Slow Heat in Heaven (25 page)

"You're vulgar."

"You're right," Tricia purred. "That's why it was so easy to lure Ken out of your bed and into mine."

"That's not altogether true."

Both women reacted to Ken's voice. They turned simultaneously to find him standing in the open doorway. He had addressed Tricia. But he was looking at Schyler. "Let me refresh your memory, Tricia. You came on to me like a bitch in heat."

"Which you seemed to like."

"You also told me the same lie you told Cotton."

"She told you that I had aborted your child?" Schyler asked.

"Out of pique, she said."

"And you believed her?"

Schyler looked at the man standing before her and wondered how she could have ever loved him. He was weak. He was pathetic. That was glaringly obvious now. He had allowed a spiteful woman to dominate his mind and dictate his future. A real man wouldn't have been led around by the nose like that. Cash Boudreaux wouldn't.

Ken made a helpless gesture. "Hell, Schyler, it was easy to believe her. You were always demonstrating for womens' rights, saying a woman had a right to choose."

"Yes, the right to
choose.
That didn't mean that I—" She broke off. There was no sense in rehashing that now. The damage had been done years ago. But thank God it hadn't been permanent.

"I told Daddy the truth yesterday. We've been reconciled." For the time being she ignored Ken and spoke directly to Tricia. "There was never any reason for you to think that Daddy didn't love you. He does and always did.
In addition, you've got Ken. The hatchet is buried as of this second, but I'll never forgive you for adversely manipulating my life."

She turned to leave, but Tricia lunged after her. She stepped between Schyler and the door. "I don't give a good goddamn whether you forgive me or not. I just want my share of this place free and clear. Then I'll be all too happy to get out of your adversely manipulated life forever."

"Your share of this place? What are you talking about?"

"Tricia," Ken said, "this isn't the time."

"We want to sell Belle Terre."

For a moment, the meaning of Tricia's statement didn't register with Schyler. The idea was so inconceivable as to be ludicrous. It was so preposterous that she laughed. "Sell Belle Terre?" She expected them to smile, to let her in on what was surely a private joke.

Rather, it appeared to be a private conspiracy. Tricia hatefully stared her down. She looked toward Ken for an explanation. He looked away guiltily.

"Have you both gone mad?" she asked hoarsely. "Belle Terre will never be sold."

"Why not?"

"Because it's ours. It belongs to Cotton and to us."

"No it doesn't," Tricia sneered. "It belonged to the Laurents. They're all dead."

Schyler drew herself up. "Cotton might not own it through bloodlines, but he has poured his whole life into Belle Terre. He will never sell it."

She tried to go around Tricia, but the other woman, with surprising strength, caught her arm. "Cotton's mind can be changed."

"Never. I wouldn't even try." She shook off Tricia's hand.

"He's an old man, Schyler. He's been critically ill. His business is suffering as a result. He's got himself in debt so deep he'll never get out."

"Your point?"

"We can have him certified incompetent."

Schyler wanted to strike Tricia so badly that she clenched her fists to keep from doing it. "If anything happens to Cotton, then you will truly have an adversary, Tricia. You will have
me
to contend with."

Schyler gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. She was driving far too fast, but she didn't care. Besides, it seemed only fair that the car keep pace with the windshield wipers. They flapped back and forth furiously, but had little effect in the downpour.

From a sane comer of her mind, she reasoned that she must still be exhausted even after her long sleep. That's why she felt that she had been flayed alive. Her confrontation with Tricia and Ken had left her feeling raw and exposed. Her self-control was tenuous. She feared that it might slip at any moment.

In the meantime, she felt driven to act. If she stalled, she might never get into motion again. If she let herself think about all that had been said in the last hour, she would go stark, staring mad. She had to keep moving to keep her mind from petrifying around one thought: they wanted to sell Belle Terre.

Her objective was clear. She had her sights set on a goal and nothing would keep her from achieving it. She had to preserve Belle Terre, keep it safe, intact, save it for Cotton. She had to work until she dropped. That's what she must do.

Her course of action was so definitely blueprinted in her mind that when she reached the landing side of the Laurent Bayou bridge, she floorboarded the brake pedal. The car
skidded several yards before coming to a complete standstill. The windshield wipers continued to clack out their steady beat. The torrential rain drummed against the roof of the car. Schyler, breathing through her mouth as though she had run the distance from the mansion, stared at die landing.

The inactive scene was so out of keeping with the energy churning inside her, she couldn't believe what she was seeing. It was incomprehensible. There was absolutely nothing being done. The place was deserted.

The office door was dead-bolted, the windows dark. The heavy doors of the hangarlike building that housed the rigs when they weren't in use were chained closed. The loading platforms along the railroad tracks were deserted. The entire area looked as forlorn as a ghost town, desolate, empty, and dead.

Schyler swallowed her dismay and tried desperately to remember what day of the week this was. She had lost track of the days, surely. The time she had spent in the hospital had put her off track. Mentally she tallied days against the calendar. No, this was a work day.

Then why wasn't any work being done? Where the hell was Cash? Goddamn him!

She was so upset that she began to shake uncontrollably. She took her foot off the brake and gave the steering wheel a vicious turn. She stepped on the accelerator; the rear wheels spun, trying to gain traction in the soggy ground. They threw up a shower of mud behind the car.

"Dammit!" Schyler thumped her fist on the steering wheel and dug her toe into the accelerator. Finally the wheels found a foothold. The car lurched forward. Its rear end fishtailed and swerved dangerously close to a concrete support of the bridge. Schyler jerked the wheel again and straightened the car out as it shot onto the main road. She met no other cars, and that was a blessing because she positioned her car over the yellow stripe.

Visibility was severely limited by the dark day and the driving rain. She saw the turnoff she wanted too late and slammed on the brakes. The car slid past the side road. Cursing lividly, she shoved it into reverse and backed up.

The side road was a sea of mud, but she aimed the hood ornament down its center and plowed through it. Her fury gained as much momentum as her car. When she brought it to a teeth-jarring stop, she wrenched the door open and cannoned out. Heedless of the rain, she marched toward the house. It was the same color as the gray sky and blended into its setting so well as to be almost invisible.

He was sitting on the covered porch but far enough back to keep dry. Rainwater was rolling off the tin roof and dripping over the eaves, splashing in puddles that bordered the porch. The chair he was sitting in had a cane seat and a ladder back. It was reared back to a precarious angle. He had balanced himself by propping his bare feet on a cypress post that supported the overhang.

He was without a shirt. His jeans were zipped, but un- snapped. A bottle of whiskey and a glass with two finger's worth in the bottom of it were sitting beside his chair. A cigarette was occupying one corner of his sullen lips. His eyes were squinted against the smoke that curled from its tip. They widened a trifle when Schyler bounded up onto the porch and yelled her first question.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"

In no apparent hurry, Cash took the cigarette from between his lips and looked at it curiously. "Smoking?"

Schyler quivered with outrage. Her arms were stiff at her sides, and she kept opening and closing her fists. She seemed impervious to her chilled, wet skin and her hair, which dripped rain onto her rigid shoulders.

With an angry, grunting sound, she reached out and knocked his feet away from the post. The front legs of his chair landed hard on the porch. As though catapulted from the seat, Cash was instantly on his feet and towering over her. He flicked his cigarette over the porch railing.

"You live dangerously, Miss Schyler." His voice had the sinister lisp of a sword being withdrawn from its scabbard.

"I ought to fire you on the spot."

"For what?"

"For goofing off when you thought I'd be away. Why isn't any work being done? Where are the loggers? The rigs haven't even been out today. I went to the landing.

The office is closed. The garage is locked. Nothing is going on. Why the hell not?"

Cash's temper had never had a very long fuse. He didn't take reprimands well and had never walked away from a fight. On any application, he filled in the blank space after RELIGIOUS PREFERENCE with the word Christian, but the concept of turning the other cheek was alien to his nature. The army had trained and sharpened reflexes that were already lightning quick.

He might have appeared to be totally relaxed, a man enjoying a smoke, a whiskey, and a good, hard rain, but in fact, Cash's nerves were as frazzled as Schyler's. For the last few days, he hadn't slept any more than she. His short supply of patience had been used up days ago; he was fresh out. He had consumed more whiskey than was prudent for a man to drink in the middle of the day. He had been spoiling for a fight even before Schyler had charged onto his territory slinging unfounded accusations.

Had she been a man, she would already be picking herself up out of the mud and spitting out teeth. But Cash, for all his meanness, had never physically abused a woman. He resorted to contempt. He was oozing it when he said, "The weather, lady. Do you expect me to let loggers work in this?" He made a broad, sweeping gesture with his hand; water running off the leaves splattered it.

"I hired you to work in any kind of weather."

"This isn't a brief April shower."

"I don't care if it's a hurricane, I want the loggers out there cutting timber."

"Are you
crazy?
The forests become death traps when it rains this much this quick. We can't even get rigs in. The mud—"

"Are you going to put them to work or not?"

"I'm not."

Her breasts heaved with the extent of her anger and frustration. "I should have listened to everybody. They told me you were worthless."

"Maybe so. But saw hands can't cut, haul, or load in this kind of rain. If you've ever been around loggers you damn well know that. Cotton wouldn't send men out in this and neither am I."

Suddenly remembering Tricia's words, Schyler drew a staggering breath. "Your mother. And my father. Is it true? Were they. . .?"

"Yes." He pushed the
s
through his teeth. "They were."

Schyler sucked back a sob. "He was
married.
He had a family," she cried with anguish. "She was a slut."

"And he's a son of a bitch," Cash snarled. "I hated him being with her." He moved forward threateningly, backing Schyler into the cypress post. "But I had to live with it day in and day out practically all my life. You didn't. You were protected up there at Belle Terre, while I had to watch him use and hurt my mother for years. There wasn't a damn thing I could do about it."

"Your mother was a grown woman. She made her choice."

"A rotten one in my estimation. She chose to love a stinking son of a bitch like Cotton Crandall."

Schyler raised her chin. "You wouldn't have the guts to call him that to his face."

"I have. Ask him."

"I want you off Belle Terre by the end of the week."

"Who's going to get your timber ready for market?"

"I will."

"Wrong. You can't do doodledee squat without me." He took a step closer. "And you know it. You knew it when you came driving over here, didn't you?" He braced one hand against the post near her head and leaned into her, brushing his body against hers. "Know what? I don't think that's why you came over here at all. I think you came over here for something altogether different."

"You're drunk."

"Not yet."

"I meant what I said. I want you gone—"

She had moved away from the post. He caught her arm and slammed her back up against it, hard enough to halt her condescending speech. His palm supported her chin while his fingers bracketed her jaw.

"The trouble with you, Miss Schyler, is that you just don't know when to quit. You keep pushing and pushing, until you drive a man over the edge."

His mouth covered hers in a hard kiss. Schyler reacted violently. She struggled against his hand to release her jaw, while her body bucked against his. Her arms flailed at him.

"Admit it." He lifted his mouth off hers only far enough to speak, "This is what you came here for."

"Let me go."

"Not a chance, lady."

"I hate you."

"But you want me."

"Like hell I do."

"You want me. That's what's got you as mad as a hornet."

He kissed her again. This time he succeeded in getting his tongue inside her mouth. The rain beat loudly against the roof, drowning out her whimpers of outrage and then of surrender.

It wasn't a conscious decision. She didn't voluntarily capitulate. Her emotions superseded her will and responded on their own. For days they'd been seeking an outlet. It had just presented itself, and they eagerly funneled toward it.

Still, her stubborn nature balked at total compliance. She succeeded in tearing her mouth free. Her lips felt swollen and bruised. When she dragged her tongue over them, she tasted whiskey. She tasted him. Cash Boudreaux.

The thought was untenable. She laid her hands on his bare shoulders, intending to push him away. But he lowered his head again. His lips ate at hers. Her fingers curled inward, forming deep furrows in the tense muscles of his upper arms.

When the kiss ended, she rolled her head to one side. "Stop," she moaned.

He did. At least he stopped kissing her lips. But he laid his open mouth against her neck. "You want this as much as I do."

"No."

"Yes." He flicked her earlobe with his tongue. "How long has it been since you got fucked real good?"

A low groan escaped her. It dissolved against his lips. They kissed ravenously, engaging in an orgy of kissing, cruel and carnal. He swept her mouth with his tongue, as though to rid it of pride and resistance.

His hands moved down her chest until each covered a breast. He massaged them roughly. He wasn't easy on the buttons of her damp blouse, nor on the clasp of her bra. He wasn't too much kinder to the soft flesh that filled his hands. "Jesus," he sighed as he kneaded her. He supported her breasts with his palms while he whisked the erect nipples with his thumbs.

"Very nice, Miss Schyler."

"Go to hell."

"Not yet. Not until we've finished what we've started here."

Schyler's head ground against the post. Her eyes were squeezed shut, but she blindly knotted her fingers in his dense chest hair. He grunted, with pain, with pleasure. He bit her lower lip. She went in search of a full-fledged, open-mouth, tongue-thrusting kiss, and got it.

Abruptly they broke apart and gazed into each other's eyes. Their rapid breaths soughed together. It was the only sound they could hear over the incessant rain.

He bent at the knees and lifted her into his arms. The front door crashed open when he landed his bare foot against it. The rooms of the house were dim and shadowed and stuffy. He carried her straight through it to the screened back porch.

The iron bed had been left unmade. The sheets were white and clean, but had a rainy-day rumpledness that was as sexy as the heat their two bodies generated. His knee made a deep dent in the mattress. Springs creaked like settling wood in a beloved old house. The instant her wet hair made contact with the pillows, his body covered hers with mating possessiveness. Their mouths came together hungrily as Cash gathered her beneath him.

Kissing her deeply, he slid his hand beneath her skirt and up her smooth thigh. He palmed her. She was warm, damp. He gently squeezed her mound. Her responding gasp was soft and yearning. Quickly he sat up and plunged
his other hand beneath her skirt. Hooking the fingers of both hands in the elastic of her panties, he peeled them down her legs.