The Smoky Mountain Mist (12 page)

Seth sank onto the top porch step and stared across the tree-shaded street at the mostly full parking lot of a sprawling one-story medical clinic. Pediatrics, he realized as the cars came and went with their cargo of harried moms and coughing, sniffling children.

Maybe he should write Rachel a note, leave it on her windshield and walk back to Davenport Trucking. He could hang around until lunchtime and see if one of the guys in the fleet garage could drive him to the rental car place in Alcoa in exchange for lunch.

But before he talked himself to his feet, the door opened behind him and Rachel stepped out, stopping short as she spotted him on the porch step. “Oh. I was halfway expecting you to be gone.”

He rose and turned to face her, his spine rigid with a combination of shame and stubborn pride. “I was halfway to talking myself into going.”

“You warned me,” she said quietly, nodding toward the car.

“I did.” He fell into step with her as they walked to the Honda.

“Didn’t you realize who we were going to see?”

“I didn’t connect the names.” He forced a grim smile. “Lots of Blounts in Blount County, Tennessee.”

“Did you really try to pay her back?”

He slanted a look at her, trying not to be hurt by the question. “Yes.”

“And when she refused, you gave the money to the soup kitchen?”

“Foundations of Hope. Downtown. Ask for Dave Pelletier.”

She paused with her key halfway to the ignition. “You always sound as if you’re telling the truth.”

“And you can’t trust that I am.” It wasn’t a question. He saw the doubt in her eyes.

“I want to.”

“That’s not enough. You have to be sure, and you can’t afford to let time and experience prove my motives are sincere.”

“I don’t know who to trust at all.” She looked so afraid, and he hated himself for adding to her distress.

“Sometimes you just have to trust your instincts,” he said quietly. “What do your instincts tell you?”

She lifted her gaze to meet his. “That you want to keep me safe.”

A strange sensation, part agony, part joy, burned a hole in the center of his chest. “You’re crazy.”

Even though tears shined in her eyes, she laughed. “That’s not a nice thing to say to a woman with my mental health history.”

He laughed, too, even though he felt like crying, as well. “I won’t hurt you. Not if there’s anything I can do to avoid it. And if you ever begin to doubt me, you say so and I’ll be gone.”

“Deal.” She held out her hand.

He shook it, his fingers tingling where hers touched him. He resisted the powerful urge to pull her into his arms and let go, turning to buckle himself in. “What now? What did you learn?”

“A lot. But I’m not sure how it’s going to help us.”

Chapter Twelve

“So the trustees choose the CEO?” Seth asked a few minutes later, after Rachel had summarized what Ed Blount had told her. “Is that the gist of it?”

Rachel nodded as she threaded her way through traffic on Lamar Alexander Parkway, heading toward the mountains. “There are parameters, of course. My father apparently left a list of approved candidates that the trustees have to choose from first. If none of those candidates is willing to take the job, the trustees are tasked with a circumscribed candidate search. My father apparently left detailed instructions.”

“Blount wouldn’t give you the details, though?”

“Not before the reading of the will next Tuesday....”

“But?” he prodded, apparently reading her hesitation.

“He mentioned that my uncle helped my father come up with the list. I think Uncle Rafe might be willing to tell me now if I ask him.”

“So let’s ask him.”

She shot him a smile. “Where do you think we’re heading?”

Her uncle lived across the state line in Bryson City, where he and his wife, Janeane, ran a music hall catering primarily to Smoky Mountains tourists. The drive from Maryville took over two hours, but Rachel couldn’t complain much about the view as their route twisted through the Smokies, past bluffs cut into the earth and sweeping vistas of the mountains spreading north and east, their tips swallowed by lingering mists that even the sunny day had not completely dissipated.

They arrived at Song Valley Music Hall in time for lunch. The fall tourist season was just starting, which meant they didn’t have their choice of tables when they walked into the dimly lit dining hall, but they didn’t have to wait in line, either.

Uncle Rafe himself came out to greet them, menu in hand and a smile on his face. His eyes widened as he recognized her. “Rachel, my dolly! You should have called to let me know you were coming. I just gave away the last front-row table for the show!”

“That’s okay—we’ll enjoy it anyway.” She gave her uncle a kiss and turned to Seth. He looked uncomfortable, which struck her as odd, considering his history as a con artist. Weren’t con men chameleons? “Uncle Rafe, this is Seth Hammond, a friend of mine. Seth, this is my uncle Rafe Hunter.”

Her uncle’s blue eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Hammond.”

Seth nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Any kin to Delbert Hammond?”

Seth’s expression froze in place. “My father.”

Uncle Rafe nodded slowly. “There’s a resemblance.”

Seth’s mask slipped a bit, revealing dismay in his green eyes. “So I’m told.”

Rafe cocked his head to one side. “You’re the one got burned.”

Rachel looked from her uncle to Seth. His left hand rose and settled against his right shoulder, kneading the skin through his shirt. “That’s right. Long time ago.”

“Heard you’ve been playing nursemaid to Cleve Calhoun for the last little while. That true?”

“Yes, sir.” Seth’s hand dropped away from his shoulder. “He’s at a rehab place now, though. His son talked him into giving it a go.”

“You couldn’t get him to agree?”

“Don’t reckon I tried, really. I’ve never had any luck talking Cleve into much of anything.

Uncle Rafe smiled a little at Seth’s admission. “I’ll buy that. You still in the life?”

“Uncle Rafe—”

“I am not,” Seth answered.

“You sure?” Her uncle’s gaze went from Seth’s stony face to Rachel’s.

“I’ve found there’s no long-term job satisfaction in lying to people for a living.”

Uncle Rafe’s gaze swept back to meet Seth’s. “I don’t know, son. I’m a showman, and what is that but lying to people for a living? Putting on an act, sucking them into a narrative of my choosing?”

“The people at a show know what they’re seeing isn’t real,” Seth answered slowly. “They’re willing participants in their own deception.”

Uncle Rafe’s well-lined face creased with a smile. “Damn good answer, boy.” He hooked his arm through Rachel’s and led her to the second row of tables facing the large stage. “Gotta go start deceiving this room full of willing participants in their own deception,” he said with a wink in Seth’s direction. “You’ll stick around after the show, of course?”

“Absolutely,” Rachel agreed. “I need to ask you a few questions about the trucking company. Will you have time between lunch and dinner?”

“I’ll make time, dolly girl.” He gave her a quick kiss and headed for the back of the restaurant.

The food at her uncle’s place was good, simple home cooking. Janeane ran the kitchen, while he booked the acts and kept the daily shows going, varying things up every few weeks to keep it fresh for returning customers, Rachel told Seth while they were waiting for their orders. “Probably sixty to seventy percent of their customers are tourists,” she added. “But they get a lot of locals, too, who like to take in a show. He brings in a lot of young, upcoming bluegrass and country performers. He has a real talent for knowing who’s going to be the next big thing.”

“You’re proud of him,” Seth said with a smile.

“Yeah, I am.”

His smile shifted slightly. “Nice to have someone to be proud of.”

“You don’t?”

“There’s Dee. She’s the real star of the family.” Rachel could tell from the look in his eyes that he thought the world of his sister. “I knew when we were little she was going to be special. She never let anything that was going on around us faze her. She knew what she wanted, and she went after it. And she always did it the right way. No shortcuts. No stomping all over someone else to get ahead. I used to think my parents must have stolen her from some nice family, ’cause she wasn’t a damned thing like the rest of us.”

“Are you two close?”

The pain she occasionally glimpsed in his eyes was back. “No. My fault. I wore out my welcome with Delilah a long time ago.”

“She helped you out with me.”

He reached across the table, lightly tapping the back of her hand. “That was for you, sugar. Not for me.”

“She doesn’t believe you’ve changed?”

A mask of indifference came over his face. “Nobody does.”

“I do,” she said without thinking.

His gaze focused on hers, green eyes blazing. “You don’t know me, Rachel. And most of what you’ve heard and seen should scare the hell out of you. Don’t make up some fantasy about the misunderstood tough guy who just needs someone to care. I’m not misunderstood. People understand exactly who I was. I’ve earned their disgust.”

“You’re not pulling con jobs anymore—”

“So? I did. I did them willingly, with skill and determination.”

“And then you stopped.”

He shook his head. “Because I finally disgusted even myself! Do you understand what I did?”

She found herself floundering for an answer. “You lied to people and conned them out of money—”

“I hurt people,” he said in a low, hard growl. “Not with a gun or a knife but with my lies. Do you know Lauren Blount, Rachel?”

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“When I met her, she was nineteen. Pretty as a postcard and as sweet as Carolina honey. I convinced her I wanted a life with her, but because of my meth-dealing daddy and how he blew up my whole family, I couldn’t catch a break. Showed her my burn scars, told her how I got them saving my mama from the burning house after my daddy nearly killed us all.”

“Is that really what happened? That’s what Uncle Rafe was talking about earlier, right? About your getting burned.”

He met her gaze. “So what if it was? That’s what con men do, don’t you get it? We take the truth and use it to sell our lies. I had burn scars from draggin’ my mama out of that house ’cause she was too drunk to get out herself, and yeah, it makes a real pitiful story. Women see your scars, get all soft and gooey about how you’re some hero, and they don’t even see you’re playing them like fiddles.”

She looked away, feeling ill.

“I had Lauren eating out of my hand. I told her I had this idea for a business, see, and I needed some seed money, but no banks or businesspeople were going to take a chance on some old hillbilly like me. I made it sound like a sure thing. I made it sound like our future. And she ate it up. She saw the poor sad sack who just needed a good woman’s love to make things okay for him, and she went for the bait in a heartbeat. Just like I knew she would.”

“Then what did you do?”

“She gave me the money she’d saved up for her next two semesters of college. Cried a little as she did it, telling me that even if nobody else believed in me, she did.”

Tears burned Rachel’s eyes as she tried to picture herself in Lauren Blount’s situation. Madly in love and wanting so much to help him out. Would she have given him the money?

She didn’t think she liked the answer.

“I took the money and I left town. Left her a note telling her that she needs to be careful about who she trusts in the future.” He smiled, but it was a horrible sight, full of anger and self-loathing. “She’s taken that warning to heart. I don’t think she trusts anyone anymore.”

Silence fell between them. Finally, Rachel found the courage to speak. “Didn’t she press charges against you?”

He shook his head. “She gave me the money willingly, and I was vague about what I planned to do with it. She would have had to try to prove her case in court, and she didn’t want to face that kind of scrutiny.” He grimace-smiled again. “Lucky me.”

“My God.”

His green eyes flashed at her again. “Now you’re getting it.”

She felt sick. “What made you quit the con game?”

“Cleve’s stroke.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Really.”

“He was helpless for a long while. His own son didn’t want to hear from him. He had no one in the world to take care of him but me. I realized I didn’t want to give up even part of my life for the old bastard. What had he ever done for me but turn me into a criminal?”

“Why did you help him, then?”

“Because there was no one else. Someone had to.”

“It could have been the state. Or he could have hired a caretaker. It didn’t have to be you.”

“It did.” He looked down at the flatware bundle wrapped up in a slip of paper by his elbow. He pulled the flatware to him and began to play with the bundle, turning it slowly in a circle as if he needed time to organize his thoughts. After a minute, he pushed it aside and looked up at her. “It took a day or two, but I remembered that Cleve had taken me in when I had no one else. Everybody turned on my family, and especially me, because they all knew I was going to turn out like my daddy anyway. Why bother?”

“What about your mother? Couldn’t she have helped you?”

“My mama is a drunk. Has been since I was a kid because it was the only way she could keep livin’ with a man who beat her up for fun.”

Rachel covered her mouth in dismay.

“Tawdry, ain’t it?” He’d slipped easily back into the hard mountain twang of his raising. “That’s the Hammonds of Smoky Ridge for you.”

“What do you think would have happened if Cleve hadn’t taken an interest in you?”

“I’d be in jail. Maybe even hooked on meth. Maybe dead.”

“Cleve saved you from that.”

“And introduced me to a life that seemed like a no-brainer at the time. I could lie with the best of them. I’d been lyin’ all my life, coverin’ up for what happened in that house.” His lips curved slightly, but his gaze seemed focused somewhere far away. “It was so easy.”

“Until it wasn’t.”

His gaze snapped back to hers. “You know what con men really do, Rachel? They kill your soul. You start out a normal person. Caring. Trusting. And then he strikes, and you’re never the same. You trust no one. Nothing. You’re afraid to be nice, because it makes you vulnerable. You’re afraid to care because it makes you an easy mark. You meet a nice guy, a good guy, a guy who would treat you right, and you can’t let yourself believe him because you know sweet words and a tender touch can hide a monster.” He leaned toward her, his gaze so intense it made her stomach quiver. “That’s what I did to Lauren Blount. It’s what I did to God knows how many people along the way.”

She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know what to feel.

“I did that.” He sat back, looking away. “I don’t know how a man can forgive himself for that. I don’t know how he lives with it. He can try to pay back the money, he can promise he’ll never do anything like that again, but he can’t change the fact that he had that kind of evil inside him and he let it have free rein. How do I live with that?”

She had no answer. The things he’d told her, the things he’d described, sickened her. Yet, the obvious guilt and remorse he felt touched her heart, as well. He’d been young and desperate, and while he was right—those facts weren’t excuses for the things he’d done—they were, at least, mitigating factors.

At thirty, was Seth Hammond the same man he’d been at twenty? Obviously not. But was she crazy to take a chance on a man who’d lived the kind of life he had?

The food came, but she’d long since lost her appetite. Seth toyed with his food as well, eating little. He seemed determined not to look at her for the rest of the time, and it was a relief when the music started, giving them both somewhere to park their reluctant gazes for a while.

Uncle Rafe came back to their table after the music set was over and looked with dismay at their barely touched plates. “Didn’t like the food?”

“My fault,” Seth said quietly. “I brought up a stomach-turning topic just as the food arrived.”

Uncle Rafe’s eyes narrowed as he waved over a waitress and asked her to put the food in a couple of to-go boxes. “Take it with you. Maybe you’ll be hungry later. Now. What was it that you needed to ask me about the trucking company?”

“This is going to sound like an odd question, but it’s important. When Dad came to you to discuss his will, he asked you to help him make up a roster of preapproved candidates for the job of CEO if I were unable to fulfill my duties. I asked Ed Blount to give me the list, but he won’t do it before the will reading next week. I need to see the list now.”

“Goodness, girl, whatever for? You’re the CEO, free and clear, so what does the list matter now?”

“Someone may be trying to change the situation,” she said quietly.