Dorothy Garlock (24 page)

“That crippled son of a bitch had it coming,” he muttered.

Try as he might, Graham hadn’t been able to get out of his head the horrible sight of Sophie kissing Cole Ambrose. No amount
of restless pacing, no matter how many fitful hours he spent trying to fall asleep, nothing would make the image go away.
Every time he closed his eyes, there it was: he and Riley Mason lurking in the dark shadows across the street as Sophie rose
on her tiptoes, closed her eyes, and…

What does she see in him?!

Graham hadn’t intended to beat the crippled man that night. He’d spent the bulk of the day cooped up in his father’s home,
taking refuge from the stormy weather, but once the gale had broken, he’d headed out for some fresh air, to clear his equally
stormy thoughts. He’d been aimlessly wandering when he’d first seen Cole Ambrose limping along.

In that moment, he’d been content to simply follow, to try to make some sense out of why Sophie would be attracted to such
a man, but it seemed that with every step, the furnace that was his fury had grown hotter. He found that he despised the young
teacher, not solely because he was the object of Sophie’s affections, but because he was much that Graham was not and might
never be; honorable enough to stand up for her at the diner, smart enough to have gone to college.

When Cole had arrived at the school, Graham had hidden in the bushes and watched as the young teacher had peered into the
windows. While Graham had been itching for a fight, to try to sooth his damaged ego, he’d remained reluctant to do anything;
getting caught attacking a crippled man would be nearly as bad as being discovered to have aided Ellis and Riley. Even stepping
on a twig and giving his hiding place away wasn’t enough to draw him out. For that, it had required Cole’s words.

“Don’t be a coward.”

His anger at those words had been so great that he hadn’t been able to resist his impulses. He had attacked without thought,
hurling punch after punch at Cole, intent on causing the crippled man as much pain as had been visited upon him. Though Cole
had been hardier than he had expected, in the end, he had fallen. It was only then that the bloodlust had left Graham.

He had meant what he said; the next time he met Cole he would kill him.

Graham knew that Sophie was not without blame. She had been the one that had spurned his initial advances, only to fall straight
into the arms of another man, a cripple at that. While he would never put his hands on her in a violent way, he knew that
he would have to speak with her; she clearly needed his help to overcome her attraction to that man! No matter what it took,
no matter how long he had to struggle, they would be together.

Fleetingly, he thought of Carolyn Glass. He knew that none of this would be happening if he hadn’t allowed himself to be seduced.
If she weren’t pregnant with his child, if Ellis hadn’t found out about their affair, then Sophie would never have been driven
to the cripple’s side. With effort, Graham drove such thoughts from his head. Even if he shared some responsibility, he would
make sure that Sophie wasn’t involved with Cole Ambrose.

Rounding the corner, Graham found himself back at his father’s home, a two-story Victorian that was regarded as the nicest
home in Victory; beveled glass paned every window, gabled trimmings underlined every eave. In short, the home was a testament
to everything that Graham had to lose. Bounding up the steps, he tried to put such thoughts out of his mind. Today was a new
beginning for him. Starting today, he would begin to reclaim his life.

And nothing and no one will stop me!

R
ILEY
M
ASON FLICKED
his cigarette butt into the darkness that surrounded Ellis Watts’s shack and cursed under his breath. He’d been standing
out in the damp night for over half an hour, rubbing his arms for warmth, his patience burning up just as steadily as his
cigarettes. Though cool, the night air was again thickening with insects. Even as the moon peeked out from between a pair
of dirty clouds, he wondered just when he would be let inside.

He had shown up when he had been told to, only to find that Ellis was otherwise disposed, busy entertaining himself with a
woman in his bed. Riley had been forced to listen to their moans and groans through the open window, the sound of their passion
nearly making him sick. It wasn’t that he was a prude; he’d had his share of time spent between a woman’s legs. His problem
was who Ellis was with. For the life of him, he’d never been able to figure what Ellis saw in that bitch… especially now.

“We ain’t got no time for this shit,” he growled to himself.

Frustration rolled around Riley’s gut at the thought of those damn Nazis still living out at their farm as if nothing had
happened. He supposed he’d been a fool to believe Ellis when he’d said that they’d hightail it out of town just as soon as
they saw them in their hoods. But that sure as shit hadn’t happened! Riley had driven by the farm a couple of nights earlier
to find that the barn had been rebuilt just as good as new. That certainly wasn’t the act of a family living in fear; it was
an act of outright defiance.

What the hell was Ellis waitin’ for?

After they’d been found out by that German bitch in the diner, he’d wanted to shut her up. The thought of being caught and
going to jail petrified him. It would’ve been just as easy as pie to fall upon her in her bed, to catch her unawares and simply
snuff her out without a sound. But Ellis had had other ideas.

“ ‘Get ’em good and scared,’ ” Riley snarled, mimicking the other man. “Bullshit!”

Ellis’s instructions had been to remind Sophie Heller of their presence, for her to be aware that they could take her at any
time. At first, Riley had gotten a small measure of satisfaction from waiting outside the newspaper office just so the bitch
could get a look at him. That first afternoon, the look of fright on her face had nearly given him an erection! But then,
something had changed. Now she rarely even glanced at him, and when she did, the look on her face sure as hell wasn’t one
of fear.

She needed to be put in her place!

Riley was quite certain that what had changed the Kraut was Cole Ambrose. He hadn’t the slightest idea what a comely young
thing like her would see in a good-for-nothing cripple, but whatever it was, it had gotten her back up. Still, if she believed
that a teacher would keep her out of danger, she’d find out that she was sorely mistaken.

A woman’s voice floated out the window. “Oh, Ellis!”

“Give it to me, baby,” Ellis groaned.

“Goddamn! Ain’t they through yet?” Riley grunted.

Ellis Watts was another matter entirely. Although he claimed to have a plan and that they should stick to it, sometimes Riley
had to wonder… Ellis had taken him under his wing, had given him a direction, a purpose toward which he could direct his energy;
there was a time he would have sworn that he would follow the man to hell and back. Sure, Ellis yelled at him and told him
that he was worthless from time to time, but Riley could tell that he didn’t really mean it. But he still couldn’t begin to
understand why Ellis sat idly by, content to simply watch. Riley wanted more. They needed to act soon, otherwise he might
just have to do something on his own.

Lighting another cigarette, Riley returned to his pacing.

Sweating and spent, Ellis Watts rolled roughly off the woman who lay beneath him and collapsed on the dingy mattress, panting
deeply. Even with the windows open and a gentle breezing blowing, the thick smell of sex hung heavily in the close air of
his cramped bedroom. No light shone in the tiny room, but there was enough of a glow from the half-hidden moon to show him
that his partner was already gathering her clothes and preparing to leave. Blindly, he reached for the pack of cigarettes
that lay on the table beside the bed.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, scratching a match to life against his fingernail and lighting his cigarette. “You’re in such
a hurry to get on out of here, it makes me think you’ve got another date.”

“You knew my visit was going to be a short one.”

“Just a slam, bam, and you’d be on your way, huh?”

“That’s all this will ever be, Ellis. Don’t tell me you have a problem with that.”

“Nope,” he said with a chuckle between drags. “Can’t say that I do, Mrs. Glass.”

Carolyn Glass spun toward Ellis with a look that would have turned a lesser man into stone. Though he undoubtedly found her
beautiful, he’d always known that there was a vicious coldness that lay just below the surface, a darkness of her spirit that
was only one perceived slight or ill-advised word from being released. Her brow furrowed tightly, the veins on her neck rose
and flushed her face, but it was the unfiltered malice in her eyes that he found the most disturbing. Still, Ellis could not
prevent a chuckle.

“Relax, Carolyn,” he said. “Ain’t no point in ruinin’ our night, is there?”

“You need to watch how you choose to speak to me,” she answered coldly, an untoward frown creasing her pursed lips; it was
as if she were carved from ice. “I will walk out that door and never look back.”

“What would I ever do then?” Ellis asked sarcastically.

“Find some other woman to lie with, I suppose. I can’t imagine that you don’t have a couple of tramps stashed around town
as it is. Besides, isn’t that what I already am to you, Ellis? Some tramp that you can have your way with just so long as
I cooperate?”

Much of what Carolyn was saying to him was already true, particularly the part about other women. With his good looks, Ellis
had never had a problem attracting the fairer sex. From the time before he could even shave, he’d been slipping his fingers
between the folds of blouses, under the hems of skirts, all sorts of places that they didn’t necessarily belong. As he had
gotten older, nothing had changed. He was a cad, a fornicator, a womanizer, or any other name folks wanted to pin on him.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re my favorite whore.”

“What an honor,” she sneered and set back to gathering her things as he continued to watch her intently.

Ellis had long ago determined that only a fool wouldn’t have been attracted to a woman like Carolyn Glass. The first time
he’d set eyes upon her, so many years back that he’d lost count of them, he’d instantly known that he would have done anything
to ensure that he lay between her legs. Even then, she’d seemed so damn haughty, so completely out of his class that he might
have well been pining for the Queen of England. Still, he’d occasionally catch her looking his way with a look on her face
that he read as much more than disgust; he’d seen the hint of interest. He knew that his looks were prone to turning a head
or two, but to attract the eye of a woman like her was something that surprised him.

But then one night, she had shown up at his door…

Ellis Watts was no fool. He knew exactly what he was to Carolyn; nothing more than a plaything who would remain at her side
only as long as she was interested in him and not a moment more. He was dangerous, a fling, a temporary walk on the wilder
side of life, and certainly nothing like her husband. He was everything she wanted but could never claim.

But Ellis was also one more thing to her; discreet. He understood that what they had together could be taken from him just
as easily as snuffing out a candle. Even if he were to try to expose their relationship, to suddenly show up at the newspaper
office and give Augustus all of the sordid details, who would possibly believe a scoundrel like him? All it would take was
for Carolyn to turn on the waterworks and there wasn’t a soul in Victory who wouldn’t judge that he was trying to extort money
from her husband. In that way, he was at her mercy. So instead, he just enjoyed what they had.

But then she’d gotten pregnant.

Regarding her in the scant moonlight, Ellis could see Carolyn’s slightly extended stomach. She wasn’t far enough along in
her pregnancy to show much, but this was a condition that would rapidly change. When she’d first told him that she was with
child, a spasm of fear had coursed through him, a fear that she was about to tell him the responsibility was his, but she’d
never mentioned such a possibility. On the contrary, she’d seemed utterly sure that the true identity of her child’s father
was Graham Grier. She didn’t care; it cemented her ties to Augustus Glass and his money.

But there had been possibilities for him in her pregnancy, as well. Listening to Carolyn talk of her life, Ellis had been
struck by how easily exploitable parts of it were. Many of his previously hatched ideas, at first facing insurmountable obstacles,
suddenly seemed possible at second glance. Carolyn had been easy to persuade; after all, she was with him because of a tendency
toward mischief. From there, it had been a simple matter of getting the ball rolling, consequences be damned.

In the end, they were simply using each other, nothing more or less. There was no regret on Ellis’s part; his parents had
long ago taught him that there was nothing to be gained from developing attachments to others. He would take what he needed
from Carolyn and then she would be discarded and he would never think of her again.

“I saw her again the other night,” Carolyn suddenly said.

“Who?” Ellis asked, taking a heavy drag on his cigarette.

“Who do you think? The Kraut girl.”

“Really?”

“Augustus had dragged me off to the movies again, completely ignoring the fact that I didn’t want to go.” She sighed as she
buttoned the front of her silky blouse. “When it was finally over, when we were standing in the lobby, she and that cripple
came out.”

“She was with Ambrose?” he asked, even more interested in her answer.

“Is that who he is?” she asked offhandedly. “Someone said he was going to teach in the school this fall, but I hadn’t put
a face with the name. He wasn’t bad-looking, really. That is, if you don’t mind the crippled part. Your girl mustn’t care.”