Beneath Southern Skies

by Terra Little

  She sank down onto the toilet seat and put her head in her hands, thinking. What they needed to do was make a big splash somehow. But that was easier said than done in a place like Mercy, Georgia. The biggest claim to fame that the place had going for it was the fact that Pamela Mayes had once lived in the town’s struggling little children’s home....

  And Pamela Mayes was the last person she could expect to help her in any way. But maybe, just maybe, Pam would help Nate.

  Tressie was still working out how she was going to pull off whatever it was that she was going to pull off when she crept back into the bedroom and climbed back into bed.

  Chapter 6

  Nate called his publicist first and instructed her to make contact with the Anthropology Department at the University of Atlanta. While he waited for Julia to call him back, he put in some calls to a few journalist friends of his that owed him favors. Even without their newest discovery to factor in, it was time to start creating a buzz about the situation in Mercy, Georgia. If Julia lived up to her reputation, and she always did, people in high places would be talking about what was going on in Mercy long before the story hit the news circuit, but it wouldn’t hurt for him to do an interview or two in the meantime.

  Julia called him back an hour later with good news. The university was sending out an anthropological crew to survey the site first thing in the morning. They would be prepared to begin excavation as early as tomorrow afternoon if the site was found to be authentic. Sure that it would be, he disconnected the call and dialed Moira Tobias’s number next. He figured the least he could do was alert her beforehand that her property was about to be the object of national attention.

  Smiling at what he knew would be Moira’s reaction, he packed up his camera equipment while he listened to her phone ring and waited for her to pick up. He looked up when the shower in his bathroom shut off and a dripping-wet, gloriously naked Tressie stepped out onto a bath mat. Tracking every move she made like a hunter on the prowl, he almost forgot that he was on the phone until Moira’s genteel Southern voice snapped him out of his brief trancelike state.

  “Hello?”

  He had to swallow before speaking to wet his dry throat. “Moira, this is Nate Woodberry,” he said into the phone. “How are you?”

  Whatever Moira’s response was, it was lost in translation. She could’ve been speaking in French, for all Nate heard and understood. He must’ve been speaking in French, too, because he heard himself responding to her, carrying on a conversation, but really had no idea what they were actually talking about. Something about a late-afternoon visit. She would have her cook prepare lunch for them and they could eat out on the back sun porch. Like old times, she said, and sounded excited.

  He murmured something about looking forward to seeing her and stifled an impatient sigh when she launched into a long-winded recollection of the last time he had visited with her, which had been shortly after his mother’s funeral. Finally, she remembered that she had been out in the south garden when the phone had rung and needed to get back to her prize-winning roses before the heat overwhelmed them. Ending the call with a hurried pleasantry, he dropped his cell and camera case on the bed, then strolled into the bathroom with one thing and one thing only on his mind.

  “Here, sugar, let me help you with that,” he said, taking the towel that Tressie was using to dry herself off and picking up where she left off.

  Seeing the hooded look in his eyes, she blushed and grinned knowingly. “Don’t get any ideas,” she warned as he crouched down in front of her and smoothed the towel down the length of one toned leg. “I still have to go home and change, and if I heard correctly, you have a date with Moira Tobias.”

  “This won’t take long,” he promised, and pointed his tongue in the direction of the lovely, clean-shaven treasure between her thighs.

  * * *

  Moira Tobias was still out on the south lawn, piddling in her rose garden, when he arrived for their lunch date hours later. He spotted her in the distance as he drove up to the main house and decided to bypass ringing the bell and go directly to her. He parked his Navigator along the circular driveway and used the massive wraparound porch to segue to the rolling lawn behind it.

  She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat as a defense against the sun’s bright rays, so she didn’t see him approaching until he was within a few feet of where she was kneeling in the dirt and his shadow fell across her. She looked up and broke into a wide smile.

  “Nathaniel, how nice to see you!” She took the hand he extended and got to her feet slowly, brushing dirt from the knees of her gardening slacks daintily. “I’m so glad you called. Last I spoke to Pamela, she mentioned that you were on assignment someplace in Africa. I worried for you, being so far away, doing God knows what.” She lifted her cheek for the kiss he dropped there and purred with maternal satisfaction. “It’s a relief to know that I can stop worrying, at least for a little while, anyway. Where will you go off to next?”

  “I haven’t decided,” Nate replied, smiling down at the tiny woman. She had always been petite, but in her old age she seemed to get even smaller and more delicate every time he saw her. The perpetual sparkle in her bright green eyes was still there, though, despite the fact that her flaming-red hair had long since gone completely white and age spots covered the backs of her graceful hands. “I plan to hang around town for the next little while—see how things here go before I leave again.” When she was ready, he wrapped an arm around her waist and walked with her across the lawn toward the house.

  “Ah, things here,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s quite a mess, isn’t it? All this town charter business and people quarreling nonstop. It’s never been like this before. I’ve lived in this house all my life. I was born here and before that my ancestors were born here, and now the state tells me that I may lose it. It worries me constantly.”

  “You and everyone else in town. A lot of people will lose the only home they’ve ever known if the state doesn’t do right by them.”

  “Where will we go?”

  “Hopefully, it won’t come to that,” Nate said as they approached the back porch.

  “We need a miracle.”

  On cue, a maid stepped out onto the porch to greet them. “Miss Moira, lunch is ready to be served whenever you’re ready.” The elderly black woman’s eyes landed on Nate and an easy smile curved her lips. “Well, if it isn’t the great Nathaniel Woodberry. Didn’t I read an article of yours just last month in Time magazine?”

  “National Geographic,” Nate said, chuckling. “It’s good to see you, Janice.”

  “You, too. Are you staying for lunch?”

  “Of course he is,” Moira cut in, waving an impatient hand. She climbed the steps slowly, with Nate’s hand at her back and Janice’s hand at her elbow. “You don’t think I’m going to eat that entire Black Forest cake that you baked all by myself, do you?”

  “It’s been known to happen,” Janice murmured, and winked at Nate. “Come along, Miss Moira. I’ll help you freshen up. Nate, you make yourself comfortable, and I’ll bring you a nice glass of iced tea in just a second.”

  “Make it a cold beer and you’ve got a deal.”

  After the women had disappeared inside the house, Nate sank into a cushioned chair at the patio table on the far end of the porch. From where he was sitting, only the path leading down to the creek was visible. From the second or third floor, though, the creek was probably easy to spot. He wondered which one of Moira’s house staff had almost caught him and Tressie the other night. It would be interesting to learn the fate of her favorite pink-lace panties.

  Janice sailed out onto the porch, carrying a tray of drinks. She set the tray down on the table, handed him an ice-cold beer and stood back with her hands on her hips, considering him. “So what’s this I hear about you keeping time with Juanita Valentine’s granddaughter?�
� she blurted out without a hint of finesse.

  “Well, now, sugar, there’s keeping time and then there’s keeping time,” Nate said carefully before tipping the frosty bottle up to his mouth and taking a sip. “Sort of like the way you keep time with Jessie Hawkins on Friday nights, when everybody knows you also keep time with Kenny Fisher Monday through Thursday. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Caught, Janice stared at Nate for several seconds through narrowed eyes. Then she noticed the teasing gleam in his eyes and burst out laughing. “I guess that’s a nice way of telling me to mind my own business,” she said, waving a hand at him. Still laughing, she poured a glass of iced tea for Moira and set it on the table near the empty chair across from him. “I guess I better, too. Let me go and see what’s taking Miss Moira so long. Lunch will be cold by the time she gets ready to eat.”

  Moira stepped out onto the porch just then. She had changed into fresh summer slacks and a matching top, and had secured her hair at the nape of her neck with a jeweled barrette. “Ah, Janice, here you are. I was wondering if one of the many ghosts that are always haunting the main house was in charge of watching the pots you left boiling on the stove. None of them spoke up when I passed through the kitchen, so I think you’d better go in and see what’s going on.”

  Janice rolled her eyes on her way back inside, leaving Moira and Nate chuckling quietly in her wake. After the door closed behind her, Moira turned to Nate and unleashed a dazzling and uncomfortably familiar smile on him. “So...tell me. What’s this I hear about you keeping time with Tressie Valentine?”

  He was still tap-dancing around the question when Janice served lunch fifteen minutes later. Moira seemed to be enjoying his inability to provide a clear answer and didn’t let him off the hook until she had spread a linen napkin over her lap and picked up her fork. “You haven’t changed a bit, Nathaniel. You’re still as cagey and evasive as you were as a boy. I think that’s what Pamela always loved most about you. You wouldn’t be her conscience—” His eyebrows shot up in surprise and she giggled demurely. “How could you be when you were always her partner in crime? But you were the keeper of her secrets. She trusted you then just as much as she trusts you now. I always envied your relationship.”

  “The two of you have a special bond,” he reminded her, and cut into his own steak. Here was a minefield of past hurts, recriminations and complex emotions. And he no more wanted to get into it with her than the look on her face said that she did. Five years was a long time, but sometimes it wasn’t long enough. “Have you spoken with Pam lately?”

  “Just yesterday.” Moira was clearly relieved at the change in direction. “She called to check on me, but of course I ended up asking all the questions and doing most of the talking. She’s in, I believe she said, San Francisco, on tour. Oh, and Nikki emails me all the time. I can’t believe she’s already graduated from college and is ready to strike out on her own.” Nikki was Pam’s daughter. “Next, I’ll be receiving a wedding invitation, and then I’ll know that I’ve truly gotten old. Chad Junior is, what, four now?”

  “Almost five.”

  “Such a beautiful boy,” Moira mused wistfully. As if the thought had just occurred to her, she straightened in her chair and narrowed her eyes on Nate’s face. “Why didn’t you ever marry and have children, Nate?”

  “No time, I guess.” He shrugged nonchalantly, as if he had never asked himself the very same question. “At this point, Pam’s kids are probably the closest I’ll ever get to having my own and I’m fine with that.” It was on the tip of his tongue to turn the question around on her, but he caught himself before he could put his foot in his mouth. “They’re enough.”

  “If you say so.”

  For the next few minutes, they ate in silence. Then Janice stuck her head out the door.

  “Are you ready for dessert, Miss Moira? Nate?”

  Moira deferred to Nate. “Should we have some dessert?”

  “If you say so,” he came back, and made her laugh.

  While Janice cleared their lunch dishes and set out heaping slices of Black Forest cake, Nate’s eyes scanned the massive lawn, barely registering the stables and the artfully landscaped gardens. He zeroed in on the path leading to the creek and decided that it was time to bring up the reason for his visit. He waited until Janice had returned to the house before speaking.

  “Which one of your staff found a pair of ladies’ panties down by the creek the other night, Moira?”

  Her green eyes lit up with humor. “Um...Harriet, I believe. You wouldn’t happen to know who they belong to, would you?” She looked as though she wanted to say more but didn’t.

  “Of course not,” he lied smoothly. “But I will admit to being on your property that night, down at the creek. I found something very interesting down there, Moira, and I’m wondering if you even know it’s there.”

  “Oh, you mean the Underground Railroad stop? Certainly, I’m aware that it’s there, Nate. My grandparents were abolitionists and so were my great-grandparents.” She set her fork down slowly and wiped her mouth, staring at him. “It’s been years since I’ve been out there to see it for myself, but I do find myself going down to the wine cellar quite often in my old age.”

  “The wine cellar?”

  “Yes. There used to be an underground tunnel, leading from the wine cellar to the tunnel and vice versa. When runaway slaves were brought here, they were hidden in the underground space you found out there. From there, they were led into the house through the tunnel and hidden in a small room behind the cellar. The tunnel was closed off during the Civil War, I believe.” Pushing back from the table and getting to her feet, Moira held out a hand to him. “Would you like to see the wine cellar, Nate?”

  He was out of his seat before she finished posing the question. “I would love to.”

  In the dark, dusty wine cellar, as he stood at the doorway of the secret room in the rear of the cellar and breathed in the aura of the small space, he told Moira about his plans for the Underground Railroad stops on her property and for the town. He wasn’t completely surprised when she agreed to have an archaeological team invade her private space, but he breathed a heavy sigh of relief just the same.

  “Moira, you’re a gem,” he told her, kissing her hand gently. She blushed prettily and, again, there was the smile that he knew all too well on her lips. “How can I ever repay you?”

  “You’ll feature me in the story you write, of course.” She smoothed a hand down the front of her blouse and then fluffed her hair. “And you’ll get a few pictures of me, too, won’t you? You did bring your camera with you, didn’t you?”

  * * *

  Tressie was in awe.

  She had seen Nate’s work plenty of times, in magazines and newspapers, and once on display at a showing at an art gallery in SoHo. But there was nothing like being about to touch the prints he created, to handle them delicately just minutes after they had been deemed dry enough and ready for human consumption. And consume them she did.

  One after another, she held up the prints, turned them this way and that way, peering at them from all different angles, up close and then at arm’s length, seeing something different each time she looked at the same print.

  “These are gorgeous,” she whispered. He had taken numerous shots of both the underground hiding space and the secret room behind Moira’s wine cellar, and something about them demanded quiet reverence. The solemn mood of the black-and-white shots sent chills up and down her spine. The vibrancy of the color shots made her heart rate spike excitedly. She couldn’t stop staring at them. “Oh, my God, Nate. Look what you did. These are...so powerful that they’re heartbreaking.” Hands trembling slightly, she set the stack of photos down on the countertop in his darkroom and turned to face him. “Which ones are we using in the story?”

  “I can’t decide,” he said, uncrossing his ankles and coming
away from the cabinet, which he had been leaning back against, and across the room. He crossed the room with lazy strides, reminding her that he had been awake through the night working in his darkroom while she had been at home sleeping. Well, trying to sleep, anyway. Thoughts of Nate had haunted her all night. She smelled the faint aroma of chemicals on his skin when he walked up to her at the counter and closed her eyes to breathe it in. The euphoric high she experienced in the aftermath had nothing to do with the chemicals, though. It was all him. He breathed in the scent of her hair and exhaled slowly, like a predator savoring the anticipation of enjoying his prey. “I thought you might want to choose.”

  His lips skimmed her earlobe, and she swallowed. “Th-there are so many.” How was she supposed to think straight when he was so close? And so naked, she thought as her eyes lowered and took in his smooth, sculpted chest. Other than a pair of low-slung, wash-worn denim cutoffs, he was sinfully bare from head to toe and beautiful everywhere her eyes landed. His nipples were as hard as hers were, but did they ache to be kissed and sucked the way hers did? “I...um...really like the black-and-white ones, but the c-color shots might look better in print. There won’t be room f-for all of them, though.”

  “Four or five, at the most.”

  She went completely still as his tongue danced up one side of her neck and then dipped inside her ear. “Unless we expanded the article, m-maybe added another page or t-two.”

  He nipped at the skin on her neck, captured it between his teeth, and shook his head. “Too long,” he said, his mouth on her ear. “Besides that, we’ve already sent Julia the text. It’s too late to make changes to it before it hits the circuit. We have a week, at the most, before it goes viral.”

  She barely had time to enjoy the sensations shooting down her spine that his mouth on her ear caused before he dipped his head and went back to her neck, tongue dancing. “Oh.” Her head lolled to one side to give him more access and her mouth fell open in delight. “W-well, we could do a piece on the d-dig.”