Slow Heat in Heaven (8 page)

"I wish to heaven you'd stop sneaking up on me. It's giving me the creeps."

"What are you crying about?"

"Cotton."

Cash's body tensed. His brows formed a low shelf over his enigmatic eyes. "He died?"

Schyler shook her head. "No. He regained consciousness. I spoke with him."

"I don't understand."

"You're not supposed to," she said shortly. "Stop meddling in my business."

"All right. The next time you get a dog bite, I'll let your arm rot off."

Schyler pressed the heel of her hand against her temple, where a headache was off to a good start. "I'm sorry. I should have thanked you."

"How is it?" He nodded toward her bandaged arm.

"Okay I guess. It hasn't hurt at all."

"Come here." She only stared at him. He arched one brow and repeated softly, "Come here."

She hesitated a moment longer before stepping around the desk and approaching the open door, where he still had a shoulder propped against the frame. She stuck out her injured arm with about as much enthusiasm as she would thrust it into a furnace.

Her aversion to having him touch her made him smile sardonically as he unwound the gauze bandage he had fashioned the night before. Schyler was amazed to see that the

skin had almost completely closed over the wounds and that there was no sign of infection. He touched the scratches lightly with his fingertips. They were painless.

"Leave the bandage on tonight." He rewrapped her arm. "Tomorrow morning, take it off and wash your arm carefully. It should be okay after that." She looked up at him inquiringly. "It's the spleen of warthog that does the trick."

She jerked her arm away. "You're left-handed."

His grin widened.
"You believe the legend, do you? That all
traiteurs
are left-handed." Without a smidgen of apology or hesitation, he moved aside the square nautical collar of her dress and brushed his fingers across the top of her breast, where he had located the welt the night before. "How are the mosquito bites?"

Schyler swatted his hand away. "Fine. Was Monique left-handed?"

"Out.
She was also
a
woman. That's
where I break with tradition." His voice dropped seductively. "Because I am a man. And if you have any doubts as to that, Miss Schyler, I'd be more than glad to prove it to you."

She looked up at him and said wryly, "That won't be necessary."

"I didn't think so."

His conceit was insufferable, Schyler thought as she watched his lips form a lazy, arrogant smile. What was she expected to do, unravel because big, bad Cash Boudreaux, the man most feared by fathers of nubile daughters, had turned his charm on for her? She was a little old to grow giddy and faint in the face of such blatant masculine strutting.

Still, no one needed to sell her on Cash's masculinity. It was evident in the rugged bone structure of his face, the width of his shoulders, the salty scent that he emanated in the afternoon heat. A bead of sweat rolled from beneath the hair curving over his forehead. It slid down his temple and disappeared into his thick eyebrow.

His walk, all his movements, were masculine. Schyler watched his hands as they went for the pack of cigarettes in his breast pocket and shook one out. He offered it to her, but she wordlessly declined. His lips closed around the filtered tip. He replaced the pack in his pocket and pulled out a matchbox. He struck the match on the dooijamb, then cupped his hands around the flame while he lit the cigarette.

She remembered his hands on her midriff, pressing into the tender center of her stomach, the hard, dominant fingers lying against her ribs. He had imprisoned her against the wall of the gazebo without exercising any force. The only bruises her body bore this morning were a result of her struggles with the pit bull. It made her uneasy to know that Cash Boudreaux could be so overpowering without hurting her.

As he drew on his cigarette, staring at her through the smoke that rose from it, she lowered her eyes. There was a knotted bandanna around his strong, tanned throat. His chest tapered into a narrow waist and lean hips. The soft, washed denim of his Levi's cupped his sex as intimately as a lover's hand.

Schyler knew that his eyes were boring a hole into the crown of her head, just as certainly as she knew that there was something sexual going on. But then, if rumor was correct, everything that Cash Boudreaux had done since he was about thirteen years old had been sexually motivated.

She wasn't flattered. She wasn't afraid. If he'd wanted to assault her, he'd had plenty of opportunities in the past twenty-four hours to do so. Mostly, she was offended. Obviously he had lumped her into the ranks of women who were flattered by his indiscriminate attention.

If she were being entirely honest, however, she had to admit that the prospect of experiencing something sexual with Cash Boudreaux had a certain allure. He was disreputable and dangerous, aggravating and arrogant. He was rude and disrespectful and treated women abominably. Perhaps that was his attraction, what made him desirable.

Geographically they'd grown up in the same place, but the realms of their upbringings were worlds apart. They had nothing in common except these sexual undercurrents, which were invisible but as real as the shimmering heat waves that radiated out of the ground, She was a woman. Cash Boudreaux was indisputably a man.

She raised her head and gave him a direct look, as if by doing that she could nullify the subliminal sparks. "Did you follow me here?"

"No. I just happened by. Thought I'd check on things."

"Check on things? I'm sure Ken is capable of handling things while Daddy is ill."

"Ken isn't capable of finding his ass with both hands."

"Mr. Boudreaux—"

'To keep everybody from discovering that, he shut the place down."

Her protests died on her tongue.
"What!
What do you mean he shut the place down?"

"I mean he told all the employees on the payroll that they were laid off until further notice. He told the independent loggers to find other markets for their timber. He said that Crandall Logging was temporarily out of operation. Then he locked the door and left. Don't you think that amounts to shutting the place down?"

Schyler fell back a step. She gazed about the office with dismay, realizing now why it had an abandoned look. It bore the empty sadness of a house that hadn't been occupied in awhile. "Why would Ken do that?"

"I just told you why."

"I'm serious."

"So am I." Cash flicked his cigarette out the door behind him. It made a red arc before dying in the dust of the deserted yard. "The day after they took Cotton to the hospital, your brother-in-law paid everybody off and hightailed it outta here."

"Does Cotton know about it?"

"I doubt it."

"So do I." She gnawed the inside of her cheek, trying to figure out what could have motivated Ken to shut down. Cotton had had to ride out economic crunches before, but he had never laid off employess. "That must have put scores of men out of work."

"Goddamn right it did."

Schyler pulled her fingers through her hair. "I'm sure Ken had his reasons. They just aren't apparent."

"Well, let me tell you what
is
apparent, Miss Schyler."

He stopped slouching in the doorway and advanced into the room. "About half the families in the parish are running out of groceries. Prospects aren't looking too good that they'll have money to buy more any time soon. While your brother-in-law is languishing around the country club swimming pool, swizzling glass after glass of Lynchburg, Tennessee's finest, kids are doing without breakfast, dinner, and supper."

Ken left the house every morning and returned every afternoon. Schyler had assumed he was at work during those hours. It galled her to think that he was living off the profits Cotton had put a lifetime into earning. But perhaps she was being unfair by jumping to conclusions. Ken had begun working for Crandall Logging when he married Tricia. When his parents were killed, he had sold everything in New Orleans, severed all connections there, and moved to Heaven. He had several years of his life invested in this business. There must be a logical explanation for his shutting down operation.

"Come up with any good excuses for him yet?"

"I won't have you disparaging my brother-in-law, Mr. Boudreaux," she lashed out.

He whistled softly. "Listen to her defend him. That's what I call real family loyalty."

Willfully restraining her temper, Schyler said, "I assure you that I'll look into the matter immediately. I know Cotton wouldn't approve of families going hungry, families who depend on him for their livelihoods."

"I know he wouldn't either."

"I assure you something will be done."

"Good."

She gave Cash a long, steady look. He irritated the hell out of her. He was no better than he had to be. He was a lowlife who seemingly had no scruples. She could use just that kind of man.

"I guess you're off the payroll, too."

"I don't think your brother-in-law likes me. I was the first one to get notice."

"Then I'm sure you're running low on money and could use some." He shrugged noncommittally. She drew herself up importantly. "I've got a job for you."

"You do?"

"Yes, I do. I'll pay you well."

"How well?"

"You tell me."

"Well, now that all depends on what the job entails." His voice was thick with lewd suggestion. "What do you want me to do for you?"

"I want you to destroy the dog that attacked me last night."

He didn't blink for several moments, only held her in a stare. His eyes, she noticed now, were hazel, but with more yellow and gray than green. They were like cat eyes, predatory cat eyes.

"Kill it?"

"That's what destroy usually means."

"You want me to kill one of Jigger Flynn's pit bulls?"

She raised her chin and answered firmly. "Yes."

He hooked both thumbs into his tooled leather belt and leaned down until his face was almost on a level with hers. "Have you lost your frigging mind?"

"No."

"Well, then you must think I've lost mine."

"I want that animal killed before it kills someone."

"Last night was a freak accident. Jigger doesn't let those dogs run free."

"So Ken told me. But that—"

"Ah!" He held up his hands to forestall her and looked at her through narrowed eyes. "You bounced this idea off your brother-in-law first?"

"Not exactly."

"You asked him to do it. He crapped in his britches at the very thought, so now you're coming to me. Is that it?"

"No!" She drew an exasperated breath. "I told Tricia and Ken about the dog attacking me. They noticed the bandage."

"Did you tell them where you got it?"

"No."

"I didn't think you would," he drawled.

Ignoring him, she rushed on. "I insisted that something be done about those dogs. Ken thought I should let the matter drop."

"Well, for once I agree with the son of a bitch. Let it drop."

"I can't."

"You'd better. Stay away from Jigger Flynn. He's meaner than hell."

"So are you."

An abrupt silence followed her raised voice. Cash treated her to another long, penetrating stare. She moistened her lips and forced herself to speak. "What I mean is, you have a reputation
for. . .
too much fighting. You went to war and stayed longer than you had to. You must be good with guns."

"Damn good," he whispered.

"I don't know anybody else to ask. I don't know anybody else who
has. . . has. . . killed. . ."

"You don't know anybody else low enough to do your dirty work."

"I didn't say that."

"But that's what you meant."

"Look, Mr. Boudreaux, you've spent the better part of your life cultivating a short-tempered, violent image. By all accounts you're as testy as a cobra. Don't blame me for responding to your reputation. I know you must have broken the law before."

"Too many times to count."

"So why do you have a conscience against destroying a public menace, a killer dog?"

"Not a conscience. Common sense. I have the good sense not to provoke Jigger Flynn's wrath."

"Because you're afraid of him," she shouted up at him.

"Because it's not my quarrel," he shot back.

Schyler could see that yelling was a one-way street leading to a dead end. She took another tack. One could always fall back on greed for motivation. "I'll pay you one hundred dollars." His face remained unmoved and unimpressed. "Two hundred."