Slow Heat in Heaven (30 page)

"Let me do some quick figuring." He sat down on the edge of a small sofa and reached for a magazine lying on the spindly coffee table. Using its back cover as his scratch sheet, he did some quick calculations. "We've got six rigs hauling every day. That's not including any independents we pull in. At five thousand board feet per load, that's—"

"Thirty thousand board feet."

"Times three loads per day." He glanced up at her. "We can ship ninety thousand board feet each day, in addition to what we buy from independents."

"He's ordering over two million. We've got under a month before the loan comes due."

"Say thirty days."

"It's less than that, Cash."

"So we'll work some overtime."

"What about the weather?"

"We'll be really screwed if it rains."

"Oh, Lord."

He rechecked his figures. "We can do it, Schyler," he said.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"By the deadline?"

"Yes."

"I'm placing a lot of trust in you."

He stared at her for a long moment. "I know."

His expression and his soft, almost sad, tone of voice disconcerted her. For a moment she was distracted by them. Then she asked him, "If I weren't here, if you had to do this alone, if you were responsible for this decision, what would you do?"

He stood up, moved to the window, and stared out. He slid his hands into his pockets, a gesture that parted his unbuttoned sport coat. His dress slacks fit his seat as well
as the jeans he always wore. His shoes looked new, as though he might have bought them especially for this business appointment. That was endearing. Schyler was touched.

He turned around slowly. "I hate kissing anybody's ass, particularly a guy like that." He jutted his chin toward the executive office at the other end of the hall. "I'd be tempted to tell him to shove it. I guess it would come down to how badly I wanted or needed the deal. How important is it to you?"

Suddenly she remembered the expression on Cotton's face when he'd looked up at her from the gurney and asked, "Why did you destroy my grandchild?" She would never forget that as long as she lived. Cotton's faith in her, his love, had been shattered. She needed to restore it completely.

"It's very important, Cash," she said huskily. "Not just to me. But to Cotton. To Belle Terre. Its future is at stake. I'll do anything, sacrifice anything, even my pride, for Belle Terre. Can you understand that?"

A muscle in his cheek twitched.
"Oui,
I can understand that."

"Then shall we go back in and sign Joe Jr.'s contract?"

"I'm right behind you."

Ken Howell collapsed on top of his wife the second after his climax. When he regained his breath, he raised his head and dusted kisses along her hairline. "That was great. Was it good for you?"

She pushed him off her and rolled to the side of the bed. She thrust her arms into a peignoir. "Did you ask Schyler that every time you made love to her?"

His face, already flushed from intercourse, turned a deeper red. "With Schyler, I didn't have to ask."

Tricia cast him a glance over her shoulder. "Touché." Her mules slapped against her bare heels as she walked into the bathroom. Over the sound of running water, she called out to him, "Are you still in love with her?"

Ken padded naked to the bathroom. He stood in the doorway and waited until Tricia finished brushing her teeth. "Do you care?"

She straightened and blotted her mouth on a towel, watching him in the mirror over the sink. "Yes, I think I do."

"Only because you don't want her to have something that you can't."

She shrugged and dropped the sheer robe. "Probably."

"At lease you're honest."

Tricia turned on the shower. Reaching in to test the water temperature, she swiveled her head around and looked at him over her smooth shoulder. He was morosely staring at the tile floor. "I haven't always been."

He raised his head. "What, honest? Yes, I know."

For a moment husband and wife stared at each other across the bathroom that was rapidly filling up with steam. Their expressions were tinged with regret, maybe remorse, but neither kidded himself for long. Neither was righteous and never would be.

"When did you know?"

"That there never was a baby?" he asked. Tricia nodded. He pushed back his tousled hair. "I don't know, maybe from the beginning."

"But you still married me."

"I didn't see an easier way out of the mess. It was more expedient and less trouble to go along with your lie."

"You would rather be stuck with me than to beg Schyler's forgiveness for screwing me."

"I never claimed any medals for heroism,"

"What about those cats?"

He looked at her quizzically. The question was seemingly out of context. "Disposing of them made me sick to my stomach."

"Don't play dense, Ken. Did you do it?"

"Of course not. Did you?"

"Of course not."

Neither was convinced of the other's innocence. Tricia stepped into the shower but didn't close the door. "You've got to stop her, you know."

"I'm trying," Ken said defensively.

"Try harder. She's in East Texas today negotiating a deal that will get Crandall Logging out of hock. We'll have a harder time convincing Cotton to sell if everything is solvent."

Ken gazed at his reflexion in the mirror, running a hand over his stubbled jaw, not liking what he saw. He was beginning to look jowly, old, soft, dissipated. He looked useless.

"Cash Boudreaux bears watching, too," Tricia said from the shower. "I understand that he and Schyler are thick as thieves."

"He works for her, that's all. She depends on him to manage the loggers."

Tricia's laugh echoed loudly in the shower when she shut off the water. "How naive you are, Ken. Or are you burying your head in the sand? You don't want to believe that they're lovers."

"Who says?"

"Everybody." She wrapped herself in a bath sheet and began applying baby oil to her wet limbs. "Any woman Cash's shadow falls on eventually goes to bed with him. If he wants her, that is. Those who have been with him say that he's the best lover they've ever had. They say his cock's a good ten inches."

Ken frowned at her as he stepped into the shower and twisted the taps wide open. "Female bullshit. Is that all you and your cronies talk about? Men and the size of their cocks?"

"No more than men talk about tits and ass."

"That's a male prerogative."

"Not anymore, baby," she chortled.

Ken shook his head in disgust, then thrust it beneath the needle spray. Tricia finished drying and sailed the towel in the general direction of the hamper in the corner.

She left the bathroom, confident in the knowledge that what she wanted, she went after, and usually got. If Ken couldn't or wouldn't keep up with her, he would be left behind. That would be all right, too.

"Having
Chateaubriand and
asparagus tips for
lunch
was
decadent."

Cash indulgently propelled Schyler toward her parked car. She was comically tipsy. They'd stopped at the steak-house to have a celebratory, late lunch. When they discovered that it didn't open until four, they had decided to wait, passing the time by milling around the parklike setting on the edges of a national forest. Even though the contract they had obtained from Endicott had a definite drawback, it had boosted their spirits.

The meal had been delicious, the portions generous to a fault. They had demanded and gotten the royal treatment, being the only customers in the place at that early hour. Schyler had ordered champagne to toast their success. Cash figured the two bottles she had bought probably depleted the restaurant's wine cellar of its stock. There wasn't much call for champagne in a restaurant that catered mostly to upper-crust tourists and local regulars.

One bottle had washed down their steak dinners. Schyler was affectionately clutching the other to her breasts now as she sashayed toward the car.

"Let's roll down the windows and drive real fast," she said excitedly.

Her eyes were more animated than Cash had ever seen them. They sparkled with amber lights. Champagne was good for Schyler Crandall's soul. She had shed her snooty air along with her inhibitions. She wasn't the boss lady. She wasn't the reigning princess of Belle Terre. She was one hundred percent pure woman. And one hundred percent of his body knew it. Her effect on him was being felt from the top of his head to the soles of his new shoes, which were almost as tight as she was.

"Okay, but I'll do the driving." Smiling to himself, he opened the car door for her and stood aside as she got in. "Why don't you take off your jacket?"

"Good idea." She set the bottle of champagne beside her on the seat and shrugged out of the linen jacket. Leaning forward, she shimmied her shoulders to get the sleeves off. Her breasts swayed beneath her blouse.

His penis took notice.

He laid her discarded jacket in the back seat along with his. As he went around the car, he whipped off the necktie and unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt. By the time he steered the car out onto the highway, Schyler's alligator heels were lying on their sides on die carpeted floorboard and her head was lolling against the seat. One foot was tucked up under her opposite thigh. Her knees were widely spread. It wasn't indecent. Her skirt was bunched between them.

What Cash was thinking was decidedly indecent.

"Such an odious man," she said around a wide yawn that would have mortified Macy Laurent. Schyler didn't even attempt to cover it.

Two of her jaw teeth had fillings, he noticed. He had never been in a dentist's chair until he went into the army. It hadn't mattered because he'd been blessed with good teeth. Neglecting semiannual checkups would have been unheard of in the mansion at Belle Terre.

"Who's odious? Me?" he asked.

Her head remained on the seat, but she turned it to look at him. A placid little smile was curving her lips upward. She had eaten off her lipstick. He liked her lips better without it. She had a real bedroom mouth, suitable for kissing, suitable for lots of things.

"No, not you. Joe Endicott, Jr."

"He's a prick."

She giggled. "Crude but true." For a moment she studied him. "How come when you say bad words they don't sound bad?"

"Don't they?"

"No," she replied, puzzled. "Just like Cotton. He cusses something terrible. Always has. Some of the first words I learned to say were swear words I'd overheard him using. Mama nagged him to clean up his language all the time." She yawned again. "I never thought bad language sounded bad coming from Cotton."

"Is the wind too strong?"

Her breasts rose on a deep, supremely lazy breath. They strained against her linen blouse, which by now had lost its starch. It looked touchable. Cash ached to feel her. He couldn't understand why he didn't, why he didn't just reach across the short distance and cover one of those soft mounds with his hand, pinch up one of her nipples with his fingertips. He had never exercised caution with a woman before. What he saw and wanted, he took. He usually got away with it, too.

"No, the wind feels wonderful," Schyler sighed. Her eyes slid closed. "Wake me up when we get to Heaven." She giggled again and began to sing, "When I get to Heaven, gonna put on my shoes, gonna walk all over God's Heaven." Her smile was winsome. "Veda used to rock me in the chairs on the veranda and sing that spiritual."

Cash thought she'd fallen asleep, but after a moment she said, "Silly name for a town, isn't it? Heaven. I love it and I hate it, know what I mean?"

He took her question seriously.
"Oui."

"It's like this mole I have on my hip. It's ugly. I don't like it,
but . . .
but it's a part of me. It wouldn't do any good to have it removed because every time I looked at that spot, I'd be reminded of that mole anyway. That's how I feel about Heaven and Belle Terre. I can leave, go to the other side of the world, but they're always there. With me." Her eyes popped open. "Am I drunk?"

He couldn't keep from laughing at her alarmed expression. "If you're sober enough to wonder, then you're not too far gone."
"Oh, good, good." Her eyes closed again. "It was delicious champagne, wasn't it?" She dragged her tongue over her lower Sip.

Cash shifted the swollen flesh in his trousers to a mote comfortable position.
"Oui, delicieux."

"Are we home?" Schyler sat up, groggy and disoriented.

"Not quite. I want to show you something."

"There's nothing to see," she said querulously.

Beyond the car in any direction was dense woods. Judging by the long slanting shadows the tree trunks cast on the ground, it was getting close to sunset.

Cash pushed open his door and got out, taking the unopened bottle of champagne with him. "Come on. Don't fee a spoilsport. And don't forget your shoes." Schyler put her heels back on and got out but leaned against the side of the car unsteadily, holding her head. "You okay?" Cash asked as he came around the rear of the car.

"A bowling tournament is being played inside my head. My eyeballs are the pins."

He laughed, disturbing the birds in the nearest tree. They set up a chattering protest. "What you need is the hair of the dog." He wagged the bottle of champagne in front of tier face and she groaned. Taking her arm, he led her forward, into the temple of trees that surrounded them.

"These aren't hiking shoes, Cash," she complained. Her high heels sank into the soft ground. Milkweed stalks broke against her legs, spilling their white sap on her stockings.

He strengthened his grip on her arm and helped her along. "It's not far."

"To what?"

"To where we're going."

"I don't even know where we are."

"On Belle Terre."

"Belle Terre? I've never been here."

They were working their way up a gentle hill. The ground was garnished with purple verbena. Wild rosebushes were tangled around lesser shrubs, their pink blooms fragrant in the dusty, shimmering heat of late afternoon.

They crested the hill. Cash said, "Careful. It's steeper going down on this side."

At the bottom of the hill, Laurent Bayou made a gradual bend. Between there and the higher ground on which they stood grew hardwoods and pines, then, along the muddy basks of the bayou, cypresses. Late sunlight dappled the floor of the forest with golden light. It was lovely, wild, and primeval—a place for pagan worship.

"Cash!" Schyler exclaimed in fright when a winged animal went sailing from one tree to another not far from them. "Was that a bat?"

"A flying squirrel. They usually don't come out until dark. He's getting a head start."

She watched the squirrel's acrobatics until it disappeared among the leafy branches. Stillness descended. One could almost hear the beetles crunching paths through blow- downs. Iridescent insects skimmed along the brassy surface of the water. Bees buzzed among the flowering plants. A cardinal flitted through the trees like a red dart.

Schyler stood in awe of this spot unsullied by man. It was Nature in balance. Left alone it had beautifully perpetuated itself century after century, eon upon eon. She must still be drank, she thought ruefully. She was waxing poetic. She commented on her observations to Cash. He didn't seem particularly surprised or amused.

"It does that to me, too. We're seeing a transformation take place." She looked around her but didn't see any drastic changes in progress. He laughed. "We'd have to stay here several centuries to see it completed."

She consulted her wristwatch. "I probably should get back before then." He actually laughed at her joke. She liked that. It was the first time he had laughed without it being tinged with sarcasm. "What transformation?"

He propped his foot up on a boulder as his eyes swept the forest surrounding them. "I speculate that the original forest was destroyed by fire. It happened, oh, maybe a hundred years ago. See back there behind us," he said, pointing. "What kind of trees do you see? Mostly."

"Oak. Other hardwoods."

"Right. But after the fire, the first ones to grow back were pines, loblolly mainly. They were probably as thick as a nursery in just a few years after the fire. The saplings brought in birds, who carried seeds from the hardwoods of neighboring forests."

"And they took over."

He looked pleased that she knew. "Do you know why?"

She searched her memory, but shook her head. "I remember Cotton telling me that the deciduous usually outlive pines."

"The pine seeds germinate quickly in sunny soil. But deprived of sunlight, the saplings die out."

"So the taller the hardwoods get, the shadier the forest floor gets and—"

"You end up with what we've got here. The pines eventually giving way to the hardwoods."

"Then why don't all forests eventually become deciduous?"

"Because man tames most of them. This," he said with a sweep of his hand, "happens when a tame forest reverts to wilderness."

"It is untamed." She was impressed with his knowledge. Gazing up at him she said, "You like it best this way, don't you?"

"Yes. But it's damned hard to earn a living by admiring a view." He extended her his hand. "Come on."

He led her down the steep incline. They waded through pine needles that were ankle deep. He guided her to a blowdown near the water's edge. She could now see that the bayou wasn't really stagnant at this point, as she had thought when looking down on it from above. But the current was so lacking in energy, the water appeared motionless.

"I thought you didn't allow blowdowns to remain in the forest."

He tore the foil off the bottle of champagne, carefully putting it in his pocket. He disposed of the wire the same way after twisting it off. "Ordinarily I don't. Not here." He looked around him with reverence and awe, as one does in a cathedral. "Everything here is left alone. Nature works out its own problems. Nobody messes with the natural order of things here."

"But this is part of Belle Terre."

The cork popped out. The champagne spewed over his hand and showered Schyler. They laughed.

In that same jocular vein, she asked, "Aren't you taking a rather proprietary attitude over my land?"

He looked down at her for a long moment. "I'd kill anybody who tried to bother this place."

Schyler believed him. "You shouldn't say that. You might have to."

He shook his head. "Cotton feels the same way I do about it."

"Cotton?" Schyler asked, surprised.

"My mother is buried up there."

Schyler followed the direction of his gaze to the top of the hill they'd descended minutes earlier. "I had no idea."

"The priest wouldn't let her be buried in consecrated ground because
she. . ."
Cash took a drink of the champagne straight out of the bottle. "He just wouldn't."

"Because she was my father's mistress."

"I guess."

"She must have loved him very much."

He blew out a soft puff of air that sufficed as a bitter laugh. "She did that. She loved him." He took another drink. "More than she loved anything. More than she loved me.

"Oh, I doubt that, Cash," Schyler protested quickly. "No mother would put a man who wasn't even her husband above her child."

"She did." He set his foot on the log, almost but not quite touching her hip, and leaned down, propping himself on his knee. "You asked me why I've stuck around all this time."