The Outsider (17 page)
Abruptly he saw stars.
Her sudden punch clacked his teeth together with enough force to rattle his skull. She hit him not with a maidenly slap but with a clenched fist and a hard ridge of knuckle that knocked every trace of desire from his head while she shoved off him, scrambling to a safe distance.
Slowly, gingerly, Dodge worked his jaw back and forth. He blinked to refocus his eyes and glanced down to where Starla huddled at the foot of his bed, sucking at her bruised knuckles.
“Lord above, you pack one helluva wallop.”
Tears wobbled on the inky fringe of her lashes as she stared back at him, scared and angry and defiant, and ready to flee at the first aggressive movement. But flat on his back, Dodge was helpless as a turtle.
“You’re not going to hit me again, are you?”
She showed him her knuckles. “I hurt my hand.”
Gently, carefully, he curled her fingers into his palm, where she let them remain while they regarded one another with a wary mix of emotions.
“Do you trust me, Star?”
“Yes.” An answer incongruous with the way she sat stiff and trembling.
“Then tell me, did he rape you?”
A horrible blankness smothered the alarm brightening her stare. She pulled at her hand, but he wouldn’t release her.
“It won’t change how I feel,” he promised, trying
to reassure her. “But it’ll help me to understand.”
A flash of fury tightened her features as she hissed, “You don’t understand anything about me. How could you? Let me go.” She jerked harder. “Dodge, let me go. Please.”
That last was a fierce plea, so prideful and shaky it wound his emotions in knots. He let go and she darted from the room in a flutter of pale silk.
Muttering a curse, Dodge closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. Though she hadn’t answered him, he was sure he’d hit upon the truth. The bastard who’d gotten her with child had done so by force, shattering his innocent and once trusting wife with undeserved guilt and fear. Instead of bemoaning the broken pieces he’d inherited, Dodge would do his damnedest to put them back together. He would court his wife with tenderness and care, lavishing her with all the time and gentleness that had been denied her. If it took months, or even years, he’d heal the scars left cruelly upon her, earning her trust and then her love.
He’d have her in his bed each night as long as their company remained, and he vowed she’d feel safe there with him, starting tonight, with his apology. He’d be patient and have all the time he needed to win her over.
He was wrong.
Starla dropped the bombshell over dinner.
How clever she was to have planned the whole thing to give him absolutely no choice but to go along with her announcement. He wasn’t too worried when his mother and sister, children in tow, arrived to take him to lunch. They told him Starla wasn’t feeling well and he assumed she wanted some breathing room away from his family, so he generously gave it. When he arrived home that late afternoon, it was to find the table set formally, with extra services at one end: for Patrice and Reeve, Starla told him with a smile. After all, they’d been instrumental in bringing the whole family together. He’d disregarded a quiver of uneasiness to accept the situation at face value … only to be hit between the eyes right in the middle of the second course.
That’s when she told him, along with everyone else, that she was leaving.
From the first Patrice and the Dodges had hit it off famously. Marian greeted her with a warm embrace that froze Starla clear through as the woman
thanked her for taking care of her only son. They chatted companionably while Dodge and Reeve shared a drink and Starla served up a meal she’d had delivered from Sadie’s. Starla watched as the Garretts and the Dodges conversed easily, and she couldn’t help think that mother- and sister-in-law would have preferred Dodge had married someone sensible and well grounded like Patrice Sinclair, rather than the flashy Starla Fairfax. Perhaps then her Southern allegiance could have been forgiven. She tried to smile and join in the comfortable laughter, but a lump was wedged in her throat.
On her way to and from the table to deliver the main course, she paused behind her husband’s chair, giving in to the impulse to let her hand trail lightly along his shoulder. He stopped in mid-sentence to glance up in question, his dark eyes crinkled, a smile lingering on his lips from a joke Reeve had been telling. He waited, his smile growing slightly crooked, his brows knitted in question as she considered saying nothing and forgetting the whole thing.
But it was too late for that.
Instead, she bent to sketch a kiss across his cheekbone, straightening as he sucked a breath of surprise, turning away from his look of confusion—and worse, delight. She resumed her seat and started up before her courage faltered, before the taste of his warm, rough skin and the look in his unsuspecting eyes distracted her from her purpose.
“Guess this is as good a time as any to tell you all good-bye. I’ve got some family matters I’ve been neglecting terribly, and Dod—Tony and I
thought this would be a good time for me to go, what with his mama and sister here to keep him company while I’m away.”
Patrice glanced at Dodge. He looked gut shot. Then she turned to her friend. “Where are you going?”
“Louisville. To my daddy’s sister’s. I won’t be gone long. You probably won’t even have a chance to miss me.” A dazzling smile spread to cover the tug at her voice. “I’ve been having such fun tonight the time has simply gotten away from me. If you all would excuse me, my train’s leaving in less than an hour and I don’t want to miss it. Auntie June would be so distressed if I didn’t arrive as planned.”
Alice was aghast. “Tony, you’re going to let her travel in her condition, alone and at night?”
“Oh, Alice, Tony knows I’m no shrinking Southern violet. I can take care of myself, the same way your daddy trusted you to come all this way without him. Besides, he can’t run off and leave bankin’ business. This town depends on him so.”
Again her voice threatened to fail her. Escaping with dignity was harder than she’d thought. She wished she’d given in to her craven want to sneak out leaving a note for all concerned.
But she couldn’t put Dodge in the awkward position of explaining her absence.
He wasn’t as well versed in lies as she was.
“I’d better be going.”
Dodge overcame his stupor, pushing himself to his feet as she rose and readied to run.
“I’ll take you to the station.” His calm statement
betrayed none of the turmoil of the gaze locked into hers.
“There’s no need for that, sugar. Patrice can ride with me and bring the buggy back. My things are already packed. Stay here and entertain your company. Besides,” and her tone lowered with what sounded like tender concern, “you look so tired.”
If she was so damned worried about him, why had she waited until he was wedged like a steer in the slaughter chutes with nowhere to turn, no way to escape, before she delivered the killing blow? It certainly wasn’t for kindness’ sake. She wanted to flee him with as few complications as possible. That’s why she’d packed and loaded her things while he was treating his relatives to a pleasant lunch. That’s why she’d made her announcement before an audience—so he’d have no way to argue her decision without causing them all embarrassment.
He’d wed a very clever woman, but he wasn’t about to congratulate himself now.
He was too afraid he was about to lose her.
“Patrice,” he said, with a calm that belied the frantic pace of his heartbeat, “I’d be grateful if you’d see my wife to the station for me and make sure she gets off safely.”
“Of course I will.” Patrice rose, flashing him a knowing expression filled with sympathy and reassurance.
Then, to Starla, he said, “I trust you’ll at least allow me to see you to the door.”
He fought with his crutches, clumsy in his apprehensive rush. Starla reached out to take hold of
them, twisting them the right way, steadying them until he could plant them under his arms. Her expression was carefully neutral. He followed her into the foyer, where they paused at the front door. Seeing that they were alone, Dodge pressed his case.
“Don’t go.”
Starla looked nervously over his shoulder and called, “Patrice, are you ready?” Then she gave a start as his fingertips grazed her cheek.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Just don’t run away.”
She caught his hand in one of hers to still its caressing motion and pressed her other one to his lips to still words that would break her heart.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
His fingers seized up around hers. “Tell me what I did wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not you.” Her eyes began to burn as painfully as the back of her throat. “Patrice!”
“Don’t leave me.” That low, rough statement, made more as a command than a plea, nearly undid her. Then Patrice, her rescuer, appeared in the hallway, making it easier for her to smile flirtatiously and tap his cheek.
“Don’t be silly. It’ll only be a few days … a week at most.”
He said nothing. The intensity of his stare pierced her to her troubled soul. At the last moment, she put her arms around him, tunneling her face against the crisply starched folds of his shirtfront while her fingers threaded through the short hair at his nape. His hands settled judiciously just
below her shoulder blades, resting firmly but without pressure until she chose to step back. She couldn’t look up at him before whirling toward the open door and whisking past Patrice into the night.
She was crying by the time she reached the buggy and dry-eyed again before Patrice joined her on the seat. Neither spoke until they’d pulled away from the tidy little house to whir through the streets of Pride. Then Patrice stopped holding her tongue.
“If you’re thinking of leaving him, so help me, I’ll strangle you right here and now.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why did you spring your little trip on him like a bear trap right in the middle of the pecan chicken?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Patrice wasn’t taking any of her haughty airs. “You’re right about that. I don’t understand how you could tear the heart out of that man right in front of everyone and carry it off like a trophy that doesn’t mean a damned thing to you.”
“Patrice, I declare! Your language.”
“Never mind my language. How could you hurt and humiliate him like that?”
“And how could you take his side without hearing mine?”
“Because I know both of you. And I know Dodge is an honest, decent man who would lay down his life to keep a promise.”
“What does that make me?”
“I don’t know what to make of you, Starla; I never did. You play games with people’s emotions as if you had none of your own. And I won’t let
you do that with Dodge. I care too much for him as a friend.”
“I thought
I
was your friend.”
Refusing to yield to Starla’s fragile tone, Patrice said, “He never lies to me. There’s no train going anywhere near Louisville tonight or tomorrow, or even the day after that.”
Starla said nothing. Her hands clenched the reins in shaking fists until Patrice put hers over them.
“Go back to him. Don’t run away. You can make things work out between you.”
“I’m not running away from him, Patrice—honestly. I do have something I have to take care of.”
“What? If you can’t tell him, at least tell me.”
“I can’t tell anyone. Not ever.
Not ever!
”
She dropped the reins to hide her face in her hands, and as the well-trained animal slowed and finally halted at the edge of the road, Patrice took her weeping friend into a comforting embrace.
“I’m sorry, Star. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
Starla sniffed and rubbed at her eyes. “Everything makes me cry these days. Dodge says it’s the baby.” She said his name with such tenderness that Patrice was as confused as she was frustrated.
“Let him take care of you both, Starla. He’s got so much to give.”
But Starla straightened and picked up the reins. “There are some things he can’t take care of. I have to myself.” Dragging the horse’s head up and Snapping it into a brisk pace, she let the breeze finish drying her cheeks as she looked determinedly ahead.
Knowing Starla as she did, Patrice saw that the conversation was over. She was no closer to understanding what haunted her friend.
All night the southbound train clattered toward the Gulf Coast. Starla gave up on sleep. Each time she closed her eyes the image of Dodge’s stricken face was there to torment her. She hadn’t meant to hurt him; she’d had no choice. She couldn’t move ahead toward a life with Dodge with so much still pulling her back into the past. The stress of living on lies took a savage toll, pushing her out onto the thin wire of truth, where it became harder and harder to find a point of balance. She wanted Dodge to be that balance. She wanted him to be her future.
But first she had things to settle.
Her hand clutched at the crumpled letter delivered to her only that morning. The contents had rocked her world and sent her into a panicked scramble to recover what she could while concealing her motives from those who cared about her.
It tore at her heart not to tell them why she had to leave. But how could she, without revealing all?
Finally, exhaustion, coupled with the constant rocking of the rails, lulled her into a restless slumber from which she awoke to the thick scent of saltwater. New Orleans. Rumpled and sore, she claimed her scant baggage and found a rented hack to take her to the exotic French Quarter, to the Creole-style house set beneath shading live oak trees bearded in Spanish moss where she’d lived the last four years as Mrs. Stephen Fortun.
Walking in was like taking on another person’s
life. The smells of chicory coffee and frying beignets were as familiar as the patois of hurried French coming from behind the servants’ stairs. As familiar as the sudden clomp of tiny feet on the hardwood landing overhead and the sweet voice crying out, “Mama!”