The Temptation of Savannah O’Neill

by Molly O'Keefe

  The sunlight hit his face, turned his hair to sable and his eyes to polished glass.

  She was sucker punched by his beauty and his strength.

  “Don’t hurt us,” she finally whispered. “Don’t hurt us more than we’ve been hurt.”

  AFTER DINNER, Savannah sat on the front porch drinking iced tea and waited for Juliette, who had called to say she was coming over with word about fingerprints.

  She was also trying to avoid Matt. A little too late, she knew, after this afternoon. She should never have given in to her curiosity and gone down to talk to him.

  Her waist still felt his touch, like a shadow or a burn.

  It was so strange having a man around. In this house of estrogen and silk, the deep timbre of a man’s voice hadn’t been heard after dinner for eight years.

  It made her miss her brothers. She should contact them, tell them to come home for Christmas. It was time. This distance between them, growing and growing over the years, was too much. Tyler avoiding this town like the plague and Carter being too busy to spend some time with family, it had to end, or this distance would grow into something worse. Something they wouldn’t be able to get over at a Christmas dinner.

  They’d be strangers to each other and she couldn’t bear that.

  Matt walked past, his arms filled with scrap metal and wood from the back courtyard that he dumped by the side of the road.

  So much for avoiding him. He lifted his hand in a wave and she nodded, feeling stiff and foolish like a sixteen-year-old girl with a crush.

  Juliette pulled up in her tan sedan and Savannah was glad for the distraction.

  “So?” Juliette said, joining her on the porch steps as Matt went around the house to the courtyards. She stretched out her long legs and leaned back against the railing. “That’s Matt Howe?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Where’s Katie?”

  “In the kitchen with Margot. They’re baking away their stress. You should stick around for sugar pie.”

  “I will,” Juliette said. “You thinking about shagging away your stress?” Juliette asked, nodding in the direction Matt had disappeared. Savannah laughed. “It’s not funny, Savannah, you’re staring at that man like he’s the sugar pie.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Savannah said, blushing and angry because she knew Juliette was right. Worse, she would have to admit about Matt’s sleeping arrangements. And Juliette was never going to believe Savannah didn’t want to have sex with him. “Matt is spending the night here now.”

  “Where?”

  “Sleeping porch.” Juliette opened her mouth to protest and Savannah held up her hand. “You don’t have the staff to stake out my house and I’ve already hired the man to be around. Might as well have him around the clock.”

  “I’ve called in some favors with the boys in Baton Rouge,” Juliette said, “they’re gonna run Matt’s name through the computer up there.”

  “That would be fine.” They wouldn’t find anything, Savannah thought.

  Juliette smiled. “But not necessary?”

  “I trust him, don’t ask me why.”

  “You trusted Eric.”

  Right. Eric. The mistake by which all other mistakes were measured. “Everyone wants to talk about Eric these days,” Savannah muttered.

  “For good reason,” Juliette said. “History might be repeating itself before our very eyes.”

  “I was already sleeping with Eric before I invited him to stay here. And I’m not sleeping with Matt. I’m not doing anything with Matt.”

  “Except watching him from the porch.”

  Savannah sighed. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  Matt emerged once more from behind the house, his arms full, muscles flexed and damp. “Not when he looks like that,” Juliette said. “Good lord. Glasses?”

  “I know.” Savannah smiled. “I don’t think ax murderers wear glasses, do they?”

  “That’s not at all funny,” Juliette grumbled.

  Savannah turned to her friend and slid her hand over Juliette’s elbow. “Thank you for being here last night,” Savannah said, reliving those terrifying moments after Katie’s screams had split the night. She’d called Juliette, frantic and freaked out, and her friend had arrived in no time, stayed until the fingerprints had been dusted, then rushed them to the station and all the fancy equipment she’d purchased last year.

  “I’m glad you called,” Juliette said, squeezing Savannah’s fingers. “I’m just sorry I don’t have more information for you.”

  Savannah braced herself. “The fingerprints?”

  “The only prints in the whole room were yours, Margot’s and Katie’s. The intruder must have been wearing gloves.”

  “The high school kids who wreck our property don’t seem the type to wear gloves.”

  “You don’t think it was a kid?”

  “It was so dark,” Savannah murmured, wishing she’d seen more. Wishing there was more she could do to protect her daughter, her home. She closed her eyes, imagining the windowsill, the bright moon glinting off blond hair as the person climbed back out the window. “All I saw was blond hair.”

  “Well, without fingerprints…”

  “I know. It probably was Owen or Garrett, they’re both blond and I’m sure they’re the ones who destroyed the greenhouse and painted the graffiti on the walls.”

  “I’ll go have a word with their parents,” Juliette said. “See if we can’t get them to do a better job with their parenting skills.”

  “I don’t think that’s in the police chief job description,” Savannah said, quirking her eyebrow at Juliette.

  “It’s a small town,” Juliette said with a shrug. “I can make this stuff up as I go. But look, if it wasn’t a kid and someone is targeting this house, I need you to call me if you see anything suspicious. Anything at all.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And keep an eye on that Matt guy.”

  “No problem.”

  Juliette smirked. “Clearly.”

  Savannah laughed, for the first time in what felt like days. Just then, Juliette’s phone buzzed at her hip.

  “You want that pie?” Savannah asked.

  “Save some for me,” Juliette said, unclipping her phone from her belt. “I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”

  Savannah waved and watched Juliette, phone to her ear, rushing off to take care of important business. Pressing issues. Fingerprints and parents and juvenile delinquents.

  Savannah’s life seemed at that moment to exist on the head of a pin. She had Katie. Margot. The library. Faceless clients and a secure Internet connection. She’d liked it that way, wanted it that way.

  After Eric had come into her life and destroyed so much, she’d done everything in her power to shrink her exposure to the outside world down to practically nothing. Her oasis. But the outside world still forced itself upon her. It broke into her house. Threatened her family.

  The clatter of wood and metal snapped her head around. Matt stood at the edge of the lawn, watching her.

  “You okay?” he asked, tilting his head. Sunlight glinted off his glasses, obliterating his eyes.

  She nodded, unsure of what she would say if she opened her mouth.

  IT TOOK TWO DAYS to finally get to the hardware store because he got distracted by the cobblestones and breaking up the concrete pad.

  He’d also tried his damnedest to get any one of the O’Neill women to talk to him about Vanessa.

  But they weren’t talking.

  Even Katie, when he’d asked her about her grandmother, had given him a blank look and left.

  All this led him to believe that Vanessa hadn’t come here yet. And he had to wonder if she planned on just waltzing in here, because it was obvious she wouldn’t be very welcome.

  Bright and early on Wednesday, Matt drove into town and found the hardware store. It was well-stocked for a town this size and what he couldn’t put in his cart—the tiller, chain saw and sod—he was able to
have delivered.

  “We can get you two more bags of cement,” the old man behind the counter said, his red plaid shirt straining at the buttons over his belly. “In fact, let me check in the warehouse, sometimes we keep overflow there.”

  “Great,” Matt said, and the man tucked his pencil behind his ear and left. Matt started piling up the hand tools, gloves and nails on the counter, but jumped when a woman slid into the old man’s spot.

  “You that man working out at the Manor?” she asked, her long gray hair pulled into a ponytail, her eyes, behind glasses, bright and focused. Rabid, nearly.

  “That would be me,” he said, cautiously.

  “I told you, Doug!” she yelled, and another man, a younger version of the man in red plaid, appeared at her elbow.

  “So?” she asked. “Is it true what they say?”

  Matt blinked. “What exactly do they say?”

  “That Margot’s crazy,” the woman said.

  “And Savannah’s a slut,” Doug said bitterly, and the woman slapped his arm.

  “Watch yourself,” she said. “There’s no need for name calling.”

  Doug didn’t for a second seem sheepish and Matt had the urge to teach the boy some manners with his fists, but he realized an opportunity when he saw one.

  If the O’Neills wouldn’t talk about the O’Neills, maybe he could get his news from another source. And there was nothing as far-reaching as small-town gossip.

  “They seem fine enough,” he answered, leaning against the counter as if settling in for a nice chat. “My name is Matt.”

  “Cheryl,” she said, smiling. “This is my boy, Doug.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he said, pouring it on a little thick, but Cheryl seemed to eat it up. “Now what’s this about Margot being crazy?”

  “Well, people been saying it for years, that Margot buries money in the backyard.”

  “No, I heard she stopped doing that,” Doug said. “On account of all those high schoolers who go back there to party.”

  “You know that Garrett boy broke into the house, scared those women to pieces.”

  Matt took note of the name and watched as the two seemed to forget he was there.

  “Can you blame him?” Doug asked. “I wish I had the guts to get close to that house. I heard they’ve got this huge wall safe in the library filled with gems.”

  “Well, honey, if you’d been nicer to Savannah, maybe Margot wouldn’t have run you off when you tried,” Cheryl said and Doug rolled his eyes.

  But the hair on Matt’s neck stood up and chill washed over his arms. “Gems?” he asked blankly, steering them back on course.

  “Diamonds and such. Big ones. Can you imagine?”

  Yes, he thought. He could. He did.

  “Where would they get gems?” he asked. “I mean, judging from the house, those two women are barely getting by.”

  “Don’t be fooled,” Doug said, starting to ring up the items in front of him. “It’s all a cover.”

  Cheryl nodded and Matt glanced between them. “Cover for what?”

  “I think it’s the middle boy, Tyler,” Doug said. “I don’t know how, but I think they’re hiding the money he wins in Vegas so he doesn’t have to pay taxes.”

  Cheryl shook her head. “I think it’s the mother, what’s her name—”

  “Vanessa?” Matt asked, perhaps a bit too eagerly, but Cheryl didn’t seem to notice. “But where is she?” he asked. “They never talk about her.”

  “Oh, God, no.” Doug laughed. “No one talks about Vanessa. Ever. Savannah about slapped my head off a few years ago when I asked her.”

  Matt paused a moment, grateful that Savannah had ignored him rather than slapped his head off.

  “I told you that was no way to get her to go out with you.” Cheryl tsked her tongue and Matt got a little insight into that slut comment. A beautiful woman like Savannah who wouldn’t date the riffraff—what else would the riffraff do but call her names?

  Something detonated in his chest, sympathy and anger that there was no one around to defend these women against people bent on believing the worst of them.

  You, he thought, you could do it.

  But he wasn’t here to defend them, not any more than he had. He was here for answers and so far, Cheryl and Doug had been more help than all three O’Neill women combined.

  “So where is Vanessa?” Matt asked, even though he knew. Or had known.

  “No one’s seen her in years,” Doug said.

  “Oh,” Cheryl laughed. “Just because she ain’t been seen doesn’t mean she’s not around. Trouble, that one. Worse than all the others put together. Her and that husband of hers.”

  Matt’s head spun. “Husband?”

  “Richard someone or other. He and Vanessa got divorced long before the kids ended up in Bonne Terre.”

  There was a thump behind them, the old man in the red shirt reappeared and Cheryl vanished like a ghost.

  “That will be two hundred twelve dollars and thirty-two cents,” Doug said. Matt blinked, stunned to see all of his stuff in bags and Doug smiling at him as if he hadn’t been saying the foulest things about Savannah moments ago.

  “Hold on there, Doug. Add two bags of ready-mix,” the old man said, then turned to Matt. “You’ll have to go around back to get them.”

  “Ah…no problem,” Matt said and took out his wallet.

  “I got it from here, Doug, thanks,” the man said and Doug walked off. He said he was going to check on fishing rods, but the safe bet was Doug finding mommy and doing what they did best.

  Matt put his money on the counter but the old guy ignored it, looking hard into Matt’s eyes.

  “Don’t listen to my family,” he said. “Those O’Neill women are good people. Don’t deserve what’s been done to them.”

  Don’t hurt us. Don’t hurt us more than we’ve been hurt.

  “What’s been done to them?”

  “They been left, boy. Time and time again, they been left and that will make a person do some crazy things.”

  THE NIGHT HAD A TEXTURE TO IT, a lush throbbing weight that reminded Matt that there were a lot of living things out in all that blackness. Living things like snakes. Alligators. Big bugs that he wasn’t real fond of. And the only thing between him and them was the thin metal screen of the sleeping porch.

  It hadn’t seemed quite as bad the past few nights, but he’d been falling asleep so hard and so deep it was as if he’d died.

  Tonight, his head was spinning, trying to separate malicious gossip and rumor from what might possibly be the truth.

  The gems, here?

  Christ, it would make his life a whole lot easier. And, frankly, it explained why the kids were always breaking into the back courtyard. Why the greenhouse was destroyed and why suddenly someone was bold enough to try to get into the house.

  Why they wanted a security camera in their garden.

  Gems, thousands of dollars in a wall safe.

  People did worse for less.

  Like you, he thought, guilt eating at the edges of his mind.

  He should have said something to Doug, a little something to keep his mouth shut about Savannah. But he hadn’t. He’d walked away and now he was going to use Doug’s gossip against them.

  I’m no better than Doug. I’m worse.

  He turned on the small camping lantern that Margot had given him because the porch wasn’t wired with electricity. The white sheets on the narrow cot glowed, and other than some gardening pots in the corner of the room where he’d hidden the surveillance photos and files, the porch was empty.

  No wall safes. No gems.

  Bugs were attracted to the light and buzzed against the screens, beating giant wings against the metal.

  Freaked out, he turned off the light, opting for the ghostly half-light of the moon.

  Room 3 at Bonne Terre Inn was getting more appealing by the minute.

  But there were no chances to study the lovely, wounded and Notorious O’Neill
women in room three.

  Don’t hurt us any more than we’ve been hurt.

  Why did she have to say that?

  Why did he have to feel guilty for doing what was right for his dad? His father, who had been hung out to dry by Vanessa and Richard.

  He checked his watch. Dad called him every Wednesday at this time. Jail was a lonely place and these weekly calls were important. To both of them. Joel Woods may not have been the best father, but he’d done the best he could.

  Matt grabbed his cell phone, depressed the power button under his thumb and the annoying chime of an activated phone sounded loud in the quiet night.

  “Hello, Matt,” his phone said. “You have twenty voice mail messages.”

  He groaned and looked down at the display. Erica. Twenty voice mail messages from Erica, trying to get him back to work. Trying to get him to care.

  He erased all of them with one push of his finger.

  But then the screen illuminated with a text message.

  Twenty messages, you jerk. You’ve lost two clients. I’ve paid all the bills I can. Consider this my two weeks notice. Erica.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HE STARED HARD AT the words, trying to make sense of them. Erica was leaving. He searched himself for any emotional reaction, but felt nothing. It was as if it were someone else’s incredibly prized personal assistant leaving.

  That whole life, the office and the buildings, the door with his name on it, all of it seemed so far away. So removed from him.

  The fact that he didn’t care, not about losing Erica or his clients, actually terrified him.

  Who am I becoming? he wondered.

  His throat tight, he deleted the message only to have another one pop up that had been sent three hours after the previous one.

  Okay. I’ve had a glass of wine and expensed a nice dinner on you. I realize leaving now would be a disaster. For you. You need help, Matt. Lots of help. Charlotte came by the office yesterday. She quit her job and is moving down to Houston with the kids to be with Jack. She says stop sending them money. She says they are fine. I believe her. I’m not quitting. Thanks for the steak.

  Fine? He wondered. He tipped his head back and stared through the screen at a filmy white cloud passing over the moon. How is that possible? Charlotte had been an editor at the Post-Gazette—a job she’d loved, had worked so hard for. Jack used to brag about his wife, the mudraker.