American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (9 page)

***

It was a dive. Well, not really a
dive, but it wasn’t what she would have considered a nice restaurant either. 
Over-dressed in white Capri pants, a beautiful flowery top, silver necklace and
sexy little white sandals, Elliot tried not to openly react when Nash opened
the door for her and ushered her in to a little restaurant that sat right on
the water’s edge of the Black Bayou. He took her arm and politely escorted her
over to a table that overlooked the water. 

In the mid-morning sun, the bugs
were dancing happily along the green expanse of shoreline and she could feel
the humidity rise through the screens.  Nash held out the cheap white chair for
her and she sat, smiling at him when he took the chair opposite her.

“I know it doesn’t look like
much,” he said,” but, trust me when I tell you they have the best breakfasts in
town.  They’ve got a fat, one-eyed old woman back in the kitchen that can
out-cook anyone on this planet.”

Elliot giggled, suppressing her
smile when a very old man came to the table, all dressed up like a soda jerk
from sixty years ago.  It was adorable. He greeted Nash amiably.

“Sheriff,” he smiled a toothless
grin enthusiastically. “Glad to see ya, glad to see ya.  What can I get for
ya?”

Nash gave Elliot an impish
expression. “Do you trust me?”

She half shrugged, half nodded.
“Why not?”

He grinned and turned to the old
man. “Eggs with ham and cheese, scrambled, grits, bacon, hash browns and white
toast.  And keep the coffee coming.”

The old man nodded and darted
off.  Nash returned his focus to Elliot, looking like an angel as the warm
morning sun illuminated her lovely features.  He’d known the woman less than a
day, but in that day, something very odd had happened. He was attracted to her
as he’d never been attracted to a woman in his life and already, he couldn’t
stand the thought of being away from her. He just wanted to be with her, be
around her, and never leave that glorious aura she seemed to project. He’d
never experienced anything like it.

Elliot smiled and cocked her
head. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He grinned, embarrassed he had
been caught daydreaming. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it’s because I rarely
get an opportunity to go out to breakfast that doesn’t involve work, and it’s
even rarer that I get to share it with a beautiful woman.  I guess I’m a little
giddy.”

Elliot laughed softly. “There you
go, saying sweet things again. You’re going to give me a big head.”

He laughed. “If anyone was truly
entitled to such a thing, it would be you,” he said, his smile fading. “But do
me a favor and don’t change. Stay just the way you are.”

She grinned, modestly, not sure
how to reply.  He had such a gentle, unassuming manner about him, something
that she was coming to like a great deal.  She could feel herself relaxing in
his comforting presence, allowing herself for the first time in over a year to
think of a man in a non-platonic sense. 

In fact, she could get very used
to having Nash around but simultaneous thoughts of Rob made her feel torn,
almost as if she was betraying the man’s memory by even thinking such a thing. 
But she had to move on, didn’t she? As she wrestled with her conflicting
thoughts, the old man brought around water and coffee, and the two of them
prepared their coffee in warm silence.

“So,” Elliot began, just to break
the silence. “Did you find anything last night?”

He took a healthy sip of coffee.
“No,” he said. “Not a thing. No footprints, no car tracks, no fingerprints…
nothing.  I’m really sorry about that.”

She shrugged. “I’m just grateful
that you tried.  And I’m really grateful that you were there when it all went
down.”

He sighed faintly, toying with
his coffee cup. “We need to get that front window fixed.”

She shrugged again, stirring the
creamer in her coffee. “I have a contractor coming tomorrow.  I supposed I’ll
just have to cover the window with plastic until I can get it fixed.”

He gazed at her a moment and she
could literally see the wheels turning behind the smoldering hazel eyes.

“I have a better idea,” he said
softly.

He pulled his cell phone out of
its case and hit a few buttons on the touch screen. As Elliot listened with
increasing curiosity, he contacted someone he apparently knew very well,
explained the situation, and then listened to the response.  After a few more
exchanged words, he hung up the phone and smiled at her.

“My brother will be here in a
couple of hours,” he said.  “He’ll take care of the window for you, and
probably the rest of the house if you want him to.”

Elliot’s eyebrows lifted in
surprise. “What?” she gasped. “Why? Who is…?”

He reached across the table,
gathering her hand in his big, warm mitt. “My brother is a general contractor,”
he told her.  “Well, he’s actually the CEO of a general contracting business so
he doesn’t actually do hands-on work, but for you, he’ll make an exception. He
mostly does the big hotels along the gulf coast and things like that. He’s got
legions of guys at his disposal.”

“Seriously?” she said, awed. “I’m
really flattered. And grateful. But how much is this going to cost me?”

He smiled at her, squeezing her
hand but not letting it go. He was trying to see how long he could get away
with holding her hand before she pulled it away.

“Don’t worry about it,” he told
her. “You’ll get the special family discount rate.”

She laughed softly and he
squeezed her hand again.  Surprisingly, she didn’t pull away. “Thanks,” she
said. “But… well, I have to ask. If your brother is a general contractor, why
is the house in such bad shape to begin with?”

Nash’s smile faded and he sat
back in his chair, very discreetly toying with her fingers. “That’s a long and
sad story,” he admitted, using his other hand to pick up his coffee cup. “The
truth of the matter is that my Mamaw didn’t want anyone touching the house
because in her later years, she was completely insane. Well, maybe not
completely because she still had her cognitive reasoning skills, but something
happened to her when my granddad died. It’s like she just gave up caring.  Beau
and I would go to the house to visit her and she’d sit in her wheelchair on the
front porch, blocking the door and shaking her cane at us. She wouldn’t let us
in.”

“Beau?” Elliot was electrified by
his touch, his gentle fingers playing with hers.  It had been ages since she’d
known such pure, wicked pleasure. “Who’s that?”

“Beau is my brother,” he
explained.  “My Mamaw was born in the year 1900 in New Orleans.  She had been a
debutant back in the teens and twenties, the belle of New Orleans society,
before she met and married my granddad, Case Aury.”

“Is this the grandfather who was
the police chief?” Elliot interrupted.

He nodded and continued. “Yes,
among other things,” he said honestly. “He was also one of the biggest
bootleggers in New Orleans and made a fortune off his ill-gotten gains. He was
as corrupt as they come, kind of like my ancestor the pirate.”

Elliot grinned. “And all of this
didn’t come out when you were running for sheriff?”

Nash reluctantly returned her
grin. “It was a long time ago, so thankfully, people were somewhat forgiving,”
he said. “They were more interested in my pirate forefather, to tell you the
truth.  Anyway, Jewel and Case Aury had three children; one boy, my father, and
two girls.  All of them were born and raised at Purgatory.”

Elliot started laughing. “Jewel
and Case,” she said. “Sounds like they made DVD covers.”

He laughed softly. “We all have
strange names down here, I guess,” he replied. “My father’s name is Camp and
his two sisters are Lorella and Rudi.  Dad had two boys, me and Beau, but my
aunts had twelve children between them, all but two of them girls. Anyway, when
Granddad died back in the 1960’s, Mamaw just seemed to lose her will to live. 
She let everything run down.  When dad would offer to fix something, she would
just chase him away. She did that with all of us until the day she died.  What
you see on the house is fifty years of utter neglect.”

Elliot could see where the story
was leading. “So she died and your family figured it would be way too much
money to restore the place after she let it go to hell?”

  “Sort of,” he said, becoming
bolder at caressing her fingers. “My brother and I wanted to restore it, but my
aunts and their families wanted to sell it. There was basically none of my
granddad’s money left because Mamaw had run through it. Quite honestly, I don’t
know what she did with it because she certainly didn’t spend it on the house or
on herself, so we assumed she’d squandered it somehow. We could just never find
a paper trail. Anyway, when she died, just the house was left. It was a massive
battle for years but in the end, my dad, brother and I just couldn’t up with
the money to buy out my aunts. So we took what we could out of the place that
had any kind of value, sentimental or otherwise, and put it on the market for
two million dollars.  It sat there for six years, gradually reducing in price,
until you bought it.”

By this time, Elliot was looking
at him with some horror. “For seven hundred thousand dollars,” she breathed.
“That’s nowhere close to two million.”

He shrugged. “Greed does terrible
things to people. My aunts got what they deserved, which was very little when
all was said and done.”

“And you?” she asked softly.
“What did you get?”

He smiled faintly. “I got to meet
you.”

She gave him such a look,
something between disbelief and pleasure, as they were interrupted by the old
man bearing two enormous plates of food. Elliot had to remove her hand from his
grasp out of necessity as a massive platter of eggs, grits, potatoes, bacon and
toast was set down before her.  It was enough food for three people.

“I’ll get more coffee,” the old
man said as he scooted away.

Elliot stared at the food,
shocked by the amount. “Good grief,” she breathed. “Alec is going to be sorry
he missed this.”

She picked up her knife and fork,
unaware that Nash was still staring at her. He wasn’t even looking at his
food.  He was just staring at her. The old man came and went with more coffee
before Elliot finally looked up to notice that Nash was just sitting there,
looking at her. She cocked her head quizzically.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He shook his head.  Then, he
shrugged, sitting there with his knife and fork as if unsure what to do with
them.

“I… I’ve just been thinking,” he
stumbled over his words.

She smiled curiously. “What
about?”

He shrugged again, ending up
waving his knife and fork around. He looked really confused and almost
frustrated. Elliot’s brow furrowed.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He sighed heavily and finally set
the silverware down. “I… well, I really want to do something but I don’t want
you to think I’m a… a…”

“A
what
?”

He looked at her. “An
opportunist. Or that I would do this with anybody. I’m not like that at all.”

She had no idea what he was
talking about. “Nash, what’s the matter with you?”

He grunted again, looked at her
with an odd sort of expression, and stood up. Elliot looked up at him as he
moved around the table, realizing that his hands were moving for her face. She
just sat there like an idiot, knife in one hand and fork in the other, as he
cupped her face with exquisite gentleness and planted a warm, soft kiss on her
right cheek. She tasted so good that he did it again. Then he dropped his
hands, moved back to his chair, and picked up his silverware.

“There,” he said, looking at his
food because he was absolutely unable to look her in the eye at the moment,
fearful of her reaction. “I did it.”

Truthfully, Elliot wasn’t quite
sure how to react. It was the sweetest kiss she’d ever received. But he
wouldn’t look at her and a smile played on her lips.

“Happy now?” she asked softly.

“Yes.”

“Nash,” she leaned forward,
whispering. “Look at me.”

He did, reluctantly. When their
eyes met, she broke out in an enormous dimpled grin. “It’s okay,” she said
softly. “I’m not mad.”

He sighed heavily, dropped his
silverware, and was out of his chair in a flash. For the second time, Elliot
just sat there like a dummy with a knife and fork clutched in her hands as he
kissed her again. But this time, he kissed her on the lips, a deliciously
tender kiss that she allowed herself to thoroughly enjoy. It was a little
shocking but not at all unwelcome. He suckled her lips gently and she responded
in kind, tasting the man just as he was tasting her. In fact, she was
disappointed when he pulled away and regained his seat again, collecting his
silverware with shaking hands. She could see the tremors.

As he delved into his meal,
Elliot was now the one staring.  He seemed genuinely confused and despondent of
his actions, cutting into his eggs with his quivering fingers. She watched him
take a big bite, his eyes looking at everything but her.