Southern Gentlemen

by Jennifer Blake

  Rip pushed his car seat farther back, stretching out his long legs. Leaning his head against the upright, he stared at the old mansion. After a long moment, he said, “It’s so quiet out here. I used to think it was the most peaceful place on earth.”

  “So did I,” she said in low agreement. “Like an escape into another world.”

  He turned his head. “Escape from what?”

  “Chores, duties, manners.” Her smile had a wry edge as she propped her elbow on the window frame. “All the endless things my mother thought I should have on my mind instead of following you and Tom around.”

  “You were good at sneaking off when she wasn’t looking.”

  “I was, wasn’t I? Especially when you ran interference.”

  “All I did was knock on the front door and ask if Tom could come out.”

  “While I scooted down the back steps, then crept around, hiding behind trees until I was sure I couldn’t be seen from the house windows. At which point, I ran like a rabbit.”

  “You sure did,” he said, laughing quietly. “I hadn’t thought of that in years.”

  “It’s been a long time since I did anything like that.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “I lost my partners in crime.” As she realized what she’d said, she turned swiftly. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know what you meant,” he said, his voice even. “You don’t have to watch every word you say around me, Anna.”

  The sound of her name in his deep, warm baritone set off vibrations in the pit of her stomach. “I know,” she said, “but the last thing I want is to—”

  “Hurt my feelings? Believe me, it isn’t easy.”

  The words were like iron, but she wasn’t sure they were true. “It was a stupid thing to say, anyway, because that isn’t what happened. The truth is I just…grew up.”

  “And here I am again, asking you to do something you shouldn’t, enticing you from the straight and narrow into my wicked way of life.”

  “Put like that, it sounds almost inviting.”

  “Does it, now?” he drawled.

  She didn’t answer, couldn’t have if her life depended on it. Her flippant comment, she discovered, was more accurate than she’d intended.

  They watched each other in silence. Then he shifted in his seat, resting his arm on the steering wheel as he turned more to face her. “Why not, really? Why did you stay here? Why didn’t you get away?”

  “Go somewhere and make something of myself?” Anna’s words were cool.

  “Wasn’t there anything you wanted to do? Anything you dreamed of being?”

  “I used to think I’d like to be a cruise director and sail around the world. I wanted to be like Jane Digby and have scandalous affairs, then go and live with the Bedouin. I thought I might take flying lessons, be a pilot for some tycoon who alternated between London, Paris, Rome and an island in the Caribbean. Wild, silly dreams like that.”

  “Not so wild. If I buy a private jet, will you fly it for me?”

  “Of course.” He didn’t mean it any more than she did. Then as she searched his face, she lost some of her certainty.

  “So why didn’t you do any of those things?” Rip asked quietly.

  “My mother wasn’t well. She needed me. I had to get a job, make a living.”

  “She didn’t keep you from getting married.”

  “Would that she had,” Anna answered on a short laugh. “But I was still nearby, even as Chad’s wife, still available, the dutiful daughter performing as expected.” She turned her gaze toward the house again.

  “Except that you got divorced.”

  “Not quite so dutiful, after all.” She heard the defiance in her voice but couldn’t help it.

  “What happened, if you don’t mind telling me?” The question was tentative.

  She said nothing for a long moment, then she sighed. “You called me perfect back there at the restaurant, and God knows I thought I was supposed to be. I tried really hard. But perfect people can be pretty boring, I guess. Chad found himself someone more interesting.”

  “Or maybe he found someone who wasn’t so hard to live up to. I can see his problem.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  He gave her a crooked smile for the dry rejoinder. “I said I recognize it, not that I share it. Remember, I knew Chad. He always did have a hard time being second best.”

  “If you’re saying I act superior—”

  “I’m saying I don’t give a damn anymore about status or class, where you came from or where I’ve been, who’s on top and who’s not—in any situation. No man likes to play second fiddle, but when two perfectly tuned violins are making sweet harmony, it’s a duet, not a competition.”

  She stared at him with her mouth open for a second before she said, “Nice, very nice.”

  “So are you going to play? Is Blest worth it?”

  “It is to me,” Anna answered.

  He tipped his head. “No matter what?”

  “You mean—”

  “I mean the stares, the whispers, and especially the kind of scorn your mother was dishing out back there. She obviously didn’t take kindly to seeing you with me. Are you willing to go against her?”

  “I—must be, since I’m here.”

  His eyes were black in the dark car, and his voice was without warmth or softness. “Be sure. If you’re going to back out, you had better do it now, before you’re in too far.”

  “I’m not backing out.” Anna was amazed at the firmness of that statement but had no intention of withdrawing it.

  He watched her a moment longer, sitting perfectly still, then he sighed and looked away. “It won’t be easy.”

  “I know.”

  “And our deal is really on? You’re going to stand by me?”

  She thought about it, sitting there surrounded by the scents of leather upholstery, a drifting hint of honeysuckle on the night wind, the smells of ironed broadcloth, expensive aftershave and clean, healthy male. There could be only one answer.

  “It’s on. I promise.”

  “If I get rid of the bulldozers tomorrow, call in the architect and carpenters, you’re not going to change your mind?”

  “Tomorrow?” She couldn’t keep the amazement from her voice.

  “No reason to delay that I can see. It appears I’ll be living in the house, win or lose.”

  “But I thought—”

  “What?” Rip returned his attention to her.

  “I know you mentioned that, but is it truly what you want?”

  “You expected me to turn the place over to some foundation for an art museum, maybe?”

  “I don’t know,” she said with a vague gesture. “I suppose I thought you’d prefer something modern on a golf course somewhere.”

  He shook his head. “Because of the rumors? Oh, Anna, you really don’t know me, do you?”

  She didn’t, but was beginning to have an inkling. “You mean to take over Blest so you can rub our noses in the fact that it will never belong to the Montrose family again.”

  “I don’t know about that. It could wind up in the hands of our children, Montroses by blood if not by name.”

  Their children. If she wrangled the Bon Vivant invitation, he would be set. If she failed, she must marry him and they would live there together. Win or lose, he’d said. She wondered which he considered marriage to her to be.

  Glancing past him at the night beyond his open window, she said, “I’ve been thinking. We could start easing you back into things the day after tomorrow, if you like. I have an invitation from Sally Jo Holmes for a barbecue at her house on the lake that evening. Then the day after, on Friday, is the monthly civic club luncheon. It would be a good way for you to meet the businesspeople in town, and several of the male members are Bon Vivants.”

  “You’re talking about Sally Jo Donaldson, used to go with Billy Holmes?” The question was tentative, as if his thoughts were busy elsewhere.

  “They�
��re married and have two kids now, a boy and a girl. Billy’s a vet, took over old Doc Graham’s practice when he retired a few years back.”

  “Hard to imagine,” Rip commented with a wry shake of his head.

  “It’s been—”

  “A lot of years. I know.”

  There was a grim note under his even tone, a reminder of his days in prison. Uncertain how he might react to sympathy, she said, instead, “So what do you think? Do you want to go to Sally Jo’s? It’s supposed to be a small gathering, just Sally Jo and Billy, another couple, and the two of us.”

  “Sounds like a good place to start.”

  “I’ll call in the morning to let her know, though she said I could bring someone, if I liked.”

  His gaze narrowed. “And did you like? I mean, was there someone you were going to ask before I came along and ruined your plans?”

  “I’m not going out with anyone special, if that’s what you mean.”

  “It can’t be from lack of opportunity.”

  “Thank you for that, but I just haven’t been interested.” She turned her attention to the moon glow beyond the windshield.

  “No? Why is that?”

  “I enjoy being by myself. I like going where I want, when I want, eating what I please, when I please.”

  “I thought you were living with your mother?” The words were dry.

  “Well, yes, but the idea’s the same.”

  “Too bad. You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who should be alone.”

  She gave him a straight look. “You think I can’t take care of myself, is that it? That I desperately need some man to do it for me?”

  “I think some man desperately needs you.” He didn’t wait for a reply, but went on quickly. “You’re really going through with it, then. You’ll marry me if that turns out to be the only solution?”

  Anna moistened her lips, knowing she was cornered. Decision time. Which was it to be?

  Abruptly she tipped her head in agreement. “You have my word.”

  “Word of a Montrose,” he marveled, watching her. Then he straightened, extending his hand. “It doesn’t get much better than that.”

  Anna leaned over the car’s console to put her own hand in his warm grasp. He held it a long moment, his gaze meeting hers in the moonlit dimness. Vital awareness connected them, shivered through them. Around them, the summer night sang.

  With a whispered exclamation, he drew her toward him, threading the fingers of his free hand into her hair to tilt her face. He hesitated, searching her still features, lingering on the dark pools of her eyes. Then he fastened his attention on her mouth and slowly, deliberately, lowered his head.

  Sweet and warm, his lips brushed hers, discovering the tender surfaces, testing their resilience and texture, before tasting her with a light, delicate flick of his tongue. Heat sprang from somewhere deep in her lower body. It flowed upward to speed her heartbeat and flood her senses with its life-giving warmth. The urge to open to him, to reach out and draw him closer, was so strong, yet impossible to accept, that a small moan of distress left her.

  Shocked into awareness by the sound, she jerked away. On a swift drawn breath, she demanded, “What are you doing?”

  A corner of his mouth tugged upward as he settled back into his seat. “Sealing our bargain with a kiss.”

  “I hardly think that’s necessary.”

  “Not even to make it more binding?”

  “For whom? As far as I can see, you’re bound by nothing.” The protest was as much a defensive gesture as anything else.

  “Wrong,” he answered, his amusement turning grim. “Only I’ve been wearing my bonds so long they are a perfect fit. I thought for a while I was rid of them, but know now I’d be lost without them.”

  He meant the shackles of his past imprisonment, she thought, the pressure of abrupt empathy crowding her chest. Quietly she said, “One day you’ll be free.”

  “I doubt it.” His reply was followed by a quiet laugh, a phantom sound.

  Anna met his shadowed regard there in the darkness. It was implacable, and so blackly intent she felt a tremor of fearful premonition along the surface of her skin. He noticed that small movement, for his lips tightened.

  A moment later, he straightened, reaching for the key to start the engine. They pulled away from Blest, leaving it, silent and pensive, behind them.

  5

  The storm came up after midnight. Thunder jarred Anna awake. She lay for a moment, listening to the rumbling and the sighing wind. Then she flung back the covers and padded from her bedroom and down the hall. Her mother hated storms and usually wanted company until they were over.

  The older woman was heavily asleep, lying with her arms outstretched, her face puffy from drink and tears. Her mouth was open, and she snored with every breath. As Anna stepped into the connecting bathroom with its night-light, she saw what she expected—a bottle of prescription sedatives sitting on the counter. Anna closed her eyes for a despairing moment. The combination of alcohol and sleeping pills could be lethal. Matilda Montrose knew it, but didn’t seem to care.

  Returning to the bed, Anna seated herself on the side and reached for her mother’s flaccid wrist. Her pulse was steady and strong, her color was pasty—but no more than usual—and her breathing seemed unrestricted. She could go on hating Rip, and fearing him, for some time to come. Anna sat a little longer, then she replaced her mother’s arm on the bed, smoothed it an instant and returned to her own bedroom.

  She moved to the window and pushed the curtain aside to look out. Beyond the glass, wind whipped the trees and lightning cracked open the night sky like a giant eggshell. The elemental fury made her feel restless, as if she was waiting for something. She knew what she craved, knew that need had been set off by Rip’s kiss as much as by the storm. But the combination of Rip and desire was as deadly for her as alcohol and drugs were for her mother.

  She had always been attracted to him. Something in his rough, almost wild upbringing had stirred her imagination and her sympathy as they grew up together. He had seemed so free, coming and going when he pleased, defying authority when it suited him, and never whimpering when the consequences caught up with him. He didn’t toe the line like her brother, didn’t dress like him, act like him, think like him. Rip’s defiance was natural, a part of his personality, not something brought on by a need for petty rebellion.

  Regardless, Rip had been different when around her in those early years, often showing a rare gentleness beneath his hard, untamed exterior. The contrast made her feel special, as if she held a place in his life he shared with no other, as if he allowed her to see a part of his nature he exposed to no one else. She had been passionately attached to him in an innocent fashion. Or perhaps not quite so innocent toward the end.

  She was, she knew, deeply sensual behind her calm facade. Sometimes she thought her marriage had foundered on this secret snag beneath its surface, that deep in her ex-husband’s constricted soul he had been shocked that his brief and inept attentions in bed were never quite enough, that he always left her needing more. More what, she was never entirely sure. Not just more sex, but rather greater tenderness, wider imagination, a slower, deeper exploration of erotic experience. Once or twice he’d tried, but it was beyond him. Finally, he found someone who expected less of him.

  The rain began at last, tapping in a wet staccato against the window glass. Anna dropped the curtain and climbed back into bed. Rolling to her side, she rested her head on her bent arm as she watched the lightning flicker around the curtains, listening to the falling rain.

  She enjoyed storms, especially when she could watch them while lying safe and warm. She supposed that, like most women, she preferred her excitement to be without violence or unacceptable risk. Of course, nothing about the pact she had made with Rip could be called safe.

  Stand by me…

  The words he had spoken lingered in her mind like a haunting reminder of times gone by. He had stood firm when the
rabid dog had come at her that day. And there had been other times, such as the day he and Tom were in eighth grade. Their English teacher had accused Rip of copying Tom’s homework essay, based on a minor spelling error that appeared in both papers. It was Tom who had copied Rip’s paper, but her brother had been too paralyzed to confess, afraid of the scene it would cause if their mother and father found out. So he had kept quiet, and Rip wouldn’t speak up, refusing to rat on him.

  Anna, so much younger than the two boys, had heard distant echoes of the incident on the bus home the day it happened. She’d heard how Rip swore he didn’t care and claimed his shame in front of his classmates, and even the paddling he got from the school principal didn’t matter. She had been with the two boys later when Tom cried as he tried to make it up to Rip, saying how sorry he was and offering to admit his guilt.

  But the bigger boy only gave a moody shrug, and said to forget it, that what was done, was done. Tom had been relieved; even Anna had seen that. She’d also seen that Rip was pretending, saying what he knew his friend wanted to hear.

  Later, when Rip went away and sat by himself behind the garage, Anna had followed. Dropping to the ground beside him, she’d drawn her knees up and let her arms dangle across them, imitating him. She had wanted to touch him, hug him, say she was sorry he felt so bad, but she didn’t think he would let her.

  After a while, she’d done the only thing she could think of, which was to pull from her pocket the chocolate candy bar that she had been saving for a special time. Taking Rip’s grubby hand, she pressed the candy into it and curled his fingers carefully around it.