Dark Paradise (47 page)

He kept to the side streets on the edge of town, avoiding the main drag

and the deputies that patrolled it.

Turning out onto the ridge road at the Paradise Motel, he hit the gas

and let the truck fly. Seventy came and went in a roar. He ran the

windows down and cranked the radio up. Travis Tritt spelled out

T-R-0-U-B-L-E at the top of his lungs. Will howled and whooped, working

up adrenaline, letting it run through his mind like madness.

The road ran straight for a long way. A blessing for a man whose

equilibrium was saturated with booze. He concentrated on keeping the

truck between the white lines that marked the edges of the tarmac and

looked out ahead for the taillights of a Mercedes ragtop. The night was

a black tunnel around him. The truck was a rocket, cutting through the

void, jumping up and ducking down with the flow of the flight path until

he felt disembodied.

He was a pair of hands on a steering wheel, a brain with eyes attached,

bobbing in midair; he was a pair of boots on the floor amid the empties,

pushing the pedal past the point of sanity.

He came up on the Mercedes so fast, he zoomed past it and hit the

brakes. The wheels locked up and the back end of the pickup started

fishtailing. Will wrestled for control, his brain unable to take in all

the facts, formulate a plan, and execute it in smooth order. The

information came in too quickly. The messages departed brain-central too

slowly. The Mercedes sped around him, horn blaring.

"Fuck!" Will screamed. "You fucking stole my wife, you son of a bitch!"

The taillights of the Mercedes winked mockingly in the distance.

"I'm gonna kick your ass all the way back to Hollywood, shithead!"

Bellowing a rebel yell out the window, he punched the gas and gave chase

with a squeal of burning rubber. The truck ate up the ground and closed

on the car as the road began to climb and snake its way up the ridge.

The truck swayed from side to side on the winding road. The empty beer

cans rolled back and forth across the floor.

Will felt as though he were riding a bronc that had too much buck for

him. In over his head. Hanging on for dear life. He tried to stay

focused on the car, on the idea of ramming Bryce off the road. But the

Mercedes kicked in the afterburners and was gone, and Will was left

riding a rank one with no hope for anything but a wreck.

He went into a sharp switchback with too much speed, jerked the wheel

too hard, then overcompensated. Then everything was tumbling, like socks

in a clothes drier, end over end over end over end. And the beer cans

rattled in the midst of it all like alarm bells ringing too late to save

anyone.

"Are you worried about Townsend?" Sharon poured herself a scotch from

the decanter on the antique Mexican sideboard and wandered barefoot

across the thick sea of carpet. Bryce stood by the windows, staring out,

hands steepled before him as if in prayer. The only light in the room

came from the spots that glowed in the display cases of Native American

artifacts and from the light bars on the paintings.

He made a nod of dismissal. "He's nothing. He's finished."

"He might try to drag us down with him."

"With what?
 
Even if the videotape surfaces, there's nothing that links

it to us except the charges of a desperate man whose career will be

going down in flames." He shook his head. "No. I'm not worried about

him."

"What about the Jennings woman?"

"If she plans on making trouble, she's taking her time doing anything

about it. I think she would have made a move by now." He took Sharon's

glass and sipped absently at the scotch, pressing his lips together as

it slid like molted gold down his throat. He still faced the wall of

windows, but his gaze turned inward, visualizing all the puzzle pieces

but he couldn't make them fit together. "She's nothing like Lucy."

"Disappointed?" Sharon asked, her voice sharp with irony.

Bryce swiveled a measuring look at her, a smile playing at the corners

of his lips. "Still jealous?
 
Lucy's dead, darling."

"Hurray." She snatched her glass back from him and lifted it in a toast.

The scotch was gone in a single gulp.

"You're such a poor sport," Bryce complained. "Do I complain when you're

fucking other men?"

"Only if your view becomes obstructed."

Bryce walked away from her, not in the mood to spar.

His mind was working, calculating, zooming down a new trail. The

excitement was intoxicating. A bubble of euphoria grew in his chest,

making it difficult to breathe.

"I keep thinking about Samantha," he admitted, smiling the Redford

smile, though there was no one there to be impressed by it. "Drew tried

to warn me away from her tonight."

Sharon glared at him. "How quaint."

She stalked back to the sideboard for a refill, but she just stood there

with one hand around the neck of the decanter and the other twisting the

stopper around and around like a screw.

"She has so much potential and she doesn't see any of it," he said,

amazed at that kind of innocence. Enchanted by it. "I could open doors

for her that would lead her to the top of the world."

The hand on the decanter tightened until Sharon could feel the cut of

the crystal imprinting her flesh. "She's a means to an end," she

reminded him, not liking the tone of his voice.

He sounded beguiled, on the brink of obsession. The idea made her

nervous. Bryce obsessed was Bryce unpredictable. And frankly, she was

tired of his bouts of obsession with other women. She was the one who

stood by him through everything. She was his partner. They had fought

their way up from poverty together. It stung to have her loyalty and her

sacrifices overshadowed by the bright glow of infatuation. Bryce turned

his attention away from her and she suddenly found herself demoted to

chauffeur, gofer, fifth wheel.

She would have to distract him from the fixation before it went too far,

as it had with Lucy.

Bryce waved a hand impatiently. "Yes, that's all she was at first, but

don't you see the possibilities?
 
My God, her face could be on every

magazine in the country. I could get her a movie deal-"

"I'm sure she'll jump at the chance to let you run her career after

you've ruined her husband's life."

"He's ruining his own life. Once I've convinced Samantha to step back

away from him and take a good look at what he is and what he has to

offer versus the life she could have with me-"

Sharon swung around and flung the scotch decanter at him. The missile

went wide and exploded against the window frame, spitting liquor and

bullets of crystal across the glass and onto the rug. As an attempt to

get his attention, the action worked brilliantly. Bryce stared straight

at her as she crossed the room with angry, purposeful strides. She

narrowed her eyes to razor slits.

"She's a stupid child. She's nothing," she snapped, her voice hoarse and

masculine. She stopped within a foot of him, her whole body rigid with

fury, hands knotted into fists held ready at her sides. Her upper lip

twitched in contempt. "You're such a fool. There's so much more at stake

here than your chance to play Professor Higgins. The girl is a means to

an end. You want her husband's land; you can get it through her. That is

the plan," she said, speaking very clearly and deliberately, because she

knew he tended to hear what he wanted to hear when he was falling into one

of his preoccupations. "You don't need her for anything else. I can give

you everything you need."

"You can't give me the joy of rediscovering the world. You can't give me

innocence," he said cruelly. "You never had any."

That quiet jab punctured her anger and deflated it. She seemed to shrink

a little before his eyes, drawing inward on herself. "You bastard," she

hissed, tears rising, mouth trembling. "You rotten bastard. Can't you

see I'm only trying to protect you?"

"From Samantha?" He laughed.

"From yourself."

"Don't worry, cuz," he said softly, reaching out to touch her cheek. He

ignored her concern. His priorities were shifting. Nothing mattered but

the new goal. "I never had any innocence either," he murmured absently.

"We're two of a kind."

Sharon was crying now, her sobs a low keening sound stripping up the

back of her throat. The glazed, preoccupied look in Bryce's eyes

frightened her. Still angry with him, she turned her face into the palm

of his hand and bit him hard, then kissed the impressions her teeth had

made, licking the dents with the tip of her tongue.

"I'd do anything for you," she whispered. "I'm worth a hundred stupid,

naive girls. You need me."

Bryce smiled distractedly and took her hand, interlacing their fingers.

"We're partners."

She could see his mind was elsewhere. On the girl, no doubt. And so the

obsession had begun. Again. And there was nothing she could do about it

but wait. Despair knotted in her chest. She stepped closer and kissed

him, a blatantly carnal kiss that was unmistakable in its message. She

was still here, available, willing. She would take what he would give

her.

"Partners forever," she murmured, stepping back. She lifted her chin and

cloaked her hurt with pride and a wry look. "Amuse yourself with your

little Indian princess. Sleep with her if you have to. But fall in love

with her and I'll cut your heart out."

Bryce chuckled. "I love it when you talk mean."

"You love it when I am mean." An irony she enjoyed.

She could take out her frustrations on him and actually have him enjoy

it. There were advantages to loving a man with a twisted mind. She sent

him a feral smile as she took his hand and led him toward the stairs.

"Tonight's your lucky night, cousin."

She woke at four out of habit. Marilee was tucked up against him like a

little woodland creature seeking warmth. Her nose was burrowed into the

hollow of his shoulder. He had his arm curved around her in a way that

seemed entirely natural and comfortable. If he canted his head an inch,

he could kiss her hair. He already knew that it felt like raw silk and

smelled vaguely of coconut and jasmine - just as he knew how every other

inch of her felt and smelled and tasted. Every part of her was imprinted

on his brain. She was his.

His. He had never thought of any woman as his. Had never wanted to. Had

always guarded himself diligently against the risk. How this one had

slipped under his guard, he wasn't sure. He should have been immune to

her if for no other reason than her association with Lucy.

But he couldn't look at her without wanting her, couldn't have her

without wanting more.

That truth scared him deep. The fear was a cold rock in his gut. They

couldn't have anything together but what they shared in the heat of

passion. He couldn't allow it.

All his energy, all his attention, had to go to the ranch now. He had to

protect the land. He had to preserve the Stars and Bars and the way of

life that had been entrusted to him. He couldn't afford a distraction

like Marilee. He sure as hell couldn't afford a distraction whose best

friend may have been killed by his uncle.

J.D. stared hard at the ceiling, trying to will that thought away. In

the cold light of day, when reason was easy to come by, he could tell

himself Del's only role in the drama had been finding the body, that the

city boy Sheffield had killed her accidentally. By night, when the world

was all dark and shadow, he couldn't stop thinking about the crazy

things his uncle said.

Del was his responsibility. The Stars and Bars was his responsibility.