Slow Heat in Heaven (4 page)

Angrily, Schyler threw off his grasping hands. "Don't you dare say that to me. It insults us both. You are my sister's husband."

"But we're not happy."

"Tough. I am."

"With that Mark character you work for?"

"Yes. Yes, with that Mark character. Mark Houghton has been wonderful to me. I love him. He loves me."

"Not like we loved each other."

She laughed shortly. "Nothing like the way we loved each other. Mark and I share a kind of love you would never understand. But whatever my relationship with Mark, it has no bearing on ours. You're married to Tricia. Whether or not your marriage is happy or dismal is no concern of mine."

"I don't believe you."

He quickly drew her to him and kissed her. Hard. She recoiled and made a small choking sound when his tongue speared into her mouth. But he didn't stop kissing her.

For a moment she allowed it, curious as to what her reaction would be. She discovered, quite surprisingly, that Ken's kiss evoked nothing but revulsion. She dug her fists into his chest and pushed him away. Saying nothing, she quickly got into the rented Cougar and started the motor. She floorboarded the accelerator and put the car into motion with a spray of crushed shells.

From the cover of a palmetto, Cash watched Schyler drive away, leaving Ken staring wistfully after her. He waited until Howell had dejectedly climbed the steps and entered the house before he slipped into the deeper shadows of the woods and headed toward the bayou.

"So that's how the wind blows," he said to himself.

In Heaven everybody knew everybody's business. The scandal six years ago involving the Crandall sisters had started tongues wagging. The town had buzzed with gossip for months after Schyler's defection to London and speculation on when she would return had varied. Some said weeks. Others said she might sulk for a month or two. No one betted on it being years before she came home, and only then because her daddy's life was in jeopardy.

But Schyler Crandall was back at Belle Terre and, apparently, back in her old lover's arms. If that kiss was any indication, it didn't matter to her that Howell was married to her sister. Maybe she rationalized that she had had him first and that turnabout was fair play.

What mystified Cash was why either woman would want Ken Howell. He must pack more of a punch than it seemed he could. Howell had been known to frequent the upstairs bedrooms of the area honky-tonks, but no more than any other man. He never chased after women who were married, single, or somewhere in between. And he always paid for his extramarital dalliances. Women weren't one of his vices.

Whatever made Ken Howell attractive to the Crandall sisters escaped Cash. In his opinion, Howell was a sanctimonious son of a bitch. He'd been raised to look down his nose at anybody who wasn't in the social register. Howell had conveniently forgotten that when his folks died in a plane crash, they had left behind more liens than legacy. He still considered all but the upper crust of society inferior to him.

Maybe he also considered himself above morality and felt justified in having a wife in the house and a lover on the veranda.

Deep in thought, Cash continued walking through the forest. He moved through the trees with a stealth that had been developed in childhood and refined with taxpayers' money. The marine corps
had honed his natural talent
and developed it into a fine
art. He didn't have to think twice about finding his way, which was good since he was lost in thought about Schyler Crandall.

It didn't make sense to him that that much woman would want a pompous wimp like Howell. Not that Schyler was a lot of woman physically. He was certain he could almost close his hands around her waist and he would welcome a chance to prove it. Her hips were full enough to make a sensual curve from her slender waist. While her breasts weren't large enough to win a wet T-shirt contest, he was sure she'd find it uncomfortable to sleep on her stomach without making adjustments. He'd been well aware of their shape beneath her blouse.

Thinking of that made Cash smile. Was there a set of tits on any living woman that he didn't take notice of? With that expertise to qualify him, he could say that Schyler Crandall's figure wasn't voluptuous, but remarkable just the same.

She put that figure to full advantage, too. It wasn't so much her body that made her wholly woman, but what she did with it. The graceful way she moved. The feminine gestures she unconsciously made with those slender, ring- less hands. The long legs and narrow feet. The expressive movements of her light brown eyes. And all that sweet, honey blond hair.

She was woman through and through. Cash wondered if she knew that. It was doubtful she did. But he sure as hell did.

Irritated with himself for dwelling on her, he stepped into the pirogue that he'd left on the bank of the bayou. He picked up the long pole and used it to push off. As silent as his guerrilla progress through the nighttime jungle, the canoe cut as cleanly as a blade through the still, murky waters of Laurent Bayou.

Since he was several years older than Schyler—he wasn't sure just how many because Monique hadn't been a stickler for dates and was never sure exactly what his birthday was—Cash had watched her grow up from a pretty little girl with flaxen braids into the woman she now was.

As a child, being driven around by proud papa Cotton in his newest Cadillac convertible, she had always worn hair ribbons that matched her lace-trimmed dresses. Always so prim. While Cotton looked on proudly, she had entertained his friends with her precociousness.

But she hadn't been like that all the time. Every now and then the little doll had stepped out of her bandbox. From his hiding places in the woods, Cash had often seen her riding Cotton's horses barebacked and barefooted, hair flying, face flushed and sweaty.

He wondered if she still rode horseback. And if she did, did she ride hell-bent for leather like she used to when nobody but him was looking?

That image of her made his sex stretch and grow hard against his zipper. He wiped the sweat that beaded his forehead on his sleeve and cursed the vicious heat. Ordinarily he wouldn't have even noticed it.

But Schyler Crandall had come home. Nothing was ordinary.

Schyler noticed how stifling the heat was as she left the car and made the short walk to the air-conditioned lobby of the two-story hospital. By the time she stepped through the automatic doors, her clothes were sticking to her. Maybe she should have showered and changed before coming to the hospital.

As she waited for the elevator, she surreptitiously checked herself in the mirrored wall and decided that she looked far from outstanding, but okay. There was a grass stain on the hem of her full cotton skirt and her sleeveless blouse was wrinkled, but in this part of the country everybody wore cotton in the summertime. Everybody looked wilted by late afternoon. It was a given that the heat and humidity would inflict their damages, so they were generally ignored.

The very thought of wearing stockings was suffocating. She'd left on her sandals. Her only pieces of jewelry were a plain watch with a leather strap and the gold hoops in her ears. They were eighteen carat but unostentatious. Her shoulder bag was expensive and of the highest quality, but since the designer's signature wasn't obvious, no one would be impressed, even if he recognized the Italian's name.

In the mirror Schyler saw a woman who looked perilously close to her thirtieth birthday. It wasn't the maturity in her face that bothered her, but that she didn't have more to show for those thirty years. No career to speak of. No husband. No children. Not even an address she could call her own.

Her accomplishments added up to nil. She hadn't been able to move forward because of the memories that kept her shackled to the past. By coming home, she had wanted to lay to rest the most disturbing of those memories. She had hoped that the ambiguities surrounding her feelings for Ken Howell would be resolved.

Instead, his kiss had only confused her further. She no longer loved him, not with the intensity she had before. That she knew. What she didn't know was why. She couldn't pinpoint the reason why her heart didn't trip over itself each time he looked at her, why she hadn't dissolved at the touch of his lips on hers.

For six years Ken Howell had been preserved in her mind as she had first seen him, a dashing student leader on the Tulane campus, a stunning basketball star. He was from a good family, in solid with New Orleans society. He was a business administration major; his future had held nothing but bright promise. And he had chosen Schyler Crandall, die reigning belle of Laurent Parish, to pin his fraternity pin on.

They went together for two years. As soon as both had graduated, marriage seemed a natural progression. Then they had had a silly falling out, a misunderstanding over something so trivial as to be insignificant. They didn't date each other for several months.

Schyler never considered the break irrevocable and she had viewed the temporary separation as healthy for the relationship. It gave them time to date others and make certain that they wanted each other for life.

When Ken finally relented and called her, he wanted desperately to see her. Their reconciliation was tender and passionate by turns. He was impatient to get married; she felt the same. They set a tentative date for their wedding and asked both families to gather at Belle Terre for a party.

But Tricia stole the show.

She wore blue that day, a shade exactly the color of her eyes. Schyler had told her earlier how pretty she looked. Schyler had loved the entire world that day. Everybody and everything was beautiful.

In the midst of all the gaiety, Tricia had sidled up to Ken and taken his hand. "Everybody, everybody, can I please have your attention?" When the laughter and conversation died down, she smiled up at Ken and said, "Honey, I suppose I should have told you first and in private, but it seems so appropriate to tell you now, when the people we love most dearly are here with us." Then she had drawn a deep breath and, with a jubilant smile, announced, "I'm going to have your baby."

According to his facial expression, Ken was as stunned as anyone there. He looked flabbergasted, embarrassed, ill. But he didn't deny his responsibility, not even when Schyler turned to him with disbelief and silently begged him to.

Any solution other than marriage was out of the question. Within days and with very little fanfare, Tricia and Ken were married in a civil ceremony. Eight weeks later Tricia miscarried.

But by that time, Schyler had left for Europe. When news of the miscarriage reached her, she felt nothing. Her heart had been as empty as Tricia's womb. Their betrayal had left her numb.

In many ways, she still was. So when the bad memories darkly obscured the good ones, Ken's kiss evoked nothing but revulsion.

Stepping off the elevator on the second floor of the hospital, Schyler thought that if Cotton didn't pull out of this, that if he died as a result of the massive heart attack, at least he would die in the knowledge that his life had amounted to something. So far, the same could not be said of her.

Before she returned to England, she must come to terms with her feelings for Tricia and Ken and their treachery. If she didn't, she might remain stagnant forever. Until her mind and heart had finally closed the door on the past, she would be like a stalled engine, going nowhere, accomplishing nothing.

"Good evening," she said to the nurse she met in the hallway. "How is my father?"

"Hello, Miss Crandall. There's no change. The doctor asked earlier if you had come in. He wants to see you."

"He can find me outside my father's room."

"I'll tell him."

The nurse moved away to find the doctor. Schyler continued down the corridor toward the last ICU. Through a narrow window she saw Cotton lying in a bed, connected to machines that bleeped and blinked his discouraging vital signs.

Schyler's own heart ached to see the man she adored in this condition. Cotton, if he was aware of it, would hate being helpless. He had never been dependent on anyone. Now, the most elemental body functions were being done for him by sophisticated machinery. It didn't seem possible that such a robust man could be lying there motionless, colorless, useless.

Laying her palm against the cool glass, Schyler whispered, "Daddy, what's wrong? Tell me."

Their estrangement had roots in that horrible day when
the gods had decided that Schyler Crandall had had enough good luck and had hurled a life's worth of misfortune at her in the space of one afternoon.

After the bewildered guests had departed, after Ken and Tricia had left to handle the necessary legal aspects of getting married, Schyler had gone to Cotton, expecting him to envelope her in his loving and sympathetic embrace.

Instead he'd metamorphosed into a stranger. He refused to look directly at her. He brusquely set her aside when she collapsed against his wide chest. He treated her coolly. Until that day Schyler had been the apple of his eye. But on that miserable afternoon, when Schyler suggested that she go abroad for a while, Cotton had approved the idea. He hadn't been angry. He hadn't ranted and raved. She wished he had. That would have been familiar. She could have dealt with his short temper.

But he had treated her with indifference. That had pierced Schyler to the core. Cotton was indifferent only to people he had absolutely no use for. Schyler could not understand why her father no longer showed the tender affection she so desperately needed.

So she had left Belle Terre and moved to London. The rift between Cotton and her had grown wider with each year. Other than a letter every several months, and a few civil but chilly telephone conversations on holidays, they had had no formal contact.

He didn't seem to mind. It was as though he'd dismissed her from his life for good. She didn't want him to die harboring the secret grudge. Her greatest fear was that she would never know what had turned him against her, what had changed her from pet to pariah.

"I'm not going to have two patients on my hands, am I?"

The doctor's voice roused her. She raised her bowed head and wiped tears off her cheeks. "Hello, Dr. Collins." She smiled waveringly. "I'm fine. Just very tired." He looked skeptical but didn't pursue it, for which Schyler was grateful. "Any change?"

Jeffrey Collins was a young man who had decided to set up practice in a small community hospital rather than battle the competition in a large city. As he studiously consulted the chart on Cotton Crandall, he reminded Schyler of a boy about to give an oral book report in front of the class, wanting to do well.