The Best Way to Lose (14 page)

“I imagine his wife and two children in Memphis would agree with you.” His glance ran over her sobering expression. “Or hasn’t he gotten around to mentioning his family yet?”

“No, he hasn’t,” she admitted and breathed in deeply. “It seems I omitted asking a fairly important question. Maybe I should have you fill in my party program,” she murmured in an absent reference to a bygone era when unattached women had cards, allotting a dance or portion of the evening to certain eligible males.

“That might not be a good idea.” Trace looked away, briefly arching an eyebrow. “My name might be the only one you’d find written down. And you wouldn’t like that, would you?” His glance swung back to her, something intimate and challenging in the dark gray depths of his eyes.

A sense of rising expectancy seemed to well
in her throat, strangling off any reply that she might have made. It disturbed her…
Trace
disturbed her. And she realized that she had falsely believed they were conversing on a platonic plane that didn’t exist. They had been almost lovers, but never friends. Had she thought they could?

Agitation twisted her stomach into little knots as she broke free of his lazy, probing gaze. She looked anywhere but at him, struggling against the restlessness that charged her nerves and took the pleasure out of the evening.

The cigarette butt was buried in the earthen bed of a large stone urn, positioned by the towering white column. “How much longer do you want to stay here?” Trace inquired with an effortless change of subject and tempo.

“I’m ready to leave whenever you are.” The social evening had lost its charm for her. Now the time would begin to drag.

“Then why don’t we say our good-byes and leave?” he suggested.

At her nod of agreement, his hand lightly fitted itself to the small of her back to guide her. Even though there was an impersonal quality to his touch, it was innately possessive. She couldn’t ignore the sensation of it.

It was a long process to work their way around to speak to various friends and locate the members of the committee that had hosted the dinner. Finally they reached the wide, dividing hall, and the door was in sight.

When Trace spied the silver-haired matriarch holding court in the middle of the hall under its elaborately carved arch, he muttered an aside to Pilar. “I suppose we have to say good night to the old ‘battleaxe.’”

“She’s president of the club. We certainly do.” Her voice was equally low, and sharply reproving for his less than complimentary description of Catherine Braymore.

There were times when the matron of the community was overly condescending or patronizing, never suffering fools gladly, but she was also highly competent at organizing benefits and fund raisers such as tonight’s dinner and seeing them through to a successful conclusion. She was irritating at times, but Pilar still admired her.

Her smile was slightly fixed in place, however, when she approached the buxom woman in pale lavender. “Good evening, Mrs. Braymore. The dinner was a success … as usual.”

“Why, thank you, my dear.” She pressed Pilar’s hand between her ringed fingers. “It did go well. And I appreciate the help you gave us.” Her attention switched to Trace, her expression becoming a little distant. “I am pleased you are finally doing your duty and escorting your stepmother to these functions, Trace. It’s time you began to show her some respect after ignoring her for so long and leaving her to fend for herself.”

Pilar felt him stiffen at the censure. Then
his hand came away from her back, and the contact was broken. She darted him a sidelong glance and noticed the coldness of his smile.

“You are still the same as I remembered you, Mrs. Braymore. Someday you’ll have to tell me how you do it.” It was a lazy, drawling response, riddled with mockery.

“I was told you had changed, but I see they were mistaken,” she declared with a heavy sigh that seemed to say he wasn’t worth the trouble he caused.

“How can you say that, Mrs. Braymore?” Trace chided her dryly. “I’ve been on my best behavior all evening.”

“With you it rarely lasts.” Yet her expression seemed indulgent. “Now, run along. And see that your stepmother arrives home safely.”

“You can be sure I’ll do that, Mrs. Braymore.” His tone was so cynical that Pilar shot a worried glance at him. There was a hard and ominous glitter in his eyes. “As a matter of fact, I can almost guarantee it.”

The tension fairly crackled around him as they walked toward the door. Pilar had to hurry to keep up with his quick, reaching strides. He held the door open for her with marked patience, then followed her out. He seemed caught up in his own thoughts, not giving her more than perfunctory attention. He didn’t even bother to open the car door for her, letting her climb in by herself while he slid behind the wheel and started the motor.

“You shouldn’t
have let the things she said rile you,” Pilar finally commented when the silence became intolerable.

“I’ve been told that’s one of my problems.” The curtness in his voice didn’t encourage conversation.

When they reached the house, Pilar didn’t wait for Trace to get out of the car to open her door. “Thank you for the ride,” she said into the brooding silence and climbed out of the passenger side.

Before climbing the fan-shaped steps to the darkened porch, she opened her purse and extracted the door key. Her pulse made a startled leap at the sudden slam of the car door. With the key in hand, she started up the steps, aware of the footsteps that followed her. His shadow loomed beside hers as she crossed the board floor to the heavy doors.

“It isn’t necessary to walk me to the door,” she said.

“I insist.”

At the door Pilar inserted the key in the lock and turned it. There was the snap of an unlocking bolt. She pushed the heavy door partway open, then turned to face him, blocking the opening with her body.

“I did enjoy this evening, Trace.” It was a quietly voiced statement that didn’t give the words any special meaning. They were polite and sincere but no more than that.

“Mrs. Braymore was right, you know.” In the shadows cast by the porch, it was difficult
to see his features. “No matter how good my intentions are, they rarely last.”

For a minute she thought his ill humor had vanished until she felt the pinioning grip of his hands on her arms that bound them to her side while they hauled her nearer. After a split second of shock she managed to bring her hands up and push them at his chest.

“Tell me something, Pilar.” He seemed amused, in a distantly complacent way, by her look of anger. “What do you suppose the good people of Natchez would think if they knew I was going to kiss my ‘stepmommy’ good night?”

Pilar recoiled from the bitterness in his voice and the sordid-sounding words, but there was no eluding the mouth that drove itself onto hers, forcing her head back until she thought her neck would snap from the pressure. Her lips were ground against her teeth in a kiss that was all anger and brute force.

Her fingers curled into the lapels of his jacket as she strained away from him, pushing with all her strength, but she gained nothing except to make his bruising fingers dig more deeply into her flesh. The blood hammered in her head, pounding with the excruciating pressure. Blackness was reeling on the edges of her consciousness from the lack of air.

Trace broke it off as abruptly as he’d begun
the kiss. For an instant she sagged in the support of his hands and tried to gather in air for her starved lungs. Then her fingers gingerly touched bloodless lips. Tears sprang in her eyes, making them sparkle with wet brilliance when she finally looked at him.

“Why, Trace?” Her choked voice was barely louder than a breath. “Why do you have to destroy everything? Why do you have to hurt people?”

Deep lines of regret were carved into his rugged features. The hand that touched her cheek was incredibly gentle. Slowly he bent his head and pressed his mouth onto her forehead. “I’m sorry.” He mouthed the words against her skin.

This controlled gesture of affection reminded Pilar of a grown son kissing his mother. The anger that flared was nothing like the wounded hurt she’d felt before. She shoved away from him.

“Stop it,” she ordered, incensed by his action. “I’m not your mother … or your step-mother! And I won’t be treated like one!”

There was an instant of silence. Then Trace tilted his head back, his throat a patch of lighter gold in the porch shadows, and laughed with very little humor in the sound.

“My God, that’s rich, Pilar,” he declared, still chuckling harshly. “I could never treat you like a mother. That’s been my problem all along.”

She was left standing on the porch as his long frame glided down the steps to the car. There were a great many things she saw more clearly. Yet they all seemed to tangle her emotions into a confused knot.

A
half-hearted attempt had been made to clean the serving tray of solid silver, but the tarnish was still embedded in the intricate design on its flat surface. Inch by inch Pilar rubbed the silver cleaner into the tray and watched the intricacy of the pineapple motif unfold. The pineapple had been a popular symbol of hospitality in the Old South, carved into furniture and silver and painted on china.

“I can’t believe they auctioned this service as silver-
plated
.” She murmured her good fortune at snaring such a bargain. “Of course, there were so many items at that estate sale, and no family to know the worth of what was being sold. But you’d think they would have
had someone appraise things before they started selling them.”

“That tray looked so ugly when you brought it in, I thought you’d made some kind of mistake,” Cassie declared, pausing to look over Pilar’s shoulder at the progress she was making. “It’s going to be a beautiful piece.”

“I have half a notion to keep it.” Pilar straightened and flexed her fingers, cramped from all the rubbing. “But the antique business is buying and selling. You don’t make any money to pay the overhead by collecting.”

“I’m sure that’s true.” Cassie slipped a coffee cup off the mug tree on the counter, then reached for the second. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“I’d love one.” Pilar wiped her blackened fingers on a rag and leaned back in the wooden straight-backed chair to take a break. “It’s a warm night, isn’t it?” She lifted the weight of her hair off her neck and let the blowing air from the window fan cool her skin.

“It’s been hotter, but the thick walls of this house keep out most of the heat,” Cassie commented and brought the full coffee cups to the kitchen table. “In the heat of the summer Trace always used to beg to sleep outside on the porch. He swore he didn’t care if the bugs carried him away in the night. He claimed it was too hot in his room, but it was just an excuse to go running and tearing around all night long. He thought if he was sleeping on the porch, no one would hear him
slip off.” A smile pushed dimples into her cheeks. “And most of the time no one did. That boy,” she declared with a shake of her head. “The things he didn’t do.”

“Why was he such a rebel?” It was a question she’d put to Trace, and he’d managed to change the subject before she had an answer.

“I don’t think you can look back and lay your finger on any one thing,” Cassie replied thoughtfully. “Being an only child put a lot of expectations on him that had to put a strain on him. And his mother dying when he was in those awkward years didn’t help. I think for a long time he was angry with her for passing on and leaving him alone. “’Course, Elliot said that Trace got into so much trouble just to draw attention to himself. And I suppose there’s some truth in that, too.”

“I often wondered whether he resented my marriage to Elliot.” Pilar offered it as an idle comment, but she watched the black woman closely for a reaction.

“Well, I couldn’t say about that.” Cassie took a sip of her coffee. “But I don’t believe he objected to the idea of his father getting married again. After Trace turned about sixteen, he went his way and Elliot went the other. His mother seemed to be the link that held them together. When she was gone, they didn’t have much in common.”

“Does he take after his mother?”

“He has her coloring and strong features. She was a handsome woman and … yes, a
little on the unconventional side. I didn’t know her well until the disease had progressed to the point where she needed constant care, but”—Cassie paused, frowning absently—“I do remember her telling me some stories about their early years of marriage, and how embarrassed Elliot would get over some of the improper things she said in public. It could be that she was just as much of a rebel at heart as Trace is, but being a woman—and in those times—she kept it all inside.” She started chuckling. “I could just picture her burning her brassiere in the street. She would have done that, to the mortification of all the good ladies of Natchez.”

“She sounds like quite a lady.” Pilar had often wondered about Elliot’s first wife, but he hadn’t wanted to talk about her.

She had been reluctant to ask Cassie about her since she didn’t know the woman well. Later her curiosity had faded, until now when she wanted to find out more about Trace’s mother. How strange, she thought to herself, she was thinking of the woman as Trace’s mother instead of Elliot’s first wife.

“She was. There was always a bit of jealousy between Trace and Elliot over her. There used to be quite a competition between them. “’Course it all changed when she died. They stopped competing
with
each other and started competing
against
each other. And that’s when all the trouble started.” Cassie studied her with a critical eye. “You look tired. Why
don’t you leave that tray until tomorrow and finish it then?”

“I can’t.” Pilar picked up the rag and began to rub again. “There’s a sale tomorrow afternoon outside of Port Gibson I want to attend.”

“You’ve been going constantly.”

“Look who’s talking.” Pilar chided the woman’s own full schedule. “They always seem to hold more auctions in the summer. The weather’s better and they draw more people, I guess. It’s a good thing I have competent help in the shop so I can catch some of these weekday sales without having to close the store.”