A Done Deal

by Jenna Bennett

  “Everything what?” I took a seat next to my aunt.

  She lowered her voice. “About your new boyfriend, dear. Catherine’s been filling me in.”

  I glared at my sister, who shrugged unrepentantly, grinning. I turned back to Aunt Regina. “This isn’t for the paper, is it?”

  My aunt writes the society column for the Sweetwater Recorder, and if there was one thing I could do without, it was news of my new relationship—which I didn’t even know if existed yet—being trumpeted all over town.

  Then again, if everyone knew, would there be less chance of Rafe being able to wiggle out of anything?

  Aunt Regina made a sort of halfhearted cross in the vicinity of her bosom. “Of course not. Would I do that to you?”

  “I sure hope not,” I said, and tried to make it sound like a threat.

  “Is Catherine telling me the truth? You’re involved with LaDonna Collier’s boy?”

  “He’s not a boy anymore. And yes. I am.” If I sounded a little defensive, I think it’s understandable.

  Aunt Regina giggled and glanced across the room at mother and Bob Satterfield. “I imagine that doesn’t make your mother very happy.”

  “She’d like me to marry Todd,” I said.

  My aunt nodded. “Todd’s a nice boy. He’d do right by you.”

  “Rafe will do right by me, too.” Even if I wouldn’t call him a nice boy.

  Aunt Regina giggled. “You’re like your great-great-great-grandma all over again!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your great-great-great-grandmother. Caroline.”

  “William’s mother?” Great-great-grandpa William had been married to great-great-grandma Agnes, whose dressing table was upstairs, in what used to be Catherine’s room.

  Aunt Regina nodded. “Quite the firecracker, Caroline was.”

  “Did you know her?”

  She shook her head. “She died before I was born. Long before. She grew up during the War Between the States. A hundred and fifty years ago.”

  “How do you know what she was like?” And that I was like her?

  “Haven’t you ever wondered where William got that dark hair and complexion?” She winked at me.

  “Great-great-great-grandma Carrie had an affair?” Catherine said, looking down at her hands. They were, it had to be admitted, a shade or two darker than mine. Dix and I take after mother’s family, the Georgia Calverts. Blonde and pale. Catherine, like Aunt Regina, looks like a Martin: short and curvy, with coarse dark curls and sallow skin.

  I grinned. “What did she do, sleep with the stable boy?”

  “He was a groom,” Aunt Regina said primly, “from what I understand. After the war—” She pronounced it wo-ah, like any self-respecting Southerner, “when all the slaves were emancipated, he stuck around to help run the place. He was born here, it was the only home he’d ever had. And the Martins weren’t one of those slave-holding families.”

  ‘Those’ as in the slave-holding families who mistreated their slaves, I assumed. Not everyone did, you know. Obviously the Martins didn’t, if great-great-great-grandma Caroline had shared her bed with this guy.

  “One thing led to another,” Aunt Regina said, “and Carrie found herself in the family way. She gave birth to your great-great-grandpa William. He was brought up with Carrie’s other children. William looked a little different, perhaps, but it wasn’t as if anyone would question the lady of the manor, was it?”

  “So how do you know?” Catherine wanted to know.

  Aunt Regina turned to her. “She told him the truth. And he told his son, who told his son, who eventually told me and your dad.”

  “Dad knew?”

  Aunt Regina smiled. “He did. But I don’t think he ever bothered to tell your mother.”

  We all turned to look at mother, who was smiling at something Bob Satterfield said.

  “She’d have a conniption,” Catherine said.

  I nodded. “Better to just keep it between us.” At least until she gave my boyfriend the cold shoulder, and maybe then I could trot it out and put her in her place. Or just share it with Rafe and make him feel better.

  The front doorbell rang, not for the first time. People kept coming and going, dropping off presents and staying for a glass of eggnog before heading out again. It was the way these parties always went. Todd had admitted most of the visitors, but this time Dix was already on his feet. “I’ll get it.”

  He headed for the door.

  “Is he expecting company?” Aunt Regina asked, a tiny wrinkle appearing between her brows. “Surely that’s a little soon after Sheila’s death?”

  “I’m sure he isn’t,” Catherine said. “Maybe he knows someone’s coming to drop off a gift for the girls.”

  I nodded. I had my suspicions about my brother and Tamara Grimaldi, but Aunt Regina was right: it was much too soon for Dix to consider getting involved with anyone again. And he wouldn’t be getting a visit from Grimaldi anyway. She was on duty tonight. She’d said so.

  Our hypothesis—the one about the presents—was borne out a couple of minutes later when Dix came back inside the parlor with two brightly colored gift bags he distributed to his daughters, five-year-old Abigail and three-year-old Hannah. “There’s one for you too, Savannah,” he said, glancing at me across the tops of their curly, blonde heads. I’d helped him pick out the girls’ Christmas dresses a few weeks ago—Abby’s in satin and pink tulle with tiny white pearl embroidery and Hannah’s in red velvet with a black, white and red tartan skirt—since Sheila hadn’t been around to do it. Both girls had matching bows in their hair, and all in all, I thought Dix had done a fine job trying to make Christmas seem normal in spite of Sheila being gone. Hannah, who had taken to sucking her thumb after Sheila’s death, had gone back to her normal happy self again, and both she and Abigail were digging eagerly into their gift bags.

  “One what?” I asked, watched them burrow.

  “Gift. Out there.” He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb, his eyes on the girls.

  I got to my feet. “Why didn’t you just bring it with you?”

  “She said the last one needs to be delivered in person,” Dix said, as Abigail triumphantly held up her prize. “What is that, sweetie?”

  “Police Barbie!” Abigail said.

  I smothered a grin. That couldn’t be from anyone but Tamara Grimaldi. Wonder what she had for me, that she didn’t want Dix to pass along? Why hadn’t she just come inside the parlor to give it to me herself, if she had to make the handoff personally?

  And then that old fear raised its head again. Rafe’s dead. She’s come to tell you the news.

  She’d told me she’d be on duty tonight. Something must have happened to bring her down here, and that one was always close to the surface where I was concerned.

  But no, I told myself, if something bad had happened, Dix would have tipped me off. He wouldn’t send me out to the hallway without warning. Maybe Grimaldi had a message for me, something she didn’t want to pass along within hearing of mother and Todd.

  I put my wineglass on the table inside the door and ducked out. The coolness of the air felt good against my cheeks after the heat inside.

  The parlor leads into the central hallway that runs from the front of the mansion to the back. In the old days before indoor air conditioning, during the always hot Tennessee summers, the Martins would open the front and back doors and get a breeze going. For Southern Belles like Caroline, decked out in hoop skirts and multiple petticoats and bloomers, those throughways were lifesavers.

  In the front of the house, the hallway opens into a huge two-story foyer, one with a sweeping staircase on either side and an enormous chandelier, circa 1842, hanging from the second story ceiling. At the moment, there was greenery strung all the way up the railings to the second floor, and a huge Christmas tree stood in the middle of the floor, the star at the top almost brushing the drippy prisms of the chandelier. Even the weather was cooperating. The double doors to the outs
ide hung open—even as the glass storm doors were closed—and the sleet outside had turned to soft flakes of drifting snow while I’d been inside the parlor. The whole picture was stunning, worthy of a magazine spread, in a way that bespoke excellent taste and plenty of money to indulge it. Mother spares no expense on these occasions, and it shows.

  I didn’t notice any of it. I knew it was there, because I’d seen it earlier, but it all paled in comparison to the man standing just inside the door, the shoulders of his leather jacket wet from the snow, and his hands in his pockets.

  My chest hurt. Actually, physically hurt. And for a second, all I could do was stare.

  He was back to looking like himself again. Smooth-shaven, his hair in its usual barely-there crop, and he was dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket, with what looked like a corduroy shirt underneath; I guess in deference to it being December. He looked cool and calm, just standing, looking around.

  Until he turned his head and saw me, and the instant our eyes met, I knew he was just as rattled as I was. He just hid it better. With a grin and a slow appraisal, top to bottom and back. “Nice dress.”

  I stepped from the hallway into the foyer, putting a little swing in my hips. “I thought you’d like it.”

  He stayed where he was and let me come to him. When I stopped in front of him, he reached out and put his hands on my waist. “Gonna let me take it off you sometime?”

  I curled my fingers in his shirt, feeling the heat of his body and the pull of hard muscles through the fabric. “Right now if you want.”

  He grinned down at me. “You ain’t gonna play hard to get?”

  “Would you believe me if I did?”

  Stupid question. Of course he wouldn’t.

  “You’re back,” I said, stating the obvious.

  He nodded. “It’s Christmas. Every good girl gets what she wants for Christmas.”

  “So you brought Police Barbies for Dix’s girls. From Tamara Grimaldi, I expect? What do I get?”

  There was a pause. Then— “You get me. If you want me.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “The job’s done. Hector’s in jail. The gang’s broken up. Clean sweep.”

  “You’re finished? A civilian? Pipe and slippers at five o’clock?”

  He shook his head. “No pipe and slippers. But you can meet me at the door in your skivvies. I wouldn’t mind.”

  I smiled. I wouldn’t mind either. “Now?”

  He laughed softly. “You should prob’ly go back to your family now.”

  I lifted my head to look at him. Incredulously. “You’re not staying?”

  He looked incredulous, too. “With your family? On Christmas Eve? I don’t think that’d go over too well, darlin’. Ain’t that Satterfield’s car parked outside?”

  It was. And he had a point. Bringing him into the parlor to join the rest of the family without warning would be awful for everyone. This transition would take more time and thought than that.

  On the other hand, there was no way I’d let him leave again either.

  “You can’t come here and tell me that I can have you, and then leave before I can actually have you!”

  A sound from behind saved me from saying more and embarrassing all three of us. I turned to face my mother, outlined in the door to the hallway. “Oh. Hi, mom. You remember Rafe.”

  My voice was perfectly steady, and the challenge was clear. Be nice, or else.

  Mother nodded, her nostrils flared, as if she’d smelled something unpleasant. I held tight to Rafe’s hand. The last time mother had seen us together, in the hospital after my miscarriage, she had caught me touching his hand, and I had snatched mine away, hoping she wouldn’t notice. That wouldn’t happen again.

  “Won’t you come inside, Rafe?” mother said. “Join us?” She sounded as if the words were pulled from her with pliers, but she got them out. His name sounded strange in my mother’s voice. I didn’t think I’d ever heard her use it before. Although I appreciated the effort.

  “Maybe later,” I said. “We’re going upstairs. I need some privacy to unwrap my present.”

  “Miz Martin.” Rafe nodded politely, although I could see his lips quiver as I pulled him behind me toward the stairs.

  Mother didn’t say a word. She stood in the doorway and watched us, every step of the way up to the second floor. I stopped on the upstairs landing and looked down. “Merry Christmas, mother.”

  “Merry Christmas,” my mother said. She disappeared down the hallway in the direction of the parlor again. I turned to Rafe.

  “She’ll get used to you.”

  “I hope so. I ain’t planning on going nowhere.”

  “You’d better not. My room’s down here.” I tugged on his hand.

  “Almost like being in high school again, ain’t it? Sneaking off during the party?”

  He looked left and right as I led him down the hallway. Family portraits, Martins of old, looked down at us from the walls. One of them was great-great-grandpa William, and I thought about stopping and telling Rafe the story Aunt Regina had told me. But then I thought better of it. I’d rather just get him into my room with the door closed as soon as possible. Great-great-grandpa William had waited a hundred and fifty years; he could wait a little longer.

  “I never did anything like this in high school,” I confessed, and opened the door to my room and pulled him inside. “I was a good girl.”

  “We can pretend.” He looked around, at Grandmama Louise’s four poster bed with the hanging canopies and virginal white sheets and blankets, and the dressing table with my pots and tubes and pencils still scattered across the surface. It hasn’t changed much since I lived in it as a teenager, and it didn’t change much in the fifty or a hundred years before that either. The disparity between this and the room Rafe grew up in, in the trailer in the Bog, was mind-blowing.

  “I’d rather not.” I closed the door, locked it, and maneuvered him up against it. “I was afraid of you in high school.” I pushed the leather jacket off his shoulders and went to work on the buttons in his shirt. He didn’t move, just stood there and looked down at me.

  “You had reason to be.”

  “Really?” I pulled the shirt out of his jeans and pushed it, too, off his shoulders and onto the floor. There really was a new scar: a three inch long slice across his stomach, still pink and puffy. I put my lips to it, murmuring in distress, and felt his muscles tighten.

  “Hell, yeah.” His voice was hoarse, and he had to clear his throat. “Wasn’t like I didn’t notice you, you know?”

  “You never told me.” I looked up, into eyes that had turned darker than before.

  He smiled down at me. “Dix Martin’s little sister? Perfect Savannah?”

  “I’m not perfect.” God knew I’d missed perfect by a wide margin, especially lately.

  “Sure you are. And way out of my league.” He closed his eyes as I reached for the button that held his jeans closed, his whole body tensing. I smiled. He added, his voice tightly controlled, “You were fourteen. Maybe fifteen. Jailbait. And I figured your brother and Satterfield woulda ganged up on me if I looked at you sideways.”

  “You could have taken them. Both of them.” I curled my hands over the waistband of his jeans and pulled them down, and the underwear with them.

  He didn’t deny it. “That woulda gone over well, wouldn’t it? No, darlin’, I knew to stick to my own kind. And just as well, since...” He had to stop to catch his breath. “...since... God... you were afraid of me.”

  “I’m not afraid of you anymore.” When I leaned forward, I think he lost his breath for a moment. Then his lips curved, and his hand slid down to caress my hair.

  “You sure you wanna do this, darlin’?”

  “Positive.”

  “You do it for Bradley?”

  “God, no.” He would have enjoyed it, no doubt, male chauvinist that he was. But I’d never wanted to.

  “Just me?”

  “There’s a whole l
ot I’d do for you—and with you—that I’d never do for Bradley.”

  And wasn’t that the truth? It shut him up, too. When he suddenly laughed, I looked up at him. “What?”

  Was I doing something wrong? It seemed like he was enjoying himself, but maybe I had no idea what I was doing.

  Correction: I knew I had no idea what I was doing, but it had seemed like he was enjoying himself anyway. But maybe I was wrong.

  Or not. His eyes were warm when he looked down. Not just filled with sexual heat, although there was plenty of that, but warm with amusement and pleasure. “I guess I’m having a hard time believing it. That I’ve got Savannah Martin on her knees in front of me. Here. During a family Christmas party, no less. And doing... that.”

  I smiled. “Believe it. You’ve got me. Any way and anywhere you want.”

  “Ah, darlin’.” He grinned and lifted me to my feet. “You don’t wanna be saying that. I can think of a whole lot of ways I want you, and some of’em may not be to your liking.”

  “If it involves you and me, I think I’ll probably like it just fine.” I smiled back, recklessly. “I love you, you know.”

  It took a long time. Seconds while I waited, holding my breath. Then— “I love you too.”

  “Really?”

  He chuckled. “Yeah. Really.”

  “It took you long enough to admit it.”

  “Yeah,” Rafe said, “well.”

  “Well, what”

  He shook his head. “Guess I just wanted to be sure you meant it.”

  I blinked. How could he doubt that I meant it? “I told you. On the phone, with Hector.” When I thought I might die and I’d never get another chance to tell him. “Didn’t you believe me?”

  “You didn’t say it again. Later.”

  “You didn’t say it back to me.” And it hadn’t crossed my mind that he needed me to say it more than once before he’d believe me. “Did you think I lied?”

  He reached up to brush my cheek with his knuckles. The skin was still rough from the fighting he’d done. “Remember that time with Perry Fortunato?”

  “Hard to forget,” I said, leaning into the touch.

  He smiled in appreciation of my throwing his own words back at him. “You told me you’d do anything I wanted if I got you outta there without letting him touch you.”