All That Matters (15 page)

Faith nodded and took the paper gown he handed her.

“I’d better give your husband a little man-to-man support now. Be back with Molly in a few minutes.” With that, he left the room.

Faith put the gown on and waited, deep in thought. Doc Sutter spoke the truth. She did need this baby to love, but how was she going to straighten out the tangle of deceit she’d managed to trap them both in? And how was she going to keep Royce from finding out the baby was his? She wouldn’t blame Buddy Lee if he backed out of their agreement...and marriage.

R
oyce Webb thought he was going to die right there in the alley next to the bar. Nausea swirled in his belly, but he was too scared to move. The gun pressed into his side belonged to one of Boots Ogden’s goons, and Royce’s gut heaved when the man rammed the automatic into his ribs for the second time.

“A few more days, that’s all I need!” His words slurred around the metallic taste of fear coating his tongue.

“The boss don’t like late payments, dude.”

Stub Peabody had the build of a bull moose, thickset and dense. Royce knew the thug’s mentality was equally dense, but when someone the size of a mountain shoves a gun in your gut, it’s smart not to argue. The fierce desire to remain alive severely limited his ability to think rationally.

“I’ll get the money, Stub. I promise. Just ask Ogden to give me another week. Only one, that’s all I’m asking.”

Sweat slid down his forehead into his eyes, stung like hell. He wanted to wipe them, but didn’t dare lift his hand.
 
God, he wanted a drink. Needed one to keep from losing his nerve. His mouth was so dry he couldn’t work up a good swallow, and he had the shakes bad.

Stub poked the weapon under Royce’s chin. “Why should I, pretty boy? What’s in it for me?”

Royce tried to swallow and felt the cold tip of the gun barrel nudge his Adam’s apple.
Think,
dammit
!
 
Think of something fast.

What would a hood like Stub want that Royce could get his hands on fast? Women were a dime a dozen at Ogden’s palatial estate near Lake Charles, Louisiana. The casinos drew them like bees around clover, and Ogden’s boys had their pick of them. Between women and expensive booze, there wasn’t much else that would interest this bull holding a gun.

“I’m waiting,” Stub growled. “I don’t like waiting.”

In desperation, Royce blurted out the first thing that came into his panicked mind. “A car. I can get you a car. How about a classic Mustang? You know, the real thing? You’ll have chicks falling all over you. What do you say?”

Shit, what had he done? His mind reeled. He’d just promised Walker’s Mustang to the idiot, when he’d planned on having it himself. But he was in no position to argue right now. He had to save his own skin.

The goon pursed his thick lips, shaggy eyebrows snaking into a dark scowl. “A Mustang, huh? How do I know you’re not just jerking me around?” He chucked the .38 a little harder into Royce’s throat.

“I...I wouldn’t lie to you." Royce fought the urge to gag. His voice shook so bad he could hear the tremors in every word. They coursed through his entire body, churned in his stomach, rattled his concentration. What if he couldn’t convince this oversized knucklehead? He licked his dry lips. He didn’t want to die.

“It’s a beauty, honest,” he whined. “A ‘65 Mustang in mint condition. Worth a damn fortune. We can make a deal, if you’ll buy me a little time with your boss.” His heart pounded like a jackhammer in his chest. If this ruse didn’t work...He held his breath and tried not to think about the consequences.

Stub studied him through cold, gray eyes for a long time before he nodded slowly and tucked the .38 inside his jacket. “Okay, pipsqueak, but two days is all you get. Deliver the car to me, plus the money you owe the boss, by day after tomorrow, or else.”

Royce stiffened his legs to keep from collapsing. Two days.
 
Sweat streamed from every pore in his body, while fear crawled around in his gut like a worm. He had to agree—or die.

“Okay, okay,” he stammered. “It’s a deal. Where do you want me to meet you?” He could barely push the words out between his chattering teeth.

Stub shot him a deadly glance right before he lumbered down the alleyway toward the street. “Don’t worry, Webb,” he said in a tone so menacing, Royce almost wet himself. “I’ll find you.”

The promise sounded like a death knell. Royce watched Stub leave, afraid to breathe, afraid to move until the dark sedan slid away from the curb. Then he dropped to his knees and cried like a baby before he headed for the bar.

“Hey, sugar, what brings you to this side of town?”

The inside of the tavern was dark and smoky, the sparse noon crowd beginning to thin, but Royce didn’t need bright lights to recognize the throaty greeting of the hip-swinging blonde advancing across the room like a heat-seeking missile.

“Hello,
Didi
.” He concentrated on his drink and purposely avoided her question. Lifting the glass to his lips, he closed his eyes and let the first gulp of whiskey burn its way slowly down his throat. Without opening his eyes, he tossed back another and waited while the heat spread through his system.

When his nerves finally began to smooth out, he allowed himself a brief survey of the room and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw he hadn’t been followed. He aimed a nod and a two-fingered motion at the bartender. Another double appeared in front of him before he had time to blink.

Gripping the glass to steady his still-shaking hands, he was thankful he’d been only a few steps away from the tavern door—and a drink. The liquid courage in his glass finally started to kick in, so he shifted his attention to the woman.

Didi
hitched herself up on the bar stool beside him and ran one long, dark-red fingernail down his arm. “You look a little strung out, Webb. I know a much better way to calm your nerves than drinking, hon.” She lowered her thickly-
mascara’d
lashes and gave him a suggestive smile. “It’s been a long time.
 
I’ve missed you.”

“Yeah. I’ve been busy.” He sipped his drink, slowly coming down from the high of total panic that had sent him rushing into the tavern after he’d finally stopped blubbering. He’d been too close to ending up with a bullet in his head. That frightening image kept spinning around in his brain, along with the urgent need to come up with a scheme for getting his hands on Walker’s Mustang. He needed money fast. Ogden wasn’t going to wait much longer. Casino owners rarely did.

The blonde walked her fingers up Royce’s arm and stroked his cheek. “Too busy to stop by once in a while?”

She leaned closer, swiveling the bar stool so that her breath swirled hot against his ear and her breasts brushed his forearm. “I thought for sure you’d be knocking on my door.
  
Especially after the way Faith dumped you for Buddy Lee.” She made a little sympathetic sound. “You know, if my fiancée was pregnant with my kid and ran off to marry somebody else, I’d be downright pissed.” The tip of her tongue began a moist journey around her pouty lips. “She made you look like a chump, Royce.
 
Or didn’t you want your kid? Was that the problem?”

He jerked around, not sure he’d heard her correctly. “Say that again.
My
kid? That’s impossible. She was playing around with that white trash, Walker, before we were ever engaged.”
 
His fingers dug into
Didi’s
shoulder. “Where did you hear that wild idea?”

Didi
shrugged out of his grasp. “Hey, not so rough. I don’t owe you anything, anymore. You dumped me, remember?” She sipped her vodka and tonic, eyeing him over the rim of her glass like a cat watching a mouse.

His head pounded ruthlessly, and his nerves started twitching all over again. What the hell was going on? The baby was
his
? If this was true, why was Buddy Lee involved? It made no sense.

“Don’t play games with me,
Didi
.” He lowered his voice to a menacing whisper. “What kind of proof do you have that the baby is mine? Where’d you get your information?”

“Like I said, I don’t owe you.” She angled her head provocatively and looked at him through lowered lashes. “But I might be persuaded to share more than information, if you know what I mean.” She wet her lips again, the pink tip of her tongue exposed just enough to convey a graphic invitation. “My place?”

Royce regarded her carefully. He couldn’t afford to take the chance of missing something as important as this, but his former lover had been known to twist the truth a time or two.
 
Still, he remembered she’d been damned good in the sack.

“If you’re lying, you’ll regret it.” He downed the last of his drink as the germ of a plan took shape in his mind, a scheme that could have Walker handing over his car without an argument, if he played his cards right.

He’d made easy work of checking out the shop when Walker and Faith had been out of town. Simple procedure for someone with his expertise at covert B & E’s. He’d nearly gotten away with taking the car right then, but he’d miscalculated his time frame, and the damned alarm system kicked in before he had a chance to disarm it. But now he wasn’t going to have to break in after all. He mentally cheered. By the time he put this clever plan into action, Walker would be begging him to take the car.

Royce chuckled under his breath. Sometimes his own brilliance astounded him. By selling the car to pay off his loan to Ogden, he’d save his own neck and have money left over to leave the state. There was only one little hitch. He’d have to steer clear of Stub and make sure to get out of town before the goon realized he’d been double-crossed. That might take a little thought, but it wasn’t impossible.

The rest was a piece of cake. He really didn’t care whether Faith’s rug-rat was his or not. The kid was just a bargaining point. Besides, he’d be long gone before anyone noticed him missing. He’d drop the car off in Lake Charles and take a plane to the Bahamas. Perfect.

Didi
shot him a sly look. “I don’t need to lie. My kid sister has a part-time job in Doc Sutton’s office filing medical records for him.” She rested one hand on Royce’s thigh, let it slide toward his crotch and linger briefly. “I can get you all the proof you need,
sugah
. And my price is negotiable.”

With a heavy-lidded wink, she eased off the bar stool, straightened her minuscule skirt with a yank and, hips swaying like a backyard swing, sashayed out of the tavern on a cloud of heavy magnolia fragrance.

Royce tossed some bills onto the bar and followed. With his nerves tranquilized by whiskey and his sexual appetite whetted by
Didi’s
voluptuous curves, he was more than ready to negotiate.

B
uddy Lee helped Faith out of the truck when they reached their house, determined to wait until she’d had time to rest before questioning her about her conversation with Doc Sutter.

He hadn’t intentionally eavesdropped. Hell, the door to the examining room had swung open a crack. Old doc’s voice was about as quiet as a fog horn. Faith’s own words hadn’t exactly been hushed, either, and his attention had zeroed in on what he knew was a private discussion the minute Doc mentioned Faith’s previous bruises and their cause.

The temptation to charge into the examination room and demand the entire story had nearly catapulted him out of his chair. Thank God for the tiny bit of common sense that had kept him in place. And for Doc’s calming, but sparse, words of explanation. As soon as Faith felt better, he was damn well gonna ask for more details.

“You need to lie down.” He supported her with one arm and opened the screen door with the other hand.

Pale and shaky, she leaned on him as they walked, but he barely felt her slight weight against his own injured rib. The worry about her health as well as her safety consumed him.

“Maybe I’ll just rest on the sofa for a while,” she said.

“Huh-uh. Too many hard lumps. You’ll be more comfortable in bed.”

A faint smile teased the corners of her mouth. “Weren’t you the one who insisted the sofa was fine for sleeping?”

He grimaced. “That’s different. I’m not expecting a baby. Physically, I mean.”

She laughed quietly. “Well, that’s a news flash.”

The warmth of her laughter gave Buddy Lee a brief glimpse of what their life together might be if their marriage had been the culmination of shared love instead of the result of an old friendship.

He watched, hypnotized, when she stopped to fuss with a tiny arrangement of yellow and white daisies on the lamp table next to the sofa. He couldn’t ever remember having flowers anywhere in the house. Now, they blossomed in every room, thanks to Faith. In the few days since their wedding, she’d managed to turn the tiny house into a cozy nest, a safe haven away from the reproachful eyes of the community.

That same censure had dogged him for years.
Boyd’s boy
had lived under the town’s scrutiny his entire life, and he still struggled to escape the stigma of his father’s name.

Amazingly, Faith seemed completely at ease amidst the sparse furnishings in the little tract-house. Better than he managed to fare on his infrequent visits to the Morgan mansion. Their worlds were poles apart, yet she had adapted to his without a hitch. He would never fit into hers. Didn’t even try.