CHAPTER EIGHT
NOTHING mattered, but being in David’s arms.
Stephanie felt weightless, as she melted into him. All rational thought was gone.
The feel of him. The warmth of his body. The touch of his hot, hungry mouth on hers. She was spinning, spinning, like a planet around an incandescent sun.
She heard him whisper her name as he slid his hands up her body, cupped her face and held her willingly captive to his kiss. He said something against her mouth. She couldn’t understand the words but she knew what he must be asking, and her answer was in the way she touched him and moved against him.
“Scarlett.” His voice was urgent as he cupped her bottom, lifted her into the heat and hardness of his arousal, urged her to feel the raw, masculine power she had unleashed.
The reality should have terrified her, as it had in the past. But what she felt was excitement. This was—David was—every half-forgotten dream of her girlhood. He was a million unfulfilled wishes, and more.
“Tell me what you want,” he said. He cupped her breast, pressed his mouth to her throat. “Say that it’s me, Scarlett. Say—”
“Well, heavens to Betsy! Now, isn’t this a charmin’ sight?”
They sprang apart. Instinctively, David put Stephanie behind him as they turned toward the hall.
He saw a woman in the arched doorway. His lawyer’s mind made a fast inventory. She was, perhaps, two decades older than Stephanie with a heavily made-up face, a mane of frizzy hair whose platinum color could only have come from a bottle, and eyes a shade of green that had to have started life on an optician’s workbench. She was poured into a leopard-print cat suit that was at least a size too small. And a cat, David thought, was what she looked like, one that had just opened its mouth and swallowed a live canary.
Stephanie stepped out from behind him. “Clare?”
Avery Willingham’s sister. David’s eyes narrowed.
“In the flesh,” Clare said. Smiling, she strolled toward them, breasts jiggling under the clinging cat suit. “And who, pray tell, is your charmin’ visitor?”
Stephanie moved forward, and the women met in the center of the room. Her mouth still bore the faint swelling that was the imprint of his kisses, her cheeks were still flushed, but somehow she’d managed to take on an aura of composure and command. Even to his jaundiced eye, it was a remarkable performance.
“What are you doing here, Clare?”
Clare smiled. “What am I doin’ here? she asks. This is my house, missy. I don’t need a reason to be in it.”
“It isn’t yours, not until midnight.”
Clare shrugged. “A technicality.”
“Until then,” Stephanie said calmly, “please ring the doorbell if you wish to come in.”
“I did, missy.” Clare batted her heavily mascared lashes at David. “But there was no answer. ’Course, I understand the reason. You were…busy. You and Mister…”
“Chambers,” David said. “David Chambers.”
“A pleasure, Mr. Chambers. I’m awfully sorry if I interrupted anythin’, but I had no idea Stephanie would be entertainin’ a gentleman, this bein’ such a busy weekend for her an’ all.”
David put his hand lightly on Stephanie’s shoulder. Her posture was rigid but she was trembling; he could feel it through his fingertips.
“What do you want, Clare?” she said.
“Why, just to make sure things are as they should be.” The blonde gave David a last slow smile, then began circling the room, brushing long, fuchsia-lacquered fingernails over the gilt cherubs and porcelain shepherdesses. “All of this is mine now, missy, these precious heirlooms that’ve been passed from one generation of Willin’hams to another. You just remember that.”
“How could I forget?”
“You’re to take nothin’, you understand that? Not a single thing.”
“You’ve nothing to worry about, Clare. I don’t want any of this—this stuff. I intend to leave with nothing but the same suitcase I brought here.”
“Just you make sure there’s nothin’ in that suitcase but the junk you brought to this fine house, missy, you got that?”
Stephanie stepped out from under David’s hand. She wasn’t shaking anymore; he was sure of it.
“Your attorney already did an inventory,” she said.
“An’ how do I know that would stop you from takin’ my things?” Clare’s eyes looked like bright green beads. “Trash like you is capable of anythin’.”
“Go home, Clare.” Stephanie’s voice was low but firm. “You can do all the gloating you want, come midnight.”
“And that big bedroom closet of yours, the one my brother kept filled. All that stuff’s mine now. You just be sure an’—”
“The clothing is Mrs. Willingham’s.”
Both women looked at David. “I beg your pardon?” Clare said.
“I’m Mrs. Willingham’s attorney, and I said the clothing belongs to her. It’s her personal property.”
Clare laughed. “Still not givin’ up, are you, missy? Well, you’re too late, Mister Attorney. The case has been settled.”
“Whether it has or has not, Mrs. Willingham has certain rights. I’ve come here to make sure she is able to exercise them without interference.”
Clare tossed back her peroxide mane. “Really. An’ here I could have sworn you and my beloved sister-in-law were…well, I won’t use the word. I’m too much a lady.”
“Is that right?” David smiled lazily. “I’d have thought a lady would have known that breaking into a house was against the law.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Seven Oaks belongs to me.”
“Not until midnight.”
“I have a key!”
David’s brows rose. “Did you give this woman a key, Mrs. Willingham?”
Stephanie stared at him in amazement. In all these months, this was the first time anyone had ever come to her defense. Even Amos Turner, whom she’d paid for his legal services, had never said a word on her behalf except in judge’s chambers.
Stephanie swallowed dryly. “No,” she said. “No, I—”
“My client says she did not give you a key,” David said pleasantly, “and I can attest to the fact that you neither asked permission to enter nor received it. Where I come from, that makes you an intruder until the time the court order takes effect.”
Clare shot a baleful look at Stephanie. “You better tell this hotshot lawyer of yours that he’s bein’ stupid! Maybe he doesn’t understand who I am!”
“He knows who you are,” Stephanie said calmly. “And I suspect he knows what you are, too.”
Clare’s plump face took on a purplish tinge.
“I don’t know what game you two think you’re playin’,” she snapped, “but it isn’t goin’ to change one little thing. I’m tellin’ you right here an’ now, Miss High an’ Mighty, you’d best be out of here by tonight.”
“With pleasure.”
“I heard about that call you made to the judge—”
“There’s no need to go into details,” Stephanie said quickly.
“Cryin’ about needin’ time to find a place to live and a job, moanin’ about not havin’ any money—”
“I said I don’t want to discuss this now, Clare.”
“You came to Seven Oaks with nothin’, and you’re gonna leave with nothin’. You can sleep on the street, for all I care!”
“Is it true?” David said quietly, his eyes locked on Stephanie’s.
“It’s none of your affair.”
“Stephanie, answer me! Do you have money, and a place to live?”
“She has nothin’,” Clare said with ill-concealed glee. “Nothin’ a-tall!”
“Dammit,” David growled, “tell her she’s wrong!”
Stephanie glared at him. “I can’t, David. She’s right. Now, are you satisfied?”
David’s eyes narrowed. What in hell had she done with all the money Willingham had paid her? Not that it mattered to him. H
e’d come to her rescue a minute ago because it was the proper thing to do. No decent lawyer would stand by and let her give up property that was rightfully hers. But the rest of it, what happened to her after this… she was correct. It was none of his affair.
“Just you make sure there’s nothin’ of mine accidentally falls into your suitcase, when you leave my house.”
“I wouldn’t take anything from this house, Clare. I don’t want anything that belonged to the Willinghams. Haven’t you got that straight yet?”
“What you’d best get straight, missy, is that I expect everythin’ I deserve. You hear?”
Stephanie looked at Clare, at the pudgy, selfish face and the piggy eyes. She’d had years of looking at that face, of listening to that whining voice.
“I hear,” she said…and then, with a graceful movement of her hand that could almost have been accidental, she swept a tabletop’s worth of ugly cupids and shepherdesses crashing to the floor.
No one moved. No one even breathed. Clare. Stephanie and David all looked down at the floor.
Stephanie was the first to raise her head.
“Oh, my,” she said sweetly, “just look at what I’ve done. I don’t know how I could have been so clumsy.”
Clare, as puffed as a chicken ruffling its feathers, took a step forward. “Why, you—you—”
“Accidents will happen,” David said, trying not to laugh. He looked at Stephanie, whose eyes were bright with defiance, and he felt a strange lurch inside his chest. “Isn’t that right, Mrs. Willingham?”
“That’s a fact,” she said pleasantly.
“Accident?” Clare glared at them both. “That was no accident. She did it on purpose!”
“So sue her.” David’s smile held all the warmth of an iceberg.
“What for, wise guy? Your precious client is broke, or have you forgotten that?”
A muscle knotted in David’s cheek. “No,” he said quietly, “I haven’t forgotten. Send the bills to me.”
“David,” Stephanie said, “this isn’t necessary.”
“It surely is!” Clare snatched David’s business card from his outstretched hand. “The cost of replacin’ these things will be horrendous. They’re—”
“Priceless heirlooms, passed from one generation of Willinghams to another.” David nodded, looked down and frowned as something caught his eye. He bent and scooped up the broken base of one of the cupids. “‘Made in Taiwan,’” he read, with a lift of his eyebrows. Smiling politely, he handed the bit of porcelain to a crimson-faced Clare. “As I said, Ms. Willingham, buy yourself some new ‘heirlooms’ and send the bill to my firm.”
“David,” Stephanie hissed, “I told you, it isn’t necessary. I can repay Clare for the figures.”
“When?” Clare demanded.
“Yes,” David said evenly. “When?”
“Well—well. I’ll contact her, as soon as I’m settled.”
“As soon as you have a place to live,” he said, his voice hardening, “and some money to buy groceries, you mean.”
Stephanie flushed. “Where I live, and how, is no one’s concern but mine.”
“It’s the court’s concern,” David said sharply, “or it should have been. Your lawyer must have been sitting on his brain when he argued this case.”
“Dammit, I don’t want to discuss this! I made my living as a secretary before. I can do it again. I’ll go to—to Atlanta. I’ll get a job and I’ll reimburse Clare down to the last penny.”
That was when it came to him. The idea was simple, obvious and logical, when he thought about it. It was an excellent, if temporary, solution to more than one problem—assuming he ignored the voice shouting, Are you nuts? inside his head.
“You’re right,” he said. “You’ll reimburse her.”
Stephanie nodded. He could tell, from the look on her face, that she’d been prepared for more argument.
“Well, I’m glad we agree.”
“I’ll tell payroll to advance you your first month’s pay, and you can send her a check.”
Her face went blank. “What?”
David’s hand curled around her elbow, the pressure of his fingers firm. “It’s not an unusual procedure,” he said, knowing that it was an impossible one. Russell, Russell, Hanley and Chambers offered many benefits to its employees, but acting as a bank was not one of them. “After all, now that we’ve found you a good job—”
“We have?”
“As my secretary.”
Stephanie’s mouth dropped open. “As your…”
“My secretary. Exactly.”
“No! David—”
“And,” he said, his eyes warning her not to try and defy him, “now that I’ve had time to think about it, I’m advising you to leave your clothing right where it is.”
Stephanie’s look changed from one of confusion to outright disbelief. “Why on earth would I do that?”
“Well,” he said, “I could invent some legal mumbojumbo by way of explanation, but the simple fact is that I’d imagine it’ll be an endless source of amusement for you, envisioning Ms. Willingham trying to shoehorn her corpulent self into your things.”
There was a second of silence. Then Clare called David a name that made his eyebrows shoot into his hairline, and Stephanie laughed.
She had, he thought, a wonderful laugh. It was free, and easy, and when he looked at her, he suddenly had the feeling that this was the first time she’d laughed, really laughed, in years.
“Stephanie?” he said, and held out his hand.
Stephanie looked at his hand. She thought of her sad old suitcase, lying open on the bed upstairs, and that the only clothes in this entire house that were salvageable and really hers were the ones she was already wearing.
“Stephanie?” David said again, “shall we leave?”
Don’t be stupid, she told herself, Stephanie, don’t be an idiot…
“Yes,” she said, and she smiled, took his outstretched hand, and walked away from Seven Oaks, and Clare, and the terrible memories of a life she’d never, ever wanted.
* * *
The day had started with soft breezes and bright sunshine, but as they drove away from Seven Oaks, it began to drizzle. By the time they reached the highway, the drizzle had turned into a downpour.
Stephanie sat rigid and silent, the euphoria of her departure gone. What have I done? she kept thinking, and when David turned on the windshield wipers, they offered not an answer but a command.
Go back, they sang as they swooped across the glass. Go back, Stephanie, go back.
“How about some music?” David said.
She jumped at the sound of his voice. He hadn’t spoken a word until now, either. She looked at him, at the stern mouth and firm jaw. He was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire, Steffie. Go back, go back, go back.
“Stephanie?”
Music. He was asking her if she wanted to hear—
“Yes.” She swallowed dryly. “Music would be fine.”
He reached out and punched a button on the dashboard. Dark, deep chords and arpeggios resonated through the car.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, and punched another button. Rachmaninoff gave way to Paul Simon. “I like classical stuff, but, I don’t know, at the moment, Rachmaninoff seems…”
Melodramatic, at the very least. Stephanie folded her hands tightly together in her lap. Here she was, fleeing one nightmare for what might just as easily be another.
“Do you like Simon? The old stuff, I mean, that he wrote and recorded with Art Garfunkel.”
It was such an inane conversational thread; if she hadn’t known better, she’d have suspected David was having second thoughts, too. But if he were, if he’d changed his mind about offering her a job, he’d have pulled off to the side of the road and told her so. Bluntly. If there was one thing she knew about David Chambers, it was that he didn’t pull his punches. He said what he was thinking, took what he want
ed without hesitation…
Her heart gave an unsteady thud. And she was running off with him?
The wipers swooshed across the windshield. Oh, Steffie, they sang. Go back, go back, go back.
* * *
Windshield wipers were strange things.
They swept across the glass, back and forth, back and forth, and after a while you could set a tune to them. Lyrics, too.
David’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Unfortunately, he didn’t much care for the words to this particular song. Not the one drifting from the car’s speakers; Simon and Garfunkel were singing about Mrs. Robinson, and that was just fine. It was the lyric only he could hear that was the problem.
Cray—zee, the wipers sang, Oh, man, you are crayay—zeeee…
Damn right. How else to explain why he was driving along with Stephanie Willingham tucked into the seat beside him—although not even an optimist would describe her as looking “tucked in.” She looked about as relaxed as he felt Her back was straight as a board, her hands were clenched in her lap, and her mouth was a tight little knot. People sitting in dental waiting rooms looked happier than she did, and who could blame her? He wasn’t in the best of moods himself.
What in hell had possessed him? He’d gone down to Georgia because Jack had asked him to. Okay, maybe there’d been more to it than that. Maybe he’d gone to find what the shrinks called closure, a way of signing off on the experience of a couple of Sundays ago. Okay, so there was no “maybe” about it. He’d driven to Willingham Corners to take a cold look at Stephanie and get her out of his head. That had been step one. Step two was supposed to have been letting her bend his ear with her tale of woe, which would have led to the good part, when he chucked her under the chin and said, hey, he was sorry but she was fresh out of luck, and out of suckers…
Now here he was, top contender for the Sucker of the Year award.
Okay. Stephanie hadn’t trapped him into this mess. Not directly. He’d managed to do that by himself. But she’d helped. Damn right, she had. David’s jaw tightened. Instead of listening to Simon and Garfunkel, they ought to be humming strains from the The Merry Widow. That’s what his passenger was, a widow who wouldn’t even bother to pretend she was grieving, who claimed not to have a cent to her name or a job or a place to take shelter…
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