Breath of Scandal (30 page)

"Me?" Hutch said, lowering his voice to match Neal's conspiratorial tone.

Neal smiled broadly. "Think how tickled your grieving

mama would be if you followed in your daddy's footsteps - "

"I applied for a deputy's position when I left the navy. They weren't hiring."

Neal placed his hands on his hips and shook his head as though annoyed with a dim-witted child. "Your problem is that you've got no faith, Hutch. Have the Patchetts ever failed to do something we wanted to do? A word here, a word there-we can make things happen."

"Having a better job would sure make things here at home a lot easier." Hutch glanced toward the back of the house, where Donna Dee was sulking. "I'd do just about anything to get into the sheriff's department."

Neal gave him a sly smile and slapped him lightly on the cheek. "That's what we're counting on, Hutch. That's what we're counting on."

Ivan was relaxing in his den with a glass of Jack Daniels when Neal got home. He strolled in and headed straight for the liquor cabinet. Maintaining the suspense, he fixed himself a drink.

Ivan, having enough of it, tossed aside his newspaper and asked, "Well, did he go for it?"

"Daddy, he swallowed the bait like a starving catfish." Ivan's palm struck the armrest of the leather sofa. "Damn! That's good news. I can't wait to personally boot out the bastard that's in there now. We'll have to take it slow, of course. Hutch'll start out as a deputy and work his way up. Let's say a year, eighteen months at most, and we ought to be sitting pretty as far as local law enforcement goes. I I

Neal saluted his father with his glass. "You might be old, but you've still got a few tricks up your sleeve." "Old, hell," Ivan bellowed. "I can still outmaneuver,

outdrink, and outfornicate men twenty years younger than me.-

I maybe some men twenty years younger than you, " Neal smirked.

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Ivan glared at him. "Listen to me, boy. As far as the drinking and whoring go, you seem to be doing all right. But don't forget the maneuvering. You don't spend enough time working. You've got to put work before whiskey and women, or you're sunk before you even venture into the water. "

"I work," Neal said sullenly. "I went to the plant three days this week."

"And spent the other four wearing out the tread on the tires of that new car I bought you."

"What good does it do me to put in an appearance at the factory? You're still the boss. And you shoot down every idea I come up with - "

Looking disgruntled, Ivan thrust out his empty glass. "Get me another whiskey." Neal did as he was told, but he didn't do it graciously.

Ivan sipped his fresh drink. "For the time being, I see no need to spend money on improving or expanding the business. But I have been giving our future a lot of thought lately and have decided it's time you got married."

Neal was caught raising his highball glass to his mouth. He froze, leveling his eyes on his father. "You decided what?"

"It's time you got married." "Go screw yourself."

"I won't have that sass from you," Ivan thundered, pounding the armrest with his fist. "Right now all you're fit for is driving fast, drinking hard, and running with loose women." Ivan aimed his blunt index finger at his son. "If you want to be respected and feared, the first step is to get married. "

"What makes you think I want a whining wife hanging around my neck? That kind of life is for dumb sons of bitches like Hutch. I like my life the way it is."

"Then I guess you're not bothered by the gossip about Lamar and you."

Neal's reaction was prickly and swift. "What gossip?" Now that he was assured of Neal's attention, Ivan leaned

back against the sofa cushions in a more relaxed posture. "Y'all ran around together ever since you were kids. Folks are going to find it hard to believe that you didn't know he was queer." Ivan peered at his son from beneath his brows. "I'm kinda wondering about that myself."

"Get on with it, old man," Neal said in a dangerous tone.

"Y'all did live together, alone. Now that Lamar's perversion has become public knowledge, it's just a matter of time before folks start speculating about you. "

Neal's anger was evident only through his eyes, which had narrowed to slits. "Anybody who would think me queer has to be crazy. There are at least a hundred women within the city limits of this town alone who know damn good and well I'm straight. You're just blowing smoke so I'll bend to your will."

Ivan's voice remained calm. "You told me yourself that Lamar had women while y'all were at college. Folks might assume your philandering is just a cover-up, too. " He took a sip of his drink, but his calculating eyes never strayed from Neal.

"That boy of Myrajane's was more fucked up than Hogan's goat. I don't want folks to say the same about my boy." He nodded sagely. "A wife would nip the gossip in the bud. It'd be even better if a baby came along nine months after the wedding." Drawing a deep, contented breath, he gazed around the room. "I'm gonna hate like hell to die, boy. I don't want to give up a single thing that belongs to me." His shrewd eyes swung back to his son. "I could go a lot more gracefully if I knew that I was leaving behind a dynasty. "

He turned the full force of his malevolence onto his son. "The only thing that's standing between me and a guarantee of immortality is you. The very least you can do is go to work on making a son and heir."

"God knows I've had plenty of experience."

Ivan took Neal's droll comment as concession. He picked up the society section of The Post and Courier from Charles-

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ton, which he'd been reading when Neal came in. He thrust it at Neal. The first page was covered with photos of young ladies in frilly white dresses.

"This season's crop of debutantes," Ivan said tersely. -Choose one."

Marla Sue Pickens was perfect: blond, blue-eyed, and Baptist. Her mother's pedigree was impeccable. Her daddy and his business partner had stockpiled a fortune by making pipe from scrap metal. Ivan liked the blend of gentility and crass commercialism in her background.

Marla Sue was the third child and only daughter. Her elder brother was heir apparent to the metal-pipe business. The other brother was a physician, practicing in Charleston.

As for Marla Sue herself, she was an even-tempered young woman who took for granted her family's affluence and her natural prettiness. She was currently enrolled in Bryn Mawr, but she had no ambitions beyond making a good marriage, being a gracious hostess, and breeding another generation of South Carolinians as flawless as herself.

This blueprint for her future was derived not so much from vanity as na1vet6, because, for all her pseudo-sophistication, Maria Sue wasn't very bright. Ivan regarded this, too, as an asset. He heartily approved Neal's choice, which had been based solely upon physical appearance. Marla Sue unwittingly cooperated by falling in love with Neal the night they met.

A socially prominent acquaintance in Charleston owed Ivan a favor. "I'll consider the debt canceled if you can finagle an invitation for me and my boy to one of those debutante shindigs - "

For the first half of the evening the Patchetts observed from the sidelines. Maria Sue wasn't difficult to pick out. She shone like the strand of diamonds around her slender, aristocratic neck. Feeling high on champagne and optimism, Ivan clapped Neal on the back as they watched Maria Sue waltz past with her current partner. "Well, boy, what do you think?"

Neal gave the girl the heavy-lidded once-over that had melted scruples previously frozen solid. "She's got zero tits."

"Hell, boy! As soon as she says, 'I do,' you can buy her a set of big ones."

Neal asked Maria Sue to dance and exercised the charm he was famous for. She fell for every calculated syllable of flattery. She simpered and blushed and believed him wholeheartedly when he humbly said, "I'd love to call you sometime, but I know you're probably too busy to talk to a hick from Palmetto like me."

"Oh, no, I'm  ' not!" she declared with breathless sincerity. Then, lowering her eyes and softening her voice until it was scarcely audible, she added, "I mean, if you want to, I'd love to hear from you sometime, Neal.

"I'm too old for you."

"Oh, I don't think so. Not at all. Ten years is nothing." The next day she received two dozen white roses, followed up by a telephone call. They made a date for lunch. After the lunch date, he didn't call her for a week. "All a part of the program, " he reassured Ivan, who was impatient over the calculated delay.

Neal's strategy proved effective. Marla Sue was tearfully glad finally to hear from him and invited him to have Sunday dinner in Charleston with her family. Neal was on his best behavior, responding deferentially to her father's questions. He flattered Maria Sue's mother and sisters-in-law until they were putty in his hands.

It was all he could do to keep a straight face. His old man was right-there was nothing quite as satisfying as manipulating people. Except possibly sex, and he was getting none of that from Marla Sue.

Ivan had ordered him not to lay an improper hand on her. "That girl's got her cherry sure as hell. You leave it alone until the wedding night. "

"Do you think I'm dense?" Neal asked resentfully. "She believes I respect her too much to bed her before we're married. It makes her giddy to think she exercises that kind of control over me."

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To relieve the tension the courtship was placing on his sex life, he turned to a woman in Palmetto who had an insatiable sexual appetite and a husband whose job required him to travel.

Neal saw Maria Sue as much as her schooling allowed. His long-distance telephone bill was atrocious, and he spent a fortune on flowers. The investments paid off, however. He was invited to spend a whole weekend in Charleston with her. Armed with a three-carat diamond and an unassuming demeanor, he asked her to honor him by becoming his wife. As expected, she said yes immediately.

The wedding was predicted to be the social event of the year. One thing Neal couldn't manipulate was the mother of the bride, who wanted to do everything according to Emily Post. By the time the wedding weekend arrived, he was ready to be done with the whole affair and get on with his life.

He and Ivan moved to a Charleston hotel for the duration of the nuptial festivities, which commenced on Friday at a luncheon given in honor of the bride and groom at the home of the bride's materrial grandparents.

"Just think," Marla Sue whispered in his ear, "tomorrow night it'll just be us. Alone."

Neal groaned and embraced her. "Don't talk about it darling, or I'll get a hard-on right here in your grandma's parlor." Despite her conservative upbringing, she loved it when he talked that way.

He pulled her into his arms and hugged her close. It was then that he caught sight of the other young woman standing across the room. She was giving him a cool, bold look that he instantly recognized as an invitation. As he watched, she dipped her finger into her wine cooler, then poked it into her mouth and drew it out slowly. He got hard.

"Neal!" Marla Sue softly squealed, blushing prettily. "Behave yourself. "

"Then stop tempting me," he said, letting her believe she was responsible for his erection.

A few minutes later, the other young woman approached them. "When do I get to meet the groom, Maria Sue?"

"Oh, Neal, this is my lifelong friend. She's my maid of honor. "

He didn't quite catch her name-which was insignificant, anyway. He had caught the suggestive message in her eyes. "So pleased to meet you at last," she drawled. They shook hands. As their hands slid apart, the pad of her middle finger caressed his palm.

At dusk that Friday evening, everyone in the wedding party convened for a rehearsal in the sanctuary of the big Baptist church, where baskets of flowers and candelabras were already being arranged by a harried decorator. Each time Neal's eyes wandered toward the maid of honor, he was further convinced that the title was a misnomer. If she was a maiden, he could fly; and the looks she was transmitting sure as hell weren't honorable. Her daddy, he had learned, was Mr. Pickens's business partner. He had to admire a girl with the gall to flirt so openly and still be clever enough not to get caught.

From the church, a caravan of cars traveled a few blocks to the restaurant where Ivan was hosting the rehearsal dinner. He had spared no expense. It was a lavish affair. He rose to the occasion, deporting himself as the perfect host. With a glass of champagne held aloft, he got misty-eyed when he said, "If only Neal's mama could be here tonight to celebrate this happy occasion, it would be perfect. Son, I hope you and your precious bride, Marla Sue, will be a fraction as happy together as me and Rebecca were."

While Neal decorously sipped from his wine goblet in acknowledgment of the sentimental toast, the maid of honor was fondling his balls beneath the napkin in his lap.

When the dinner formally concluded, everybody got down to having a good time. Among the guests was the newly elected sheriff of Palmetto County, Hutch Jolly, who was Neal's best man. He and his wife danced to the music of the three-piece ensemble.

Marla Sue opened wedding gifts, squealing with delight as one treasure after another was unwrapped. The maid of honor made a point of brushing past Neal as she left the room. "Excuse me," she breathed seductively.

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Neal waited about sixty seconds before bending toward his bride and excusing himself. "I've got something to do. "What?"

He cupped her face between his hands. "Brides shouldn't ask nosy questions unless they want wedding surprises to be spoiled."

Her blue eyes twinkled. "I love you so much." "I love you, too."

He gave her a soft kiss before wending his way through the crowd. He had almost made it to the door when he was waylaid by Hutch and Donna Dee. "She seems to be a nice girl," Donna Dee said. "Far better than you deserve."           f