The Temptation of Savannah O’Neill

by Molly O'Keefe

  This was about her mother? He was here because of her mother? Last night— She couldn’t even finish the thought. Bile churned in her stomach and her throat ached with unvoiced screams.

  “That’s why you kept asking about her?” she breathed.

  “I thought you—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I was wrong and I’m sorry, Savannah.”

  “You thought what, exactly?” she spat, probing to see how far his betrayal went.

  “I had reason to believe she might come here.”

  “Never. She would never come here.”

  “And then when I got here you wanted security cameras in your garden and people kept breaking in, clearly searching for something.”

  “So?”

  “So.” He nearly laughed. “That’s not normal, Savannah. It seemed like you two were hiding something. Something of value.”

  He turned to Margot. “Is there any chance that Vanessa might have stolen the gems then hidden them here?”

  “No,” Savannah said.

  “But with the break-ins—”

  “I would know if my mother was here!” she cried, then sucked in a deep breath, feeling totally out of control. “Or if there were gems hidden in my house.”

  Margot nodded in agreement.

  “Savannah, please,” he whispered, “understand, I think that there—”

  “Get out,” she snapped, thrusting her finger toward the door. “We don’t know where my mother is and we certainly—” she laughed because it was ludicrous and frankly it was either laugh or scream “—don’t know anything about your father and stolen gems.”

  “I’ll leave,” he said. “I will, I just want to apologize.”

  “We heard you,” she said. “Now go.”

  “Wait a second,” Juliette said, stepping into the heated air between them. “You said your father was arrested seven years ago. If Vanessa was at the drop-off seven years ago, why are you here now? Not then?”

  “My father just told me the truth about having a partner and…Vanessa’s involvement in the theft. He’d been taking the blame himself for seven years.”

  Savannah reached the end of her rope. “Who the hell cares?” she cried. “No offense, Juliette, but the particulars don’t matter.” She stalked up to Matt, getting as close as she could stomach. “I don’t want you here.”

  “You should know, Savannah.” His eyes were sad, careful, and suddenly she knew she needed to brace herself. “Your mother has been in New Orleans most of the past five years.”

  Savannah swayed on numb legs and looked to Margot, who sat cold and still as a statue. “Did you know that?” she whispered.

  Margot shook her head.

  What did it matter, she wondered, hysteria buzzing along her nerve endings. New Orleans? The Moon? Six feet underground? Her mother was gone to her.

  But somehow, as much as she wished it didn’t matter, it did. That Vanessa was only a few hundred miles away stung like salt in an old wound.

  “I’m sorry, Savannah,” he whispered. “I know—”

  “You don’t know anything.” She suddenly turned and left because she couldn’t stand to look at him any longer.

  Pulling back her hair, wearing her sternest clothes, surrounding her heart in cement—none of it worked. She was broken. Hurt. And all she wanted was him gone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MATT WATCHED Savannah leave with his gut in his shoes. She was a different woman this morning. Cold and hard, worse even than the prison warden. She was an ice queen, the warm vibrant woman who’d laughed and kissed with him last night miles underneath her frigid exterior.

  You did this, he told himself. Because you were so stupidly hell-bent on your own course you didn’t see the truth, just like you were with Jack and the buildings in St. Louis.

  Just like he always was.

  What is wrong with me? he wondered, staring blindly out the door. What is missing in me that I can’t see the pain I cause?

  That he’d hurt Savannah, adding her name to his list of people he’d managed to wound in his own blindness, was an ache in his chest.

  If he could pull off his skin, rip out his memories, he’d do it. He’d pay in his own blood for the hurt he’d caused everyone he touched.

  He wished he could change the last twenty-four hours.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her,” he whispered, knowing Savannah’s two guard dogs were hungry for his flesh.

  “Sure,” Juliette said, her sarcasm like being raked over hot coals. “Because women love it when you lie to them and then sleep with them.”

  “We didn’t sleep together.”

  “Well, you did something,” she said. Juliette stalked toward him, every inch of her a police chief. Her hands on her waist—inches, he noticed, from her gun. “Do as she says,” Juliette whispered, her green eyes like steel. “Leave before you bring any more trouble to this house.”

  Then she was gone, leaving him alone with Margot. His comrade from last night’s poker game was nowhere to be found. Instead she watched him, steely-eyed and unreadable.

  There was no point in trying to justify himself to these women. He’d done so much damage, was in a hole so deep, there was no getting out.

  He could only leave—this house, these women. Savannah.

  “I’ll pack and be gone in an hour.” He wasn’t three steps before Margot stopped him.

  “I would like those files,” she said, holding out her hand. Matt didn’t see any reason not to give them to her, other than his sick desire to keep that photo of Savannah for himself, a talisman against the lonely, ghost-ridden days ahead.

  He put the files in Margot’s elegant hand and she flipped through them, her face betraying nothing.

  “I assume you investigated your father’s partner with the same thoroughness?” she asked, tucking the files under her arm.

  “My investigator couldn’t find any trace of him. Anywhere. He’s vanished.”

  “His name?” There was no sign of the Southern flower in Margot at the moment. She was all business. Cold business.

  “Richard Bonavie.”

  She nodded sharply, her lips white at the edges. “Do you know his relationship to Vanessa?”

  Matt nodded. They’d been married, Richard and Vanessa. And now, judging by Margot’s reaction, his suspicions were dead-on. “Richard Bonavie is Savannah’s father.”

  “I assume you will keep that information to yourself,” Margot said.

  “I’m leaving,” he said, “I don’t see how it—”

  “I hired you to do a job,” she said and his jaw dropped.

  “You want me to stay?” he asked. “You can’t be serious.”

  Margot stood and approached him, her gambler’s eyes taking him apart piece by piece. “We gave you a deposit on your work.”

  “I haven’t cashed the check,” he told her. The last thing he was going to do was take their money. “I was never going to. I’ll tear it up and pay you more, give you a bigger budget. I can send a crew down here and you’ll have a back courtyard that magazines will be calling you about.”

  She shook her head. “We don’t want more people here,” she said. “And I’m quite sure Savannah wouldn’t want your money.”

  “Well, she certainly doesn’t want me here, either.”

  “She did last night.”

  Matt gaped, feeling like a teenager caught with his pants down.

  “Stop acting like a virgin,” Margot said. “You’re here, you’ve been paid and there’s still work to do. You’ll stay until it’s done.”

  He shook his head. “This is not a good idea.”

  “You’re going back on your word?” she asked, making it seem like going back on his word was somehow worse than what he’d done.

  Savannah, he thought, the pain he’d caused her echoing through all the empty and rotted spaces in him.

  “You can make this right,” Margot said, sympathy shading her voice.

  “You don’t know me,”
he whispered, eroded and crumbling. “Everything I touch these days breaks.”

  Margot took a deep breath and patted his arm. “Savannah’s tough,” she said. “Now get to work.”

  SAVANNAH REFUSED, absolutely refused, to lie in bed, staring at the old lace canopy of her four-poster bed like some heartbroken heroine in a movie.

  I should get a new bed, she thought. The overblown princess bed that had been her dream come true as a child was ridiculously irrelevant.

  She told herself she kept it—the bed and the canopy and the lace and the pillows—for her daughter, but she was the one curled up here at night.

  A lonely princess.

  What garbage, she thought, furious with herself for getting maudlin.

  Since Katie was no longer in Savannah’s bedroom—no doubt having gone on some eavesdropping mission—Savannah decided to get some work done.

  She kicked aside one of the gazillion useless little pillows she loved so much and dug out her laptop.

  She pulled up all the files on religious mutilation in Indonesia.

  Castration. She would do some work on male castration.

  “Mom?”

  Savannah turned toward her daughter, who stood in the doorway in bright red rain boots, the silver chopsticks Margot brought back from her cruise pushed willy-nilly through her hair.

  “I brought you something to eat,” she said, stepping into the room and heading right for the bed with a plate of food.

  The plate had all of Katie’s favorites—Margot’s pralines, barbecue potato chips and an apple next to a pile of peanut butter.

  “Thank you, sweetie,” Savannah said, making room for her daughter. “How are we going to get that peanut butter on the apple?”

  Katie picked up the bright red fruit and rolled it in the peanut butter.

  Savannah laughed so hard tears burned her eyes.

  “Thank you,” she whispered when Katie handed her the messy apple. She wasn’t hungry, but she didn’t have the heart to tell Katie that.

  “Hey, Mom? Who is Matt?”

  Savannah’s numb fingers couldn’t hold the fruit and it fell to the floor with a thunk, peanut butter everywhere.

  “I honestly don’t know,” she said. “He lied to us.”

  “Did you know him before?”

  “Before?” she asked, looking down at her daughter. “Before what?”

  “Did you have sex?”

  Savannah choked.

  “You told me about sex, Mom.”

  “I know,” she said. She’d told her daughter about death, drugs, Republicans, homosexuality and where babies come from. Just not where she’d come from. “But I don’t think I want to talk about my sex life with you.”

  “But you had sex with that Matt guy?”

  “Why are you asking me this?” she barked, and immediately regretted it. Katie stared down at her fingers, put back a praline and sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” Savannah said. “It’s been a weird morning.”

  “Is Matt leaving?” Katie asked, and Savannah was grateful for an eight-year-old’s attention span.

  She’d never claimed to be a very good single mother.

  “Yes,” she said, feeling a door slam shut. No more sweat-soaked shirts in her back courtyard. No more green eyes watching her. No more thundering, soul-pounding music making its way up the stairs to her room. No more kisses in the moonlight. No fun. No recklessness. No more O’Neill inclinations running amuck.

  No more Matt Howe. Or Woods. Whatever.

  No more Matt.

  She lifted her neck, swallowing against the phantom sensation of a collar around her throat. Tears burned behind her eyes for no good reason.

  “Are you going to cry?” Katie asked.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Good.” Katie grabbed a praline. “We don’t need him here.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Savannah said, willing herself to believe it. She pulled her daughter close, tired from a night of weaving fantasies around a man who did not exist. A nap was what she needed, she decided, closing her eyes against the world. Maybe she’d sleep the day away and not have to watch him leave.

  “We don’t need anyone else,” Katie whispered and Savannah gave her a squeeze in agreement.

  A FEW HOURS LATER, Savannah woke to sunshine on her face and the snick and slash of Matt’s scythe through the vines of the back courtyard.

  She pushed her face deeper into her pillow, her heart finding a quiet rhythm alongside Matt’s work.

  Snick. Snick.

  Snick. Snick.

  It was a nice way to wake up. Calm. Comforting. Totally—

  Wrong.

  She sat up, flipping her hair out of her face. Pillows slid to the floor as bright white fury filled her heart.

  Unless it was Margot herself out there doing manual labor, she was dead. Dead.

  Flying down the stairs, her feet barely touched the treads. She swung her hair into a knot on her head, ready to do battle. This morning had been emotional, no doubt about it, but it had been settled.

  Matt was supposed to be gone.

  Sunshine blinded her when she threw open the doors to the courtyard and she nearly tripped over her daughter, who sat on the step.

  “Hey, Mom. I thought he was leaving.”

  “Hi, Katie,” she said, pressing a quick hard kiss to the top of her head. “He is, don’t worry. Where is he?”

  “Back there,” she said, pointing to the wild area past the cypress.

  “Go on inside,” Savannah said, wanting to ensure her daughter couldn’t be called as a witness when Savannah was brought to trial for murder.

  “No way, Mom.” Katie shook her head.

  “Go,” Savannah said, giving her a hard look until Katie sighed dramatically and finally left.

  Savannah flew into the bush.

  “What the hell are you still doing—”

  Sweat ran down his back. His very naked back. Suddenly Savannah felt every degree of the midday heat.

  “Here,” she finished, trying to end strong. Trying to keep her eyes off his smooth skin.

  He turned, dropping the scythe and wiping an arm across his brow. “Working,” he said, his eyes totally empty. “I’m going to finish what I started.”

  “It’s not necessary,” she insisted.

  “Trust me, it is,” he answered, and she got the sense he was talking about something else.

  Not that I care, she reminded herself. Not that it matters one bit.

  “You’ve been fired.”

  “Talk to your grandmother.”’ He blinked for a moment, and his dead eyes flared with life. “I am sorry,” he said. “I never meant to hurt anyone.”

  “Well,” she snapped, hating that he knew he hurt her, “it’s what happens when you lie to people.”

  She left quickly, relieved that her battle lay with Margot.

  Margot was stretched out across her bed, Matt’s files around her and Katie tucked up beside her.

  “Did you know your brother Carter has been promoted to Mayor Pro Tempore of Baton Rouge? He’s the president of city council.” Margot put down the files and beamed, the proud relative. “Isn’t that incredible? So smart, that boy. I always knew—”

  “It would be incredible if he picked up the phone and called to tell us himself,” Savannah barked, feeling raw and pissed.

  “Well, I imagine he’s busy,” Margot said. “Chief of—”

  “Why is he still here?” Savannah demanded, unwilling to be sidetracked.

  “I can only assume you are talking about Matt.” Margot put down Carter’s file and took off her reading glasses.

  “I want him gone.”

  “He’s not leaving.”

  Savannah blinked, speechless, stunned by Margot’s insensitivity.

  “He lied to us, Margot. He had us investigated.”

  “With due cause, I think. He was trying to get justice for his father. It’s pretty noble, once you think about it.”

&nbs
p; “Noble? His father’s a thief and Matt is a fraud!”

  “He was a fraud. And now, we have a very contrite handyman.”

  Savannah could only gape.

  “Shove over.” Margot gave Katie a jostle and Katie scrambled to make room. “Come sit down,” Margot invited, patting the bed right beside the picture of laughing Savannah.

  “Tell me you’re joking,” Savannah said through numb lips.

  Margot shook her head. “We need the work done.”

  “We’ll get someone else.”

  “We tried that already,” Margot said, stretching out her legs.

  “I don’t want him in my home.”

  “I’m not dead yet, honey,” Margot said, a hundred percent resolved, and a resolved Margot was an unshakeable one. “So it’s still my house.”

  Savannah felt betrayed down to her toes. She finally sat on the corner of the bed, defeated and tired. “What are you doing?”

  Margot reached out to touch her hair. “You liked him, honey,” she whispered as if he were a puppy in a window.

  Savannah shook off the touch, horrified. “You’re matchmaking?”

  Margot shrugged and winked at Katie, who was watching the exchange like a starved dog watched a chicken bone.

  Savannah, overcome on all sides, fell backward on the bed.

  “Come on, honey,” Margot said. “It’s only a few days and we really do need to get that work finished. And considering his guilt and his profession, I think it’s safe to say we’re going to get far more than we paid for.”

  We already did, Savannah thought, her unruly flesh tingling.

  “Mom doesn’t want him here,” Katie said, the little pit bull, and Savannah squeezed her leg.

  “It’s fine.” Savannah sighed. “But I’m having nothing to do with him.”

  “Sure you are,” Margot said, her voice rich with a feminine knowledge that put Savannah’s teeth on edge. “I’m not.”

  “I heard you.”

  “Who’s this?” Katie asked, picking up one of the files. She twisted it so Savannah could see the photo.

  Savannah’s blood momentarily stopped in her veins.

  Mom.

  The beauty in the picture was the mother she hadn’t seen in twenty years.