Beneath Southern Skies

by Terra Little

  She was Vanessa Valentino, and he had added her name to his list of enemies five years ago.

  “Right,” she said. “They offered to buy the house and land that Ma’Dear left me, and the price was right so I figured, why not? Then you showed up and I knew there was more to the story. So I went digging.”

  He thought he already had a pretty good idea, but he asked anyway. “What did you find?”

  “Almost nothing. Gwinnet County had a small blurb about the town-hall meeting tomorrow evening hidden in the back of the Community News section of their newspaper, and I found a public notice article that one of their reporters wrote a few months ago. According to the article, as soon as the town’s charter expired back in March, Gwinnet County assumed guardianship of the town. Seems like thirty seconds later, they were in negotiations with Consolidated Investments to sell the town off. Who does that?” Without waiting for a response, she hopped down from the vanity and crossed the bathroom to open the shower door. “I’ve been thinking about it all day, Nate, and at first I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was about the situation that really bothered me. Then it came to me, and so I decided to come to you.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I smell a conspiracy and I know you do, too. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You’d be off in Africa or the Middle East somewhere. What I want to know is, why haven’t you done anything about it?”

  He emerged from underneath the water’s spray and pushed his fingers through his hair to slick it back from his face. “I’m working on it” was all he said.

  “Oh. I guess you want a towel, huh?”

  “That would be nice, yes.” Otherwise he’d be hard as a rock again in no time flat and thinking with that head instead of the one on his shoulders. She’s not your type, he reminded himself as his eyes watched her butt make its way over to the towel rack. She wasn’t, but her backside begged to differ. As big as his hands were, he thought he could fill his palms with her ass and still leave a little in reserve. Then wrap his hands around her waist and feel the tips of his fingers meet with room to spare. She was curvy and ripe, with impossibly long legs and muscular thighs, but she was a tiny little thing.

  No, she wasn’t his type, but that didn’t stop him from flirting with the thought of tossing her up onto the vanity, spreading her legs east and west, and losing himself inside her.

  What would she do if he did?

  She grabbed the first towel she saw, which was a hand towel that would barely cover his genitals, and tossed it at him. “Here. Soooo...okay, good. You’re working on it.” An ecstatic laugh bubbled out of her mouth, then she put a serious expression on her face and sobered up. “Here’s the thing, though. You’re going to need help and I want in,” she said.

  He looked at the towel and then at her. She looked so hopeful, so excited, that he almost felt sorry for her and caved in. But common sense prevailed at the last minute, enabling him to see past her sparkling brown eyes and pouty lips and come to the only conclusion that made sense. “Absolutely not,” he said with finality.

  * * *

  “Oh, come on, Nate!”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Naaate,” she whined and stamped her foot, and for some inexplicable reason his penis stirred.

  “No, and that’s my final answer.” He snatched his robe from a hook on the back of the bathroom door and yanked it on as he walked out of the bathroom.

  Tressie was right behind him, hurrying along after him as he stalked through the dark house like a prowling panther. “This could be a win-win situation and you know it.”

  “It could also be a train wreck,” he suggested calmly. He switched on the kitchen light and stopped short, eyeing the scene before him. He took in the open window, the bunched rug beneath it and the abandoned red-bottomed stilettos, then slanted Tressie a look over his shoulder that should’ve singed her skin. “This just proves my point,” he said, heading for the coffeemaker. “Every move you make is always a half step away from criminality. Every move I make, on the other hand, is what journalism is all about.”

  “I get the job done,” Tressie defended as she crossed the room and came to stand next to him at the counter. “There’s something to be said for that.”

  “Your methods are beyond questionable.”

  Anticipating him, she opened a nearby cabinet, spotted a stack of coffee filters and passed them to him. A tingle of awareness shot up her arm when his fingers brushed hers, but she ignored it in favor of making her case. She could think about how seeing him naked had scattered her system later, when she was alone. “I prefer to call them effective.”

  “Don’t you have to get back to New York soon?”

  “Nope.” The look of disappointment on his face was priceless, almost funny, but she wouldn’t let herself crack a smile. “I can stay here as long as you need me to.”

  His eyebrows shot up at that. “You mean you finally got fired from your job or, better yet, run out of New York.”

  “Not exactly,” Tressie hedged. “Let’s just say that I’m on hiatus for a little while.” His expression went from hopeful to dubious in two seconds flat, and she flushed guiltily before she could check herself. “Okay, so maybe I got suspended.” A wrinkle appeared in the center of his forehead. “All right, all right, suspended indefinitely. Look, the point is I need this story. I need the credibility that it’ll give me. I’ll finally be able to break away from the Inquisitor and go out on my own.”

  As if he hadn’t heard her, Nate went about the business of brewing coffee. It wasn’t looking good for her, Tressie thought nervously. Her first clue was when he took down one mug instead of two from the cabinet. Her second was when he picked up her shoes from the floor and handed them to her with a pointed look. She took them. What else could she do? But she had no intention of putting them on and climbing back out the window. Not until she got what she wanted, anyway.

  She leaned against the counter and folded her arms underneath her breasts. “You know, if you think about it, you owe me this, Nate.”

  Clearly surprised, he froze in the midst of dumping heaping spoonfuls of powdered creamer into his mug, his hazel eyes narrowing on her face suspiciously. “Come again?”

  “Five years ago, you asked me to do something for you and I did it.” She held up a hand for silence when he would’ve protested. “Any way you want to spin it, the bottom line is that I did it. Now I’m asking you to do something for me, and I think you owe it to me to do it.” She knew she’d made a dent in his armor when he let out a long, winding breath and scratched his fingers through his wet hair. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught her staring up at him, and he shook his head sadly.

  “It would never work.” He tried to sound resolute, but Tressie caught the hint of surrender in his voice that he couldn’t hide. “We’d be at each other’s throats every minute of the day. I can’t work like that. I don’t work like that. And, contrary to what you might believe, I definitely don’t need an assistant.”

  “Why would we be at each other’s throats?” The very idea was ridiculous. The only source of possible conflict between them that she could think of had to do with one thing and one thing only—sexual attraction. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something was brewing between them, but to her way of thinking, there was a very obvious and satisfactory solution to the problem—sex. If they did it right, and something told her that they would, it could very well end up being the perfect professional partnership. “Oh, you mean because we like what we see when we look at one another?” He looked as though he was about to say something and then thought better of it. Instead, he chuckled under his breath. “You didn’t think I noticed, did you? Well, I did, and you know what? It’s so not a big deal. I mean, once we do it nonstop for a couple of days, and get it out of our systems, it’ll be a nonissue.”

  He choked on a mouthful of cof
fee and she patted his back helpfully.

  “That’s why you’re thinking we’d be at each other’s throats, right? This...” She gestured wildly from him to her and then from her to him. “This curiosity between us or whatever it is? That should be easy enough to deal with. We’re both adults. We know what we have to do. Sleep together and get it over with. It’s a simple enough solution.”

  Breathing steadily now, he brought the steaming coffee mug to his mouth again and locked gazes with her over the rim. Took a cautious sip and swallowed slowly. “Like I said, you’re out of your mind.”

  “What, are you afraid of me?”

  He chuckled again. “I won’t even dignify that with an answer.”

  “Well, then, what is it? You can’t possibly still be holding a grudge against me for wanting to write a story about Pamela Mayes five years ago. Because if you are, you need to get over it and let me help you with this. You owe me, Nate.”

  Several seconds of silence passed and then a full minute. And then another minute and he still hadn’t said a word. When five minutes had passed and he had only looked away from her long enough to refresh his coffee and add more creamer, she gave in to the desperation she felt.

  “I did a story on Gary Price and I guess I went a little too far this time, so I got suspended.”

  “Indefinitely,” he reminded her. “And I’m guessing, without pay. That’s why you need to sell your house and land.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d be selling to the enemy. Consolidated Investments is in bed with Gwinnet County executives.”

  “I won’t have much of a choice if nothing else comes along.”

  “Well, there’s no pay associated with this story,” Nate advised. “I’m doing this strictly pro bono, which means you would be, too. Whatever money problems you’re having now, you’ll still have them when this ends...however it ends.”

  “I understand that.” Don’t get too excited, Tressie. Don’t. Get. Excited.

  “And there are a few other things you should know,” he began slowly. “First, we do this my way or you’re out. None of your circus sideshow Vanessa Valentino antics. You already know who and what I am. I don’t do compromising situations or sensationalism. You jeopardize my reputation in any way and I will bury you. Got it?”

  That was kind of harsh, she thought, but didn’t dare say. She was perfectly content to let him think that he was in charge. “Got it.” For now. “What about copy? Have you started writing any?”

  He shook his head and took another sip of coffee. “Not yet. You can help with that if you like. I have started a photo journal, though.”

  “Pictures? You have pictures?” Nate Woodberry’s Pulitzer prize–winning photos were legendary. Having her name associated with the images alone would be a coup for her career. This was getting better and better. “Can I see them?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “There’s just one other thing that we need to be clear on.” Setting his mug on the countertop, he moved closer to her and dipped his head so that they were face-to-face. “Are you listening?”

  “Y-yes.” She smelled the coffee on his breath and leaned in even closer, suddenly craving a secondhand jolt of caffeine. Her nipples tightened involuntarily, scraping against the inside of her sundress the way she hoped that his tongue one day would. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d suggested that they sleep together. She couldn’t speak for him, but unless they jumped each other and got it out of the way, there was no way that she’d be able to fully concentrate on work.

  For all his posturing, he wasn’t completely unaffected, either. His Adam’s apple bobbed not once but twice before he spoke and gave himself away. The idea that she could turn him on—that she was turning him on—caused the hair on the back of her neck to stand up in anticipation.

  “When I take you to bed,” he whispered into her open mouth, “sex between us will be anything but a nonissue. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good.” And then he kissed her.

  Chapter 4

  Already she was driving him crazy, Nate thought almost bitterly. They had been working together—and he was using the term working loosely—for a week now and he was just about at his wit’s end. What was she doing that irritated the hell out of him? Nothing really, now that he was thinking about it, but then again, everything.

  He was used to working alone, making his own schedule and following his own timetable, and having her underfoot all the time was seriously messing with his flow. He liked peace and quiet when he wasn’t on location, time to gather his thoughts and decide how best to approach a situation, and she was a nonstop ball of chattering energy. He was territorial where his darkroom was concerned, always had been, and she had somehow gotten into the habit of joining him there, touching everything and constantly hanging over his shoulder to see what he was doing, even though it was too dark to see a damn thing.

  A couple of times he had thought about canceling their tentative partnership and banning her from coming within a hundred yards of him ever again. But she always managed to turn one of her dazzlingly coy smiles on him at exactly the right moment and make him lose his train of thought, let alone his resolve.

  She was working her voodoo magic on the townspeople, too, which he guessed was a bonus. Just like every other recent town-hall meeting before it, last week’s had turned into a small-scale riot, with Gwinnet County officials ultimately scurrying out a side door in order to avoid having to answer questions that they had no answers for. After they were gone, Tressie had kicked into high gear just in time to break up a fight between two men who had been best friends for over thirty years, and then she had somehow managed to get the men talking at length—right into the palm-size tape recorder that she’d brought along with her. By the time Nate and Tressie had excused themselves from the melee, she had conducted a handful of personal, one-on-one interviews with people who had been on the verge of violence just minutes before.

  He had watched her work the room in impossibly high heels and a designer skirt suit that fit her like a second skin, and thought, Tressie Valentine? Seriously?

  Growing up, he had never paid much attention to her, mainly because she’d been two years behind him in school and there had been plenty of girls his own age to keep him busy. And then when he had tracked her down in New York five years ago, he’d been too irate to focus on anything other than accomplishing his mission or to notice the details. And, of course, the Brazilian supermodel that he’d been tangled up with at the time had factored into the equation, too. She definitely hadn’t done his attention span much good where anything and anyone else was concerned, either. What was her name? Monique? Jessica? Tangie? Damned if he could remember now, but the point was, Tressie hadn’t even registered on his radar back then.

  What he did remember about the supermodel was that she’d been sultry and seductive, and had eased into his consciousness slowly, engaging him degree by intriguing degree. And all the while he had been aware of her motives, quietly facilitating the means for her to get to him, and providing plenty of opportunities for the two of them to end up exactly where they’d been headed from the start—in bed. He had gone into their brief affair with his eyes wide-open and the rules clearly defined.

  Not at all like what was going on between him and Tressie now. Nothing about her was the least bit subtle or sultry. Instead, everything about her was right there, in his face like an oncoming runaway train that he couldn’t get away from. No mystery. No intrigue. No nothing. Just her, right there.

  And suddenly he couldn’t look away from her.

  The kiss they’d shared hadn’t been deep enough, long enough, wet enough to satisfy his curiosity. Not even close. He didn’t know why he’d thought it would be. All it had done was make him thirsty for more of her and piss him off beyond belief. What kind of woman looked a man in the ey
es and calmly suggested that they hop into bed together just to relieve the tension between them? A nutty, unstable, frighteningly bold one, he told himself and shook his head.

  As if sensing the direction of his thoughts, she sighed softly and drew his eyes to her just in time to see her undo yet another button down the front of her sundress and pull her hair up off the back of her neck. The electric fan that she was sitting in front of was struggling under the heavy Georgia heat, and she was slowly wilting.

  “It’s like falling down a rabbit hole, isn’t it?” he asked, pushing his chair back from the dining room table and stretching out his legs. They had been working at Tressie’s place for the past three days, and the combination of the heat and the constant glow of his laptop’s screen were starting to wear on his nerves. “Coming back to this place, I mean.”

  “A rabbit hole? Please.” Tressie laughed, a light and cheerful sound that made him want to laugh, too. “Coming back here is like being in a time travel machine that’s missing a few screws. I can’t believe how old-fashioned it still is here. I mean, Atlanta is, what, an hour away? How can this place still be so behind the times? Who doesn’t have central air-conditioning, for God’s sake?”

  “Miss Juanita was old-school.” A picture of the woman in question formed in his mind and he smiled at it. She’d been his teacher in elementary school and then again in junior high, and he didn’t recall ever seeing her smile in all that time. He did, however, recall being dragged by the scruff of his neck into her cloakroom for a paddling with embarrassing regularity. It made sense that she would maintain a home that was hotter than a sweatshop.