Slow Heat in Heaven (40 page)

Cotton was a trying invalid even on his good days. Within a week of his homecoming everybody at Belle Terre was tempted to smother him in his sleep.

Tricia's affected bedside manner, never very extensive, was expended after the first day. She met Schyler in the hall. "He's always been a contrary old son of a bitch." She spoke under her breath so he wouldn't hear her through the walls of the study-bedroom. "He's even worse now."

"Tolerate his moods. Don't do or say anything to get him angry."

Schyler feared that her sister and Ken would become impatient about selling Belle Terre and broach the subject with Cotton. Dr. Collins had reiterated when she brought Cotton home that he was still a heart patient and must be treated carefully no matter how irksome he became.

Tricia didn't take Schyler's admonition kindly. "You're worried about that, aren't you? Is that what's keeping you up nights?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Come now, don't play innocent. Clever as you've been," Tricia said with a sly smile, "you haven't hidden your comings and goings in the middle of the night from us." She shook her head and laughed lightly. "Honestly, Schyler, you have the most appalling taste in men. A fairy antique dealer and a tom-catting white trash."

"And your own husband," Schyler shot back. "Insult my taste in men and you're insulting yourself. Don't forget that I picked Ken before you."

"I never forget that." Tricia smiled complacently. "And apparently neither do you."

Schyler let the argument die instantly. Insult swapping with Tricia was a tiresome exercise in futility. She could never top her sister's pettiness. As long as Tricia left Cotton alone, Schyler didn't care what she thought of her or the company she kept.

Ken avoided seeing Cotton after paying one obligatory visit to the sickroom soon after Cotton arrived. In fact, Ken kept to himself most of the time. His mood was volatile. He drank excessively and frequently carried on furtive, whispered telephone conversations.

He was particularly acerbic toward Schyler. She supposed he was still pouting because she hadn't loaned him the money he had requested. The telephone calls were probably from impatient creditors. Because of his financial difficulties she felt sorry for him. He was a grown man, though; it was time he learned to sort out his own problems.

At first Gayla was so shy around Cotton she could barely be persuaded to enter his room, but they had soon fallen into an easy rapport. He seemed to have entirely dismissed her years with Jigger and teased her often, recounting times in her childhood when she'd been a trial to Veda.

Eventually Gayla's guard relaxed. An unspoken bond developed between the two of them, which wasn't completely surprising. Each was recuperating from an assault. When no one else could convince Cotton to eat food he didn't like or to take his medication or to do his regimen of mild exercises, Gayla could.

He and Mrs. Dunne nearly came to blows the first day he was home. She had a tendency to mother him as she had her sick husband. Cotton couldn't stomach that and let her know it in no uncertain terms. Mrs. Dunne's maternal instincts gave way to a military bearing that clashed with Cotton's temper. Once the air had been cleared, however, they developed a mutual, if grudging, respect for each other.

But of everyone in the household, Schyler best handled the recalcitrant patient. She seemed to know how to mollify his temper when something set it off and how to boost his morale when he fell victim to depression. By turns she kept him calm and encouraged.

He was allowed to watch newscasts on the portable television that had been placed in his room. One of Gayla's duties was to bring him the local newspaper the moment it was delivered. But Schyler kept her answers vague whenever he asked about Crandall Logging.

"Everything's going very well," she parroted each evening when she came in to visit with him.

"Any problems on getting that order to Endicott?"

"None. How are you feeling?"

"Trains running on schedule?"

"Yes. Mrs. Dunne said you ate all your lunch today."

"Does it look like good timber their cutting?"

"Highest Crandall quality. Did you get a good rest this afternoon?"

"Are we gonna make that loan payment in time?"

"Yes. I'm sure of it. Now settle down."

"Jesus, Schyler, I hate that you're having to undo my mistakes."

"Don't worry about it, Daddy. The hard work is good for me. I'm actually enjoying it."

"It's too much for a woman to handle."

"Chauvinist! Why shouldn't I be able to handle the business?"

"Guess
I'm
just old-fashioned in my thinking. Behind the times." He glared at her from beneath his brows. "Like when I was your age, queers were avoided. Normal women sure as hell didn't move in with them. Is that why I never
got to meet Mark Houghton? You were hiding him from me?"

"That's not the reason at all." She kept her voice even, but inside she was fighting mad. Tricia or Ken had tattled. It was probably Tricia, in retaliation for the putdown she'd received from Mark. "Mark had to leave before you got home, that's all."

She had returned home that morning from Cash's house to find a note pinned to her undisturbed pillow. In it Mark expressed his hope that she'd had an enjoyable evening. He wrote that he had been struck by a sudden case of homesickness in the middle of the night, had packed and called Heaven's one taxi, promising an enormous tip if he were driven to Lafayette where he could make flight connections the following day.

Schyler could read through the lines of the cryptic message. Mark hadn't wanted to say good-bye to her. She belonged at Belle Terre; he didn't.

Their bittersweet parting had occurred the night before, though neither had wanted to admit that's what the conversation on the veranda had been. A sad, lengthy, weepy good-bye would have put them through an unnecessary and emotional ordeal. Distressed as she had been to find his note, Schyler was glad Mark had taken the easy way out. She was sad, but relieved.

"How could you live with a guy like that?"

"'A guy like that'? You don't know what kind of guy Mark is, Daddy. You never met him."

"He's a queer!"

"A homosexual, yes. He's also intelligent, sensitive, funny, and a very dear friend."

"In my day, if one of those crossed our path, we'd beat the hell out of him."

"I hope that's not something you're proud of."

"Not particularly, no. But I'm not particularly ashamed of it either. That's just what us regular guys did. That was before all this social consciousness bullshit got started."

"High time, too. We've come a long way from rolling queers in alleys."

Cotton didn't find her attempted humor very funny. "You've got a real smart mouth, Miss Crandall."

"I learned it from you."

He studied her for a moment. "You know I was real upset about you and Ken not getting together. But now I'm glad. Damn glad. He's a pussy. Drinks too much, gambles too much. Lets Tricia run roughshod over him. She likes that arrangement just fine. But you would have hated it, and soon enough you'd have come to hate him. You're too strong for Ken Howell." He sighed in aggravation. "But once you were rid of him, what do you go and do? You shackle yourself to a man who's even weaker."

"You're wrong. Mark is a very strong individual, one of the strongest men I've ever met. It took tremendous courage for him to leave the life he led in Boston. I moved in with him because I liked him, we got along extremely well, and both of us were lonely. Believe it or not, I didn't consider your feelings about it at all. I didn't become Mark's roommate to spite you."

Cotton frowned at her skeptically. "Kinda looks like that, doesn't it? When are you going to get you a real man, one who can plant some grandbabies in you?"

"Mark could have, if he wanted to. He didn't want to."

"I reckon that's one reason you were attracted to him. He didn't pose a threat."

"I liked him for what he was, not for what he wasn't."

"Don't play word games with me, young lady," he chided her sharply. "Your problem is that you've always loved the unlovely."

"Have I?"

"Ever since you were a kid. Always taking up for the underdog. Like Gayla. Like Glee Williams."

Glad for the chance to switch subjects, Schyler said, "Speaking of Glee, he's doing very well. I called today. The doctors are going to release him from the hospital soon. He'll have to report every few days for physical therapy. I'm hoping we can find a desk job for him to do."

"Who's we?"

"We?"

"You said you hoped 'we' can find Glee a desk job."

"Oh,
uh,
you and I." Cotton's eyes shrewdly searched for the truth. Schyler squirmed. "Glee doesn't like taking a salary without earning it."

He grumbled, a sign that he wasn't satisfied with her glib answer. "You didn't inherit that generous nature from me. Certainly not from Macy. Her heart was about as soft as a brass andiron. Where'd you get your kindheartedness?"

"From my blood relations, I suspect. Who knows?" The conversation had taken a track that made Schyler distinctly uncomfortable. She consulted her wristwatch. "It's past your bedtime. You're intentionally dragging out this conversation to postpone it. Really, Daddy, you're worse than a little kid about going to bed on time."

She leaned over him and fluffed his pillow. Kissing his forehead, she switched off the bedside lamp. Before she could step away, he caught her hand.

"Be careful that your benevolence doesn't work against you, Schyler," he warned.

"What do you mean?"

"Vast experience has taught me that folks dearly love to bite the hand that feeds them. It gives them a perverse satisfaction that's just plain human nature. You can't change that." He wagged his finger at her. "Make sure nobody mistakes your love and charity for weakness. Folks claim they admire saints. But fact is, they despise them. They gloat in seeing them stumble and fall flat on their asses."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Cotton had a spit-and-whittle club philosophy. Schyler wanted to smile indulgently, say, "Yes, sir," and dismiss his advice as the ramblings of an old man. But it weighed on her mind as she stepped out onto the veranda through the back door. She had a strong intuition that Cotton was beating around the bush about something—specifically Cash Boudreaux. He was reluctant to bring it into the open.

She still hadn't mentioned the extent of Cash's involvement in the business or how much she depended on him.

Cotton wouldn't like it. And what Cotton wouldn't like, she wasn't telling him. Careful as she'd been to keep Cash's name out of their conversations, Cotton was too smart not to pick up signals. Piecing information together had always been his forte. He must know that Cash was running the daily operation of Crandall Logging. He no doubt resented that, but realized that Cash's experience and knowledge were necessary to Schyler's success.

What he suspected, but obviously didn't want confirmed, was Schyler's personal involvement with Cash. Because of his long-standing relationship with Monique, Cotton would certainly have misgivings about an alliance between them.

Schyler had more than misgivings. She was downright terrified of her feelings for Cash.

She had a voracious physical appetite for him. She looked forward to his stolen kisses and their hungry love-making. She had never felt more alive than when she was with him, nor more confused when she wasn't. He was the most intriguing man she'd ever met, but it was confounding not to know all his secrets. He was passionate and perplexing. She depended on him; yet she didn't completely trust him. His lovemaking was frightening in its intensity, but he was often aloof afterward.

When the heat of their desire had been extinguished and she languished in his postcoital embrace, the moment was invariably spoiled by her niggling doubts. She feared that Cash wanted her only because she represented something he'd always been denied. He'd been with legions of women. Certainly many of them were more fascinating, pretty, and sexy than she. What made her so attractive to him? When he entered her body, was he loving her or was he trespassing on Belle Terre?

That thought was so disturbing, it made her warm. Needing air, she stepped outside and drifted soundlessly along the veranda. As she rounded the comer, she bumped into Gayla. The young woman let out a soft scream and flattened herself against the wall of the house.

"Gayla, my God, what's the matter with you?" Schyler said, catching her breath. "You scared me."