her desk.

  Behind her, Adam asked mildly, “Your bad mood and that nonsense about a bat in the attic and car troubles wouldn’t have anything to do with a Nashville P.I. named Jimmy Sessoms, would it?”

  Beth stopped dead in her tracks and her heart raced. All that sidestepping of the truth, and Adam already knew. He had guessed that her preoccupation had to do with Harlan Rockwood.

  “I don’t know any Jimmy Sessoms.”

  Since Adam was playing games with her, she figured he deserved the lie.

  “He said he’d been out to see you. He stopped by here, after you’d told him you hadn’t seen Harlan since your divorce.” Adam didn’t gloat. “You always were hell as a liar. It seems like Harlan’s in a bind. If you’re worried about him, I can understand. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I’m not worried about Harlan.” Her jaw was tight, and she ground out her words in such a way that even she didn’t believe herself. “You know as well as I do he comes out of everything smelling like a rose. All right, so this Nashville P.I. did stop by yesterday. I’d forgotten all about it. I informed him he was barking up the wrong tree. I haven’t seen Harlan in nine years and don’t expect to. If I’m a little distracted this morning, it’s because of my car.”