Breath of Scandal (38 page)

As she entered her house, her recently installed telephone was ringing. "Hello?"

"Is the meeting over yet?"

"Mr. Stein!" she exclaimed. "Yes, it just now concluded. "

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"Why didn't you call me? I told you to call me." "I was about to. I'm barely inside the door." "Well? How did it go?"

"Splendidly. We couldn't have asked for a better response. " She briefly filled him in on what had transpired, omitting any mention of the Patchetts.

"So, you're still sold on the commercial potential of this area. I I

"Without qualification."

"Good. Then let me tell you about a few ideas I've been toying with. "

Jade sat down to listen.

"Are you still here? Can't you take a hint?"

With the toe of his new shoe, Dillon nudged the stray dog aside as he unlocked the trailer door. "Beat it!" The mongrel looked up at him with woebegone eyes, lay back down on the step, and rested his head on his forepaws. "Suit yourself," Dillon grumbled. "But don't expect me to keep feeding you."

He slammed the trailer door so hard that the structure shook. Taking a soda from the refrigerator in the narrow kitchen, he stood in the wedge of cool air and drank half the soda in one swallow. He rolled the cold can against his forehead. "Dammit."

He didn't welcome anything in his life that made him think or feel. Seven years ago, he had officially stopped feeling. More than his wife and son had been interred in those graves. He had buried his sentience, too. Nothing except his body had continued to exist. On the inside, he was hollow and empty. He liked it that way. He planned to keep it that way.

He had walked away from the house where Debra and Charlie had died, leaving everything behind. From that day on, he had kept himself detached from the world. He owned no property except for the few essentials that he could carry with him in his pickup. He remained indifferent to other

people. He hadn't stayed anywhere long enough to cultivate friendships. He hadn't wanted any.

He had learned the hard way that no matter how well you did what was expected of you, no matter how good a person you tried to be, you still got your teeth kicked in. You were punished for wrongdoings you weren't even aware of. Debts were always collected, and the tariff was the lives of the people you loved.

From this cruel lesson, Dillon had developed a logical philosophy: Don't love.

His life was a safe, painless void, and that's the way he wanted it to stay. He didn't need a sap of a dog forming an attachment to him. He didn't want to care about this job to the extent of being protective and possessive and to thinking of it as "his plant." He sure as hell didn't need a woman getting under his skin.

Cursing, he slammed the refrigerator door. Such was life. There was a dumb mutt curled up on his front step, licking his hand every time he went through the door. He was already as protective as a mama bear toward the TexTile plant, and ground hadn't even been broken yet. And he was angry at Jade Sperry. Anger was an emotion. He didn't want to feel any emotion where she was concerned.

After weeks of conferences and meetings in New York with men in Burberry suits, men who had never had blisters on their hands, he couldn't wait for the actual construction to get under way. Now, it seemed that, just when he had allowed himself to get emotionally involved in his work for the first time in years, the project might be scrapped.

A fool could have predicted that Patchett wouldn't roll over and play dead when another industry came to town, placing his business in a distant second place. Jade Sperry was no fool. She had known beforehand that she would make an enemy out of Patchett. After the words they had exchanged at the town meeting, Dillon believed that she had been enemies with him for a long time-with his son, too.

Old man Patchett had said, "Where in hell did you get

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the nerve to show your face in this town?" That suggested a scandal. Had Jade left Palmetto in disgrace?

Dillon drained his soda and crumpled the can in his fist. He couldn't imagine the competent, calm, cool, and collected Ms. Sperry being involved in a scandal, especially one of a licentious nature. He didn't want to imagine her in any context, but she frequently figured into his thoughts.

That was natural, he assured himself. She was his boss. He would be thinking about his boss if his boss were a man. If his boss were a man, however, he wouldn't be having the same thoughts as those he often entertained about Jade.

He had been physically faithful to Debra for almost a year following her death. Then, one cold, lonely night in one of the plains states-Montana? Idaho?-he had picked up a woman in a bar and taken her to a motel room. Afterward, he was disgusted with himself and more lonely than before. He cried for Debra in dry, racking sobs. In spite of his emotional disability, his physical appetites recovered and grew to be strong and healthy again. The second time he took a woman to bed, he had less difficulty dealing with it. The third time, it was almost easy. By then he had developed the ability to disassociate the physical act from his conscience. His body could be stimulated without arousing his guilt. He could achieve pleasurable release without involving his heart and mind.

His aloof manner had made him even more appealing to women than before. They found his latent hostility exciting. His wounded demeanor beckoned to their matemal instincts. None, however, had appeased anything except his sex drive. He was just as haunted when he left them as before. Names and faces were never recorded in his memory .

A name and a face were now recurring with frequency in his thoughts. That bothered him considerably.

The mutt outside began to bark. "Shut up," Dillon hollered through the door. Then he heard a car motor and pulled the door open. Jade Sperry alighted from a shiny new pickup truck with the TexTile logo stenciled on the door.

"Does he bite?" she asked, nodding toward the dog.

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"I don't know. He's not mine."

"1 11 don't think he knows that. He's already guarding you.

Bending at the waist, she beckoned the dog forward by making kissing noises with her mouth. "Come here, pooch." The dog stopped barking, whimpered a few times, then crept down the steps toward her. She let him smell her hand. He licked it. She scratched him behind the ears.

"Some watchdog," Dillon remarked drolly. Straightening up, Jade tossed him a set of keys to the truck. "I hope you like it. " He snatched the keys out of the air with one fist. "It's yours to drive for as long as you're on the job."

"I've already got a truck."

She glanced at his battered pickup. "That's for personal use. Anytime you're representing TexTile, use the company truck, please. "

"Yes, ma'am. Anything else?"

She climbed the steps to the trailer. The dog trailed behind her, wagging his tail. She took a gasoline credit card from her purse and handed it to Dillon. "Use this, too." "Thanks. ' I

"The bills will be sent directly to me." "They sure as hell better be."

He was being rude and obnoxious, but it bothered him to take gifts from a woman. It reminded him of being tutored by Mrs. Chandler on how to make love. Do this, do that. Not so hard. Harder. Slower. Faster. Dillon had been a quick learner and, before long, had mastered his own technique. He liked it much better when he had the upper hand.

It was an untimely and unpopular attitude, he knew, but he couldn't help it. He was perversely glad that he was on the step above Jade and she had to tilt her head back in order to speak to him face to face. She might be the boss lady and have the means to buy new trucks, but she wasn't going to bash his masculinity.

"You'll have to drive me home." "Sure. t 9

"I'd like to see the office you've set up first." He didn't

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budge. She smiled up at him with feigned sweetness. "If this is a convenient time, Mr. Burke."

He locked eyes with her, sensing that there was an undeclared war of wills going on. Eventually, he stepped aside and waved her into the trailer. To keep the dog from coming inside, he closed the door, then wished he hadn't. The trailer was too small for two people-at least it seemed that way now that he was alone in it with Jade.

He had never seen her dressed in anything except suitable office attire. She had changed since the town meeting and was now wearing a pair of jeans and a white pullover. If he hadn't known better, he would never have guessed she had carried a child for nine months. Her thighs and ass were firm and slender. Her belly was flat. Her breasts . . .

He cleared his throat. "The phone lines will be installed tomorrow - "

"Good," she said, turning away from her inspection of the desk he had installed. The living area of the trailer had been converted into a compact office. The only items not used for business were a radio and a small portable TV set. "This doesn't leave you much room to live in."

"I don't need much room."

"Are you sure you won't reconsider my hiring a secretary for you?"

He shook his head. "If I decide later on that I need one, I'll let you know. " Her eyes roved beyond him, toward the kitchen and bedroom. "Did you want to check out my bed, too?"

Her eyes sprang quickly to his. He would have bet his next paycheck that a scathing comment was on the tip of her tongue, but that she thought better of speaking it. She said crisply, "'Me only thing that interests me is where you'll be conducting company business."

There was a limit to Ms. Sperry's toughness, he decided. It didn't extend to interplay between the sexes. That's where her sophistication collapsed like an umbrella. He had observed her interaction with the men at GSS headquarters in New York. She was uncomfortable with double entendres

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and innuendos. The lady wasn't a flirt. With her, it was all business, or it was zilch.

He had concluded that she wasn't married. She had never mentioned an ex, either. One of the young executives at GSS had sidled up to him at the office coffee machine and asked,"Are you screwing Jade?"

Dillon had never approved of locker room braggadocio, especially between strangers. "What possible business is that of yours?"

"I've got fifty bucks riding on a bet."

Dillon calmly took a sip of his steaming coffee while dangerously squinting at the other man. "Tell you what, if you want to talk sex, why don't you go fuck yourself, then come and tell me how it was."

Apparently Jade had left a few of her male counterparts frustrated enough to generate speculation about her sexuality. Dillon was rather curious himself about her kid's father but had refrained from broaching the subject.

"Perhaps we should get another trailer," she said now in her brisk, businesslike fashion.

"What for?"

"I need an office, too. It would be more convenient to have it here at the site than downtown. Besides, you should have a facility where you can confer with subs, and so on. What do you think? Something large enough to accommodate my desk and a sitting area."

"It's your money."

I 'I'll look into it tomorrow." "Fine.

"Well, I guess that's everything."

She was at the door, her hand already on the latch, when he stepped around her and blocked her path. "Not quite everything, Jade."

Reflexively, she took a hasty step back. His sudden movement seemed to have startled her, inordinately so, he thought. She looked almost afraid of him.

"What do you want?"

He couldn't account for her breathlessness, either. She

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had all the control. What did she have to fear from him? For the time being, he tabled personal curiosity and addressed the practical matters. "Tell me about Ivan Patchett. "

"What about him?"

"I can understand why he's upset over the TexTile plant. It will usurp some of his power. Palmetto has been his kingdom, and he's ruled it for a long time."

"I suppose you could look at it that way," she said. "I think you looked at it that way."

"Meaning?" "Knowing that the plant would adversely effect Patchett-is that why you decided to build it here?"

"You've read the prospectus. You know that Palmetto is the perfect location."

"I also know that you could have picked a dozen or more towns along the Southeastern seaboard that would have been equally as perfect. Why Palmetto?"

"I was familiar with it."

"Which brings me to my second question. Why did Patchett think it nervy of you to show your face around here?"

She tossed her head, rearranging the cloud of loose, dark curls lying against her shoulders. "I didn't leave Palmetto under ideal circumstances."

"And these 'circumstances' somehow involved the Patchetts?"

"Among others."

"Especially the younger Patchett." "Why do you say that?"

He studied her face for a moment, then took his best shot. "Who is your son's father, Jade?"

"Graham doesn't have a father."

"Wrong. That hasn't happened since Bethlehem. You were pregnant when you left Palmetto, weren't you?" She merely regarded him with frosty blue eyes.

"Did Neal Patchett get you pregnant, then refuse to many you? Is that it?"

"Absolutely not. I despise Neal Patchett and always

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have." Pushing him out of her way, she yanked the door open and stepped outside. The dog bounded to his feet and vigorously wagged his tail, eager for another kind word. Jade ignored the dog and marched down the steps, turning on the lowest one to address Dillon again.

"Look, I know I got a little high-handed with you this morning in town, and I'm sorry. I should have reassured you that I've got the situation under control and let it go at that. "

"Do you have the situation under control?" "Absolutely. I can handle whatever difficulties might arise, and, as I'm sure you realize, there will be many before we're finished. You should concern yourself only with those relating to the actual construction.

"And please keep your speculations about my son and me to yourself. Better yet, don't speculate on us at all. Once the excavation begins, you should be so busy that you don't have time to think about anything except the business at hand. "

Dillon was more intrigued than ever. Her volatile reaction to his questions only reinforced his curiosity. This was a small town. People talked. Sooner or later he would know more about her murky past. Judiciously, he chose not to pursue it any further now.

He locked the trailer and followed her to the new pickup, where she was already sitting on the passenger side. He climbed behind the wheel and started the motor. "Pretty fancy," he remarked as he surveyed the interior.

-GSS is a first-class corporation," she said stiffly.

He guided the truck along the rutted path leading to the highway. "You'll have to give me directions to your house." He knew the place she had rented, but he didn't want her to know that.

Following her terse directions, he drove duough town. Shortly, he realized that she wasn't leading him to her leased house. "I'm surprised you wanted to live this far out," he commented conversationally as they left the city limits.

"We're not going directly to my house. I want your opinion on something."

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He shot her a puzzled glance, but she didn't elaborate. He continued driving on the two-lane highway, which, he knew, eventually led to the Atlantic coast.

"Turn right at the next crossroads." As instructed, he took a sharp turn onto a narrow gravel road. "You can pull up anywhere along here." As soon as he brought the truck to a stop, she alighted. "I'd Re you to come with me."

Dillon got out and followed her to a barbed-wire fence. A rusty No TRESPASSING sign was nailed to one of the posts. Ignoring it, she asked him to hold apart two of the wires, wide enough for her to climb through.

He said, "You know this is private property."

"Yes, I know." When she had safety climbed through, she placed her foot on the bottom wire, stretching it down and raising the next one as high as she could. "Come on. I don't think we'll get caught."

Because of his height, Dillon had to exercise more caution than she when he squeezed between the two strands of barbed wire. Once he was inside the fence, he placed is hands on his hips and looked down at her "Now what? What can we see on this side that we couldn't see from the road?"

They were standing in a fallow field. If it was a nice walk in the country she had in mind, he wished she had told him to change his clothes. He had left his tie and jacket behind, but he was still in the dress slacks and shoes he had worn to the town meeting.

"I only want to take a look around. " She struck off across the field on foot. "I didn't want to come alone." "Coming alone can be a real drag, all right," he joked.

As anticipated, she wasn't amused.

For half an hour they tramped across the uncultivated ground. She walked along the fence, then asked him to pace off yardage, which he did without understanding the reason behind her odd request. She took a spiral notebook from her handbag and made several notations.

The wind picked up, but she didn't notice, not even when it whipped her hair across her face and mouth. Dark clouds

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moved in, scuttling low. Dillon heard distant thunder. They continued to walk and pace for no reason apparent to him.

Finally, she gathered her windblown hair into her fist and held it secure at her nape, as she tilted her head back to look up at him. "What do you think?"

In that stance, with her feet widely spaced, her hand behind her head, and her wind-plastered top clearly defining the shape, size, and substance of her breasts, all his thoughts were carnally governed.

"What do I think?" he repeated gruffly. "I think we might get wet."

She glanced at the sky with eyes that were a darker blue than the stormclouds. "I believe you're right. But what do you think about this property?"

Impatiently, he shoved his hand through his own windblown hair. "Is that why we've been stamping around here for the last half-hour-so you could hear my opinion of this miserable piece of land? I could have told you my opinion without having to get mud on my new shoes."

"You don't think it's valuable?"

"Valuable?" he shouted above the wind. "I think it's worthless. Probably half of it is in flood plain."

"I'm thinking about buying it for GSS.-

Having said that, she did an about-face and picked her way over the uneven ground back toward the fence. Befuddled, Dillon followed her. "What the hell for?"

"Future expansion. Please pay close attention to those wires, Dillon. "

They got through the fence without mishap and walked back to the truck. He slammed the passenger door behind her and jogged around the hood. He had barely ducked inside when fat raindrops began spattering the windshield.

He cursed the mess on the bottom of his shoes, then picked up where their previous discussion had left off. "You can't be serious about buying this land."

"I might be. Mr. Stein called today. We discussed several areas of opportunity in and around the county. There's a very good chance that I will acquire property for the cor-

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poration. In fact, his suggestion came more in the form of an executive mandate."

"Before you could build anything larger than an outhouse on this land, it would take millions to get it ready." "We've got millions."

Her flippancy annoyed the hell out of him. "Well, since you've got all the answers, why bring me along?"

" Protection. "

Angrily, he regarded her for a moment, then threw the transmission into reverse, stretched his arm across the back of the seat, swiveled his head around, and guided the truck back to the intersection with the highway. Against the fingertips of his outstretched hand he could feel Jade's hair. it was damp and soft, and it made him mad that he noticed. He wanted to grip handfuls of it and rub it against his face. The falling rain had cooled the windows. They were beginning to fog up. He could smell Jade's perfume in the still, sultry air.

Jade's hair.  Jade's perfume. He was far too aware of Jade.

Searching for something to distract him, he noticed a rural mailbox leaning precariously on a rotting post. Through the rain, Dillon read the name that had been painted on the dented metal years ago. The letters were faded, but he was still able to make them out: 0 - PARKER."

6LI.90-

"I want to know what the little bitch is up to." Querulously, Ivan waved away the housekeeper who was trying to serve him a second helping of sweet potatoes. Four years earlier, Eula had retired. Her daughter had taken her place, assuming the additional responsibilities of taking care of an amputee.

"Bring me a bottle of brandy," he ordered brusquely. As she left to do his bidding, Ivan glared at Neal, who was slouching in his chair, toying with the food remaining on his plate. "Well, have you gone deaf? Say something."

Moving nothing except his eyes, Neal glanced up at his

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father. "How many times do I have to say it? I don't know any more than what I've already told you."

Ivan snatched the bottle from the housekeeper and poured a hefty amount into a snifter. The maid removed Neal's plate when he signaled that he was finished. When she returned to the kitchen, they were left alone in the dining room-two people at a table that would easily seat twenty.

Neal said, "That contractor, Burke, just awarded the excavation job to an outfit out of Columbia. They're already hauling in earth-moving equipment."

"Well, they can just as well haul it right back outa here," Ivan growled as he poured himself another brandy.

He wheeled away from the table and into the den. "Get in here," he hollered through the empty rooms of the house. The interior hadn't changed beyond the modifications required to accommodate Ivan's wheelchair.

Neal entered the den behind his father, bringing a snifter of brandy with him. "You can't stop this thing by willing it to disappear, old man. You made a damn fool of yourself at that town meeting, snarling like a wounded gator. That isn't the way to go about it, Daddy."

Neal threw himself onto the leather sofa. "We've got to beat Jade at her own game. We were asleep at the switch while she was buying that land where the plant is going to be. We won't be caught napping this time."

"What've you got going?" The brandy had helped mellow Ivan's sour mood.

Besides, these days it drained his strength to be tyrannical. Since the train accident had so seriously impaired his health, Neal had assumed more responsibilities. Having avoided work before, he had been pleasantly surprised to discover that it was like a game. He always played to win-and he was a sore loser.

"I've been sniffing out everything Jade does," he told his father. "She's set up shop out there at the construction site in a portable building, fight next to the trailer where that Burke fellow lives. About the only curious thing she's done is go out to the Parker place twice."

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"ne hell you say!"

"Twice that I know of," Neat added with a frown. "Once with Burke, then next time alone. She doesn't go to visit them, you understand. just to snoop around. The second time, she didn't even get out of her car, only drove around the perimeter of Otis's fence several times. Yesterday, she went to the courthouse and asked to see the plats."

"You're sure they were for the Parker place?"

"I'm sure. I complimented Gracie Dell Ferguson's fat ass," Neal said, referring to the courthouse clerk. "After that she was willing to tell me everything. Jade asked to see all the records on the Parker place and its surrounding property - "

"I own most of the surrounding property."

"That's right, Daddy, you do. Gracie Dell pointed that out while making sure I noticed her big tits."

"Did Jade tell Gracie Dell why she was interested in looking at the plats?"

I'No. 11

As Neal poured them each another brandy, Ivan asked, "Why do you think Jade is interested in the Parker farm?" "I can't imagine, but I don't like it," Neal grumbled. "I want to know what she's got in mind."

"Well, she's not likely to announce it ahead of time. And sooner or later she's bound to find out that you've been following her and asking questions."

"No problem. I found a couple of boys who are halfway smart and can keep their mouths shut. They're watching her in shifts and reporting back to me. And in the meantime," he added with a slow grin, "I'm being my charming self. I sent her flowers yesterday. "

Ivan regarded his son shrewdly. "She's a better-looking woman than she was a girl."

"So it didn't escape your notice, either?" Neal laughed. "She blew into town and made a big splash, but beneath her corporate image, Jade's just a woman. They can cry equality all they want to. But when it comes right down to it. all they're really good for is what's between their legs."