A Time to Keep (34 page)

“Okay.” She heard a second beep. “Bye, Shiloh.” She pressed the TALK button. “Hello.”

“Gwendolyn, Nash. I'm sorry to rush you, but I just got a call from the printer. He has to have our copy by four.”

She glanced at a clock on a side table. It was 2:50. “I'm going over to
Bon Temps
to print out the disk. Meet me there in half an hour.”

“Thanks, Gwendolyn.”

She put the cassettes in an envelope along with the disk, picked up her cell phone, and dropped them in her handbag. She walked out of the office, Cocoa right behind her. Since her visit to the vet, the dog followed her every move.

“Do you want to come with Mama?” Standing on her hind legs, the poodle barked excitedly. Gwen leaned over and
scooped up her pet. “If you behave in the car I'll give you a little treat after we get back.”

* * *

Gwen booted up her laptop and inserted the disk. She smiled as Cocoa raced in and out of rooms, reacquainting herself with her first home. Leaning back in her chair, she waited as what she'd spent three hours typing came out of the printer. She'd removed all of her books and photographs and her desktop computer from the office at
Bon Temps,
but left the laptop and printer. The ringing of the doorbell coincided with the last page settling into a tray. Smiling, she went to answer the door.

“Come in, Nash. I just have to proof what I typed, then pull out a clean copy.”

Nash checked the time on his watch. “What if I proof while you edit?”

“That's a good idea. It'll go faster that way. Come on back to the office.”

Nash smiled as Gwen closed the door. He followed her out of the entryway and across the living room. “I can't believe what you've done to this place in just a couple of months. I've known restorations to go on for years.”

Gwen glanced over her shoulder at Nash. “
Bon Temps
had fallen into disrepair not dilapidation like some of the other antebellum mansions.”

“Your aunt gave some grand parties here.”

“Did you ever attend them?”

“No. But my daddy did. He was one of those Southern white men who didn't mind mixing socially with coloreds.”

An invisible shiver snaked its way up Gwen's spine. The newspaperman had used a term that had gone the way of segregation
. She stopped, turned and faced him. “We haven't been colored in more than fifty years, Nash.”

A flush suffused his face. “Oh, I forgot. You people have been called so many things that I can't keep up with them: Negro, colored, black, and now African-American.”

Shock rendered Gwen speechless before rage replaced it. “How dare you, you racist bastard!”

To her surprise he showed no reaction to her cursing at him; their gazes met. Nash McGraw seemed to change before her eyes like a reptile shedding its skin. His blue-gray eyes paled, leaving them a cold, frosty gray. He reached under his jacket and pulled out a small handgun.

They were standing in a hallway, the space about six feet wide, the nearest door more than three feet away, and Gwen knew her chances of making it into her office and locking the door behind were, on a scale of one to ten, a one.

Sheer fright paralyzed her. Nash McGraw had killed once, and there was no doubt he could kill again. Panic like she'd never known gripped her, but she forced herself to remain calm.

“Is that the same gun you used to shoot Shelby Carruthers?”

A feral grin pulled one side of Nash's mouth upward. “Still the reporter, Miss Taylor? My bad! I forgot that you're now Mrs. Harper. You should've left the police work to your husband, Mrs. Harper. I told you to let sleeping dogs lie, but you wouldn't listen.”

“Why did you kill her?” Gwen asked, stalling for time.

She knew she couldn't outrun a bullet, and there wasn't anything she could use to defend herself. She refused to believe she would die before bringing her child into the world or celebrating her first wedding anniversary.

Nash stared without blinking. “I did everything for that bitch, and all I asked was for her to go to the senior prom with
me, but she turned me down because she was going with Jason Jefferson.”

“You killed her because she planned to go to the prom with a black boy?”

“I killed her because she laughed at me. She said although I was nice, she could never think of me as her boyfriend.”

“But you could've asked another girl.”

“There were no other girls. I loved Shelby. I wanted to marry her, buy her pretty clothes, and have her live in a nice house. I wouldn't listen to my daddy when he told me to forget her because she was nothing but swamp trash with a pretty face.”

Nash's eyes filled with tears as Gwen's gaze shifted from his face to the gun in his right hand. “You did marry, Nash,” she said softly. “You have a wife, children and grandchildren who love you. You are the publisher of—”

“Shut up!” he shouted, interrupting. “Shut the hell up! And don't move!”

Gwen did move, and it was to lean back against the wall, her palms pressing against the recently hung wallpaper. She closed her eyes and prayed, prayed that her life and the growing life in her wouldn't end like Shelby's.

She'd spent years making lists of what she wanted and planned for her life, and not once had she ever planned for her own death. She opened her eyes, her mind a dizzying mixture of hope and fear when she saw Shiloh standing under the entrance to the hallway, gun drawn.

Gwen had forgotten he told her he would meet her at
Bon Temps.
With a barely perceptible motion, he cautioned her not to move. She acknowledged him with a slow blink.

Nash took several steps and caught her wrist. “Let's go.”

She pulled back, but couldn't break his grip. “I'm not going anywhere with you,” she countered defiantly.

“It's your call. Either I shoot you here or out in the swamp.”

“You wouldn't shoot me here, because it would be too easy for the police to trace the crime back to you.”

“I don't care,” he snarled between clenched teeth. Spittle had formed at the corners of his mouth.

“Yes, you do care,” she continued recklessly as Shiloh inched closer. “You committed the perfect crime, Nash, and you would've gotten away with it if I hadn't seen that article about the unsolved murder of the 1964 Prom Queen.”

“You…” Nash swallowed his voice when he found his throat caught in a death grip, felt the press of a gun barrel against the back of his neck.

“Drop it or I'll blow your head off.”

Nash recognized Shiloh's voice; he tightened his grip on the butt of his revolver. He couldn't breathe, and his lungs felt as they were exploding from lack of oxygen.

Shiloh's arm tightened. “I'd hate to soil my wife's new wallpaper with your brains or soil her priceless rug with fecal matter, but I will kill you if you don't drop that gun.”

Cocoa came running when she heard Shiloh's voice. She stopped, growling and snarling at Nash before her teeth sank into a spot above his ankle, causing him to drop his gun. The .22 hit the rug and Cocoa skidded out of the way to avoid being hit. Shiloh spun Nash around, his left fist connecting with his jaw. Nash crumpled to the floor like a rag doll, his head at an odd angle. Shiloh secured the automatic in the holster on his hip.

Gwen slid down to the floor, tears streaming down her face.

She closed her eyes as she registered the familiar sound of tightening handcuffs. She opened her eyes when she heard
voices and footsteps coming in their direction. A female deputy and Frank Lincoln crowded the narrow hallway.

Shiloh's gaze shifted to his wife, unaware that his hands were shaking uncontrollably. “Read him his rights, then take him out of here.”

“What are you charging him with, Sheriff Harper?” Frank asked as he helped Nash to stand. Swelling was evident over his jaw where Shiloh had punched him.

“Start with the attempted murder of Gwendolyn Taylor-Harper, and then the 1964 first-degree murder of Shelby Carruthers.”

Frank Lincoln held Nash upright while Deputy Genaya Williamson intoned, “You're under arrest for the attempted murder of Gwendolyn Taylor-Harper. You have the right to remain silent…”

Shiloh dropped to the floor beside Gwen, pulling her into his lap. “It's over, baby.” Cocoa scrambled up his leg and settled down over his knee.

“He…he was going to kill me,” Gwen sobbed against his neck.

“No, he wasn't. I never would've let that happen. Do you think I would marry you and then not be able to protect you?”

“I…I…don't know.”

Shiloh smiled. “You're going to have to learn to trust me, darling. I had someone watching Nash. He couldn't have left his house or office without my knowing his whereabouts. It was just luck that I told you that I'd meet you here.”

Pulling back, she stared at the smirk on her husband's face. She placed her hands over his uniform blouse, feeling the Kevlar vest under the tan fabric. “Why did you want to meet me here?”

“I wanted to give you something.”

She nodded, her eyes filling with tears again. “When are you off duty?”

Shiloh glanced at his watch. “In less than an hour. Why?”

“I just want to go home.”

Cradling the back of her head, Shiloh brushed a kiss over her trembling, parted lips. “I'll take you home.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

He came to his feet, bringing Gwen with him. “It seems like you're putting on some weight, Mrs. Harper.”

She smiled and kissed the end of his nose. “That's because I'm carrying your baby, Mr. Harper.”

“No!” he teased, grinning. “How did that happen?”

Joy bubbled in her laugh as she kissed Shiloh with all of the love she could summon for one person. Together they locked up
Bon Temps,
activated the newly-installed security alarm, gathered Cocoa and drove back to the gated community and the Louisiana low-country house that was home.

* * *

Shiloh watched Gwen as she slipped a black velvet bow off the silver paper covering a small flat box. He couldn't pull his gaze away from the soft swell of brown flesh rising and falling above the décolletage of a platinum-hued silk nightgown. A knowing smile parted his lips when she opened the box and gasped.

Gwen removed a stack of gift certificates wrapped in a narrow white satin ribbon. Her husband had given her a gift of a year of services at an upscale spa for a full day of beauty for the next twelve months. The spa was noted for offering special services to pregnant women and new mothers.

Moving over and straddling his lap, she pressed her breasts to his bare chest. “How can I thank you for being so thoughtful?”

Combing his fingers through her hair, he held it off her face. “Just stay as beautiful as you are now.”

She closed her eyes, smiling. “That's not going to be easy once I blow up.”

“Wrong, darling. You'll be even more beautiful.”

“You only say that because it's your baby I'm carrying.”

“Sure, you're right,” he drawled. He lowered his hands and cupped her hips.

Resting her head on his shoulder, Gwen closed her eyes. “Do you know what I want?”

“Tell me, baby.”

“A po' boy.”

Easing her up from his shoulder, Shiloh stared at her. “You're kidding, aren't you?”

She shook her head slowly. “No. I'm craving a po'boy.”

His hands tightened around her waist and he lifted her off his body. “What's up with the po'boy?” he mumbled under his breath as he made his way toward the adjoining bath. “Whatever happened to pickles and ice cream?”

“Did you say something, darling?” Gwen called out to him.

“No, sweetheart.”

She slipped off the bed. “Would you like company when you go for the po'boy?”

Turning on his heels, he closed the distance between them. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he pulled her to his body. “I thought you'd never ask.”

Gwen curved her arms under his shoulders and kissed him with a passion she was never able to communicate—at least not with words.

She never knew that when she skidded off the road and into a ditch that she would meet and fall in love with the sexiest lawman in Southern Louisiana.

G
wen could feel her knees shake as she held the bible on which her husband had placed his right hand as he was sworn in as a judge for the Louisiana Supreme Court. Her eyes misted and she closed them briefly as photographers captured the moment for posterity. She felt a tugging on the hem of her skirt, but refused to look down at her three-year-old daughter.

Bianca had promised her mother and father that she wouldn't say anything during Daddy's swearing-in, but they were taking too long. “Mama,” she whispered softly.

Gwen cut her eyes at her daughter, who recognized the gesture immediately. Standing up straight, she raised her right hand as she'd seen her father do, then repeated his oath to uphold the constitution of the State of Louisiana and the United States of America.

Those who'd gathered in the Baton Rouge courthouse
heard the childish voice repeating the oath verbatim and dissolved into fits of laughter. Gwen called her daughter a myna bird because she repeated everything she heard, but the teacher at her preschool said the precocious little girl had the gift of total recall.

Gwen turned her attention to her husband. Former D.A. and former Acting Sheriff Shiloh Harper was now Judge Harper. He'd realized his dream and so had she.

It seemed as if time stood still in bayou country, but not for Gwendolyn Taylor-Harper. She was wife and mother of a toddler daughter and infant son. She met with the ladies of the Genteel Magnolia Society whenever time permitted, hosted tours of
Bon Temps
for school groups, scheduled fund-raisers and social events in the historic antebellum mansion, and kept her journalistic instincts sharp when she wrote articles for the new editor and publisher of the
Teche Tribune.