That Jones Girl (The Mississippi McGills, Sequel)

by Webb, Peggy

“I have every right. I love you.”

  “You told me that ten years ago. I’m too smart to believe it anymore.”

  He got up from the chaise longue and moved toward her, as relentless as Hannibal crossing the Alps. When he reached her, he caught her shoulders and bent her backward, forcing her to look up into his fierce face.

  “I’ll make you believe, Tess.”

  She wet her lips with her tongue. “No,” she whispered.

  “Don’t be afraid, my love.” Tenderly he traced her face with one finger. “I won’t hurt you this time. As the saints are my witnesses, I will never leave you again.”

  She closed her eyes, needing to believe, wanting to believe. His fingers played softly over her face, and he began to croon to her—”The Irish Lullaby.”

  “Stop,” she whispered. “Oh, please... stop.”

  “You love me, Tess. I can see it in your face.”

  “No.”

  “You do.” His thumbs caressed the outline of her lips, then dipped inside and traced the moist inner lining.

  Tess felt her will growing weaker. He was too close. His body heat was seducing her; his touch was distracting her. Oh God, she wanted him so. She wanted to believe every lying word he spoke.

  But she could not. Must not. Bucking up her courage, she bit down on his finger.

  He winced and withdrew his finger. Then he began to chuckle. “Do you think to be rid of me by inflicting pain?”

  “I hope it hurt like hell.” She spun back around and faced the mirror. He was reflected there, as bold as the devil and twice as dangerous.

  “It did.” He moved closer, putting his hands on her shoulders and leaning over so his face was next to hers, grinning back at her from the mirror. “You can leave teeth marks all over me, and I won’t go away.” His chuckle was wicked. “As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of a few good places I’d like you to sink your teeth.”

  She could too. And that was going to be a major problem. Especially if he decided to stick around. Oh Lord, how could she endure him this time, aching for him and knowing he’d leave again.

  “You haven’t even asked about Casey,” she said suddenly.

  Flannigan stepped back, pulled a cigar from his pocket, struck a match on his boot, and leaned against the edge of her dressing table, watching her through a haze of smoke.

  “How is he?” he finally asked.

  “Happy. Always cheerful, always optimistic.”

  “Is he good to you?”

  “We’re good to each other... and for each other. In many ways he’s like the father I didn’t have growing up. We’ve adopted each other.” She sought his eyes through the smoke. “He always comes to my first show and sits in his special reserved seat; then he takes a cab home—back to my apartment.”

  She studied his face while she talked. He was intense, almost brooding, his eyes searching hers. She had to turn away from the contact. Looking back into the mirror, she began to apply a dusting of powder.

  “Aunt Bertha has made her permanent home in Tupelo now, and who can blame her with Margaret Leigh and Andrew going to have their first baby soon and make her a grandmother?” She tossed the fluffy powder puff onto the dressing table. “As for me, I have Casey and OToole. We’re a family—just the three of us.”

  “Are you telling me there’s no room for one more?”

  “Someday perhaps there will be room for one more. I don’t like to be too long without a man.” She stood up, watching to see how he had taken her last dig. She could see his black temper roiling just beneath the surface. Putting her hand on her hips, she turned and smiled at him. “But it won’t be you, Flannigan.”

  His arm shot out and circled her waist. He dragged her roughly to him and positioned her between his widespread legs. It was like being sucked into the middle of a blazing furnace. She tipped her head back and glared defiantly into his eyes.

  “These intimidation tactics aren’t going to work, Flannigan.”

  “Every time you say my name that way, I know you want to make love, Tess.”

  He was right, but she’d be damned if she’d let him know it.

  “Your ego is as big as your...”

  “As big as my what, Tess. Go ahead. Say it.” He was laughing.

  “As big as your puffed-up head. Now, leave, Flannigan, before I get really mad.”

  His eyes darkened, and he bent her backward. With his lips on her throat he murmured, “I don’t take orders, Tess.”

  He kissed her throat until she shivered. Then, ever so gently, he brought her back upright and cradled her head against his shoulder. His hands sifted through her bright hair, and he watched it catch the light as it drifted through his fingers.

  “One of the things I missed most about you through the years was your hair. The way it looks, the way it smells.”

  Leaning down, he pressed his face into her hair and inhaled. “I don’t intend to be far away from the fragrance of your hair, Tess.”

  He leaned back from her, cupping her face so he could gaze directly into her eyes.

  “I’m through chasing rainbows, Tess. Believe me.”

  “How can I?”

  “What does your heart tell you to do?”

  “I try not to listen to my heart anymore. It has gotten me into trouble three times already. I can’t afford a fourth mistake.”

  “It won’t be a mistake. I promise you.”

  “You made promises ten years ago.”

  “I’m older now. I know what I want.”

  She was tempted. Flannigan had never looked or sounded more sincere. She was almost persuaded to believe him. She was almost convinced that they could put the past behind them and start all over again. Passion and fear rose in her, equally strong, and struggled a mighty battle. Fear won.

  She stepped out of his arms. Holding on to the vanity chair for support, she faced him.

  “Leave, Flannigan. And don’t ever come back.”

  “I’ll leave, Tess. But I’ll be back. I promise you.”

  His exit was as bold as his entrance. Spangles and feather boas swayed with the breeze he created as he swept through the room. Even sifter the door had closed behind him, she could still hear the loud cannon-shot echoes of his boots as he marched down the hall.

  “Damn him.” She picked up her powder puff and threw it at the mirror. “Damn him, damn him, damn him.” With one hand she raked all her cosmetics onto the floor. They landed in a crashing heap.

  She sank to her knees among the gloss pots and lipsticks and eyeliners. She knew just how Atlanta had felt after Sherman marched through.

  Her eyes strayed to the velvet chaise longue, and she burned to think how easily she’d given in to Flannigan. She shook a fist at the pile of silk gowns they’d knocked onto the floor.

  “It won’t happen again,” she vowed. “I swear it. It will never happen again.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Flannigan made himself comfortable on the sofa of Tess’s apartment. Across from him, Casey sat in his easy chair, scratching OToole’s back. Both the cat and the old man looked perfectly content.

  “I figured you’d be coming back,” Casey said.

  “I didn’t. I never planned to come back into Tess’s life again.”

  “That day in the park, when I first overheard you talking, I said to myself, ‘Now there’s a fine pair of lovers who could use a good stabilizing influence.’“

  “And so you decided to be that influence.”

  “Yes. I think it’s worked out rather well. Don’t you?”

  “For you, it has. I have yet to convince Tess that I need to be a part of this family.”

  “You won’t be long convincing her, or I miss my guess.” Casey cocked his head, listening. “I hear her coming now.” He rose from his chair, dumping OToole onto the floor. “ Tis best for an old man like me to be sound asleep when the fireworks start. And Flannigan... I want lots of grandchildren.”

  He winked, then walked down the hall toward his bedroom
, OToole trailing along behind him.

  Flannigan snapped off the lamp, then stretched his long legs out in front of him and lounged back against the cushions, watching the front door. Tess didn’t see him when she first came through. He liked watching her unobserved. Her color was high, and she had the tousled, dewy look of a woman who has just made love. He wanted her all over again.

  She tossed a sequined wrap toward the coat rack and missed. It fell into a gold heap on the hardwood floor. She leaned over and removed one sequined shoe, then made her way across the darkened room, walking lopsided in one high heel. When she reached the piano, she leaned over and ran one finger lightly down the keyboard. Her shoe dropped from her hand, and she sat down on the piano bench.

  Humming softly, she began to chord. The chords became a melody, and soon Tess was leaning over the keys, crooning “It Had to Be You.”

  Flannigan sat in the dark, mesmerized. Her voice was satin and velvet and roses and moonlight. And he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was singing for him, even without knowing he was there.

  He closed his eyes, letting the honeyed sounds of her voice sink into his scarred soul. “I’m home,” he said to himself. “I’ve finally come home.”

  The last note of the song died away, and they both sat in the dark, Tess leaning over the keyboard and Flannigan watching her.

  Finally she sighed and turned her head.

  Flannigan clapped softly. “Bravo, Tess. You’re magnificent.”

  “Flannigan?” She rose from the piano bench,

  and made her way to him. “Is that you, Flannigan?”

  “I told you I would never leave you, Tess.” He rose from the sofa and faced her. “I don’t intend to.”

  She stopped and planted her hands on her hips. “Where’s Casey?”

  “Gone to bed. I think I hear him snoring already. “

  “He should have thrown you out. You abandoned both of us in Biloxi.”

  “I will not abandon you again... either of you.”

  He crossed the space that separated them, and pulled her gently into his arms.

  “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want us to have lots of children and cats and dogs. I want us to sit beside our own fireplace and hold hands and laugh together. I want us to grow old together.”

  He pressed his face into her hair. “I want to die with you and be buried with you. I want to journey into the afterworld still joined to you, still loving you.” His lips grazed her forehead, the top of her head. “Tess, my girl. I love you so.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes, but she batted them away. Standing in Mick’s arms, she allowed herself to dream for a moment, and then she pushed him away.

  “I don’t suppose you have a place to sleep?”

  “No,” he said.

  “How like you, Flannigan, to assume that all you had to do was show your face and I’d invite you to my bed.” She switched on the lamp and began to toss sofa cushions onto the floor. “This makes a bed. You can sleep here.”

  He gave her a triumphant smile as he made the sofa into a bed.

  “Only for tonight. Tomorrow, you leave.” He began to whistle. “I mean it, Flannigan. Tomorrow you’re out of my life... for good.”

  With that final word she left him in her den, whistling and getting his bed ready for the night. She went into her bedroom and slammed the door.

  What right had he to disrupt her life again? What made him think she would come running back to him after all these years? Her gold-sequined gown fell into a heap on the rug, and she kicked it aside. Naked and enraged, she marched to the shower. She locked the bathroom door behind her. Nowhere was safe from Flannigan. It would be just like him to pick the lock and climb into her shower. The last time he’d been wearing his boots.

  She leaned against the wall, weak, as she remembered the way he had come to her in Biloxi. Water washed over her unheeded.

  “Damn you, Flannigan. Why did you have to come back?”

  She leaned her head against the tiles. They were cold, just like her life. Sterile, just like her life. She squeezed her eyes shut, holding back tears. She wouldn’t cry now. Not while he was here. She’d cry tomorrow, after he had gone.

  She finished her shower quickly and climbed into her lonely bed. She heard stirrings through the door. Flannigan would be sprawled on the sofa, the sheet twisted around his torso, exposing his muscular legs. He never liked to keep his legs on top of the covers, even in wintertime. She guessed that was because he was always poised to run.

  He had said he was through running. Was he telling the truth? Was it possible that, after all these years, Flannigan was ready to settle down?

  “It’s not my problem,” she muttered, twisting herself in her sheets.

  He had said he’d found what he wanted. He wanted a family and children and pets and a home with a fireplace.

  Suddenly she sat up in bed and switched on her lamp. Propped against her headboard, she studied her bedroom. It was filled with the trappings of her career—the closet full of glittery costumes, the musical scores spread upon her dressing table, the yellow roses sent by fans, their leaves beginning to turn brown and curl at the edges.

  She was successful and admired and fawned over. And she was lonely.

  She arose from her bed and began to pace the floor. She loved singing, loved her career; and Casey helped fill the void. But the happiest days of her life had been ten years ago when she and Mick were living in a walk-up apartment, laughing over which one of them would have enough money to pay the next light bill.

  Her footsteps faltered, and then she was running, running toward the bedroom door. She shoved it open and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Mick was spread across the sofa bed, just the way she knew he would be.

  Smiling, she started his way. When she was close enough, she leaned down and ran her hand under the sheet.

  “Hmm. No clothes. How convenient.”

  “Tess?” He sat up, running his hands through his tousled hair and yawning. “Tess? Is that you?”

  “Who were you expecting? The queen of England?”

  She burrowed under the covers and planted nibbling kisses down his right leg. He pulled the sheet over them and wrapped her in his arms.

  “Sure and it’s good to have you back in my bed, Tess, my girl.” Chuckling, he nuzzled her neck.

  “Don’t get your hopes up. This is just a trial run.”

  “Then let’s make it a good one.”

  He lay back and settled her over his hips. They came together with the explosive fury of a summer storm. And when the storm was spent, they lay back against his pillows, clinging to each other as if they had just discovered the only life vest on a sinking ship.

  “Does this mean you’ll marry me, Tess, my girl?”

  “No.”

  “No?” He leaned away, trying to see her face in the dark. “You came to my bed and loved me like that, and you’re telling me no?”

  “I’m saying no to marriage. I’m not saying no to an extended affair.”

  “Another trial run?”

  “You might call it that.”

  “What if I said no. What if I said the only way I’ll have you is as my wife?”

  “Take it or leave it, Flannigan.”

  “And where might you be wanting this affair to take place?”

  “Where might you be wanting to have this little cottage with all the dogs and cats and children?”

  “How does Texas sound to you?”

  “With bluebonnets?”

  “And a small flying school.”

  Tess sat up and reached for her gown. “I’ve always wanted to give Texas a whirl.”

  She arose from the bed, and he didn’t try to stop her. There would be a way to get her to marry him. Right now he wouldn’t press. He’d take this one step at a time.

  Propping his hands behind his head, he smiled up at her.

  “Suppose we do find a little cottage in a field,

  and
I start a flying school. What will you be doing, Tess... besides decorating and warming my bed?”

  “I can sing anywhere.” Waving her hands in the air, she watched him closely. “Who knows? I might chuck everything and become an unknown, a has-been giving lessons in the parlor of a small Texas cottage.”

  “I might take a lesson or two myself, Tess, my girl.”

  She felt as if she’d just been awarded a Grammy.

  “Well...” She lingered beside his sofa bed awhile longer, and then she started toward her own bed. “‘Night, Flannigan.”

  “Good night, Tess.”

  o0o

  Tess stood at the window, watching and waiting. A painted sunset made a backdrop for the man coming up the path. His shoulders were broad, his step was jaunty, and he was whistling. Flannigan. He whistled a lot of late. In fact, he’d been whistling for two weeks now, ever since they’d left Chicago and moved to Texas, with Casey and OToole in tow.

  Tess’s heart climbed into her throat as Flannigan approached the door, and she had to remind herself that this was only a trial run. She hadn’t made any commitment, and didn’t intend to. No marriage vows, no heartbreak. That’s the way she looked at it. Oddly enough, Flannigan never pressed the issue.

  The door opened, and he stepped through, bringing the heat of the summer evening with him. She ran to him, arms outstretched. He scooped her up and waltzed her around the room.

  “Did you have a good day, Tess, my girl?”

  “Yes. I got my first students, cousins. Elena Rae and Sukie Mae Glenn.”

  “And can they sing?” He still waltzed her around the room. Her head was spinning, but he didn’t appear the least bit dizzy.

  “Like Hereford cattle. But wait until I’ve finished with them.” He nuzzled her neck, still waltzing round and round. “Mick, put me down. My head is spinning.”

  “Anything for my girl.”

  He sank into their rocking chair and held her on his lap. She ran her hands through his hair and smiled into his eyes.

  “And how was your day, Mick Flannigan?”

  “I’m on my way to becoming the most famous flying teacher in all of Texas.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the mayor of this fair town is my first student. That’s why.”