Ciji Ware (47 page)

Startled from her gloomy reverie, Corlis leaned over and kissed him lightly on his forehead. Then she said abruptly, “King? We have to talk. I have to tell you something.”

King opened both eyes. “You hated baiting your own hook?”

Corlis laughed in spite of her lagging spirits. “No, nothing like that.”

“Don’t tell me some ghostly visitors turned up in this ol’ cabin last night?” he said, half-seriously, half in jest. She gave him an odd look but shook her head. “Well…” he said, pulling himself up to lean on one elbow, “my mind’s not working well enough yet for any more guesses. Shoot.”

“I
loved
the fishing, loved the scenery, and I don’t mind baiting my own hook one bit. And,” she added, feeling suddenly shy, “I certainly loved… making love with you.”

“Why, thank you, darling,” King replied, seizing her hand from the bedcover and raising it to his lips for a kiss. “I feel the same way.” He gazed at her steadily. “So… what do you want to talk about?”

“It’s… something else. Something that I should have told you yesterday, before we even came out here.”

“Ah…” was all he said. He sat up in bed and indicated she should lean on the large square pillows he placed against the headboard for both of them. The resulting silence grew louder as Corlis searched for an unemotional way to pose her current dilemma.

“Yesterday, at Emelie’s funeral… when Edgar Dumas—”

“Look, Corlis,” he volunteered with a slight grimace. “I feel terrible ’bout that. I should have realized Edgar was likely to turn up there. He and Emelie weren’t close, especially after his vote in favor of the Good Times Shopping Plaza and the underhanded way he got her to sign the demolition papers, but I should have considered that he might come to her funeral. I just wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Oh… it’s not only that,” she replied, wondering if King’s fuzzy-headedness extended to his decision to bring her here with wine and condoms at the ready.

Pushing that depressing possibility from her mind, Corlis spent the next minutes bringing King up to date on everything that had transpired in Andy Zamora’s office following the final broadcast of her three-part minidoc about the Selwyn buildings. She included her boss’s edict that she was on probation and forbidden to see the advocate for historic preservation on any personal basis whatsoever as long as she continued to be assigned to the controversy between Jeffries Industries and the preservationist community.

“So, you see…” she concluded, lowering her eyes to study the bed quilt. “I absolutely knew what the stakes were—and I chose to come out here with you anyway. Any resulting trouble from what happened yesterday with Edgar Dumas is
my
responsibility, not yours. And, therefore, much as I regret it, we… we can’t see each other anymore like this—
remotely
like this—until this whole thing comes to some conclusion.”

King remained silent for a moment. Then he said quietly, “Gotcha!”

“Thanks.”

She swung her legs to the side of the bed just as King said, “But… I sure have trouble imagining going back to the way it was for us before last night.”

She turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Me, too.”

He reached out and brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek. “And I sure am happy you stayed over. Especially if it has to be the last time we’ll be alone together for a while.” He playfully put his arm under the covers and placed a proprietary hand on the side of her naked thigh.

Corlis inhaled deeply, shifted on the bed to face him, and reached under the quilt to still his hand.

“And another thing…” she said, swallowing. “To me… what’s happened between us is very
serious
!
As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t a little fling, you know… not for me, at least.” She peered at him solemnly. “Are you
sure
you’re up for this sort of ‘real deal,’ as you call it? I mean,
really
up for it?”

“Oh… I’m up for it all right,” he said, his dark blue eyes boring into hers as he seized her hand and pressed it against his groin.

Corlis’s gaze clouded, and she was suddenly assailed by another avalanche of doubts.

“Let’s… be… straight with each other, okay?” she said. “Goodness knows, there was—and is right
now
—more than enough lust floating around this cabin to send us both into outer space. However, that’s not what I’m talking about—”

“Neither am I.” King cut her short. “You said this is serious, and I want you to have no doubts as to exactly
how
serious it is for me, too. I wouldn’t have risked what we’re risking—” He paused abruptly and then amended, “Asked
you
to risk what you’re risking if I… could’ve helped what I felt last night.”

An enormous sense of relief flooded through her.

“Me, too,” she murmured.

He pulled her hard against his chest. Roughly seeking her lips, he kissed her long and thoroughly. Then he guided her hand once again to his midsection. “Oh, baby…” He groaned. “Look, darlin’… you’ve done it again…”

“King… I…”

He gazed at her quizzically. Then he smiled. “Why, Corlis McCullough, I do believe you’re nervous as the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof!”

“I am. Sort of,” she admitted.

“Does the notion of making love in the clear light of day make you nervous—or do I make you nervous?”

“Both,” she confessed.

“Ah…” he said quietly, “then you’d better tell me why.”

“Well…” Corlis began, averting her eyes, “in addition to feeling worried about my job… about doing the right thing as a journalist, I—” She stopped short, shook her head in frustration, and said, “Oh… I can’t really explain it!”

“Yes, you can,” King insisted soberly. “Just say it. Tell the truth in real time, Corlis.”

“‘Tell the truth in real time.’ What a great phrase.”

“It’s what Emelie used to say to me when I was a boy. It helped get me out of all sorts of jams.”

She raised her eyes and looked around the beautifully appointed log bedroom.

“Well… the truth… in real time… is that I began wondering this morning if… if this cabin is the place where you bring… women you hope to… seduce.”

There! Now that’s a first, she thought. She’d told a man she cared for the truth about the way she was feeling in
real time
.

“And you’re wondering if you’re just another notch on my bayou belt?” he asked. Corlis glanced down at her hands resting in her lap and nodded with embarrassment.

“I saw a bottle of nail polish in your medicine cabinet,” she mumbled.

“Oh. I understand. Well…” he said, staring at the foot of the bed. “In the last four years, I have been here, on occasion, with… one other woman. Cindy Lou. It was a ‘serious’ relationship—as you put it earlier. Or at least I thought it was. But I wasn’t ready, then, to make a commitment. A commitment to marriage.” He gestured toward the log wall nearby and smiled sardonically. “I just wasn’t sure we were right together for the long haul. She barely tolerated this place, hated fishing, and loved the New Orleans Country Club scene.”

“A genuine magnolia, huh?”

King nodded. He reached over and tousled her hair. “Unlike you, Ace, she
did
despise baiting her own hook.”

“And my problem has always been allowing anyone else to
help
me bait my hook,” Corlis confessed, laughing. She cocked her head and asked, “How ’bout we put our cards on the table, Professor?”

“Absolutely,” he agreed with an emphatic nod. “Cards on the table.”

Wondering at her own courage, she began, “Although I am compelled to reveal that I find you a sinfully attractive man, King Duvallon—”

“Why,
thank
you, Ms. McCullough,” he replied gallantly. “I’m duly flattered.”

“I’ve also had my share of rebound relationships,” she disclosed doggedly. “I absolutely
hated
them, so… I was wondering if you aren’t possibly reacting to—”

“This is definitely not
that
,”
he interrupted, a hint of irritation tinging his words. “With Cindy, we had all that family stuff in common, and she supports historic preservation and so on, but on some level, as I look back on it, I think she thought that little toe dance she did with Jack Ebert in the cloakroom at Antoine’s would make me jealous… get me to finally propose to her. It was a
classic
magnolia maneuver. Instead, as you and everybody else in town witnessed, she got caught by my sister with her panties down, and our relationship came to a screeching halt. It was pretty embarrassing for everybody involved,” he said grimly.

“Especially since I put a lot of it on TV,” Corlis reminded him ruefully.

King shrugged and continued. “So… after that happened, I decided to let some time pass… to kinda let it all settle in my mind, you know?” He regarded her levelly. “So, to answer your original question, I haven’t brought anyone else out here… till now.”

King leaned forward and began kissing her again. Corlis sensed it was also a cover to avoid elaborating on the degree to which Cindy’s betrayal with Jack Ebert had humiliated him.

“Oh, King… what a saga,” she whispered against his collarbone. “For everyone.” And she knew that she would have done anything to spare him that kind of pain. Now, however, her empathy was mingled with a tremendous resurgence of sexual excitement.

She leaned toward him and initiated an eye-opening exploration on her own, skimming the tips of her fingers along the contours of his chest, paying homage to muscles she’d yearned to touch for months. Then she reached up and cupped his face between her hands. “My guess is that you were lonely, and a little sad,
long
before Miss Cindy Lou appeared on your radar screen,” she whispered. “But I’m here now,” she added simply, “and I am so sorry for the losses you’ve had.”

At first King didn’t answer but continued to hold her gaze, and his eyes grew moist. “Thank you,” was all he said. He studied her for a moment. Then he murmured, “Such a powerhouse of a person… yet, you have an incredible sweetness about you.”

No one had
ever
called her sweet. It sounded rather nice the way King said it.

“Well… Professor,” she proposed with a throaty laugh, slyly slipping her hands beneath the covers. “Since this has to be our last time together for a long while… let me show you just how sweet I can be…”

***

On Julia Street, Cagney Cat was forced to wait for his morning meal. It was nearly 11:00 a.m. by the time King and Corlis came off the Lake Pontchartrain causeway and headed down Interstate 10.

“Do you mind if I just check in at my family’s house?” he proposed. “My parents are spending the weekend on somebody’s boat down on the Gulf, and I promised Aunt Bethany I’d fill her in about Emelie’s funeral and say hello to my grandmother. It’ll only take a minute. Then I’ll drop you on Julia Street and go on down the block. I’m supposed to meet with Chris and a few others at the Preservation Resource Center around noon.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Corlis said, nodding. Despite her best resolutions to quickly go their separate ways this Sunday morning, she was overwhelmingly curious to see King’s childhood home.

When they reached Orange Street in the Lower Garden District, King drew up in front of a tropical jungle that nearly obscured a faded blue two-story residence. Turning off the ignition, he said, “How ’bout I call you later today to let you know if there’ve been any new developments? Afterward, we can talk sexy.”

“King!” she protested, “I’m
serious
!
We can only talk if it’s about business! We just can’t get involved in anything personal from now on. Promise?”

He reached across the car seat and caressed her left earlobe.

“Nothing personal, huh? That’s a tough order, but… I’ll do my best.”

Corlis peered doubtfully through the windshield at the overgrown vegetation surrounding the Kingsbury-Duvallon residence. She stared at the house whose four white Corinthian columns anchored the venerable wooden structure and its twin verandas on the ground floor and second story.

King suddenly said, “They didn’t have the time to go to Em’s funeral, but by God, they’d never turn down a last-minute invitation to hang out on a labor lawyer’s yacht.”

Corlis reached across the car and took his hand. “It really bothers you, doesn’t it, that you were the only one from your family to have gone upriver,” she said quietly.

“It really bothers me that my
mother and father
didn’t show,” he replied bitterly. “The woman worked for us for thirty years!” He shook his head resignedly. “Well… such is life. Let’s go in,” he added with a renewed sense of purpose. “I’d like to show you the house, and besides,” he said with a teasing smile, “don’t you want to see where I caught sight of the ghost?”