Southern Comforts

“Sometimes. But I like making people comfortable. Besides, although my daddy couldn’t teach me farming, he did manage to drive home the lesson that no southern gentleman worth his salt shirks his responsibility.”

“Didn’t the Tarleton twins say much the same thing? At the barbecue at Twelve Oaks? Right before they went rushing off to get themselves killed in the war?”

“Chivalry is not always as easy as handing out battle site maps and delivering ice to rooms,” he allowed with another friendly grin that had Chelsea thinking he might have been a bust at growing peanuts, but Jeb Townely was a natural-born innkeeper. “You all take care now,” he said as he left. “And, Dorothy, tell your mama hey for me.”

“I’ll do that.”

Chelsea thought she detected a lack of enthusiasm in Dorothy’s tone at the mention of her mother, but knowing that she was expected at Roxanne’s for dinner, she didn’t dwell on it.

Chelsea took less than five minutes to hang up tomorrow’s suit and freshen up. Then they were on their way again.

Roxanne’s Tudor house was set in the center of a rolling green lawn that could have doubled as a putting green. Pear trees sported fluffy spring blossoms, daffodils lined the sidewalks in a blaze of saffron and gold and the dogwoods were beginning to bloom. Chelsea remembered Roxanne saying something to Joan Lundon about a new house she’d bought.

“I’m amazed anyone would be willing to give this up,” she murmured.

“Ms. Scarbrough has always enjoyed a challenge. And Belle Terre certainly is that. Personally, I think she’d be better off taking a page out of Sherman’s book, torching the place and starting over.”

“But that wouldn’t play well in a documentary.”

Chelsea’s dry tone earned a faint smile. “I suspected I was going to like you,” Dorothy said.

As she got out of the car, instead of the traffic and siren sounds she was accustomed to, Chelsea heard mockingbirds and wrens flitting from branch to branch in the maples flanking the driveway.

The muscle that had formed a steel band around her forehead loosened. Perhaps Mary Lou was right. Perhaps a change was just what she needed. And where else better to recharge her internal batteries than in a friendly southern town that defined serene?

Chapter Five

If the outside of Roxanne Scarbrough’s home reminded Chelsea of an English manor house, the foyer was reminiscent of Monet’s gardens at Giverny. Flowers bloomed everywhere, on the floor, the walls, and along the molding at the top of the high foyer ceilings.

Although she hated to give the unpleasant lifestyle expert credit for anything, Chelsea had to admit that she was very, very good at creating a picturesque and inviting stage for herself.

“Ms. Scarbrough always has drinks in the front parlor before dining with guests,” Dorothy informed her as she led the way across the sea of pink marble scattered with antique Aubusson rugs.

The room was small. And decidedly feminine, more boudoir than parlor, which was why the man standing beside the fireplace seemed so rivetingly male. He was turned toward Roxanne, engaged in conversation, allowing Chelsea to view only a rugged profile. He held a glass of amber liquor; the cut crystal looked dangerously fragile in his long dark fingers.

When Roxanne murmured something that made him throw back his head and laugh, the rich dark sound stirred deeply hidden, but strikingly familiar chords inside Chelsea.

“Well, we finally made it,” Dorothy announced their presence, her matter-of-fact tone sounding like a strident, off-key note in the lush intimacy of the scene.

Both Roxanne and the man turned toward the door. As his too familiar, darkly mocking eyes locked with her wide, disbelieving ones, Chelsea drew in a sharp, unwilling breath.

For an unmeasurable time—it could have been seconds, or an eternity—they just looked at one another across the lushly romantic room. He lifted his glass in a mock salute.

“Hello, Irish.” His smile was more challenge than greeting.

The name was one he’d sometimes called her on those rare light, almost comfortable moments, after the hunger had been temporarily satiated. But there was nothing comfortable or light about her feelings as she heard it now.

He knew! The words ricocheted in her head as she glared back at him. From the wicked gleam in his eyes, she guessed he’d known she was going to be here, and was enjoying this moment considerably.

Her temper rose. Although it took Herculean effort, she managed to force it down, turning her anger from heat to ice. “Hello, Cash.”

The voice she heard coming out of her mouth could have belonged to her mother. Although Deidre Whitney Lowell would eat her quilted Chanel handbag before ever permitting herself to be openly rude, she could, with a brief, dismissing glance or a murmured statement, make her target all too aware of her extreme displeasure.

Having been on the receiving end of that chilly disapproval more times than she could count, Chelsea knew it well. Well enough to have no difficulty imitating it now.

Roxanne’s suddenly sharp gaze swung from Cash to Chelsea, then back to Cash again. “I had no idea that you two were acquainted.” She did not sound overly thrilled by the discovery.

“Chelsea and I are old college friends,” Cash revealed. Although he was talking to Roxanne, his gaze stayed on Chelsea’s face. “From Yale.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” There was a challenging, almost petulant edge to the older woman’s voice. “When I first mentioned that Ms. Cassidy was my biographer?”

“We were discussing Belle Terre at the time.” His gaze, as it moved to Roxanne, was as mild and unruffled as his tone. “I didn’t see any point in getting sidetracked with inconsequential issues.”

So now she was an inconsequential issue? Even though she told herself that he wasn’t important enough to be able to hurt her, Chelsea’s chin came up. “I thought you were living in California.”

“I was.” He began moving toward her, striding across the tulips blooming on the needlepoint carpet underfoot. She’d forgotten how tall he was. How strong. And how his body possessed a lethal sort of grace that had always reminded her of a panther.

Accustomed to his former uniform of jeans and a T-shirt, she’d thought it had been his clothes that had given him the look of a rebel. But now, taking in the sight of him, clad in a casual, loosely constructed, yet obviously expensive cream linen jacket, ivory cotton shirt and oatmeal-hued slacks, she could still feel a dangerous energy radiating from him. Like the hum of the ground beneath your feet right before lightning strikes.

Her quick glance took note of a gold Rolex watch he certainly hadn’t been able to afford when she’d known him. He’d traded his scuffed leather boots in on a soft gleaming pair of silvery lizard cowboy boots that managed to scream wealth and independence all at the same time.

He stopped inches away from her, the tips of his boots nearly touching the toes of her hot pink high heels. When she didn’t offer the hand that was hanging stiffly at her side, he reached down, unclenched her fist, and laced their fingers together with a casual air that seemed as natural to him as breathing.

Cash Beaudine had always been an intensely physical man. And not just in bed. Whenever he spoke, he’d gesture, using those strong dark hands so capable of causing havoc to every nerve ending in her body, to emphasize his words. During their few conversations, she could recall, all too well, how he constantly ran his fingers across her shoulders, down her arms, played with the ends of her hair, stroked the back of his hand up her face.

“I’ve spent the years since graduation in San Francisco.” His thumb stroked intimate circles of heat against the sensitive flesh of her palm. “Now I’ve come back home.”

Chelsea’s stomach clenched at the unwelcome news. They’d be having snowball fights in Raintree’s town square before she’d take on a project that would have her staying in the same town with this man.

“I hadn’t realized this was your home.”

“I thought you were old friends.” Roxanne was watching them carefully, as if aware of the undercurrents humming between them.

“We were acquaintances,” Chelsea retorted, retrieving her hand with a jerk. She didn’t know which of them she was more furious with: Cash for toying with her emotions, or herself for letting him get under her skin.

He flashed the sexy, wicked smile she remembered all too well. “Friendly acquaintances.”

His voice deepened on the correction, causing another significant pause to settle over the room.

Just when she thought she was going to explode from the tension building up inside her, a petite young woman came dashing into the parlor on a whirl of filmy black-and-brown gauze skirts.

“I’m sorry I’m late! I’ve been on the phone with my money people, Roxanne. They love the stuff we’ve shot so far....” Her voice drifted off as she viewed Chelsea.

“Oh, hi. You must be Chelsea Cassidy.” Her light brown eyes, barely visible beneath bangs longer than the rest of her short-cropped sable hair were sparked with intelligence. Her smile was friendly and open. “I’m a fan. I love your writing. It’s so energetic. And fresh.”

She held out her hand. Her nails, Chelsea noticed irrelevantly, had been chewed to the quick. “Jo McGovern. I’m filming a documentary on Roxanne’s restoration of Belle Terre.”

“I’ve heard about it. It’s nice to meet you.” Chelsea managed a sincere smile. “And thanks for the kind words about my work.”