Slow Heat in Heaven (31 page)

"Yes."

"You want to know why I still live around here where everybody knows me as a bastard."

"I've wondered, yes."

His eyes penetrated hers. "Before she died, my mother made me promise never to leave Belle Terre as long as
Cotton Crandall was alive. She made me swear that I wouldn't."

Schyler swallowed emotionally, "But
why . . .
why would she ask you to do that?"

He shrugged. "Who knows? I guess I'm supposed to act as his guardian angel."

"Guarding him against what?"

"Himself maybe." He switched subjects suddenly. "Want some champagne?"

"I shouldn't."

"What the hell?"

He nudged her shoulder with the bottle. She took it from him and drank. The wine foamed in her mouth, in her throat. "It's too warm."

Schyler passed the bottle back to him, but was arrested by the intensity with which he was watching her. The forest, which had been full of activity only moments ago, fell absolutely still. Nothing moved. She could feel the heat waves emanating up from the ground, through the dead log, through her clothing and entering her body through her thighs. Her ears began to ring with the profound silence. Despite the drink of champagne she'd just swallowed, her mouth was as dry as cotton.

"We'd better go." She stood up. Cash lowered his foot to the ground, but he didn't make a move to retrace their path. He continued to stare at her. Nervous, and eager to fill the silence, she started babbling, "Thank you for helping me out with Endicott and for showing me this place. I would have never known it was here. It's beautiful. It's—"

He still had the bottle of champagne in his fist when he threw his arm around Schyler's neck and trapped her head in the crook of his elbow. He sealed her lips closed with a hot, wet kiss.

Schyler's arms closed around his lean torso. Her fingers dug into the supple muscles of his back. They turned toward each other until one's body was imprinted onto the front of the other.

They shared an eating kiss, where lips and tongues tried to taste as much as they could as quickly as possible. They came up for air and gazed deeply into each other's eyes. Their breathing was harsh and uneven.

"I broke all my rules with you." Cash watched his own hand slide down to her breast. He cupped it, lifted it, used his thumb to bring the nipple to a hard peak against her clothing. "I didn't use a rubber. I never do that," he confessed, mystified by his own neglect. "My motto is fuck 'em and forget 'em." Swiftly his eyes came back to hers. "I can't forget it. I've tried." His hand slid over her belly; he pressed the v at the top of her thighs. "Damn you, I want it again," he said gruffly.

"Me too."

"
Oui
!"

"Yes. Where?"

"Here."

"Here?"

"
Oui
."

"
Oui
."

They started kissing again. His tongue probed the silky recess of her mouth with carnal implication. The muscles of her cheeks contracted, squeezing his tongue. He groaned and rubbed his erection against her belly. She reached down to touch him and made of her hand a gentle, caressing, sliding fist. He uttered a hoarse cry. As one, with mouths clinging, they dropped to their knees on the forest floor.

He pressed her shoulders between his hands and angled her backward. She landed on a bed of fallen leaves and pine needles that rustled more enticingly than satin sheets. Responding to a primitive masculine need to possess and dominate, Cash stretched out on top of her.

Schyler reacted with the same degree of passion, though her response was purely feminine. She opened her thighs. He burrowed, hard and urgent, against the warm, vulnerable softness of woman. The elements that made them different made this wonderful. Each released a long, soughing sound that was usually reserved for climaxing.

Raising her hips, Schyler straggled to work her skirt up her legs and out of his way. Cash was roughly rubbing his
face against her breasts, his mouth open, moist and hot. He grappled with his belt buckle, but his desperation to be inside her made him clumsy and ineffective.

Between choppy gasps for breath, he cursed with frustration. Schyler knocked his hands aside and attacked the stubborn buckle herself. But she wasn't very dexterous either. Their hands batted at each other in their rash to undo his belt.

And then, simultaneously, they realized that their agonized sighs weren't all that they heard. Abruptly, Cash rolled off her and sat up.

"Cash? Did you hear—"

"Shh!" He held up one hand for quiet.

They listened. It came again—a low, unrecognizable sound.

Cash stood up. As fleet-footed as a deer and as silent as a shadow, he slipped away from Schyler and through the trees in the direction of the noise. His training as a jungle fighter served him well. He didn't even disturb the leaves of the plants he skimmed past. He drew his knife from the scabbard at the small of his back. He crept along the muddy banks of the bayou and circled the ropy trunk of a cypress.

"Jesus."

Schyler, leaving the love nest their bodies had ground into the undergrowth, scurried after him, sliding in the mud. "What is it?" she asked, stepping around him.
"Gayla!"

The young black woman looked up at them fearfully. Her eyes were red. Swelling and bleeding scratches had distorted one whole side of her face. Her clothes were in tatters. The exposed skin was covered with abrasions and cuts. She was missing one shoe.

Cash scanned both banks of the bayou and the hill above them. His eyes were as sharp as a machete. Schyler dropped to her knees in the mud. "Gayla, my God, Gayla." She repeated the name softly and reached out to touch her childhood friend. Gayla flinched.

"Don't be afraid, Gayla. It's me, Schyler." Distraught, Schyler glanced up at Cash. "She doesn't know me."

"Yes I do, Schyler." Gayla ran her tongue over the deep and nasty cut on her lower lip. It had dribbled blood onto her chest. "Don't look at me. Just go away. Please."

Tears welled in her chocolate-colored eyes. She gathered her limbs against her body and curled inward in an effort to make her shame invisible. Schyler lifted Gayla's head onto her thigh and laid her hand along the smooth uninjured cheek.
It
was the only feature
that
made her recognizable. Schyler hoped the disfigurement done to her face would be temporary.

"Oh, I'm going to look at you plenty," Schyler whispered, "because I've missed you so much. We're going to talk. We're going to reminisce about old times and, when you're feeling better, we're going to giggle like girls."

A tear slid into one of the scratches on Gayla's cheek. "I'm not a girl anymore, Schyler. I'm a—"

"You're my friend," Schyler stressed.

Gayla closed her eyes and began to cry in earnest. "I don't deserve to be."

"Thank God none of us gets what she deserves." While she continued to hold Gayla, gently stroking her head, Schyler looked up at Cash. He'd been scouting around the immediate area. "Do you see anybody?"

"No." He knelt down and assessed a madman's handiwork. He touched Gayla's shoulder. "Did Jigger do this to you?" Gayla nodded. "That filthy son of a bitch," Cash mouthed. "He must have beat her up, then dumped her. Looks like she slid down the hill."

There was forest debris ensnared in her tight cap of hair. Twigs and leaves clung to her clothes. Her bare arms and legs were streaked with dirt.

"No, Mr. Boudreaux." Gayla pronounced his name correctly, in a musical, contralto, West Indian voice that was made even huskier because of her tears. "I slid down the hill, but Jigger didn't dump me here. I ran away from him."

"You came all this way on foot?"

"Yes."

"Is he looking for you?"

"No. I don't know. Just leave me alone. Forget you saw me. Let me die lying right here and I'll be happy. I can't go back. He'll kill me. I don't want to live, but I don't want to give him the pleasure of killing me."

"He's not going to kill you. He's not going to do anything to you because I'm going to protect you. And
I
'm damn sure not going to leave you here to die," Schyler said sternly. "Can you carry her up the hill?" she asked Cash. "If we can get her that far, I'll stay with her while you go call an ambulance."

"No!" Gayla nearly came up off the ground. "No, Jesus, no, please. He'll find me and kill me."

"You'll be safe in the hospital, Gayla."

Gayla, bordering on hysteria, shook her head emphatically, despite the pain it must have caused. "Jigger beat me, then locked me in the toolshed. But I got out. When he discovers I'm gone, he'll go crazy."

"He's already crazy."

"He'll find me no matter where I am. He'll kill me for running away, Schyler. Swear to God he will. He's told me he would and he will." She clutched double handfuls of Schyler's blouse. "If you help me, he'll hurt you, too. Go away, please. Don't touch me. I'm dirty. You don't want to mess with a whore like me."

"That's enough!" Schyler cried. "I'm not afraid of Jigger Flynn. Let him come anywhere near us and I'll shoot him myself." Gayla began to weep again; Schyler softened her tone of voice. "If you won't feel safe in the hospital, we'll take you to Belle Terre. I promise to keep you safe there."

Cash nudged Schyler aside. "Come on, Gayla. Can you put your arms around my neck? Yes you can," he urged gently, when she shook her head no. '"Try. That's it. Clasp your hands now. That's good." He slid his arms beneath her back and knees and lifted her up.

"Cash, she's bleeding," Schyler gasped. The back of Gayla's dress was soaked with bright red blood. "Gayla, what did he do to you?"

"She fainted," Cash told her. Gayla's head was lolling against his shoulder. "It's just as well. This is going to be a rough trip."

He started up the hill. Schyler picked up the bottle of champagne that he'd dropped and scrambled after him. Her high heels were caked with mud. Branches snagged the cloth of her expensive skirt. She paid them no heed. She was wondering how Gayla had survived tumbling down the steep hillside.

After what seemed like a trek up Mount Everest, they reached the car. Schyler hobbled ahead and wrenched open the back door. She jumped inside. "Lay her head in my lap. Get to the hospital as fast as you can. I don't care what she said, she's got to get to the emergency room."

Cash laid Gayla on the back seat as Schyler had instructed, but he didn't withdraw his head and shoulders from the door. He stayed bent over, looking at her. "Well, what is it? Get going," she ordered curtly.

"They'll take care of her injuries at the hospital, but they'll have to call the sheriff about this." He nodded down at die unconscious woman. "He'll conduct a routine investigation, but he won't do a frigging thing to Jigger. In a few days the hospital will release her. Jigger will be waiting for her. Next time it'll be worse."

Schyler stared down into Gayla's brutalized face and knew that he was right. "All right, let's take her to Belle Terre. I don't know if I can get a doctor to come out there—"

"I can."

Cash slammed the door and ran around to the driver's side of the car. Within seconds they were under way, speeding down the highway through the closing twilight.

"Another drink, Tricia?"

"No thank you, darlin'. Mrs. Graves should be calling us in to supper any minute now."

Tricia was fanning herself with the insubstantial afternoon edition of
The Heaven Trumpet.
There had been a full accounting of the generous pounding the Junior League had sponsored for the Glee Williams family. Tricia was feeling smug and piqued—smug because she was given credit for the astounding outpouring of generosity, piqued because Schyler had been the one who had actually organized the benevolent gesture and had done most of the leg- work involved in collecting the food, staples, and used clothing.

"It's really getting tiresome," she said petulantly, "having to hold supper for Schyler every night. She's always late."

"She didn't know for sure when she'd be getting back from Endicott's." Ken sucked on a bourbon-flavored ice cube he'd shaken from the bottom of his glass. "It's a long drive."

"You'd think she'd at least call."

"Relax. Here she comes now." Ken set his empty glass on a wicker table and stepped off the veranda onto the steps. "Driving like a bat outta hell, too. That's not like her."

"Maybe she finally got the message about being perpetually late." Languidly Tricia laid down the newspaper and left her chair to go inside.

"What the hell?" Ken asked rhetorically.

Cash pulled the car to a jarring halt just a few feet from the steps. He opened his door, rolled out, and wrenched open the rear door. Bending at the waist, he reached inside and lifted Gayla out.

"What the hell is going on here?" Ken blocked Cash's path as he set his foot on the first step leading up to the veranda. "Schyler, I'm waiting for you to tell me—"

"Move out of the way, Ken. Tricia, are any of the guest rooms made up?" Both Howells were staring at Cash and Gayla as though they were aliens who had hatched in the bayou. "Well, answer me," Schyler demanded. "Are any of the guest rooms made up?"

Tricia's eyes found her sister's. "What's the matter with that girl?"

"She's been beaten to within an inch of her life. Which bedroom should I put her in?"

"You don't mean to bring her inside the house, do you?"

Schyler emitted a breath of disbelief and disgust. She looked toward Ken for support. He was glaring at Cash where they stood eye to eye on the steps, Ken one up from Cash and directly in his way.

"What is the matter with you two?" Schyler exclaimed. "Don't you recognize Gayla?"

"I know who she is," Tricia snapped.

"She's seriously hurt."

"Then I suggest a hospital."

"She's coming inside."

Schyler went around Ken and indicated to Cash that he should do the same. She was glad that he was holding Gayla in his arms; otherwise he would have used physical force to move Ken out of his path. From the murderous look in his eyes, he would have enjoyed that immensely.

Schyler crossed the veranda and reached for the handle on the screen door. Tricia stepped in front of her and flattened herself against the door to hold it shut. "Mama would turn over in her grave if she knew you were bringing them inside Belle Terre."

"Gayla's been inside. Many times. We used to play with her, remember? Her mother ironed your clothes, washed your dishes, cooked the food you ate. And Veda was blacker than Gayla."

"This has got nothing to do with race."

"Then what?"

"You force me to be unkind, Schyler. She's Jigger Flynn's whore," Tricia shouted.

Schyler went hot with fury. "And whose fault is that?"

Tricia faltered but recovered quickly. "I suppose you're going to suggest it's mine."

"Well isn't it?"

"You blame me for everything that goes wrong around here!"

"I can't argue with you about anything now, Tricia," Schyler said, having lost patience with Tricia's childish tantrum. "This is a house. It isn't the holy of holies. Neither Gayla nor Cash can or will defile it. Mama will never know who comes inside. Even is she's watching with disapproval from on high, there's not a damn thing she can do about it. Now get out of my way."

Schyler pushed her sister aside and jerked open the door.

"You know what Cotton thinks of
him,"
Ken shouted behind her.

She turned and thought about that for a moment. Then she said, "There's nothing Cotton can do about it now either." Schyler looked at Cash and inclined her head toward the spacious foyer beyond the door. For the first time in his life, Cash Boudreaux stepped over the threshold of Belle Terre.

Mrs. Graves was standing in the foyer, looking like the last formidable guard at the gates of heaven. "Are any of the guest rooms made up?" Schyler asked her.

"Not for the likes of her." She crossed her arms over her shriveled breasts as though visibly withdrawing any responsibility for what was about to take place.

"Then she can use my room." Schyler said calmly. "Make up a guest room for me." She headed for the stairs.

"By the way, Mrs. Graves, that will be your last official duty at Belle Terre. Kindly rid the quarters of all your personal belongings. I'll have a severance check waiting for you on the hall table within an hour."

Schyler ran ahead of Cash up the sweeping staircase. He took the stairs two at a time. Mrs. Graves was left standing slack-jawed in the hall. Tricia and Ken were stone-faced. Schyler ignored their glares from below as she reached the second-story landing and pointed out her room to Cash. He went ahead of her. By the time she reached the doorway, he was already depositing Gayla on her bed.

"It's going to make a helluva mess." When he withdrew his arms from beneath Gayla's limp body, the front of his shirt was bloodstained.

"It doesn't matter. I just made a bigger mess downstairs," Schyler muttered as she bent over Gayla. "While I undress her, you call the doctor."

"No doctor."

"What?" Schyler sprang erect and stared at him incomprehensively.

"Have her undressed by the time I get back." He headed for the door.