Beneath Southern Skies

by Terra Little

  “I see you’re familiar with it.”

  “Yes, of course I’m familiar with it,” she sputtered as she slowly climbed the steps to the rear veranda.

  “Good,” he chirped cheerfully, helping Moira climb the steps, “because, in my humble opinion, it’s really nothing more than a gossip rag. The only difference is, instead of following people and gossiping about them, you’d be following fashion and gossiping about it.”

  “Oooh, that sounds like fun, doesn’t it, Tressie?” Moira gushed as she eased down into a lounge chair. When she was settled, she handed off her cane to Miles and removed her floppy hat. Dropping it into her lap and shaking out her silver hair, she looked up at Tressie and smiled serenely. “You’d be able to travel all around the world while you’re still young enough to enjoy it and do what you love without having to hide yourself from the whole world.”

  “Not quite the whole world,” Tressie put in, sending Miles a pointed look. “Mr. Dixon here knew who I was without having to be told.”

  “It’s my job to know who the major players in the industry are,” Miles said easily. He pulled a chair away from the patio table with a flourish and motioned for Tressie to sit. No sooner had her butt hit the chair than he was leaning over her shoulder and whispering in her ear. “It’s also my job,” he said in a stage whisper, “to know when the time for change has come. Are you interested or not, Tressie?”

  “Um...” Was she really ready to give up her plans for Vanessa Valentino? She wasn’t completely sure. It was definitely something she’d have to take some time and think about. Vanessa Valentino had been her alter ego for over a decade now. Giving her up would be like parting ways with a dear friend. She needed to examine her thoughts and she how she felt about that. “Can I let you know?”

  “Sure,” Miles said, dropping into a chair at the table, stretching out his long legs and crossing his ankles. “Just don’t take too long getting back to me. I’m only in town for the few days that it’ll take me to help Moira get her plans for the annual fair off the ground, and then I’m returning to New York. When I get there, I’ll be looking to fill that position immediately. Of course I’d like to have you on board, but if not...”

  “Oh, Miles, stop badgering the girl,” Moira butted in, swatting the air dismissively in Miles’s direction. “She said she’ll let you know and she will. So now that that’s settled, let’s move on to more important matters, shall we?” She beamed at Tressie. “Miles spoke to my attorney this morning, and you’ll be happy to know that the initiative to have my estate designated as a historical landmark is moving right along. We should be hearing something any day now.”

  “Th-that’s great, Moira!” It was an effort to sound appropriately excited, what with the possibility of an assignment with the Manhattan Style Report looming over her head and Miles literally breathing down her neck to either accept or deny it, but Tressie thought she did a decent job of pulling it off anyway. A historical landmark designation was exactly what the town needed, exactly what had to happen in order to save Mercy’s way of life. If it happened, then she could go back to New York with a clean conscience, start a new life and never look back. “What about the situation with the town charter? What’s going to happen with that?”

  Moira’s eyes sparkled. “First things first, my dear. We still have the fair to put on. After that, we’ll see where we stand with the town charter situation. Something tells me, though, that everything is going to work out just fine. Now,” she said, leaning forward and bracing her hands on her knees, “what date should we pick for the fair?”

  The longer Tressie sat there, the more apparent it was that Moira wasn’t going to settle for anything less than Tressie’s complete involvement in pulling off what she was already proclaiming as the greatest town fair in Mercy’s history. Tressie was surprised to learn that Moira had been practically consumed with the planning end of things, even though the dig was still under way on her property, and catering to the university’s mounting publicity campaign had to be just as time-consuming. Between doing interviews for both the university’s newspaper and the various media outlets that had begun to steadily trickle into town, conferencing with her attorney and navigating all the red tape that went along with historical landmark designation, Tressie didn’t know where the woman found the time or the energy to worry about coordinating the town fair.

  “What else do I have to do?” Moira asked when Tressie expressed her concern that Moira might be taking on too much. “Besides, I spoke to Pamela this morning, and she and Nathaniel are handling some of the arrangements on their end. Her tour is wrapping up in Long Beach tomorrow night, and then she and Nate will come home to help with things here. So don’t worry, dear, we’ll have plenty of help.”

  She was so excited, prattling on and on about the fair and how it would rejuvenate the townspeople, that she didn’t notice the frozen smile on Tressie’s face. Tressie had put it there a couple of minutes ago, as a sort of prelude to the little speech that she had prepared in her head, hoping that it would soften the blow when she told Moira that she planned to head back to New York long before the fair would take place. But now it served a totally different

  purpose—it kept her face from cracking into a million pieces and falling to the porch floor.

  Nate was with Pam?

  Suddenly everything made sense. It hadn’t taken him a week to do the interviews that he’d scheduled. She had watched the interviews herself, had seen each one of them on television, and wondered after they were done when he would make his way back to Mercy and to her. She could’ve called him, she supposed, but she had wanted to see if he was thinking about her as much as she was thinking about him. So she’d waited for her phone to ring. And in a week’s time, it hadn’t.

  Now she knew why.

  As soon as he was done with his interviews, he had gone running off to be with Pamela Mayes. Tressie doubted that she’d even been a passing thought in his mind, not with the likes of Pamela Mayes to contend with.

  Who was she kidding? This thing that she had going with Nate was and had always been just that—a thing. Never had that fact been more apparent to her than right now. If she hadn’t known it before, she definitely knew it now, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to throw something and scream at the top of her lungs. If she did either, though, Moira and Miles would think she was crazy, and under the circumstances, that was the last thing she wanted or needed.

  Keep it together, Tressie, she told herself when she felt her plastic smile slipping sideways. Keep it together for just a little while longer.

  It was definitely easier said than done, Tressie thought after two more hours had passed and a smile was still frozen on her face. The muscles around her mouth were screaming for relief, but if she didn’t keep smiling, she knew she would probably break down and start crying like a baby. A couple of times, she caught Miles eyeing her curiously, as if he thought she might have a few screws loose, but she couldn’t seem to relax long enough to calm her face and put on an air of normalcy.

  By the time she’d managed to bid Moira and Miles goodbye and make her way back to her hotel room, she was mentally exhausted but so out of sorts that sleep was out of the question. She hadn’t absorbed much of anything Moira had said after hearing that Nate and Pam were together in California, and now it was all she could think about.

  She took a shower and slipped into a nightgown on autopilot, thoughts of where Nate was, who he was with and what they were possibly doing swimming around in her head. When one too many images of Nate and Pam, naked and sweaty and wrapped around each other, flashed before her eyes, she squeezed them shut and burrowed underneath the covers to block them out.

  She didn’t realize that she had dozed off until her cell phone rang in the silence of the room and jolted her awake. She groped for it blindly, almost knocking over a lamp on the bedside table.

  “
Hello?”

  “Tressie.”

  One word was all he had to say and her body was on full alert. Instantly wide-awake, she pushed back the covers and sat up on the side of the bed. “Nate?” She pushed her hair back from her face and cleared her throat. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in California, sugar. Well, actually, we should be flying over California right about now.”

  We, he’d said. We. And then she heard herself saying, “We?” despite every cell in her body screaming for her not to. But she wanted to know, didn’t she? More than that, she had to know. “You’re with her, aren’t you? That’s where you’ve been all this time, isn’t it? With her.” She sounded accusatory, like a jealous shrew even to her own ears, but she couldn’t help it.

  “Tressie—”

  “No, don’t bother to explain, Nate. I understand perfectly.”

  The line was deathly quiet for several seconds, during which time Tressie wondered if he had hung up on her. A staticky announcement over the plane’s intercom was the only indication she had that he was still there.

  “Nate? Are you still there?”

  “Yes, Tressie, I’m still here. Listen—”

  Just then, a woman’s sultry-sounding laughter wafted over the phone line and reached Tressie’s ears. “Penny for your thoughts,” the woman said, and Tressie gasped. Pamela Mayes sounded exactly the same, whether she was belting out a soulful ballad or making polite conversation.

  “I have to go,” Tressie blurted out.

  “Tressie—”

  “Goodbye, Nate.”

  “We’ll talk when I get there, okay?” he said just as she took the phone from her ear and ended the call.

  What was there to talk about? she wondered absently. If he was planning to let her down easy when he returned to Mercy and then parade around with Pamela Mayes right under her nose, then he could forget it. She couldn’t stomach the thought of having to see him with another woman. She wouldn’t stand it.

  Miles, she remembered suddenly, had said that it was his job to know when the time for change had come. At the time, Tressie had only been thinking in terms of career paths, but now she was thinking about the broader picture. An affair with Nate Woodberry had been a bad idea to begin with. Miles had no way of knowing about her and Nate—at least, she didn’t think he had any way of knowing—but his words were just now hitting home anyway. It was time for a change. She should’ve known it—should’ve seen it long before now.

  Long before she found herself thinking about Nate at odd moments during the day and well into the night. And certainly long before she allowed herself to start imagining that there was something more than hot sex brewing between them.

  But, as usual, she had jumped into a situation with both feet, without bothering to think about the consequences of her actions. For years, it was the way she’d worked, the way she’d operated. When she was hiding behind the facade that was Vanessa Valentino, reckless behavior was the fastest and most reliable route to getting the story she wanted. It was what had earned her a reputation in the industry and what had put her on top of her game. At this stage in her life, jumping in with both feet was pure instinct, and that instinct had never led her astray.

  Until now.

  Not once, but twice, Tressie thought bitterly, her propensity to leap before looking had come back to bite her in the butt. The backlash from her exposé on Gary Price and her subsequent and thinly veiled dismissal from the the Inquisitor because of it should’ve been her first clue. But nooo, apparently she hadn’t learned her lesson, because, as soon as that part of her life had come crashing down around her, there was Nathaniel Woodberry. Recklessness in the flesh and beautifully masculine with it. Suddenly, ending a long period of celibacy had seemed like the best idea that she’d ever had, and in hindsight, it might actually have been so, if she’d just been able to keep her feelings out of the mix.

  It had taken Moira’s carelessly uttered words to show her that not only had she lost perspective since she’d come back to Mercy, but she’d also lost something much more important—her heart.

  Chapter 9

  Tressie lay in bed thinking until the sun rose the next morning. According to Moira, Nate wasn’t due to

  return to Mercy until sometime tomorrow at the earliest. By then, if the Fates were with her, she’d be back in New York.

  She’d whiled away the early-morning hours, thinking, plotting and planning, and now that the sun was shining and a new day had begun, she was thinking more clearly than she had since she’d arrived in town. As if she were channeling Vanessa Valentino, she climbed out of bed and crossed the room to an ancient rolltop desk. Returning to the bed, she sat down with a pen and a notepad, and scribbled down an impromptu to-do list for herself.

  The house was empty, ready to go on the market as soon as the town’s future was secured. She could afford to let it sit for the next little while, so she drew a line through that entry and moved on.

  The project that she and Nate had collaborated on was done and was steadily making its way around the media circuit. Judging from the online feedback that the feature was receiving and the fact that the piece had almost instantly gone viral, she felt safe, if not a little nostalgic, drawing a line through that entry, as well.

  Moira seemed to have the plans for the annual town fair under control, and the archaeological dig would probably be wrapping up soon. Thanks to

  Nate’s influence, the university had pulled out all the stops where publicizing the find was concerned, and it, too, was beginning to garner national attention.

  After drawing a line through that item, Tressie thought about the next item on the list, which was the town charter crisis. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure if calling the situation a crisis was appropriate anymore. True enough, they hadn’t received word on what the State of Georgia planned to do with the town. But it was a good sign that no in-town construction had begun and no representative from Consolidated Investments had been spotted around town, at least not since the Underground Railroad stop had been discovered.

  Tressie liked to think that the powers that be were starting to see the light. She couldn’t really pinpoint the whys and the hows, but she sensed that the situation would work itself out soon enough. Mercy was a strong small town, and Tressie couldn’t see it just being wiped off the map. Its roots went deep and it would persevere whether she was here or not.

  The line that she drew through that item was fainter than the others, but still visible. She would miss visiting with Moira.

  Next on the list was one word. Nate.

  In all the thinking that she’d done, she had skirted around one important issue. But in the light of day, it was easier to face it head-on than continue to avoid it. Leaving town before Nate returned with the only woman, besides his mother, that he had ever loved on his arm was essential. Hearing that he was with another woman had been hard enough. Seeing it with her own eyes would crush her. She’d always considered herself a pretty decent actress, and God knew that she’d had to act her way out of more than a few situations over the years, but this wasn’t one that she was courageous enough to face.

  It was bad enough that she had gone and fallen half in love with the least likely candidate to share her feelings. She’d be damned if she would let him know it. Nor would she ever again lose focus on what was really important.

  Bidding Vanessa Valentino, her faithful alter ego for the past decade, a fond goodbye—at least for now—Tressie fished the business card that Miles had given her the day before out of her purse and picked up her cell phone from the nightstand. Miles was absolutely right, she thought again as she dialed the number on the card and listened to the phone ring on the other end. It was time for a change. She sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly, hoping that she was about to make a change for the better, because another bad decision was the last th
ing she needed.

  “Dixon,” Miles barked into the phone, breaking into her thoughts.

  “Mr. Dixon, this is Tressie Valentine,” she said before she could give in to the jittery nerves in her belly and change her mind. “I’m calling to accept your offer, with one small change in plans.”

  Miles chuckled smoothly, as if he had known that he would be hearing from Tressie again soon. “And that would be...?”

  “I have a few loose ends that I need to tie up, so I’m going back to New York tonight. Can we pick things up there?”

  * * *

  “Penny for your thoughts.”

  Pam dropped into the seat next to him just as Tressie said, “I have to go.” He heard the distress in Tressie’s voice, but what could he do about it right now? Even if he was in a position to get into a heavy conversation with her, which he wasn’t, Pam wasn’t the type of woman to stand for being ignored for the time it would take to make his point. Whatever his point was. “Tressie—”

  “Goodbye, Nate.”

  “We’ll talk when I get there, okay?” She hung up, and he sighed long and hard. He let his eyes slide closed for a moment and then opened them back up on Pam’s smiling face.

  After spending nearly a week in her company, he was actually looking forward to the quiet of Mercy’s days and nights. Before he’d left, he’d been feeling a little stifled, as if his creative juices were in danger of drying up if he didn’t do something different quickly. Of course, being with Tressie had kept the feeling at bay for the most part, but still. There it was. But now that he had subjected himself to a grueling, nonstop concert schedule and more than a few all-night jam sessions, he could honestly say that his creative juices had nothing to do with the price of tea in China.