Southern Comforts

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Chapter Six

The unseasonably warm spring night was drenched with the sultry scent of sun-ripened flowers. The fact that he was too tall to drive the Ferrari with the top up had never proven that much of a problem for Cash. He simply kept an eye on the barometer, avoided getting caught in rainstorms if possible, and enjoyed the feel of the wind as he raced through the dark and nearly deserted streets of Raintree.

Achieving success in California had allowed him to return to Georgia in style. He’d come a helluva long way from that kid who’d been born in a sharecropper’s shack and had spent his teenage years sneaking peeks through keyholes in the whorehouse. He was no longer the rough, angry young man who’d seduced a passionate, old-money WASP princess at Yale.

He’d come to terms with his past. Was pleased with his present. And definitely looking forward to the future, including the restoration of Roxanne Scarbrough’s beloved Belle Terre.

So why was it, he wondered, slanting a sideways glance at the sleeping Chelsea while paused at the town’s single stoplight, that this redhead from his past could walk into a room and suddenly make him feel sixteen years old again? A hot, horny teenager who knew too much about sex and nothing about love.

He studied her profile and told himself that he’d certainly seen more perfect women. Her nose was not the classical slender style favored by girls of her New York set, but slightly pug. It was also familiar.

When Roxanne revealed that Chelsea’s father had been Dylan Cassidy, he’d realized her illustrious family tree boasted an appealing crooked branch. Although he’d only been thirteen when the reporter had been killed in a civil war in some forgotten third world country, Cash remembered the man’s death well.

Not only had he delivered the newspapers that carried the news in a half-page obituary, all the girls in the whorehouse practically declared a day of mourning. Dylan Cassidy—looking like Indiana Jones in his khaki shirt with the epaulets, along with that hint of brogue he’d brought to America with him from his Irish homeland—had apparently provided a dash of much needed fantasy for a group of women who’d given up fantasizing.

The light turned green. Cash stepped on the gas while doing some quick, mental arithmetic. Chelsea would have been ten when her father’s bullet-riddled body being dragged through those dusty streets had been repeated in newscast after newscast.

Pity stirred. Cash tamped it down as he pulled up in front of the inn. As soon as he cut the engine, Chelsea woke up.

“I suppose I should apologize.” She shifted in the seat and ran her hands through the long slide of hair.

“For what?”

“For falling asleep. It wasn’t very polite.”

“I don’t recall either of us being all that concerned with politeness.” He plucked the key from the ignition. “Not when we were spending every chance we got fucking our brains out.”

Ignoring her sharp intake of breath, he opened his door and unfolded his long length from the car. Before he could come around and open her door, she was standing on the sidewalk.

“You’re still as rude and hateful as ever, I see,” Chelsea snapped as they walked into the cozy lobby.

“And you’re still as drop-dead gorgeous as ever. Even if you are too damn thin.”

His hand was on her back in a possessive, masculine way that annoyed her. But not wanting him to think he held the power to affect her in any way, she did not insist he take it away.

“A woman can never be too thin,” she quoted her mother’s axiom as she strode briskly across the pine plank floor.

“That’s a crock. Men like a woman to have some meat on her bones. Something to hold on to while they’re tangling the sheets.”

“Some men aren’t fixated on sex.”

“Some men need to learn to prioritize.” His hand slid beneath her hair. His fingers cupped the back of her neck.

Chelsea tossed her head and inched away. “You’ve done your duty, Cash. You can leave now.”

“Without escorting you up to your room? Honey, I don’t know how your Yankee fellas do things in New York City, but no southern gentleman worth his salt would let a woman wander around all by her lonesome late at night. Even in a friendly town like Raintree.”

“Good try. But we both know that you’re no gentleman. You’re just trying to talk your way into my room. And my bed.”

A couple approached. From their surreptitious, suddenly interested glances, Chelsea realized that they’d heard her gritty accusation.

“Actually, now that you mention it, though I’ve admittedly spent the evening thinking about what I was going to do when I finally got you alone, believe me, sugar, talking wasn’t one of the options.

“Besides, if I wanted to jump your bones, I sure as hell wouldn’t need to wait until we got to your room to do it. I’ll bet the keys to that shiny black Ferrari parked outside that there’s a janitor’s closet around here somewhere.”

The couple was pretending interest in a revolving rack of bright postcards. At Cash’s provocative suggestion, the woman gasped and out of the corner of her eye, Chelsea saw the man grin. Refusing even to acknowledge that reminder of her outrageous behavior on that last night they’d spent together, Chelsea balled her hands into fists at her sides and managed, just barely, not to slug him.

She was no longer the young dream-driven girl who’d been fixated on this man. She’d worked hard and achieved a measure of success. In fact, her celebrity profile of Tom Wolfe had even earned a begrudging, “Nice work, dear,” from her mother.

She’d changed over the intervening years since her time with this man. But the one thing that seemed the same, dammit, was the way Cash Beaudine could still get beneath her skin.

She began marching up the stairs, Cash right beside her. Openly fascinated, the couple followed at a discreet distance.

“You really haven’t changed a bit.” Chelsea gritted her teeth.

“Not in any of the ways that count,” Cash agreed cheerfully. His arm looped around her waist. “I still like my whiskey neat, my cars fast, and my women hot.”

He really was disgusting. And wicked. Wickedly handsome with a wicked tongue and, she remembered to her regret, wonderfully wicked hands. Refusing to dignify his remark with an answer, Chelsea refused to look at him.

But she was not unaware of him. The lazy sexual energy radiating from Cash was palpable. She thought of how, when he’d first walked toward her on that loose-limb stride, looking so darkly masculine that he literally overwhelmed the floral romanticism of Roxanne’s parlor, he’d brought to mind a sleek black panther.