Breath of Scandal (43 page)

He made a courtly bow from his waist. "Guilty."

"If you wanted to see me, you should have made an appointment. "

"Well now, I've tried, haven't I? Didn't you get any of those messages I left on your answering machine?"

"I got them. I ignored them."

"And haven't you hung up on me every time I've called? I never even got a thank-you note for the flowers I sent, welcoming you back to town."

"I threw them away the moment they were delivered." He tsked her. "Jade, Jade, you went up North and got rude. You must've picked up a bunch of bad habits from all those Yankees up there. What happened to the sweet girl we all used to know and love?"

"She got gang-raped."

He winced, but it was a rehearsed reaction. "I see you're still carrying a grudge. Better watch that, Jade. Bitterness

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will make you old before your time, put lines in your face. Besides, what's the point? Lamar's dead and buried. Hutch is as good as. Me-I'm coming to you as an old friend, offering a peace pipe, hoping you'll forget our little misunderstanding. "

To reduce her rape and Gary's suicide to a little misunderstanding was grotesque. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to claw the complacent smile off his face. "You're coming to me as a man running scared, Neal. My company is a threat to the feudalistic economy around here. You stand to lose your ruling power, and you know it. Better yet, I know it."

"Don't count us Patchetts out yet, Jade."

"I never have. Only this time you're not going to win." She got back into her car and shut the door. He bent down and stuck his head in the open window. "Are you sure about that?"

"I'm going to make damn sure."

His eyelids lowered to half-mast.   "You know, Jade, I couldn't believe my ears when I heard you had a son, seeing that you don't even have a husband - So I moseyed over to your house the other day, and to and behold, there he was-a teenage boy, shooting basketballs in the driveway just like I used to do."

She couldn't conceal her panic. Seeing it, Neal continued in that same soft, unruffled tone. "He's a good-looking kid, Jade. Reminds me of myself when I was that age." He leaned in closer. "I was just wondering if maybe Georgie didn't take a baby out of you that day we watched you go into her house."

"We?" "Why, Gary and me. We went to buy some moonshi.ne from her.  Damned if we weren't shocked to see you tiptoeing up  her sidewalk with your fifty dollars clutched in your tight little fist."

"You didn't go there to buy moonshine. Patrice Watley told you I would be there. You took Gary so he would see me. "                                                   h

"He went plumb crazy," he said with a soft laug

She was shaking uncontrollably and so enraged that she could barely speak. "I thought that killing you was better than you deserved. I was wrong. I should have killed you fifteen years ago."

He snickered with unconcern. "Know what I think, Jade? I think YOU came out of Georgie's house with your fifty dollars still in your hand and a baby in your belly. " He reached into the window and twined a strand of her hair around his fingertip. "I think I put that baby there. I think your boy is mine. And what we Patchetts consider ours, we take. "

She jerked her head back at the same instant she dropped the gear shift into reverse. The car lurched backward, almost tearing Neal's arm Off before he got it out of the open window. Jade shoved the car into drive and depressed the accelerator. The Cherokee shot forward, missing the rear end of his late-model El Dorado by a hair. Jade's fingers flexed around the steering wheel. She gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. Damn them! Why was it that the Patchetts were endowed with the power to terrorize her?

Fear and suspicion were still gnawing at her when she arrived at the site and parked in front of her portable office. Inside, the building was already stuffy. Agitated and afraid, she switched on the air-conditioner and removed her jacket. As she was hanging it on a coat tree, the door behind her Opened-

Dillon's silhouette was large and stark against the bright morning sunlight. "Good morning," she said.

" Morning. "

It was difficult to look at him after what had transpired the night before. She quickly diverted her attention to making coffee. Her hands were still shaking from what Neal had said. She was clumsy and inefficient, scattering coffee grounds evervwhere. "I didn't have a chance to ask you last night about your trip. How was it?"

"It was productive, I think."

"I wasn't looking for you to get back before Thursday. "I got around to seeing everybody on my list faster than i expected.

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"Did you award the contract?"

"I wanted to discuss the main contenders with you first." "Good. We'll do that as soon as the coffee's ready." "Then I still work here?"

Jade turned to him suddenly. Although he was dressed in his customary workclothes, he hadn't moved inside. He was poised on the threshold as though waiting for permission to enter. "Of course you still work here. And please close the door. You're letting out the cool air."

He moved inside and shut the door. "After what happened last night, I wasn't sure I still had a job. I thought you might send me packing this morning."

Sometimes she wished he would wear more than a tank top. She especially wished so now. It was hard to look at his exposed chest, but even harder to meet his intense eyes. "Firing you wouldn't be fair, would it? Over something as silly as a mere kiss?"

She deliberately minimized the kiss's significance because that was the only swift, safe, and sane way to approach this situation-in other words, she was copping out. If she didn't dismiss its importance, she must take him to task. In doing so, she would be forced to grapple with her own ambiguities about it. That, she wasn't prepared to do.

His kiss had rocked her, yes. It had terrified her, certainly. But coupled with these reactions she had come to regard as normal for herself, there was an additional confusion arising from a deep-seated curiosity over what would have happened if she hadn't stopped him.

Through a sleepless night, she had played mind games with herself: What would the outcome have been if her no's hadn't been adamant enough to quell his desire? No matter how she posed this hypothetical question to herself, the answer was always the same. His caresses would have become more urgent. Shortly, clothes would have become an impediment, and eventually he would have expected her to receive into herself that which had made a hard impression on her lower abdomen. He would know her intimately. She would know him, his strength, his power, his essence. The very thought of it made her tremulous inside and out, and

not strictly from revulsion and fear. That was the source of her confusion. Why wasn't she outraged? Why wasn't she repulsed?

Hank's attempts to woo her, once he understood her reluctance to be wooed, had been soft and sweet. There had been nothing soft in the way Dillon's mouth had seized command of hers, nothing sweet in the hungry probing of his tongue. She hadn't been kissed like that since Gary. if she was baldly honest, she would have to admit that she hadn't been kissed like that ever.

Her reaction to Dillon's aggression was conditioned. She had responded in a fashion symptomatic of her psychological problem. Yet, she hadn't responded with her usual speed and inflexibility. She had granted him time and space in which to maneuver, Why? Because, in spite of his aggressiveness, his embrace had made her tingle in places she had believed were immune to sexual stimulation. Her heart had pounded not only with fear but with a peculiar excitement that, because of its strangeness, was equally as frightening. Her unprecedented reaction to it was as disturbing as the kiss itself.

That's why she wasn't equipped to deal with it right now. Her encounter with Neal, his veiled threats, had left her feeling frightened and vulnerable. Cathy had predicted that they would attack her through Graham. She vowed to redouble her efforts to keep him away from them.

Her most pressing problem, however, was reestablishing a working relationship with Dillon. That must be dealt with immediately, for the good of the project.

Temporarily shelving her concern for Graham, she said, "Sit down, Dillon. Tell me about the concrete contractors you have in mind for the job."

He took a seat while she poured their coffee. Knowing by now that he drank his black, she handed him a steaming mug, then moved behind her desk and sat down.

"I've narrowed it down to three bids," he said, passing her a folder he had carried in with him. "They're in no particular order."

She glanced through the three bids Dillon had received,

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then returned to the first one and began to read more thoroughly. He fidgeted in his chair. She knew he was about to speak before he uttered a single sound.

"I feel like I should apologize to you, Jade, but I'm not sure why or what for."

"No apology is necessary." "I can tell you're upset."

"I'm Upset, but it has nothing to do with you."

She kept her eyes on the sheets before her but retained very little of what she read. Her concentration kept drifting to the memory of how his mustache had felt against her mouth.

"You set me straight on that once, about kissing you, I mean. "

"I remember that conversation."

"That time I kissed you in the limo ... well, I want you to know that that was something entirely different from last night. Last night-"

"I didn't ask for an explanation."

"Nevertheless, I don't want you to think that I've read anything into your ftiendliness."

"I don't think that."

"You haven't put out any sexy signals." "That's good to know."

"I didn't plan on kissing you, Jade. It was spontaneous.' "I understand."

"If you had told me sooner that you didn't like it-" "I never said I didn't like it."

Only after she heard her own words did she realize what she had admitted. Their eyes connected, soundlessly but jarringly. She drew in a swift breath. It was no armor against the intensity of his gaze.

"Then you did like it?" he asked gruffly.

"No. I mean . . . " She lowered her gaze again. "What I actually said, Dillon, was that I can't ... can't do that.- "Can't kiss a business associate?"

"Can't kiss anybody."

She heard him set his coffee mug on the edge of her desk.

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His clothing brushed against the cushion of his chair as he scooted forward. "YOU can't kiss anybody?,,

"That's right." "Why?" "That's my business."

"And now it's mine," he said, raising his voice. Bravely, she flung up her head and glared at him, then wished she hadn't. His forearms were propped on the edge of her desk, and he was leaning forward slightly. The summer sun had brought out light streaks in his hair. His bare arms, his wide chest, his face with its mustache and steady hazel eyes, all exuded a masculinity that both fascinated and repelled her just as his kiss had.

"The subject is closed,- she said huskily. "For now, maybe."

She glanced down to the work on her desk and cleared her throat. "I'd like to discuss these bids so that you can make a decision."

"All right," he said slowly.

He had agreed, but, for the duration of their meeting, he continued to gaze at her in that steady, unflinching way that made her uncomfortably warm. He did everything with that same damned intensity-work, stare ... and kiss.

"Goddammit, I'm getting sick of this shit.11

Ivan wasn't referring to his disability or the wheelchair, although he slammed his fist down on its armrest. He was provoked by the contract lying on the stumps of his thighs, the contract that Neal had weaseled from Mrs. Parker.

"Who in his right mind would pay half a million dollars for that sorry parcel of land?"

"it looks like I'll have to," Neal said grimly. "What in blazes could she want it for?-

"Maybe nothing more than to put a railroad trunk through. According to the papers, the plant will be shipping goods overseas out of Port Royal. Whatever she wants it for, it's bad news for us.-

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Neal stared down at the contract, his brow furrowed. "That's probably only Jade's first offer. GSS has got money coming out its ass. She'll keep upping the ante until Otis gives in. "

"Pour me a drink," Ivan growled.

Neal poured a stiff bourbon for himself, too. He had put up a good front for Jade earlier that morning. Actually, she had hit the nail on the head. For the first time in his life, his confidence was taking a beating.

Jade wasn't as easily maneuvered as he and Ivan had fooled themselves into thinking. She had patently ignored his phone calls. She claimed to have thrown away the roses he sent her. She had spread a communitywide fever of interest in the new plant. He had a sick feeling in his gut that she was going to get the best of them.

His daddy was old and crippled. His voice still carried, but did people really listen to him anymore? How much clout could Ivan wield when a new industry moved in? Ivan had been known to manipulate people by bartering with coveted jobs. Before too long, he might have to beg people to work for him -

Neal surveyed his surroundings. The Aubusson rugs, the Spode china, the Waterford crystal-all were heirlooms from his mother's family, all were priceless. He enjoyed having the biggest, fanciest house in the county. He liked driving a new car every year. He like being Neal Patchett and what that name meant in this town. Goddammit, he didn't want things to change at this stage of his life.

He glanced at his father, who sat hunched in his wheelchair, and realized that their future couldn't be trusted to an old amputee. His daddy wasn't up to fighting this battle, but he had coached his son on how to fight dirty. It was time Neal flexed his own muscles.

"Here's what I'm going to do, old man. I'm going to the bank and sign a note for five hundred thousand dollars. " Ivan glanced at him sharply - "Using what for collateral?" "An acre or two here, an acre or two there. I'll scrape together enough deeds to cover the note."