The Best Way to Lose (13 page)

“You’re being too generous, Trace.” Her voice was pitched low. Pilar almost preferred that he’d say some of the cutting observations he’d made the night before rather than act like nothing very important had happened. “It’s mainly a social gathering.”

“Are you going?” After they had exchanged the ticket and the money, he slipped the numbered ticket into the inside breast pocket of his jacket.

“I’ll put in an appearance. It’s expected.” That came with the position she’d carved for herself in the community.

“It might be a good place for you to find yourself a boyfriend,” Trace stated and straightened from the desk. The action hinted that he had work to do if she was finished.

“Yes, it might.” Somehow she wasn’t looking forward to all the uncertainty and awkwardness that came with dating. She slipped the money and the rest of her tickets inside
her purse and clicked it shut. “Good-bye, Trace.”

“Good-bye.” He walked her to the door, giving her the distinct feeling that it was merely a show of formal courtesy. When she walked out of the office, Pilar felt that somehow she’d been let down.

T
he skirt of her violet-flowered chiffon dress floated softly against her legs as Pilar descended the staircase at Dragon Walk. The metallic clapping of the ornate brass knocker on the front door seemed to echo through the big house. Pilar hurried across the cypress floors in a running walk, her pale lavender heels clicking swiftly across the waxed boards.

There was a faint impatience in her expression for the unknown caller. This afternoon she had allowed herself to be persuaded to take tickets at the charity dinner that night, so she needed to be there early. She was already running late.

When she opened the heavy front door, she
was prepared to deal quickly with whoever it was and send them on their way. But she hadn’t anticipated that Trace would be standing outside. Her startled glance ran over the dark suit and tie he was wearing and the damp sheen of his thick black hair.

His mouth quirked in an engaging half-smile. “Hello.”

“Hello.” She couldn’t keep that note of surprise out of her voice and gripped the edge of the open door to conceal the little burst of agitation.

“I have this ticket for dinner tonight, but I’ve never been too keen about attending affairs like this. You mentioned once that you weren’t exactly welcome without an escort. I thought I’d offer my services tonight.”

“I…” Her hesitation was brief as she came to a quick decision. “All right. Only I have to leave now. I’ve volunteered to take tickets.”

“My car’s parked right out front.”

She bit at the inside of her lip, belatedly wondering if she hadn’t acted impulsively, but she wasn’t going to back out now. “Just give me a minute to get my purse and lock the back door.”

It took her less time than that. Trace waited on the porch while she locked the front door, then walked with him to the car parked in the circle drive. Before shutting the door, he lifted the skirt of her dress out of the way.

“Where’s Cassie?” Trace asked when he slipped behind the wheel. “Isn’t she home?”

“No. She’s at the Thorsons’ tonight. Old Mr. Thorson is in bed with a severe case of influenza, and Mrs. Thorson suffers from chronic asthma. She can barely take care of herself, let alone look after him. So Cassie went over to take care of both of them.”

“Thorson.” Trace repeated the name thoughtfully. “I remember him. I used to steal watermelons out of his patch all the time.” He darted her a twinkling look that was wicked with devilment. “I don’t think he ever knew that I’d found out he loaded his shotgun with watermelon seeds. Every time he fired off that sawed-off cannon of his, I used to laugh. Which just made him madder.” There was a faint shake of his head, a smile of warm recollection in his expression. “Those were the sweetest watermelons I ever tasted.”

“It’s a wonder Cassie doesn’t have more gray hairs than she has,” Pilar murmured, shuddering to think what a hellion he must have been as a boy, always prime for trouble.

“Why do you say Cassie instead of Elliot?” His glance strayed from the traffic on the road long enough to wander curiously over her profile.

“I don’t know. I suppose because … women worry about such things more than men.” She shrugged, then probed with a question of her own. “Why were you such a rebel?”

“Now you’re making it sound as if I’ve suddenly reformed,” Trace mocked.

“Not totally,” Pilar replied after thinking
about the answer for a few seconds. “I think you still like to fly in the face of convention. Sometimes I think you took over the barge line just to shock everyone.”

“That was probably part of it,” he conceded idly. “Why did you stay in Natchez after Elliot died? You have no ties here. All your family is back in Virginia.”

“I thought about it,” she admitted while she glanced out the window at the lush greenery of trees gilded with silvery Spanish moss. Natchez was a treasure house of antebellum homes, with nearly a hundred still standing. “But I loved the area. And my antique shop was doing well, and I had managed to establish a clientele of repeat customers. If I left, I’d have to start all over again. What was the point?”

There was already a scarcity of parking spaces when they arrived on the grounds of one of the more imposing plantation homes located in Natchez. Sandra Kay Austin snared them as they entered the house.

“It’s about time you arrived,” she mildly chided Pilar for her tardiness. “Loretta is filling in for you. I see you managed to persuade Trace to come with you. It’s about time we put this man into circulation.” Her eyes flirted with him, feeling safely bold because of the wedding ring on her finger. “Now, you stay clear of all those pretty young things, Trace Santee, or some daddy is liable to tear you apart. This is supposed to be a party.”

“I’ll do my best to remember that, Sandra Kay,” he promised lazily.

“I have half a notion not to let you out of my sight just to see that you do,” the auburn-haired woman playfully warned him. “They’ve set up a little bar in the south parlor for you men so you can enjoy a drink before they begin serving from the buffet.”

“In that case, I might as well head in that direction,” Trace said and glanced at Pilar. “Would you like me to bring you a drink from the bar? Taking tickets might be thirsty business.”

“No, thank you.” Her glance dropped swiftly from his. It was too fresh in her memory—the way she’d tried to pretend that alcohol had lowered her resistance to his sexual advances. “If I make any mistakes tonight, I don’t want to try to blame it on drinking.”

“No drinking on the job has always been a sound policy,” came the bland agreement, but Pilar knew he’d caught her reference. “I’ll let you get to work.”

As he walked down the great hall that divided the house down the middle, Sandra Kay sighed and shook her head. “It’s a downright sin for a man to be so wickedly handsome. Given half a chance, I swear he’d be out dueling under the oaks before the night’s out, like they did in the old days.” The front door opened to admit more arriving guests. “You’d better go relieve Loretta before those daggers she’s throwing at me become real ones.”

The turnout for the dinner was large, filling the double parlor rooms with people and spilling them into the wide, long hallway. Dinner was served from two giant buffet tables. Unable to leave her post at the door, Pilar insisted that Trace go through the line and not wait for her.

When she was finally relieved, she wasn’t able to find him in the confusion of people. The Silvertons invited her to join them at their table, along with several out-of-town guests they were entertaining. The conversation at the table was lively and interesting. It wasn’t long before Pilar stopped looking for Trace and began to enjoy the company of her dinner companions.

The man sitting beside her had a ready laugh to go along with his strong and smiling face. His hair was the color of a dark copper penny, burnished and gleaming under the globed light of a massive chandelier. Pilar hadn’t caught his last name when they were introduced, but his first name was Ben. And she was aware of the interest in his eyes when he looked at her.

“Pilar. That’s a Spanish name, isn’t it?” he asked, drawing her into a private conversation while they lingered at the table over coffee.

“Yes. My mother liked it.” Pilar shrugged, since her naming had no special significance beyond that.

“Was that your brother I met earlier to
night? I’m sure his name was Santee. Tall, with black hair just like yours and a small scar on his cheek.” He described him for her.

“You must mean Trace.” The description fit no one else. Unconsciously she let her glance make an idle search of the dinner guests still gathered in the room, some at tables and some standing in small groups.

“Yeah, that was his name. I remembered it was an unusual one, just like yours.” He nodded. “Are you two related?”

“Only by marriage.” She noticed the busboys hovering close by. “I think they’d like to clear the tables now that we’re all finished eating,” she said to prompt those at her table into leaving.

“Is there a drawing room where we can repair to?” another of the Silvertons’ guests inquired, mockingly adopting an old-fashioned phraseology.

“I believe the bar has opened.” Frank Silverton pushed his chair away from the table and stood to assist his wife.

“You’ll be joining us, won’t you?” Ben inquired as he courteously helped Pilar to her feet.

“I think I should look for my escort. I was busy at the door taking tickets so Trace went through the buffet line earlier,” she explained with casual ease.

“Trace brought you?” Maryann Silverton looked at her with vague surprise. “How nice that you didn’t have to come alone.”

“Well, knowing Trace,” her husband inserted, “he’s probably at the bar, so you might as well walk with us.”

But he wasn’t in the south parlor, where most of the dinner guests had gathered to socialize. Pilar wandered among the scattered clusters, stopping to chat with this person and that acquaintance. Someone had always “just seen Trace” in the next room or talking to so-and-so in the hall. But she continually missed catching up with him. Finally she ended up in the south parlor where she started. The attractively handsome, copper-haired Ben was quickly at her side to urge her to rejoin their group.

“Couldn’t you find him?” Frank Silverton’s smile didn’t show much surprise, as if Trace’s disappearance was expected.

“I’ve lost him somewhere,” Pilar admitted. “I decided I might as well stay in one place and let him find me when he’s ready to leave.”

“We were just going outside onto the veranda for some fresh air,” Maryann stated. “Hopefully it won’t be so noisy and crowded out there.”

The languid night air was scented with the fragrance of roses climbing and twisting on the wrought-iron grillwork that enclosed the galleries. Discreetly spaced lantern lights provided a soft illumination without hampering the velvety darkness that had spread across the sky and turned on the stars. The chirrup of crickets and locusts serenaded the
scattering of guests on the veranda as they conversed in hushed voices in the quiet of the night.

Trace stepped outside for a smoke and to escape the endless talk. Every time he turned around, it seemed he was being cornered by someone and obliged to listen to the same propositions, the same complaints, or the same gossip.

Pausing in the shadows, he bent his head to the cupped match flame and let his gaze wander over the dimly lit veranda. It stopped when he noticed Pilar standing against the backdrop of a fluted white column. The Silvertons were there as well but she was off to one side, engaged in a private conversation with a chestnut-haired man Trace had met earlier in the evening. It was the same man she’d sat next to at dinner when he had finally managed to find her.

The softness of her laughter came to him across the distance. It unsettled him to see the way she was smiling at that man, intent on his every word, it seemed. The man’s name escaped Trace, but he was some attorney-friend of Silverton’s. The man made a gesture with the glass in his hand, then headed for the doors Trace had just exited through, evidently intending to get another drink. Trace waited a minute, then strolled toward Pilar.

“Some escort you are,” she declared with mock reproach when he walked up to her. “You bring me to this party and then you forget me.”
She was only half teasing, reminding herself that she hadn’t expected him to spend every minute by her side.

“I saw you a couple of times and started to come over, but you didn’t appear to be lacking company.” His lazy glance didn’t quite hide the traveling inspection of his eyes before his attention wandered to the veranda doors of the south parlor. “Have you been enjoying yourself?”

“Yes, I have.” Which was true, so there wasn’t any reason to pretend otherwise. “I did look for you after dinner, but I always seemed to be one step behind you. Everyone kept telling me they’d just seen you someplace else, so I decided you had to be having a fairly good time.”

“That depends.” He pulled on his cigarette and exhaled the smoke, his mouth quirking dryly. “So far I’ve been invited to join nearly every civic and business organization in town.”

“Is that good or bad?” Pilar couldn’t help smiling.

“It’s respectable,” he countered.

She laughed in her throat. “Is that a yes or a no?”

“A no,” Trace replied. “You can carry a good thing too far.”

“So I’ve heard.” She was amused by his droll but honest response. There was a warm feeling, too. After what had happened, she hadn’t expected to feel so relaxed with him. Not that she was totally relaxed. There was still a kind of
“alive” sensitivity to her nerves, a pleasing tingle of awareness.

“I noticed you were talking to Silverton’s friend when I came outside.” Again Trace took a drag on his cigarette and squinted at the smoke that curled upward. “Have you known him long?”

“You mean Ben Grafton?” In the course of a discussion about occupations and mutual interests, Pilar had learned his last name. He’d given her his business card. “I just met him tonight, but he seems nice … and fun to be with.”