Every Move She Makes (5 page)

She didn’t see Reed anywhere. No need to stop. She’d have to wait and catch him at work another day. Then, just as she started to increase the car’s speed, she caught a glimpse of a tall, muscular man emerging from a car that he’d just backed out of the garage. She instantly knew he was Reed Conway. He was older, bigger. His once-pale ash blond hair was now a dirty blond, almost light brown. Ella’s heartbeat accelerated. Her stomach muscles knotted painfully.

There he is. Stop and talk to him. Confront him with the letter and demand that he leave you alone
.

She drove on by, her hands trembling, her nerves rioting. The Jag picked up speed as Ella cruised up West Fifth Street, passing rows of houses, many in ramshackle ruins, others in various states of repair and renovation. Anybody who was
someone
in this town lived on the east end, but the middle-class version of nouveau riche was restoring the houses on the west end, some now rivaling the stately old homes that had been kept up generation after generation across town.

Coward! You’re running away. You don’t have the guts to face him and tell him what you think of him…how you feel about his explicit, threatening love letter
. Love letter? No, it was smut, pure and simple. But it had implied a threat, hadn’t it? Just as those two letters he’d written years ago had done.

Ella turned off West Fifth, made the block, and headed back toward the garage. She was not going to run to her father. She was not going to let her mother find out about the letter, knowing how much it would disturb her. She, Ella Porter, was going to handle this little problem herself. Now!

Mustering every ounce of courage she possessed, Ella whipped her Jag off the street and onto the Conway Garage parking area. She killed the engine, snatched the keys from the ignition, and held them tightly in her hand as she took a deep, fortifying breath. When she stepped out of the car onto the pavement, she found her legs wobbly and her heartbeat thundered in her ears. She snapped open her shoulder bag, eyed the white envelope tucked inside, and then dropped her keys on top of her wallet before closing her purse.

You can do this. You will do this. After all, what can he do to you in broad daylight, with witnesses all around?

Squaring her shoulders and tilting her chin, she took several tentative steps and then stopped dead still. Reed Conway turned abruptly as he wiped his soiled hands on a dirty orange rag and looked right at her. She’d never forgotten those ice-cold blue eyes of his. The few times she’d run into him at her aunt and uncle’s house, he’d always stared at her. Never smiled; never spoke. Just glared at her with those incredible sky blue eyes.

But he can’t see your eyes
, she reminded herself,
not with your sunglasses on. He can’t look into your eyes and know what you’re thinking. He can’t see the fear…the disgust…or the curiosity
. She’d always been curious about Reed, always wondered what it would be like to find out firsthand just what it was about him that had fascinated the girls and intimidated the boys.

Without realizing what she was doing, Ella surveyed him from head to toe. A good six-three. Broad shoulders. Big arms. Biceps bulging, plainly visible, bared by his sleeveless blue-and-white tank top. He was surprisingly tan. He must have served on an outdoor work crew while he was in prison, she surmised. His thick tawny hair curled about his neck and ears. He needed a haircut. His long, thin sideburns met the brown stubble that covered his face. Obviously the man hadn’t shaved this morning. The stonewashed jeans hugged his lower body. Ella swallowed hard.

Reed Conway was the sexiest man she’d ever seen, bar none. A lazy, raw sensuality oozed from his pores.

He continued staring at her, as if he were gauging her worth as a desirable woman. She was unaccustomed to men taking stock of her physical assets. Men appreciated her for her intelligence, her warm and caring personality, and her social status. She was no great beauty—a fact that disappointed her mother. But Carolyn assured her that being beautiful was often more a curse than a blessing. So why was Reed looking at her as if he found her attractive? Did he know who she was? Had he recognized her and was only toying with her?

Enough of this!
she told herself.
You didn’t come here to fall victim to Reed’s obvious charms. Nor did you come here to have him ogle you
. Marching across the space that separated them, Ella kept reminding herself of who she was and why she was here.
Show him the letter and tell him you’re giving him fair warning that sending another letter would be useless, that you’re not going to show the damn thing to your father
.

Reed watched the woman as she approached him. Classy. Well-dressed in a simple gray pinstriped suit and pale gray blouse. Even her gray leather shoes and shoulder bag matched. And she was driving a Jag. A rich, classy broad. That’s what Briley Joe would call her. Shiny black hair, secured in a loose bun at the nape of her neck. Pale olive skin. Smooth and creamy. Even on a hot day like today, she looked cool. What was someone like
her
doing here? He glanced past her and eyed her car. He’d thought she might have a flat tire, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Maybe a little car trouble?

When she stopped directly in front of him, he flashed her his I’d-like-to-strip-you-naked-and-screw-you-right-here-and-now smile.

She didn’t return the smile. Okay, so she wasn’t interested. No big deal.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“You’re Reed Conway, aren’t you?”

She knew him? Was she someone from his past? An old girlfriend? He’d managed to lay several Spring Creek debutantes when he was in high school. But not this one. If he’d ever gotten in her pants, he’d remember her.

“Who wants to know?” He gave her a once-over, concentrating on the area from breasts to knees. Giving a lady that kind of sexual appraisal had a way of separating the women from the girls, as well as the available from the unavailable. Besides, he enjoyed looking. She had nice tits—big, but not too big. A small waist. And wide hips. Not today’s fashionable figure, but still the kind that gave a guy a woody.

She removed her sunglasses and held them tightly in her left hand. A hand without rings. Short, neatly manicured nails with clear polish. Not flashy. Not married. Not engaged.

He took a good look at her face, but didn’t instantly recognize her. Had he known her? She was pretty. Not beautiful the way his mother and sister were, but alluring in an almost exotic way. Full lips, glazed with a colorless sheen. A square face, a well-defined nose, and a pair of large, striking, dark eyes—eyes so brown they appeared almost black.

She stared at him, her gaze boring into him and her lips slightly parted. Suddenly he remembered those eyes. Other things about her had changed. She’d lost weight, grown an inch or two taller, and now possessed an air of confidence that had been lacking in the young girl who’d watched him with those remarkable black eyes.

“Ella Porter, my, how you’ve changed.” He grinned when a look of shock drained the color from her face.

“So have you, Mr. Conway.”

“Why so formal, Ella? Call me Reed.”

“Mr. Conway, I have a reason for coming here, and it isn’t so that we can get to know each other on a first-name basis.”

“Then I take it you didn’t stop by to welcome me home on behalf of the Porter family.” He sensed the tension in her tighten, and he couldn’t help enjoying being able to irritate her so easily.

“I received a rather disturbing letter today.”

She snapped open her small gray shoulder bag. That was when he noticed her hands were trembling. She was scared. Scared of him.
Son of a bitch!
She jerked a white envelope from her purse and held it between them as if it were a weapon that would hold him at bay.

“Bad news?” he asked flippantly.

“Bad news for you,” she replied, shaking the envelope in his face. “I’m not going to run to my father with this. Do you hear me, Mr. Conway? Writing me vulgar, harassing letters isn’t going to upset my father, because he won’t see this letter or any future letters. You’re wasting you time trying to get to my father through me.”

“So you received a vulgar, harassing letter today and you immediately assumed it was from me?”

“Are you denying that you sent this?” She flapped the envelope in his face again.

He grabbed her wrist. She gasped. The fear in her eyes gave him an odd sense of pleasure, but it was a pleasure mixed with pain. “Stop waving that damn thing in my face.” She twisted her wrist, trying to free it from his grip, but he held fast. She glared at him, the fear in her eyes turning to anger. Ah, he liked the anger much more than the fear. “I’m not denying anything. Nor am I admitting to anything.”

“I hardly expected you to admit it,” she said, glancing from his face to her wrist. “Will you please let go of me?”

“All in good time, Miss Ella.” Tugging on her wrist, he practically dragged her toward the side door of the garage. “But first, I think you and I need to have a little private talk.”

Reed hauled Ella into the garage. She protested verbally and struggled against his overpowering strength. What had she been thinking, coming here and confronting him this way? The man was a convicted murderer!

“Let go of me this instant or you’ll be sorry.”

He ignored her, damn him! He pulled her inside a windowless room that possessed only two pieces of furniture: a cheap “Kmart special” swivel chair and an old metal desk piled high with books, magazines, and papers. A small air conditioner hummed and rattled in a hole cut out of the concrete wall. With wide eyes and mouth agape, Briley Joe shot out of the chair.

“We need to use your office for a few minutes,” Reed said.

Briley Joe shut his mouth and stared at them, grinning at first and then grimacing when he apparently recognized Ella. “You do know who she is, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I know who she is.”

“Have you lost your mind, manhandling Webb Porter’s daughter?”

“If he doesn’t let me go, I’ll have him arrested,” Ella said.

“Hey, cuz, let her go. You can always find another woman. You don’t want to wind up back in the pen over a piece of ass.”

“A piece of—how
dare
you!” Ella glared at Briley Joe. Did that imbecile think Reed had dragged her into the garage office for a little
slap and tickle?
Her heart nearly thumped out of her chest. Unbidden thoughts swirled through her mind. She started to protest such Neanderthal treatment once again, but before she could do more than open her mouth, Reed shoved her down in the chair that Briley Joe had recently vacated. She gasped aloud as her bottom hit the seat, which was still warm from Briley Joe’s body heat.

“Close the door on your way out,” Reed told his cousin, who left immediately and quietly closed the door behind him.

“I don’t know what you think this little scene will accomplish, Mr. Conway, but I hope it’s worth it to you because I can assure you that it’s going to cost you dearly.” Ella used her authoritarian judicial voice, the same commanding tone she used in the courtroom.

Reed settled his backside onto the edge of the desk, reached out, and spun around the chair she sat in so that she was forced to face him. Resting his hands on the chair’s armrests on either side of her hips, he leaned forward, getting close enough so that she could feel his breath on her face. Startled by his nearness, she blinked several times.

“You certainly grew up nice, Miss Ella.” He raked his gaze over her face and down her throat, stopping at her breasts, then retraced his visual journey until their eyes met. “Real nice.”

“Is this step two in your plan to sexually harass me so that my father will come after you?” Keeping her gaze locked with his, she refused to let him know how much he intimidated her. He was a big man, powerfully built, and surrounded by an undeniable aura of danger.

“You’ve got me all wrong,” he said, grinning. “Besides, it seems to me, if anybody’s doing any harassing, it’s you.”

“
Me?
” She wanted to knock that cocky smile off his face. Her hands balled into fists, crushing the white envelope in the process. She prided herself on her even-tempered disposition. But this man had enraged her so easily that she felt shocked at her irrational reaction to him.

“Yeah, you. I was here at work, minding my own business, being a law-abiding citizen, when you showed up and started tossing out accusations, accusing me of something I didn’t do. I figure that could be called harassment.”

“Are you denying that you sent this to me?” She held up the letter she still clutched in her fist and waved it around, all but slapping him in the face with it.

He peered at her over the edge of the envelope, which rested just below the bridge of his nose. “The vulgar, harassing letter? Nope. I don’t know anything about it, except what you’ve told me.”

He continued staring at her. Those incredible blue eyes hypnotized her. She couldn’t help wondering how many other women had been caught and held by the mesmerizing coldness in Reed Conway’s eyes. She swallowed.
Get hold of yourself, Eleanor Porter. He’s just a man, like any other man. He puts his pants on one leg at a time, right?
Yeah, sure. She couldn’t kid herself. Reed might put his pants on in the same way other men did, but he wasn’t like other men. He never had been. Not at eighteen. Not now. He had been a star athlete headed for the University of Alabama on a football scholarship when he’d killed his stepfather. He’d had a bad boy reputation with girls and women alike when he’d been Bryant County’s teenage heartthrob and the bane of concerned parents’ lives. She remembered accidentally overhearing her uncle Jeff Henry make an off-color comment about Reed all those years ago.

“That boy’s got a man-sized ego because he’s bigger and better on the football field than anybody else. And the ladies seem to think what he’s got between his legs is bigger and better, too.”

She could still hear her uncle’s and her father’s macho chuckles, each in his own way both condeming and envying the boy from the wrong side of the tracks who had been destined for football superstardom.

And now Reed was different because he was a convicted murderer who had served fifteen years in prison. What had those years done to him? Losing everything—his freedom and the promise of a rich and famous future—must have embittered him. He had sworn revenge, hadn’t he? Against her father. But he had also sworn something else.

He had sworn he was innocent.

But that wasn’t possible. He’d been given a fair trial and was found guilty by a jury of his peers. Not only her father, but everyone in town knew he was guilty. He had to be guilty. All the evidence pointed directly to him. He had admitted beating his stepfather until he was unconscious. The knife used to slit Junior Blalock’s throat had belonged to Reed, and only his fingerprints had been found on it.

“If you didn’t send me this letter, then who did?” Ella asked. “Who else would have a reason to send me something like this? The content is very similar to those two letters you wrote to me….”

“I shouldn’t have written those letters to you.”

Ella lowered the hand that held the scrunched envelope. She didn’t know if she moved closer or if Reed did, but suddenly they were nose to nose. A wave of dizziness forced her to blink and then refocus her vision so that she looked away, over his shoulder toward the dingy white wall behind him.

“I was wild with anger when I first got to Donaldson,” he said, his voice low, even, and unbelievably calm. “I lashed out at everyone and everything. I hated your father and I wrote those letters to you to get a rise out of him. It was a stupid mistake. One I’ve regretted for a long time.”

He sounded so sincere that she almost believed him. Dear Lord, she wanted to believe him. She wanted to reach out and stroke his beard-stubbled cheek and tell him that she truly believed he regretted his past sins. She clenched her fist tightly at her side so that she didn’t respond physically, didn’t allow her own unchecked emotions to get her into trouble. As a small child, her spontaneous, emotional actions had worried her mother terribly, so she’d learned to curb those tendencies in order to please Carolyn.

“I’d like to believe you,” Ella said, proud that her voice didn’t tremble even though she was shaking like a leaf inside. “But it seems too much of a coincidence that the day after you’re released from prison, I receive a letter very similar to the two you sent me fifteen years ago.”

“Maybe it’s not a coincidence,” Reed suggested. He released the chair arms and rose to his full, imposing height.

Ella tilted her head and stared up at him. “What are you implying?”

“I know that I sure as hell didn’t write that letter to you, but circumstantial evidence points to me. Maybe whoever sent it wants you to think I’m the person who wrote it.”

“But why?”

“To get me in trouble.”

Ella rose to her feet but quickly realized her mistake. Reed didn’t move out of her way, so only inches separated her body from his. She felt his heat, smelled his sweat, heard his indrawn breath when his leg accidentally brushed against hers. Or had it been accidental?

“Why—why would someone want to get you in trouble?”

“If I get in big enough trouble, I go back to the pen.” Did Reed sway slightly toward her or did she lean into him? Only a hairbreadth separated them now. “Whoever really killed Junior Blalock doesn’t want me to stay free, doesn’t want me snooping around trying to find out the truth.”

For a split second, she thought he was going to kiss her. She froze to the spot, unable to move, unable to breathe.
You don’t want him to kiss you, do you?
She realized that yes, she did want him to kiss her, and the shock of it motivated her self-preservation instincts. Maybe Reed Conway fascinated her in a way no other man ever had. Maybe the aura of danger and machismo that was such an intrinsic part of him aroused some primitive female needs within her. But she was an intelligent, cautious woman who knew better than to succumb to baser instincts.

Ella eased around Reed, unavoidably brushing against him as she passed. He made no move to restrain her. Instead, he followed her to the door, reached around her, grabbed the knob, and opened the door. His big, hairy arm looped around her waist. She was painfully aware of what their close proximity might look like to anyone who could see them. It would never do to have someone catch her practically in Reed Conway’s arms.

“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt this time,” she told him. “If you say you didn’t write this letter”—she glanced at the letter she still gripped tightly in her hand—“then I’ll take your word for it. But if I receive another, I won’t be able to dismiss it so easily. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Conway?”

He grinned.
Damn him!
“Yes, Miss Ella, you make yourself perfectly clear. But you’re talking to the wrong man.”

A heated flush crept up her neck and colored her cheeks. “Just stay away from me…and from my family.”

“It will be my pleasure.”

Ella practically ran from him, her footsteps clicking against the concrete floor of the garage as she made her hasty escape. She didn’t slow her pace until she reached her car; then, breathless with uncertainty and heightened senses, she halted long enough to get control of herself before she slid behind the wheel. Prompted by an urgent need to run, to get far away from Reed as fast as she could, Ella inserted the key into the ignition and started the engine. As she zoomed the Jag out into the street, the tires squealed loudly. When she dared a glance in her rearview mirror, she saw a smiling Reed Conway standing in the doorway, waving good-bye.

“Now, there, my man, is one fine piece of ass,” Briley Joe said as he walked up beside Reed. “Got class written all over her.”

“Yeah, she’s a class act, all right.” Reed shook his head and laughed. “She’s scared shitless of me. And I don’t think it’s just because I’m a convicted murderer.”

“You think the judge has got the hots for you, cuz?”

“I think she’s scared of me. That’s all.”

“Yeah, but wouldn’t you like to know what it feels like to make it with one of her kind?”

“Not much chance of that.” Reed shrugged. “Women like Miss Ella are too high class for the likes of you and me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Briley Joe snickered.

Reed glanced at his cousin and noted the self-satisfied grin on his face. “Don’t compare Ella with her aunt.”

“Some high-class dames like to get their hands dirty—real dirty.” Briley Joe hooked his lean fingers over Reed’s shoulder. “Even if you don’t think she’s anything like her aunt, who knows? Judge Porter might get real turned on just thinking about jumping in the sack with an ex-con.”

Ever the dutiful daughter, Ella called and left a message with Bessie to let her mother know she’d be home a little later than usual. She’d been driving around for the past half hour asking herself what the hell had happened between her and Reed Conway. She had stopped by the garage to confront him about the letter she’d received and came away badly shaken and halfway convinced that the man hadn’t sent her the letter.

You’re an idiot
, she scolded herself as she turned left on Tallulah Street. She needed someone to talk to about what had happened and about her confused emotions. She certainly couldn’t run home and confess to her mother that she’d gotten all hot and bothered over Reed Conway. Carolyn was apt to have heart failure just at the thought that Ella might have spoken to the man. And if she even mentioned Reed’s name to her father, he was liable to take gun in hand and go after him. No, this situation called for the sympathetic ear of a friend.

She parked her Jag in the driveway beside the restored Victorian house at 508 Tallulah Street. Ella’s best friend since childhood, Heather Marshall, had recently returned to Spring Creek after an absence of five years, and the two had picked up right where they’d left off. Of course, during that five years when Heather had lived in Mobile, they’d phoned each other on a regular basis and had visited twice a year. Ella had been Heather’s maid of honor when she married Lance Singleton. She’d sat by Heather’s hospital bed when she suffered a miscarriage. And she’d offered support during Heather’s ugly divorce ten months ago.

Ella stood on the flower-lined brick walkway in front of the house that had belonged to Heather’s grandmother and had gradually fallen into disrepair after the old lady’s death ten years ago. Heather had spent a small fortune restoring the place, and now the facade boasted its original Victorian colors: pink, cream, and green.

Working on the house had, according to Heather, saved her sanity after her divorce. Luckily, Heather had inherited enough money that she didn’t have to work unless she wanted to, and Heather definitely preferred a life of leisure.

Thinking about how different she and Heather were, how different they had always been, Ella rang the doorbell. Even as children, they’d been exact opposites in appearance and temperament. Ella waited. No one came to the door. She rang the bell again. No response. Heather was home. Her black Corvette was parked in the driveway. Ella tried the bell one final time, then gave up and walked off the porch. She’d try the back door. When she made her way around the side of the house and opened the gate that led into the enclosed backyard, she heard water splashing. Of course. Why hadn’t she realized that Heather would be in the pool?