American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (35 page)

Nash didn’t know anything about
it, but Elliot did. She wiped at her eyes, laboring to compose herself.

“I’d forgotten about her,” she
looked at Nash, wiping quickly at her cheeks. “Hallie said this woman
specializes in furnishing old homes like this.  She’s going to help me pick out
furniture.”

“Perfect,” Nash pulled her out of
her chair, eager to get her off the subject of the lawsuit. “Go spend some time
talking furniture.  We’ll deal with the rest of this later.”

Elliot was heading for the
kitchen steps so she could go upstairs and pull herself together before meeting
the woman.

“Beau, you said we could get this
whole place put together, including furniture, for eighty thousand dollars,”
she looked at Nash’s brother still in the doorway. “How much of that do I have
to spend on furniture?”

Beau suddenly looked doubtful.
“Well,” he began slowly. “We just added that new bathroom downstairs, Ellie,
and the floor boards in the library had a lot of rot on them. We’re having to
replace them and….”

Elliot put her hand to cut him
off as she mounted the steps. “I get it,” she said. “Not a lot. Well, I guess
I’ll just have to figure something out.”

“Spend what you want,” Nash told
her. “Don’t worry about the cost.”

She paused half-way up the
stairs. “Really?” she said, showing some delight for the first time all day.
“Whatever I want?”

Nash snickered when he saw her
happy expression. “Whatever you want, honey.  If you want it, buy it.”

She eyed him, trying to determine
if he was serious. “We could be talking tens of thousands of dollars to do this
right, Nash,” she pointed out, wanting to make sure he understood what he was
stepping into. “I have an advance on a book contract, so I can spend a little
outside of the eighty thousand your brother promised me.”

Nash shook his head. “Save it,”
he said. “If this is going to be my house, too, then I should contribute to it.
You have no limit on what you can spend, darlin’. Do your worst.”

Elliot threw her hands up.
“Hallelujah,” she said as she began to swiftly take the steps. “I’ve been
waiting to hear those words my whole life!”

Nash grinned as he watched her
disappear upstairs, finally turning to look at his brother.  His smile faded.

“God, what a mess,” he grunted.

Beau looked at his brother,
looking weary and edgy, which was unusual for the man who was perpetually
easy-going.  He shook his head.

“I only heard part of what you
were saying,” he said quietly. “I gather it didn’t go well this morning with
the Loreaus?”

Nash half-shrugged. “That depends
on what you consider ‘going well’,” he said. “Penny identified Will, Ed and
Nicky as the men who attacked her and Ms. Biffy as having been an accomplice
so, in a sense, that portion of it went very well. But when we arrived at the
police station, Buck Thompson was there.”

Beau’s eyebrows flew up. “Buck
Thompson? What was he doing there?”

Nash sighed heavily. “He was
hired by Ms. Biffy to defend her grandsons.  But we also found out that she
hired him to file a civil suit against Alec in the wrongful death of Femmie. 
This whole situation is just going from bad to worse.”

Beau was genuinely upset. “Civil
suit?” he repeated, aghast. “That just means they want money, Nash. That’s all
they ever want. Go pay them a few thousand dollars and they’ll go away. “

Nash shrugged. “Maybe,” he said.
“I’m going to call a defense lawyer who’s done some work at my office and see
what she says.  I guess we need to lawyer up just like the Loreaus have, with a
bigger law shark than Buck Thompson.”

“Good luck finding someone who’s
more ruthless than he is.”

Nash cast his brother a knowing
look. “You forget who y’all are talking to,” he said. “I’ve got connections.”

“I have no doubt that you do,”
Beau agreed sincerely.  He watched his brother as he tried to take a few deep
breaths to calm himself. “So what now?”

Nash drew in a last, long deep
breath and stared at the ceiling as he composed his thoughts. “I’m heading in
to the office for awhile,” he said. “As long as Ellie is occupied and calm, I
can focus on work for awhile.”

“You’re a busy man.”

Nash snorted at the irony of that
statement, pulling his cell phone from its case and taking a look at the
display. “Busy, hell,” he shook his head as he put the phone away. “Seventeen
missed calls, eleven text messages from the office. I think I’d better get over
there.”

“I’ll hold down the fort here.”

Nash grinned at his brother as he
moved past him, out of the kitchen and into the dining room.  There were two
conservators from Tulane working on the fragile hand-painted wallpaper and half
of the dining room looked like a laboratory with all of the white coats and
white gloves.

The secret door was propped open
and Beau had run lights down into the crypt to give the historians some
illumination. Nash poked his head into the opening, seeing the wet, moldy room
down below now lit up with one hundred watt bulbs.

As he moved from the dining room
into the central hall, Elliot was just coming down the stairs.  She had
freshened up and composed herself, and he waited for her at the bottom of the
stairs as she descended.

With her long blond hair pulled
into a ponytail that draped over one shoulder, she looked delicious. Nash
smiled at her as she came close and he reached out, lifting her off the stairs
and giving her a fairly juicy kiss. 

“I’ve got to go into the office
for awhile,” he told her, setting her carefully on her feet. “Beau is here if
you need anything. I’ll see you before dinner.”

“Okay,” Elliot wrapped an arm
around his waist as he walked her towards the entry. “I’m not sure I’ll be
cooking dinner, though. I may be too wrapped up in spending your money.”

He laughed softly. “Then we’ll go
out.”

“You may not be able to afford it
by tonight.”

He laughed at her. “We may be
starving, but at least we’ll have a great place to do it in.”

She smiled brightly at him, the
first time he’d seen her smile like that all day, and he bent down to kiss her
again as they reached the front door.  No sooner had his lips left hers than he
heard a familiar voice.

“Nash, I take it this is your Ms.
Ellie,” a deep male voice filled the air. “Because if it’s not, Ms. Ellie might
have something to say about the way you just kissed that woman.”

Nash turned around to see his
mother and father standing in the doorway.  He grinned at the pair.

“Yes, this is Ms. Ellie,” he
looked at Elliot, who was looking slightly embarrassed and unsure with the
introduction of two strangers. “I’m sure she didn’t want to be introduced to
you in a compromising position, but that can’t be helped now.  Ellie, these are
my parents, Camp and Elizabeth Aury.”

Elliot was startled. She had no
idea that Nash had invited his parents over and she made a mental note to kill
him later. She gazed at the older couple, noting immediately that Beau
resembled their father a great deal while Nash favored his elegant mother. They
looked at Elliot with friendly interest and she did the only thing she could
do; she smiled brightly and extended her hand to Camp.

“It’s such a pleasure to finally
meet you,” she said, shaking Camp’s hand before turning to Elizabeth. “Welcome
to Purgatory. I’m so glad you could come.”

Elizabeth shook her hand, holding
it a moment as she inspected Elliot.  Her hazel-eyed gaze was curious yet
pleasant.  When she finally smiled, Elliot could see where Nash got his good
looks.  He looked exactly like his mother.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” she
said, her voice soft and rich. “Nash hasn’t told us much about you except to
say he’s marrying you.”

Elliot giggled nervously, looking
to Nash for help. Nash grinned at his mother.

“As always, Mama, you go right to
the point,” he said, taking Elliot’s hand back from his mother and holding it
tightly. “Elliot purchased Purgatory last week.  We met when I came to pick up
Memaw’s remaining possessions.”

Elizabeth did the same thing Beck
had done when his father told him of Elliot; she lifted her eyebrows, expecting
more of an explanation, but her son seemed to think he’d told her plenty.

“Where are you from, Ms. Ellie?”
she asked politely.

“From California,” Elliot
answered. “I was born and raised in Southern California.”

“What made you decide to move to
Louisiana?” Elizabeth asked. She seemed genuinely interested to know about the
beautiful young woman who had stolen her son’s heart. “It’s quite a change from
California.”

“My daughter is enrolled at
Tulane,” Elliot explained. “I’ve always wanted to live in one of these big
plantation homes, so we got lucky and found Purgatory. We just thought it was
such a great opportunity to come and live in a new place and experience a new
culture.”

Elizabeth was still smiling at
her. “And have you enjoyed it so far?”

Elliot carefully worded her
reply. “Nash and Purgatory have been the very best things about it,” she said.
“I love this house so much and your son…well, you raised him well. He’s a
keeper.”

Elizabeth studied Elliot’s face
for a moment, feature by feature, before reaching out and taking her hand back
from Nash.

“Will you show me the house?” she
asked. “I would love to see it. I haven’t been here in twenty years, you know.
The last time I was here, it smelled like a toilet and a crazy old woman was
screaming at me.”

Elliot was very happy to take
Elizabeth into the house. Nash and Camp followed them in as far as the entry,
standing in the cavernous central hall while the women went into the double
parlors. Camp’s gaze lingered on Elliot, trying not to stare at her lovely
backside.

“Well,” he finally said, turning
to look at other things. “Your mother likes her. She’s a beautiful girl, Nash.
She seems very nice.”

Nash was still looking at Elliot
as she held Elizabeth’s hand and showed her the new ivory paint that was going
up. It brought a smile to his lips, warming him, feeling love for her more than
he ever had.  He watched the two women he loved best get acquainted.

“She is,” he said quietly,
turning to his father. “Before you and Mama probe her too much, you should know
that her husband was killed two years ago. He was a Sheriff’s deputy in L.A.,
shot in the line of duty, so please don’t bring it up if you can help it. She
moved here to start a new life and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Camp hissed sadly as his son
spoke, shaking his head with sorrow. “Bless her heart,” he muttered. “Nash,
you’re not latching onto her because you feel sorry for her, are you? That’s no
way to start a relationship, son.”

Nash’s brow furrowed.  “That has
nothing to do with it,” he said. “I fell in love with her wit and beauty and
charm. She’s like no one I’ve ever met before. Dad, I just went through this
with Beck and I’ll tell you what I told him; even if you don’t agree with my
decision, at least support me because I feel it’s the right thing to do. I love
Ellie and I’m going to marry her.”

His dad put his hands up in a
calming gesture. “Son, I’ll support you in whatever you do, you know that,” he
promised, eyeing him. “Since when did you become such a whiner?”

Nash cocked an eyebrow at his
father, who was snorting at his rough sense of humor. Nash fought off a grin,
turning to see that Elliot and his mother were now speaking to a woman he
didn’t recognize. He assumed it was the interior designer. The day, having
started out so bad, was at least getting better.

As he started to give his father
a tour of Purgatory now that it was being restored, Beau joined the group and
Nash took the opportunity to slip off to work with his dad and Beau occupied. 
Last he saw, Elliot and his mother were engrossed in inspecting the piles of
fabric that the interior designer had brought.  Knowing she’d be occupied for
at least the next few hours, he bounded off to his office.

Nash returned that night to a
full house of his kids, her kids, his parents, and one the most emotionally and
spiritually fulfilling moments of satisfaction he could ever remember. In spite
of the lawsuits, the sadness, the ghosts, volatile neighbors and the like, Nash
had never been happier. 

As he sat with Elliot, her kids
and his family all crowded around the breakfast table, he knew that every day
he spent with her, days like these, were the best days of his life.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

August

It was dusk over the bayou on a
particularly steamy evening.  The humidity had been unbearable since late June,
something that Elliot and her children were unaccustomed to. Therefore, when
the humidity index rose, so did Elliot’s need to install central air
conditioning in the big house.