Southern Gentlemen

by Jennifer Blake

  “I just had a lot of catching up to do.” As far as it went, it was the truth. After Carolina had won custody of her children, there had been a backlog of work waiting for his attention. Not that the work was going to continue.

  “Well, don’t you make yourself so scarce anymore. Those kids keep asking about you. They’re wondering where you’re keeping yourself.”

  Regret was as sharp as a knife slicing through him. “I miss them, too.”

  Maggie looked like she didn’t want to change the subject but knew better than to continue. “Doug’s at his table.”

  “He tells me he might buy this place if he doesn’t win reelection in the fall.”

  “Oh, he’ll win. People ‘round here understand temptation, but they believe in redemption. Doug made sure the truth came out about Carolina. That’s probably more than they’d get from the next guy. Besides, they got too many earthquakes out in California. Guess I’ll be around the Bayou a few more years.”

  She went off to insinuate herself between two young men who were arguing over a mousy woman in a denim jacket.

  Doug was working on a pitcher of Coke. He poured a glass for Billy Ray as he made himself at home across the table.

  “You’re looking hot and horny, son,” Doug said, pushing the glass toward him.

  “Considering that I’m sitting down, I’d say you’re just making a bad guess about the second part.”

  “That hangdog expression’s all the proof I need. You mooning over Carolina Waverly?”

  Billy Ray found it interesting that every time he had heard Carolina’s name since the hearing, she was Carolina Waverly. It was as if Carolina had never had the unfortunate luck to be connected to the Graysons.

  The custody hearing and all that had gone on in the courtroom were supposed to be private, but people in town had discovered the most important parts. Moss Bend’s golden boy Champ Grayson had abused his wife, and after his death Carolina had been framed by his father so that she would lose custody of her children. Even Taylor Betz, Carolina’s closest friend, had twisted the truth to assure that her state’s attorney husband stayed in Whittier Grayson’s good graces.

  John Betz had resigned last week to take a position down in Boca Raton. Taylor had left Moss Bend the next day, supposedly to look for a house and settle their children before the beginning of the school year. Judge Grayson, though, was still handing down rulings.

  “I’m not mooning.” Billy Ray downed his Coke in two long swallows.

  “I remember you mooning over Carolina after she told everybody she was going to marry Champ. You were always quiet. You got quieter. Like now.”

  “That was a long time ago. Your memory doesn’t go back that far.”

  “I remember things that really matter. Things that happened to you always mattered to me.”

  Billy Ray toyed with his empty glass. “Maggie doesn’t think you’ll lose the next election. Not that my support’s worth much, since my career here in Moss Bend is Southern-fried history, but just so you know, I’ll stand up for you.”

  Doug grinned. “The devil you know’s always better than the one you don’t, huh?”

  “You were never the devil. You were just running scared. But you stopped. It takes a big man to stop running, especially when the past is chasing him.”

  “You never ran. Never in your whole life, and I’ve been there for most of it, so I know, Billy Ray.”

  “Don’t make me out to be a hero, Doug. I’m nobody special.”

  “There’s a lot of folks around here who think differently.”

  Something about the way Doug said the words alerted Billy Ray. He looked up from his glass and saw most of the population of the Blue Bayou on their feet moving in his direction. Maggie was leading the way with a huge sheet cake blazing with sparklers.

  “Damn it, Doug…”

  Doug leaned back in his chair. “It’s a new day in Moss Bend, Billy Ray. A day when maybe we’ll get on with being more of a town and less of a kingdom. Judge Grayson announced his retirement from the bench this afternoon. Rumor has it a delegation of the town’s leading citizens forced him into it. You didn’t know, did you?”

  He hadn’t known, but right now his attention was riveted on the events around him. “What’s going on here?”

  “We’re having a little celebration in your honor. See, lots of people think you ought to consider running for office yourself. A couple of important ones have sure come open recently, haven’t they? But even if you don’t ran, we just want to say thanks. Thanks for standing tall.”

  Embarrassed, Billy Ray closed his eyes as the crowd surrounding him began to sing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

  Kitten was looking forward to kindergarten. She had a bright yellow Hercules lunch box, a new dress with a sunflower on the pocket, white tennis shoes with real laces, and a backpack with one pouch for pencils and one for paper.

  She found her mommy in the kitchen giving Chris the last of his supper. Chris always made a mess, but Mommy never seemed to care. Right now he was tearing up bits of bread on his high-chair tray and smashing them flat with his plastic cup.

  “I want to show Billy Ray my lunch box.” Kitten stood in the doorway and watched her mother washing dishes at the sink.

  “Well, I’m sure he’ll want to see it.” Carolina said the words as if she meant them, but she didn’t smile.

  “How come he doesn’t come and see us anymore?”‘

  Carolina didn’t answer for a moment. Then she turned, taking a dish towel from the rack beside the sink to wipe her hands. “He’s very busy, Kitten.”

  “And I want to show him my room.” Kitten’s room was yellow now. The bright yellow of her lunch box. Maggie had helped her paint it again last weekend, and she hadn’t even minded that Kitten had gotten paint in her hair.

  Carolina continued to dry her hands. “The next time he comes over, you can show him everything.”

  Kitten was tired of waiting. She got tired easily. Her grandmother Grayson told her that she needed more patience, and maybe she did. But she hadn’t gotten any yet—as a matter of fact, she was tired of waiting for patience, too.

  “Well, I’m going to go and get him!” She stuck out her bottom lip as far as it would go. When she did that in front of Billy Ray he always told her that her lip was wide enough to serve a pizza on.

  “Kitten, you’re not going anywhere.” Carolina threw the dish towel on the counter. “He lives miles away.”

  “I can walk! I walked miles and miles that night we went to Joel’s Garage. You know I did!”

  “Well, you’re not walking to Billy Ray’s. You’d get lost, and it’s getting dark. That’s final. Understand?”

  “Then you do it!” Kitten heard her voice rising, but she didn’t care. “You miss him, too. I know you do. And you’re old enough to drive. I’m not!”

  Carolina stared at her; then she began to laugh. “You’re not old enough to baby-sit, either, pumpkin pie. I can’t just go off and leave you and Chris alone.”

  “You don’t have to. Hattie said she’d come.”

  “When did you talk to Hattie?”

  “I called her. Her number’s 555―2231. She told me and I remembered. ‘Sides, it’s written down by your phone. She’s coming over. We talked about it. She said you ought to go to Billy Ray’s house and shake some sense into him.”

  Carolina looked away. “Did she?”

  “Can you really shake sense into people?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Can you try?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Well, why not?”

  Carolina looked back at her. “What?”

  Kitten raised her voice. “Why not? Is that one of those things my grandmas say?”

  “Your grandmas?”

  “They’re always saying stuff like that. Girls can’t do this. Girls can’t do that. Girls are supposed to be pretty all the time. Girls are supposed to be quiet. Aren’t girls supposed to tell
boys when they’re being stupid?”

  “How old did you say you were, Kitten?”

  “Silly! You know how old I am!”

  Carolina opened her arms, and Kitten skipped into them to give her mother a hug.

  “Girls are supposed to say whatever they have to say,” Carolina told her, holding Kitten at arm’s length so she could look into her eyes. “Whatever, whenever. And don’t you forget it.”

  Kitten stuck her lip out again. “Are you going to call Hattie and tell her not to come?”

  “No, I’m going to comb my hair and get my keys while we’re waiting for her.”

  “I could give you the lunch box to show Billy Ray, case he doesn’t want to come back with you.”

  Carolina hugged her hard again. “No, you save it. I’m going to make sure you have a chance to show it to him yourself.”

  Billy Ray knew that his friends had wanted to honor him. Some of them were sorry they’d judged Carolina harshly—and him right along with her. Some of them wished that they’d stood to be counted instead of giving in to old habits—and old Southern gentlemen. Some of them had just wanted him to know that a new era had arrived in River County, and they were glad it had.

  But Billy Ray wasn’t sure what the fuss was about. He had defended a woman who needed defending. And God and the State of Florida willing, he had won. What had he done that demanded celebration? Attorneys won cases every day. They employed brilliant defenses, did grueling detective work, negotiated creative settlements, and no one threw them a party.

  He had done none of those things. He had simply defended Carolina. He had never asked to be in the limelight. He hadn’t asked for the dawn of a new day in River County, either. He had only asked that people tell the truth. He wished with all his heart that his strategy had been brilliant or innovative, that he could take credit for the outcome of the hearing. But in the end, he had simply believed in a woman and fought for her.

  The sun had gone down as the party at the Blue Bayou cranked to its highest level. He had sneaked out between one slap on the back and another, and now the air outside had cooled almost enough for him to draw a comfortable breath. He climbed into his car and pulled onto the highway before somebody realized he was missing.

  All day he had been tempted to call Carolina and take her out to dinner. But he still didn’t know what he should say to her. He had only seen her once in the days since the hearing. She had come by to sign some documents, but Fran had been scurrying in and out of the office, and he had received one telephone call right after the other. They’d hardly had time to exchange a personal word.

  Which was just as well, since he hadn’t known what to say. Carolina’s life had taken a new path. She was a free woman. She could move anywhere she wanted, do anything she wanted, be anything she wanted. She was no longer bound to River County, and she had shed the Grayson name as effortlessly as a butterfly shedding its cocoon. But Carolina was a good woman and a faithful one. She believed that he had worked miracles. She believed she would be forever in his debt.

  He didn’t want her in his debt. He wanted her in his life because that was where she wanted to be and for no other reason.

  He was driving too fast, he realized. He slowed at the junction to Maggie’s house, but he didn’t turn. He continued on until the turnoff to Hitchcock Road.

  He was going to have to talk to Carolina, but he still wasn’t sure what to say. How did he tell the truth without telling her once more that he loved her? How did he set her free when, like every man in her life, he really wanted to bind her to him forever? He adored her, and he was one step from pulling out all the stops to keep her, even though he knew, deep in his heart, that she had to have time to heal, to find out who she was and what she wanted.

  She had to have time without him.

  By the time he pulled up in front of his house, he was too hot and tired to put the car in the barn. He parked in front and sat without moving; then he forced himself to get out and go inside.

  Carolina was waiting in his hallway, iced tea for both of them in her hands, and Three Legs and Four, the new kitten, winding in and out of her ankles.

  “I’m not waiting on you.” She held up the glass. “I don’t wait on men anymore. I do favors for friends, though. Are we still friends?”

  He wanted to take the tea out of her hands and kiss her until she was silent, but he just stood there staring at her.

  She shook her head. “It got to be pretty clear you weren’t coming to me. You know, I’m tired of being the one to do the work on this relationship, Billy, and someday soon that’s going to have to end. But I thought I’d give this one more shot. Take your tea, come inside and sit down.”

  He held out his hand. The glass was slippery and ice cold.

  She started toward his living room; then she stopped. “On second thought, I know a better place to have this conversation.” She turned and started up the stairs.

  He called after her. “Where are you going?”

  She looked over her shoulder. “Where does it look like?”

  He was afraid he knew—and afraid he might be wrong.

  When he didn’t answer, she smiled seductively. “It’s hot as heck out there. You look like you could use a shower. I’m going to get one running for you while you take off your clothes. Then you’ll be more in the mood for what I have in mind.”

  “And what exactly is that?”

  She raised a brow. “You finishing your tea. And us finishing that conversation we never had.”

  He followed her up the stairs. “I don’t need a shower.”

  “I know where you’ve been. I got the news about Whittier early this afternoon, and then Maggie told me about the party. I bet you smell like cigarette smoke. Come on up, you’ll feel better.”

  He got close enough to take her arm. “Carolina, what’s going on?”

  She wrinkled her nose, and he gave up. “Fine. I’ll hop in the shower.”

  “Sure you don’t want me to run it for you?”

  “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  But she wasn’t downstairs when he emerged wearing clean boxer shorts, the only clothes left in the bathroom when he got out of the tub. She was waiting for him in his bedroom, her shoes kicked off, the jacket to her sundress hung neatly over a chair, and the dress itself unbuttoned clear down to the valley between her breasts. She was sprawled comfortably on his bed, holding his iced tea.

  “Now, isn’t that better?”

  He had never seen her quite this way. She was smiling, as if she knew a joke that he didn’t. The haunted look he had come to associate with her was gone. She was a woman who knew what she wanted, a woman who had figured out exactly how to get it.

  He thought of all the things he needed to say, and he opened his mouth to let them pour out.

  She shushed him with a wave of her hand. “Don’t you dare waste my time on nonsense, Billy. I was a baby when I gave up on you and married Champ, but I grew up quicker than a June bug. You’re dealing with a full-grown woman here. I know what I want. I know who I want. And I know everything that comes with the package.”

  She leaned toward him, moving as slowly as a summer afternoon. The tops of her breasts glistened in the mellow light of the rising moon. “Kitten pointed out something to me today. Want to know what it is?”

  “Sounds like I’m going to, one way or the other.”

  “She wanted to know why women weren’t supposed to tell men when they were acting stupid. And I realized that’s exactly what I was doing.”

  “Have I been acting stupid?”

  “As a matter of fact, you have, and for a little while there, I thought it was my fault. I got used to taking the blame for lots of things that weren’t my fault when I was married to Champ, and sometimes I forget not to.”

  “Carolina—”

  She shook her head. “I know you’ve been a bachelor for a long time, Billy Ray. I know it might take you a while to get used to having a ready-made family. So I’m will
ing to wait until you grow into it. I’ve got a place to live, a wonderful job and a town where I can hold up my head again. And you’re worth waiting for. So I’ll wait. I might even start school while I am. I’m thinking about getting a degree in counseling, so I can help women in the same trap I was in. Or even better, I might go to law school to do the same thing. Do you think you could stand another lawyer in the family?”

  “You have a thousand alternatives.” The words sounded as if he was choking. “After a life with almost none at all.”

  “Is that what’s been worrying you?” She slid off the bed and started toward him. “Billy, can you even imagine that a life with you wouldn’t be at the top of my list? Or that loving you would keep me from doing everything else I was meant to do?”

  He realized that he had to name his greatest fear now or forever keep silent. “Don’t do this because you’re grateful, Carolina.”

  She tipped her head, as if she needed a different view, but her expression softened. “You know, there are lots of reasons to love a man. Because he’s smart, or good-looking, or knows how to kiss a girl silly. You’re all those things, so you’ve got that part down pat. But the best reason is because he stands beside you when you need him most. I was raised to believe in Southern gentlemen. I know the real thing when he’s right in front of me.” She smiled just a little. “Especially when he’s waiting there in his shorts and he’s a fine, fine specimen indeed.”

  “You didn’t come here just to have a conversation, did you?”

  “Right from that first day in high school, you always did know what I was thinking.” She unbuttoned the remaining three buttons of her dress and let it drift to her ankles. “Now, stop being a gentleman for just a moment. I’ve come this far. You have to cover the rest of the distance by yourself.”

  He did, without hesitation.

  Hours later, she was asleep beside him, her head pillowed against his shoulder. Moonlight poured through the room, and he knew that soon he would have to take her home. But there would be other nights like this one, nights when Carolina slept beside him until morning and their children slept soundly in the other bedrooms.