Savannah Breeze
Authors: Mary Kay Andrews
Mary Kay Andrews
For Patti Hogan Coyle, “She ain't heavy, she's my sister!” With love.
He was introduced to me as “Reddy”âshort for Ryan Edwardâ¦
We ditched Tater and the Telfair Ball without another thought.
“About time,” Daniel said when I strolled into the kitchenâ¦
On Mondays, my only real day off from the restaurant,â¦
I had a pad of paper and a basket ofâ¦
My hands shook with anger and frustration as I unlockedâ¦
It started so innocently, with those keys. My hair wasâ¦
“Grandmama?” I'd been sitting at my grandmother's bedside for moreâ¦
“BeBe?”
The cop arrived in a white-and-blue-striped Thunderbolt Police Department cruiser,â¦
I was standing in the checkout line at an estateâ¦
Weezie's uncle James has the kindest eyes I've ever seen.
Rain flattened the expanses of gray-green marsh grass on eitherâ¦
Daniel was standing at my stove, sautéing onions when Iâ¦
The good news was that Grandmama was out of theâ¦
BeBe turned the key in the lock and leaned againstâ¦
Restaurant life usually means freakish hours. In the past, I'dâ¦
Harry Sorrentino's station wagon was missing from the parking lotâ¦
Harry's eyes narrowed. “You can't do that. You can't justâ¦
Three hours and $1,600 later, I stood in the checkoutâ¦
I found a plank walkway that led me out overâ¦
By whining, begging, cajoling, and making dire predictions about ourâ¦
“Your manager's sitting in a bar all day, while you'reâ¦
I crossed my fingers and turned the hot-water faucet inâ¦
Up until the day I realized that my second husband,â¦
As the sun came up on Friday morning, I putâ¦
Check-in time was two
P.M
. I'd carefully explained this toâ¦
I was lolling about on the sugary sand beach atâ¦
Somehow, I made it through the next twenty-four hours. Inâ¦
On a sunny morning two weeks later, I was sittingâ¦
The waitress came over to refill our iced teas. Iâ¦
It was late afternoon by the time I got backâ¦
“Peyton Hausbrook? That's his real name?” My head swiveled fromâ¦
I waited until we were out of Harry's line ofâ¦
My heart was pounding as I picked up the phoneâ¦
The office doorbell chimed while I was on the phone,â¦
Harry drove. But I insisted on riding shotgun, so Weezieâ¦
When we were two hours north of Ft. Lauderdale, I calledâ¦
After calling Harry to pick me up, I walked Sabrinaâ¦
Maria's Cafe was in a grubby little strip shopping center,â¦
“How old are you?” he asked, tracing my lips withâ¦
Hours later, I heard the faint click of the connectingâ¦
Harry and I whiled away most of the rest ofâ¦
I looked over Harry's shoulder at the map. “How farâ¦
The Bahia Mar Hotel and Marina was some kind ofâ¦
At eight o'clock, the four of us reconnoitered in theâ¦
Boom thumpa-thumpa-thump. Boom thumpa-thumpa-thump. The heavy bass beat rattled theâ¦
Harry was quiet in the car on the way backâ¦
Over a bowl of Cap'n Crunch and a cup ofâ¦
The for sale signs went up on the bow andâ¦
“Game on,” Harry said when he called Wednesday night.
At three-thirty I was having heart palpitations. My mouth wasâ¦
I found Emma straightening up in the galley. “You wereâ¦
When the phone rang in the motel room, I regardedâ¦
Back at the motel, we found my grandfather stretched outâ¦
Danger. Travis McGee could taste it, smell it, hear itâ¦
After his big night on the town, Granddad was lookingâ¦
I thought BeBe's grandfather was going to have a stroke,â¦
I patted my pocket and felt the magic blue pills.
“One last thing,” Weezie announced. “You guys owe me. Youâ¦
I must have dozed off somewhere between Daytona and St. Augustine.
But Harry wasn't there. By the time I got upâ¦
Harry was sitting at the kitchen table in the office,â¦
James Foley was sporting a Hollywood tan and an expensive-lookingâ¦
On Monday it felt so good to be home thatâ¦
After I left James Foley's office, I decided to dropâ¦
The neon vacancy sign was lit up when I pulledâ¦
He was introduced
to me as “Reddy”âshort for Ryan Edward Millbanks III. And I should have known better. He was younger. Too young. Sexy. Too sexy. Dead sexy. Exquisite manners. And as he leaned in, kissing me lightly on the cheek, I nearly fainted from the pheromones the man emitted. “I've heard so much about you from your ex-husband,” he whispered, his mustache tickling my ear.
Alarms should have gone off. Sirens, blinking lights. Robotic voices should have warned me away. But the band was playing something Gershwinish, and I wouldn't have listened anyway. I only heard what I wanted to hear.
At the mention of my ex, I looked around the tightly packed ballroom with alarm. “Richard? What's Richard doing here? They were supposed to notify me when he was released.”
Reddy looked confused and laughed to cover up his embarrassment. “Richard? Butâ¦Sandy Thayer told me, I mean, well, Sandy said you were his ex-wife. That is, he pointed in this direction and suggested I come talk to you. In fact, he suggested you might need rescuing from your date. You are BeBe Loudermilk, have I got that right?”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Oh, Sandy. Yes, you've got that right. Sandy is my ex. Or I'm his. Twice, in fact. Sorry, I've been drinking wine all night. As for my date, I'm not sure he remembers he brought me.” I grimaced in the direction of Tater Love, my so-called date, who'd spent most of the evening drooling down the front of my
ball gown, and who was now draped over the bar, consuming one beer after another.
Tater was a last-minute fix-up, and I should have known better, but it was the Telfair Ball, which was the social event of the year in Savannah, and I'd already paid for the tickets, and it wasn't as though my former fiancé, Emery Cooper, would be joining me.
Emery, one of the Cooper-Hale Mortuary Coopers, had called long distance, the previous week, to let me know that he and his ex-wife were on their way to Jamaica, to be remarried on the beach, which was the site of their first wedding. And their second honeymoon.
I thought I handled the news rather well. I took the salmon steaks I'd bought for our dinner that evening, drove over to his town house on Lafayette Square, and slid them through the mail slot in the door. That way, when Emery and his new bride returned home in a week, they'd have something to remember me by.
There was no way I was going to skip the Telfair Ball. For one thing, I was on the host committee. For another, by now, everybody in town knew that Emery had thrown me over for Cissy Drobish, the bucktoothed millionairess mother of his three children. It wouldn't do to have people talking about me behind my back. If they were going to talk, by God, they could just do it to my face.
“Hold your head up high, girl,” I could hear my late father saying to me, nudging me as I slumped down in the pew in church. So I did as I was taught. I'd spent the whole day of the ball getting ready for battle: manicure, pedicure, facial, herbal massage, and new honey-blond highlights in my hair. I'd gotten all my big-girl jewelry out of the safe-deposit box, and had Roi, my hairdresser, pile my hair on top of my head so everybody could see that I hadn't returned Emery's diamond earrings.
However fabulous I looked, however, did not change the fact that I was stuck for the evening with Tater Love, friend of a friend of a friend, confirmed bachelor, who'd been too cheap to rent the evening
shoes to go with his tux. Scuffed-black-loafer Tater Love. Cocktail-sauce-on-his-shirtfront Tater Love. It was going to be a very long evening. Which was why I'd decided to anesthetize myself with chardonnay as soon as we arrived at the dance.
Reddy took my elbow and guided me firmly from the dance floor to a remote corner of the ballroom occupied only by a grotesque marble statue of an unidentified Greek goddess and a large potted palm.
“About my exesâ” I started to explain.
“Shhh,” Reddy said, putting a finger to my lips. “Be right back,” he promised. And when he reappeared, he had a plate of lobster in one hand and a pair of crystal flutes in the other. He lifted the front of his dinner jacketâit looked Armani, but I couldn't be sureâand extracted an unopened bottle of Moët & Chandon from the waistband of his trousers.
Which should have signaled another set of alarmsâbeware of men bearing gifts in their pants.
He popped the champagne cork with one smooth, expert motionâI was soon to learn that he was an expert on many, many thingsâand poured a glass for each of us.
Reddy clinked his flute lightly against mine. “To new beginnings,” he said, and he smiled that rogue smile.
And that was the end of all my good intentions.
We ditched Tater
and the Telfair Ball without another thought. I wrapped myself in my grandmother Lorena's long, sable coat, and as I stepped out of the museum and onto the moonlit pavement of Barnard Street, Reddy came roaring up in a dusty silver Jaguar. Getting into a sports car in a skintight sheath with thigh-high slits isn't the easiest thing to do in this world, but somehow I managed to get myself almost seated before Reddy floored the accelerator. As we rounded the corner of Telfair Square on two tires, I caught a glimpse of a white-jacketed man standing forlornly on the curb, a bottle of Old Milwaukee clutched in his hand.
I felt only a very faint spasm of guilt. Not for Tater. Tater still had his open bar and two more free meals ahead of him that night. He wouldn't miss me at all. No, I felt guilty about my mother.
She'd been dead and in the grave for five years. But I could hear her tsk-tsking. “Really, BeBe! I have never
heard
of such insupportable behavior.”
Lately, I've been seeing those bumper stickers asking “What Would Jesus Do?” Never mind Jesus, I always think.
What Would Mama Say?
Mama was a stickler for doing the right thing. She would have been appalled by my behavior that night. Or any other night during the past five years since we'd buried her over at Bonaventure Cemetery, come to think of it.
I quickly put Tater and Mama out of my mind, and devoted all my
powers of concentration on the man sitting next to me in that Jaguar.
He was tall, of course, but then I'm only five foot three, so everybody seems tall to me. In reality, he was probably a shade short of six feet tall. His eyes were a pale blue and were a startling contrast to his deeply tanned face. His hair was brownish-blondish and wavy, and already starting to recede a little in front, although the back brushed over the collar of his dress shirt. I gave him extra points for not resorting to one of those hideous comb-over tricks, and more points for the tiny diamond stud earring he wore in his left earlobe. An earring!
Quel
scandal! And anyway, I'd never dated a man with jewelry as nice as mine. But the clincher was the cleft in his chin. I had to fold my hands in my lap to keep from reaching over there and tracing that cleft with my finger.
“Are you gonna be warm enough in that skimpy little dress of yours?” he asked, glancing over at me as we raced down Victory Drive in the direction of the beach. It was February, and forty degrees that night, practically glacial weather in Savannah.
I snuggled my chin deep into the folds of the fur coat's shawl collar, and got a whiff of Lorena's Chanel No. 5 perfume. “Depends on where we're going,” I said. “I'm not exactly dressed for Tybee.”
“Not the beach,” he assured me. “But I'll have to ask you to leave those shoes on the dock. Those heels of yours would work hell on my teak decking.”
“A boat?” I grinned. Reddy grinned right back.
“But this is a yacht,” I said when I saw the gleaming white craft tied up at the Wilmington Island Yacht Club slip.
Blue Moon
was painted on the stern in flowing gold-tipped blue lettering. “It's huge.”
Reddy stepped nimbly aboard and turned to give me a hand. He yanked on the mooring lines to rock the boat closer to the dock, and got a devilish glint in his eye when I had to hike my skirt even higher to make the jump to the deck. He caught me expertly and held me briefly in his arms. “Not a yacht technically,” he whispered in my ear. “It's only forty-eight feet.”
“Only.”
He laughed at himself then. “Well, maybe you could call it a baby yacht.”
Half an hour later we were sitting in deck chairs on the bow of the
Blue Moon
, sipping champagne and watching the stars as tiny little wavelets slapped gently against the boat's hull.
A CD player in the cabin was playing soft jazz, and we'd scooted our chairs as close together as possible. “Tell me about you, BeBe Loudermilk,” Reddy said, squeezing my hand.
I sighed. “Not much to tell. I've lived in Savannah my whole life. Everybody in my family has always lived in Savannah their whole lives. I have some business investments. I'm a natural blonde. Mostly. And I am currently a single-type person.”
“Currently,” he said. “Why do I get the feeling there's a story there?”
“Not much of a story,” I said. “You might as well know, I was recently jilted. Not quite at the altar, but near enough to it that it still hurts.”
He shook his head in wonder. “What kind of moron would let somebody like you slip through his fingers?”
I shrugged. “It's probably all for the best. He eloped last week with his ex-wife. And I did get to keep some very presentable jewelry.”
He leaned over and nibbled my earlobe. “Including these earrings. Which you wore tonight to show everybody in town that you don't give a damn.”
I giggled. “Am I that transparent?”
“Not transparent. Fascinating,” he said. “I love a lady with a past.”
“That's not how my mother would put it,” I said, giving him a wry smile. “Mama never got over the fact that mine was the first divorce in our family.”
“My mother never got over the fact that I dropped out of law school a semester short of getting my degree,” Reddy said. “I'm the only male Millbanks in four generations not to graduate from Duke.”
“Ooh,” I said, getting a shiver up my spine. “Another black sheep.”
“Another? What's that supposed to mean?”
The wind was picking up, and despite the multiple layers of hair spray Roi had spritzed me with, I could feel my updo coming undone.
“You have a thing for ladies with a past,” I said, pushing a strand of hair out of my eyes. “Unfortunately, I seem to have a predilection for bad boys.”
“Hey. I object,” he said. “I never said I was bad.”
“You don't have to say it,” I told him, turning up the collar of the fur. “You just are. It's not your fault. And it's not mine either.”
“You're cold,” he said, looking over at me. He patted his lap. “Come here, BeBe. I'll show you I'm not bad at all.”
His kisses certainly weren't anything like bad. They were long and sweet and tender. And dangerous. And delicious. I don't think I'd ever been kissed quite that nicely or thoroughly before.
“Just what kind of past do you have?” he asked once, when we'd both come up for air.
“I'm a divorcée,” I said. “Three times over. Does that shock you?”
He laughed. “Divorcée! Nobody uses that word anymore. But really? Three times?”
“Technically. But really, I've only ever been married to two men. And I was only nineteen when I married Sandy Thayer, the man you met earlier tonight? He was my older brother's best friend. We ran off to Myrtle Beach and got married over spring break my freshman year at St. Mary's. My parents were horrified. They had it annulled right away. They told St. Mary's I was home sick with mononucleosis, and I went back and finished school like nothing had ever happened.”
Reddy held up one finger. “Okay, technically, that marriage was annulled, so it never really happened. What about husband number two?”
“Richard Hodges.” I shuddered as I said it. “What a nightmare. My last blind date. Ever. I was twenty-eight, running my first little
restaurant, so busy I didn't have time to meet anybody, let alone date. Richard seemed like such a great guy. Very successful stockbroker, from a nice family. We dated for a year, and I was absolutely smitten with the guy. Even my mother loved him. Which should have been some kind of signal.”
“Why do you say that?” Reddy asked.
“Richard,” I said succinctly, “turned out to be a perv. A world-class pervert. We'd been married two months before I found the phone bills. He'd managed to spend $12,000 from our joint checking account. For phone sex. I didn't find out about the computer porn until after I kicked him out.” I made a face. “When I found it, I took his laptop outside and ran it over with my car, then tossed it in a Dumpster. Which was a mistake, because my lawyer said we could have used it in court. But I didn't care. I just wanted him out of my life. And he is. Way out. He's doing ten to twelve in a minimum-security prison.”
Reddy winced. “You poor kid.” He kissed me again. “Darlin', your past is in the past. I'm only interested in your future.”
I kissed him back. “I'm almost done now. Husband number three was Sandy.”
“Again?”
“Yup. I was on the rebound from Richard. My sister-in-law had a surprise fortieth birthday party for my brother Arch, and Sandy was there. It was the first time I'd seen him in ten years. He was so sweet, so thoughtful. So un-Richard. I fell for him all over again.”
“We only talked for a few minutes, but he seems like a decent guy.”
“He is,” I agreed. “Sandy is a total sweetheart. But he took a job in Chicago months after we got married. It was January. Have you ever been in Chicago in January?”
“No.”
“Good for you,” I said. “It wasn't anybody's fault, what happened
between us. Sandy was on the road all the time for his job, and I was stuck out in this snooty Chicago suburb, miserable as mud. All I did was eat and cry and watch daytime television. I gained thirty pounds in eighteen months. And when that first snowstorm hit, that second year, I made up my mind. Packed my bags and caught a cab. I called Sandy from O'Hare. He was a good sport about it, but that's Sandy. And he's never held a grudge. He'd do anything for me, and I'd do the same for him.”
I sighed. “So that's it. That's my big, bad past. But what about you? What makes you so bad, Ryan Edward Millbanks?”
“You're cold,” he said suddenly. And he stood up, cradling me in his arms like a big fur-wrapped baby. “Come on,” he said. “Let's go inside the cabin before you catch pneumonia out here.”
I twisted the face of his watch until I could see the luminous dial. It was late. Nearly two
A.M
. “What's in that cabin of yours?” I asked.
“The usual. There's a nifty little galley. Are you hungry, sugar? I feel bad that I made you skip out of your party without any supper. I could cook us something. Warm up some chili, something like that?”
I shook my head. “Not hungry. Just a little sleepy.”
There was that grin again. “Well, why didn't you say so? The owner's quarters are pretty special, if I do say so myself. And I'd be delighted to show them to you.”
I shook my head. “That's
not
what I meant. It's late. I've had a long day, and I've got to be at work in the morning.” I kissed him lightly. “It's been a lovely night, Reddy. But I think you'd better take me home.”
He kissed me back. “Home? But I thought we were getting along so well. You're a lady with a past, and I'm a bad boy. We were meant to be.”
It was tempting. I was so sleepy. And his arms felt so right, wrapped around me that way. I felt safe. And happy. And yes, I'll admit it, more than a little horny.
“Stay,” he whispered in my ear.
But then it occurred to me. This was a man I'd met only a few hours earlier. And here I was, ready to jump into bed without another thought.
What Would Mama Say?