Dangerous Ladies (51 page)

“I’ll be in the Jeep,” Devlin called.

Poor guy.
He couldn’t wait to get out of here.

Meadow slid into the tiny ladies’ room, flipped open her cell phone, called Judith—and groaned when her call went right to voice mail. In a low voice, she said, “I’m in Amelia Shores, I’m going back out to Waldemar, and so far—except for a confrontation with Isabelle’s husband, who almost had a heart attack afterward—everything’s okay. But how’s Mom, and where are you?” She hung up and leaned against the cool door.

Half an hour ago she’d been livid with Bradley Benjamin. She didn’t care if he offended her, but to be cruel to Devlin about his illegitimacy had not been acceptable behavior, and his rudeness to that poor single mother had made Meadow want to smack him. She’d gone to help the mother just to keep her own hands off Bradley—and then he’d suffered that attack.

Four had had to give him the nitro he kept in his pocket. Dave had rushed over with water. The old guys flapped around like a bunch of excited peahens, except for H. Edwin Osgood, who kept his head and dialed 911. And when Devlin had offered his assistance, Bradley had shouted at him to go away. The ambulance had drawn up to the restaurant, and when she’d tried to wish Bradley well, he’d pretended to be unconscious. Pretended to be—she’d seen his eyelids fluttering.

Now she felt guilty for being so irked with Bradley, and even guiltier for wanting him to live so she could use him. Nothing was turning out as she’d planned, and now she had to go back to Waldemar with Devlin. Devlin, who watched her like a cat at a mouse hole.

Unfortunately, the cheese he used to bait his trap was truly tempting.

She splashed water on her cheeks and wished she’d brought those pills the doctor had given her, because she had a whopper of a headache.

She wasn’t going to admit it to Devlin, but maybe she’d overdone it on her first day with a concussion. She needed to go back to the hotel, crawl in bed, and take a nap.

She headed out through the restaurant and onto the street, where Devlin had parked the Jeep.

The top was off, and she could see Devlin seated behind the wheel.

Four stood facing him, his hand on the roll bar. “I make a pleasant dinner guest, and your chef needs practice. I’ll ride out with you.”

“You will do no such thing.” Devlin’s impatience couldn’t be hidden.

“That’s right. No backseat. So I’ll drive myself,” Four insisted.

“No.” Devlin revved the motor and glanced toward the bookstore. He caught sight of Meadow, and for an instant she thought his gaze warmed.

But she must be imagining what she wanted to see, for in the next moment he summoned her with a jerk of his head.

He
had
to be kidding.

She stopped walking. She jerked her head in imitation. She lifted her brows.

Four turned, watched the pantomime, and grinned.

Devlin looked as if he were about to choke with frustration, but his voice was warm and adoring when he called, “Darling, come on! Sam has already called from the hotel. The tree movers dropped the blasted trunk on the brand-new gazebo before the paint was even dry.”

She resumed walking.

Four helped her into the Jeep, murmuring in a voice just loud enough for Devlin to hear, “He’s a beast who’s far too used to getting his own way, but you’re training him, and he does take instruction well.”

“Which is more than I can say for you.” Devlin drove off so quickly Four leaped backward to avoid being run over.

Meadow scrambled for her seat belt. “Devlin! That wasn’t nice.”

“Don’t worry about Four and his hurt feelings. They’ve been subdued by a large infusion of bourbon over ice.
My
bourbon over
my
ice.” Devlin shook his head, but Meadow thought she discerned a faint fondness for the only Benjamin son. “He’s almost certainly skipping toward his stupid little car right now, ready to drive out to the hotel.”

“You’re probably right. Four seems remarkably resilient, especially for a man with a father like Bradley Benjamin.” She removed her hat and gathered a handful of her hair into a band at the base of her neck.

“When I was a boy, I used to long for a father like the other kids
had. Then I’d meet old Benjamin and watch him abuse Four and count my blessings.”

She hesitated, torn between so many questions that needed asking. Finally she settled on, “Bradley doesn’t seem too fond of you, either.”

“You heard him. I’m a bastard, and he reserves his most vitriolic abuse for me.”

“Because you remind him of his wife’s infidelity and the child he lost to it.” She pulled on her hat and tied her scarf around it to keep it on her head.

“That’s a new theory.”

How could he be so obtuse? “There has to be a reason for him to care so much, and by all accounts he loved Isabelle; he just didn’t know how to open his soul to her.”

“You got that from what Four said?” The wind whipped past as Devlin cruised toward the edge of town and onto the southbound road toward the line of mansions.

She had to be more careful about revealing what she knew. “While you were talking to Sam on the phone, I talked to Scrubby.” That was true. She had talked to Scrubby—just not about Bradley Benjamin’s marriage.

“Did you two incredibly intuitive souls talk about me and my inner feelings, too?”

“No,” she snapped. “We only talked about people we were interested in.”

“Good.”

He didn’t say anything else, slowing where the pavement gave way to well-groomed gravel. He took the dip smoothly, then sped up again, not quite as fast this time.

She wished she hadn’t succumbed to irritation. Because she wanted to know about his inner feelings. She always thought people were like pieces of art glass—strong enough to handle and use, delicate enough to shatter under a strong blow, and filled with swirls of color that fascinated the eye. But while most people—and most glass—
allowed light through, she could discern nothing of Devlin’s heart and soul through the smoke and mirrors he held before him.

And she was a curious girl. She loved people. She loved to ask them about themselves. Loved to listen to their stories. Flattered herself that she understood them . . . and she was lying to herself if she thought her curiosity about Devlin was anything similar to her curiosity about other people. With Devlin, she wanted to know everything about him. She urgently wanted to know what made him tick.

“Are you nervous?” He looked at her sideways. “I’m actually a very safe driver.”

“What?” He drove so confidently she relaxed into the seat and watched the ocean. “No, I’m fine.”

“You’re tapping your foot.”

“Oh. It’s a nervous habit. When I’m thinking. So tell me about your childhood.”
Smooth. Very smooth.

He laughed. “I wondered how long you’d be able to keep your questions to yourself.”

“How long did I?”

“Maybe a minute.”

“It was longer than that.”

“You’re right.” He waited two beats. “At least sixty-five seconds.”

“That’s better. So . . . your childhood.”

“Comfortable. My grandparents were disappointed with my mother, but they didn’t throw us out in the snow. We lived with them until I was five. At that point I got big enough to beat the tar out of my older cousins when they made fun of me and my mother. Mother had to move out to avoid blood on the antique rug in Grandmother’s dining room, but by then she had her interior decorating shop established and her toe in the media. I went to an exclusive school—that’s where I met Four—and before long I was beating the tar out of a variety of boys, some of whom were still my cousins.”

“What is wrong with the people here?” Meadow burst out. “It’s
not the fifties! Women are allowed to have a baby with or without the option of marriage, and that child is valuable, a piece of God put on this earth.”

“You’re an innocent. People always love to gossip, and children always love to be cruel to kids who are different. It’s an eternal law, never to be changed.” He sounded so sure.

How had he come from being that boy so free with his fists to a man closed to honest emotion?

“In addition to the onerous weight of human nature, I was born in Charleston. Charleston is old-fashioned. Then there was my mother’s conviction that my father, Nathan Manly, was going to divorce his wife and marry her. So she lorded her conquest of him over her fellow debutantes—my mother is the slightest bit competitive.”

Meadow heard a heavy dose of irony in his voice.

“Put all of those ingredients into the situation and you have a recipe for social . . .” He hesitated.

“Disaster?” She marveled that he was at last opening to her.

“Difficulties. Fortunately for my mother, her talent and ambition have allowed her to triumph over her former rivals, although not in the traditional way, with a rich husband and two socially correct children. And if challenges form character, then I have enough character to make up for Four’s lack of it.”

“I don’t think it works that way. I think he’ll have to develop his own. And what you need to develop is—” She stopped herself. She was thinking out loud again, and every time she did that, she got into trouble.

“What do I need to develop?”

Patience. Kindness. A belief, however unproven, that men are good at heart.
Automatically, she said, “You’re perfect as you are.”

“A lovely thought. But you don’t believe it.”

“You’re exactly who you should be at this point in your life.” She knew the correct things to say.

He cast her a sardonic glance. “Where did you learn to babble such nonsense?”

“It’s not nonsense!” She did believe it was true. The trouble was, she wanted to fix people. As her mother pointed out time and again, Meadow could only fix herself, and until the moment when she’d achieved nirvana, that should be her lifelong project.

But it was so easy to see what was wrong with other people and give them good advice.

“Right.” The road wound away from the ocean, following a curving path into the woods filled with cedar and moss-draped live oaks. He pulled off to the side. Turning to face her, he put his arm across the back of her seat. His gaze captured hers. “I’ve confided in you. Now you tell me—when, my dear amnesiac, were you in a cancer ward?”

“A cancer ward?” she repeated. “What makes you think I was in a cancer ward?”

“When Bradley Benjamin instructed Four on smoking cigars, you ripped into him with a passion and a sarcasm reserved for serial killers.” Shade dappled the Jeep and offered a false mellowness to his face.

She stared at Devlin, caught in the horror between a lie and the truth. Should she tell him?

Would he understand?

Maybe he would. But even if she found the painting, he wouldn’t let her take it. He owned the house and all its contents. The painting, if it was still there, was his.

What was it Four had said?
The milk of human kindness has curdled in Devlin’s veins.

She believed it. She’d heard his hard-nosed handling of Sam, seen his impatience with Four, witnessed his satisfaction when Bradley Benjamin had suffered his attack. She couldn’t take the chance and trust Devlin. Not with her mother’s life at stake.

Devlin still sat there, waiting for his answer.

She looked away. “I know things. I know my first name. I know I don’t like it when you summon me like I’m one of your maids, and you shouldn’t treat any human being like that. I know what I think about life. I know what I think about smoking.”

He leaned back. He looked her over, his eyes black with disappointment. “But you don’t know anything about how your thinking got the way it is.”

“No.”

“Right.” His arm slid away from her seat. “I give only so many chances, Meadow.”

Her heart gave a hard, frightened thump. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” He faced forward, put the car in gear, and got the Jeep up to speed. As he drove the narrow curves the tires spit gravel, and the silence felt like a weight on Meadow’s guilt-ridden soul.

Maybe she should trust him. Her heart said she should. It was her fears that held her back. “Devlin, listen—”

She didn’t know exactly what she was going to say.

Then it didn’t matter.

He tried to make the bend. The steering wheel balked. He swore. He hit the brakes. His arms strained as he fought the turn.

They weren’t going to make it.

F
ear and adrenaline surged through Devlin’s veins. The steering was stiff—he’d lost it at the crucial moment in the curve. He worked the brakes, fought to control the skid on a damp gravel road.

The ditch was about a foot deep and full of last night’s rain. The front tires smacked hard and deep. Water flew. Branches snapped as the Jeep ripped through them. The stand of cedars rushed toward them.