Last Kiss Goodbye

“I think folks around here were just too scared of her to pursue it,” Daisy continued. “They say she’s a seer to boot.”

“You mean she can see the future?”

Daisy nodded. “Some people think she cast a spell on the town—that’s what brings all the evil when it rains. The kudzu sparkles yellow sometimes, then other times has this metallic blue-green mist rising from it. Folks say Lady Bella Rue’s tears of guilt turn the kudzu those odd colors, or maybe it’s devil’s breath.” Daisy hesitated long enough to inhale a breath. “Better stay away from her. If you anger her, she might put a hex on you. Once she does, bad luck and death will follow you the rest of your life.”

Ivy’s hand trembled as she placed her glass on the table. Bad luck and death had already been a part of her life, and had brought her here now.

A strained silence fell across the room, the rain pounding the roof accentuating the tension. It was almost as if the townspeople sensed winter and death were imminent. That these two women’s presence in town represented a bad omen.

A middle-aged lady at the next table waved Daisy over to her side. Ivy ate her soup while she listened. “I heard that Mahoney boy has been released.”

Daisy refilled their tea, ice clinking. “Some fancy lawyer got him out. I just hope he doesn’t come back to town and stir up trouble.”

“Land sakes alive. We breathed a lot easier when he was in jail. We’ll have to go back to locking our doors at night.”

“You’re right. We don’t need his kind around,” another woman said. “Although I thought he did us a service when he killed those Stantons. The woman was a slut. I heard she worked for Talulah on Red Row.”

Ivy clenched her hands in her lap, anger knifing through her. Her mother had not been a slut! She’d loved Ivy. Had brushed her hair and played dolls with her and collected Santa Clauses. She’d strung glittery Christmas lights all around the trailer and tried to make it pretty. They’d even baked homemade sugar cookies and strung popcorn for the tree they’d cut down in the woods.

She had not deserved to die.

And what about Matt Mahoney? Had he deserved to go to jail for murder?

Not according to Abram Willis and the judge who’d released him…

ARTHUR BOLES BURIED his face behind the local newspaper and sipped his coffee, unable to focus on the words on the printed page for studying the young woman talking to Daisy. Ivy Stanton.

He would have recognized her anywhere. After all, he’d kept tabs on her all these years that she’d lived with Nellie. Years during which he had worried that she would remember something, that she’d return to Kudzu Hollow, see his face and spill her guts about that night. Years where he wished he’d silenced her already.

Years where he’d thought of her mother’s lush wanton body, the way Lily Stanton had taken him into her nest and given him pleasure without asking for anything but money. God, he’d missed her over the years. Missed her lips touching his, her mouth closing around his cock, the sight of her spreading herself for him to bury his length in. Missed the way her tits had swayed when she rode him, and the way she’d use her tongue to make him come. And the way her eyes had gone all melting and soft when he’d returned the pleasure.

Not that there hadn’t been replacements. Red Row still stood to serve its customers. The anonymity was an important part of the business. And if one of the whores did decide to talk, well, hell, he’d shut her up like he had the others.

And how ironic. Talulah, that old root doctor and Ivy Stanton all in one room together. All held the secrets to his past. Maybe the key to his future.

All expendable…

But he still couldn’t help himself from staring at Ivy Stanton all grown up. She’d turned into a beautiful, seductive woman. Not in the same bold, untamed way her mama had, for an air of innocence surrounded her. A naivete her mother had never possessed. Oh, maybe she had once, but she’d lost it long before he’d come along. Lily had not been lily-white. She had even taken the innocence of others and been proud of it. Young boys ripe for a woman’s body had come to her, and she had taught them well.

His cock swelled, and he rubbed it beneath the table, grateful it was dark and he’d taken a booth in the back corner. He could almost taste the sweetness of Ivy Stanton, the unbridled passion she had yet to discover. The fear and tension radiating from her slender body. The feel of those silky blond curls tickling his bare belly.

Maybe he would toy with Ivy a little. See if she did remember him. And just as her mother had taken the innocence of the young men in town, his son for one, he’d steal that innocence from her daughter….

UNEASY WITH THE CLIMATE in the diner, Ivy paid her bill and rushed outside, tugging her raincoat around her. Suddenly aware of the shadows, she darted toward her car, climbed in, locked the door and started the engine. The fine hairs at the nape of her neck prickled.

Someone was watching her.

Rattled, Ivy checked the street and sidewalks for strangers, but here everyone was a stranger. A lone figure clad in a black hooded sweatshirt stood beneath the awning of the pub, smoking a cigarette. Was he watching her?

She pulled onto Main Street, then drove through town, slowing as the rain intensified. Bright lights nearly blinded her from behind as a car suddenly raced up on her tail. She tensed, checking the mirror, and glanced around the darkened street. In Chattanooga, she sometimes sensed she was being followed, but had finally chalked her uneasiness up to Miss Nellie’s constant paranoia.

Here no one knew her real identity. At least she didn’t think so.

Just to be safe, she turned down a side street, then another, driving as if she’d entered a maze. Finally, the headlights disappeared, and she sighed in relief. Through the blurred, foggy windshield, she checked the storefronts as she passed, choosing several to photograph for her scrapbook layout. The dollar store, arts and crafts store and antique shop would be perfect for the spread. Halloween ghosts, skeletons, spiders, ghouls and goblins filled the windows. A few Thanksgiving pieces also appeared. And through the glass, a nearly life-size Santa was lit up, waving.

The old familiar grief clawed at her throat, and she headed out of town toward the cabin.

A car appeared behind her again, then moved closer, so fast and close that its bumper skimmed hers. Ivy gasped, grappling for control of the Jetta, then sped up. Instead of slowing, the driver gunned his engine, swerved around her, then sideswiped her car, knocking her into a spin. Tires squealed and the car skidded, metal scraping metal as she hit the guardrail and careened toward the embankment.

MATT DOWNSHIFTED as he drove the slick, winding road toward Cliff’s Cabins. Next to the trailer park, a new subdivision of log homes had been built on the mountainside. The primitive landscaping, natural pine islands and spacious backyards looked inviting against the ridges. So far the new development was the only hint of progress in the sleepy town.

His hands tightened around the steering wheel as his last night in town flashed though his mind. Ivy had been terrified of him, of her father. How would she react when he confronted her? Would she cower away from him as if he were an animal? Scream and run? Call him a murderer?

The sign for the cabins dangled precariously from a lopsided wooden pole, blowing in the wind, and he veered onto the unpaved road that led to the rental units. A mile from the turn-off, he parked in the graveled lot, hurried inside the office and retrieved the key. The frail man at the desk glanced up at him over bifocals, but said nothing. Either he was so old or blind he didn’t recognize Matt, or he didn’t care. Back in his SUV, Matt backed up and circled the cabins, his gaze tracking the numbers: 32A—his; 32B—Ivy Stanton’s.

He parked, sat and stared at the cabin through the fog, his heart racing with anticipation. Should he knock on her door tonight? Force a confrontation?

An engine suddenly rumbled down the drive, and he glanced in the rearview mirror, as bright lights pierced the night. A black Jetta swerved, spitting gravel, then lurched to a stop in front of 32B. The lights flickered off, and he had to blink to adjust his vision. A woman gripped the steering wheel, then leaned her head forward, her shoulders shaking. He frowned. Something was wrong. The driver’s side of the car had been dented.

He swallowed, debating whether to offer her help, but the door swung open and the breath froze in his lungs. Ivy Stanton.

As if she’d gathered her control, she climbed out, the wind whipping a long denim skirt around her ankles, the rain beating at her face as she braced herself against the elements and ran toward the cabin. His gaze skimmed over her profile, his gut clenching. She was petite, maybe five-three, and slender. Cornsilk blond hair cascaded down her back and shoulders and shifted upward, caught in the breeze, the wet strands clinging to her cheeks just as they had fifteen years ago. And just as he remembered her as a child, she was pale-skinned and delicate. But instead of a small child, she’d morphed into a beautiful woman. And so damn sexy. Soaked, her cotton top clung to curves that begged for a man’s hands. Her nipples tightened beneath the thin fabric, highlighted by the lightning.

It had been a long damn time since he’d been with a woman.

Although he had had invitations from some of his prison buddies’ sisters and friends. Another strange group of prison groupies, women infatuated by inmates, wrote them letters, offering conjugal visits. He’d even succumbed to his basic needs and accepted a few offers.

But that raw sex had left him unsatisfied and feeling dirty.

Hell, he wasn’t sure he’d know what to do with a real woman, a nice one….

Matt cursed. Confronting Ivy was first on his list, being attracted to her, dead last.

As if she suddenly sensed his presence, halfway to the cabin, she pivoted in the darkness, her eyelashes fluttering over cheeks made rosy from the chill of the storm. Their gazes locked, and the eyes that had bewitched him as a child completely mesmerized him now. In them, he saw fear, pain and an emptiness that he felt mirrored in his own troubled soul.

Hell.

His body hardened again, the need to protect her as he had years ago building inside him, as intense as the thunder roaring above. But this time he ignored it.

The bitter memory of being dragged to the jail and imprisoned for her parents’ murders surfaced, stifling the lust mounting in his loins, and he jerked his gaze away.

She suddenly broke into a sprint, unlocked the cabin and slammed the door shut. Had she recognized him? Known he’d come here after her? Was she as frightened of him as she had been that night he’d rescued her?

He muttered a curse, telling himself it didn’t matter.

Ivy Stanton had been trouble fifteen years ago. A needy little kid. He’d been nice to her and look what had happened. He’d ended up in jail, his life destroyed.

But she wasn’t a needy little girl anymore. No, dammit, she was a stunning woman, one who had messed with his libido in ten seconds flat. Which meant she would be more trouble than before. No telling what would happen if he got involved with her now.