Slow Heat in Heaven (3 page)

When she arrived, her unconscious father was in an ICU at St. John's, where he remained. His condition was stable, but still critical.

The worst of it for Schyler was that she wasn't sure he even knew she had come home to see him. He wafted in and out of consciousness. During one of her brief visits to his room, he had opened his eyes and looked at her. But his face had remained impassive. His eyes had closed without registering recognition. His blank stare, which seemed to look straight through her, broke her heart. She was afraid Cotton would die before she had a chance to talk to him.

"Schyler?"

Startled, she looked up at Ken, who had addressed her. "Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I'm finished, Mrs. Graves," she said to the woman who was staring down censoriously at her virtually untouched plate. She took it away and replaced it with a blackberry cobbler that looked promising. Hopefully
the sugar canister hadn't been discarded along with the salt box.

"Are you still going to the hospital after supper, Schyler?"

"Yes. Want to come with me?"

"Not tonight," Tricia said. "I'm tired."

"Yeah, playing bridge all day is hard work."

Ken's dig was summarily ignored. "Daddy's Sunday school teacher brought by a get well card from the class and asked us to deliver it. He said it was a shame that Cotton had to recover in a Catholic hospital."

Schyler smiled at the deacon's religious snobbery, though it was typical of the area. Macy had been Catholic and had raised her adopted daughters in the church. Cotton, however, had never converted. "Heaven doesn't have a Baptist hospital. We have no choice."

"Everybody in town is worried about Cotton." Ken's waistline had expanded marginally since Schyler had last seen him but that didn't deter him from pouring heavy cream over his cobbler. "I can't walk down the sidewalk without a dozen people stopping to ask about him."

"Of course everybody's worried," Tricia said. "He's about the most important man in town."

"I had someone ask me about him this afternoon," Schyler added.

"Who was that?" Tricia asked.

Tricia and Ken stopped eating their cobbler and looked at Schyler expectantly.

"Cash Boudreaux."

"Cash Boudreaux. Well, well." Tricia turned her spoon upside down inside her mouth and, with her tongue, leisurely licked it clean. "Were his pants zipped?"

"Tricia!"

"Come now, Ken, don't you think nice ladies like me know about him?" She flirtatiously batted her eyelashes at her husband. "Everybody in town knows about Cash's escapades with women. When he broke off with that Wallace woman, she told the whole Saturday morning crowd at the beauty shop about their sordid little affair." Tricia lowered her voice secretively. "And I do mean every detail. We were all embarrassed for her because the poor dear was more than just a little drunk. But still we hinged on every scintillating word. If he's half as good as she claimed, well. . ." Tricia ended with a sly wink.

"I take it that Mr. Boudreaux is the town stud," Schyler said.

"He nails anything that wears a skirt."

"That's where you're wrong, honey," Tricia said, correcting her husband. "From what I hear, he's very particular. And why not? He can afford to pick and choose. He has women all over the parish practically throwing themselves at him."

"Heaven, Louisiana's equivalent to Don Juan." Dismissing the topic, Ken returned to his cobbler.

Tricia wasn't yet ready to shelve it. "Don't sound so sour. You're just jealous."

"Jealous
? Jealous of a no 'count, bastard, ne'er-do-well, who doesn't have two nickels in his jeans?"

"Honey, when talk comes around to what he has in his jeans, the ladies are not referring to money. And apparently what he's got in his jeans makes him more valuable than pure gold." Tricia gave her husband a feline smile. "But you've got no need to worry. The earthy type has never appealed to me. You must admit, though, that Cash is a fascinating character." She turned to Schyler. "Where'd you run into him?"

"Here."

"Here?" Ken's spoon halted midway between his bowl of cobbler and his mouth. "At Belle Terre?"

"He said he was gathering roots."

"For his potions."

Schyler stared at Tricia, who had supplied what she seemed to think was a logical explanation. "Potions?"

"He took up where Monique left off." Schyler continued to stare confusedly at her sister. "Don't tell me you didn't know that Monique Boudreaux was a witch."

"I
'd always heard the rumors, of course. But they were ridiculous."

"They were not! Why do you think Daddy let trash like that live on Belle Terre all those years? He was afraid she'd put a curse on us all if he ran her off."

"You're guilty of melodrama as usual, Tricia," Ken said. "Actually, Schyler, Monique was what is known as a
traiteur,
a treater. It's a Cajun custom. She cured people, or so they claimed. Right up till the day she died she was doling out tonics and tinctures."

"Traditionally, treaters are left-handed and usually women, but folks around here seem to believe that Cash inherited his mama's powers."

"She didn't have any
powers
, Tricia," Ken said impatiently.

"Listen," she said, slapping the edge of the table with her palm for emphasis, "I happen to know for a fact that Monique Boudreaux was a witch."

"Malicious gossip."

Tricia glared at her husband. "I know it firsthand. One
day in town, she looked at me with those big, dark, evil eyes of hers and that afternoon I got my period. It was two weeks early and I've never had cramps that bad before or since."

"If Monique possessed any special powers, she used them to make people feel better, not worse," Ken said. "Her potions and incantations had been passed down since the eighteenth century from the Acadians. They're harmless and so was she."

"Hardly. Those healing traditions were combined with African voodoo when the Acadians came to Louisiana. Black magic."

Ken frowned at Tricia. "Monique Boudreaux wasn't into voodoo. And she wasn't evil. Just different. And very beautiful. Which is why most of the women in this town, including you, want to believe she was a witch."

"Who actually knew her, you or me? You'd only been living here a little while before she died."

"I've heard tell."

"Well, you've heard wrong. Besides, she was getting old and all her former beauty had faded."

"That's a woman's point of view. I tell you she was still a good-looking woman."

"What about Cash?" Schyler cut into what she could see was becoming a full-fledged marital disagreement. It hadn't taken long for her to realize that the Howells' marriage fell short of being sublime. She tried her Christian best not to take pleasure in that.

"What does Cash do for a living?" Schyler could tell the question surprised them. They stared at her for a moment before Ken answered.

"He works for us, for Crandall Logging."

Schyler assimilated that. Or tried to. Cash Boudreaux was on her family's payroll. He had hardly behaved deferentially that afternoon. His manner hadn't befitted an employee in the presence of an employer. "Doing what?"

"He's a logger. Plain and simple." Having demolished the cobbler, Ken wiped his mouth and tossed down his napkin.

"Not quite that plain or that simple, Schyler," Tricia amended. "He's a sawhand, a loader, he drives the skidder. He selects the trees for cutting. He does just about all of it."

"Shame, isn't it," Ken said, "that a man his age, and as smart as he seems to be, has no more ambition than that?"

"Does he still live in that shanty on the bayou?"

"Sure does. He leaves us alone. We leave him alone. Cotton has to deal with him down at the landing, but other than that we all give each other wide berth. Can't imagine him coming close to the house today. He and Cotton had words when Monique died. Cotton wanted to move Cash out. Somehow Cash talked Cotton into letting him stay. Cotton's trust is commendable."

"It's also selfish," Tricia said. "He needs Cash."

"He might need him, but he doesn't like it. I think he's a fool for trusting the man. I wouldn't trust Cash Boudreaux as far as I could throw him." Suddenly Ken leaned across the table and looked at Schyler with concern. "He didn't do or say anything offensive, did he?"

"No, no. We just exchanged a few words." And a touch. And a gaze. Both had conveyed as much contempt as sensuality. Schyler didn't know which disturbed her the most, his interest or his suggested animosity. "I was curious about him, that's all. It's been years since I'd heard anything about him. I didn't expect him to still be around."

"Well, if he ever gets out of line with you, you let me know."

"And what will you do? Beat him up?" Tricia's laughter ricocheted off the crystal teardrops of the chandelier overhead. "Some say Cash stayed in the jungles of Vietnam a tad too long. He kept reenlisting in the marine corps because he loved the fighting and killing so much. Came back meaner than he went, and he was already meaner than sin. I doubt you could pose a threat to him, honey."

Schyler could feel the undercurrents of enmity between husband and wife rising again. "I'm sure that's the last I'll see of Mr. Boudreaux." She scooted back her chair. "Excuse me, please. I'm going to freshen up before I go to the hospital."

The bedroom she was sleeping in now was the same one she had as a child. Through three large rectangular windows she had a view of the back of the property, the greenhouse, what had at one time been a smokehouse and now served as a toolshed, the barn that housed several horses, and the detached garage. Beyond the outbuildings which were all painted white to match the main house, was the woods, and beyond the trees, the bayou.

She closed die bedroom door behind her and stood with her back against it. She paused to appreciate the room she'd missed so much. ITie hardwood floor was dotted with area rugs that were worn and faded and would bring a premium price should they ever be sold, which they wouldn't be. Schyler would never part with anything that belonged in or to Belle Terre.

All the furniture in the room was made of oak, aged to a golden patina that kept the pieces from looking heavy and masculine. The walls were painted saffron, all the woodwork white. The bedspread, chair cushions, and drapes were white as well. She had insisted on that the last time the room had been redecorated. She hadn't wanted any of the furnishings to detract from the simple beauty of the room itself.

The only modem touch was the bookshelf. It was still cluttered with childhood and teenage memorabilia. She had resolved to clean out and throw away the yearbooks and dried corsages and yellowing party invitations many times. But nostalgia would always override her pragmatism. Nevertheless, she decided that before she returned to London she would give this room a thorough housecleaning and get rid of that junk.

The small adjoining bathroom hadn't been changed. It still had a white porcelain pedestal sink and claw-foot bathtub. She rinsed her face and hands in the sink and, using the framed mirror over it, retouched her makeup and brushed her hair. When she lifted the loose, dark blond curls off her neck, she noticed the pink bump on the side of her throat. A mosquito bite.

They know the best places to bite,
she remembered Cash saying.

She tossed down the hairbrush impatiently and, picking up her purse and rental car keys off the bureau in the bedroom, went downstairs. Tricia was speaking animatedly into the telephone receiver in the formal parlor. It was joined to the informal parlor by sliding wooden doors that disappeared into the connecting walls. The doors were always kept open, making one large room out of the two, but each half was still referred to by its traditional name.

The adoptive sisters waved good-bye to each other. Schyler walked through the wide hallway and out onto the veranda. She was on the second step down when Ken spoke to her. He left the rocker he'd been sitting in and came to join her on the step. Encircling her upper arm, he led her toward her car, which was parked in the drive. It made a semicircle in front of the house, then ran along one side of it to the back and the garage.

"Let me drive you to the hospital," he offered.

"No thanks. You and Tricia went this morning. It's my turn."

"I don't mind."

"I know, but there's no need."

He turned her to face him. "I didn't offer because I thought you needed a ride. I offered because we haven't had a second alone since you got here."

Schyler didn't like the direction the conversation was taking, nor Ken's confidential tone. She politely but firmly disengaged her arm. "That's right, Ken. We haven't. And I think that's best, don't you?"

"Best for whom?"

"For all of us."

"Not for me."

"Ken, please." Schyler tried to sidestep him, but he heeded her off. Facing her again and standing close, he ran his fingers down her cheek.

"Schyler, Schyler. I've missed you like hell. Jesus, can you imagine what it was like for me to see you again?"

"No, what was it like?" Her voice was harsh as were her accusing eyes.

He frowned with chagrin and withdrew his hand. "I can imagine how you felt when we found out that Tricia was pregnant."

Schyler's laugh was bitter. "No, you can't. Not unless you've been betrayed like that. Not unless the planet has been jerked out from under you. You can't know what I felt like at all." She wet her lips and shook her head as if to ward off an attack of insurmountable depression. "I've got to go."

Again she tried to walk around him and again he impeded her. "Schyler, wait. We've got to talk about this."

"No."

"You hightailed it to London without ever giving me a chance to explain."

"What was there to explain? We were about to announce our engagement to be married when Tricia upstaged us by announcing that she was pregnant with your baby. Your baby, Ken," she repeated, stressfully enunciating each word.

He gnawed his lower lip, his only concession to a guilty conscience. "We'd had a fight, remember?"

"A quarrel. A stupid, lovers' quarrel. I don't even remember what it was about. But it must have been over a real bone of contention with you because you wasted no time in sleeping with my sister."

"I didn't know she would get pregnant."

Schyler was speechless. She didn't remember obtuseness being one of Ken's character traits. Six years was a long time. She had changed. Apparently so had Ken. Still, it was incredible that he missed the point.

"It was inconsequential that she conceived, Ken. It hurt me just as much to know that she
could
be pregnant with your baby."

He took a step closer and caught her shoulders. "Schyler, you're blaming the wrong party here. Tricia came on to me something fierce. Hell, I'm only a man. I was depressed. I was missing you. At first I thought she just wanted to comfort me, you know, sympathize, but then—"

"I don't want to hear this."

"But I want you to," he said, shaking her slightly. "I've got to make you understand. She, well, you know, started flirting with me, flattering me. One thing led to another. She kissed me. Next thing I know, we're making out. It just happened once." Schyler looked at him with patent disbelief. "Okay, maybe a few times, but it never meant anything. I screwed her, yeah, but I loved you." He tightened his grip on her shoulders. "I still do."