Southern Comfort (12 page)

“I have no idea. I mean, they’ve been in trouble before,” she whispered. “But never anything big. Small-time vandalism, you know. Things like that.”

“Are you saying that this is small-time? Whatever this is,” Newland added.

Natalie shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose. Neither one of them is very smart.”

“I noticed.”

“So if it is something more than petty vandalism, then it’s more than likely run by somebody else.”

They watched as the two men circled around the other side of the oak tree, messed with the tarp and the dirt, then got back into the truck and drove away.

“Maybe it’s nothing,” Newland said.

“Do you think they’re responsible for the ghost?”

Newland shook his head. “No idea. But I do know this. Two grown men don’t come in the cemetery after dark without a reason.” He pushed himself to his feet, leaving Natalie to scramble behind him.

“Hey,” she called, stumbling as she went after him. There might be a ghost or not; she didn’t really know. But the last thing she wanted to do was be left behind.

She caught up with him and slipped her arm through his and matched her stride to his longer one. Or maybe he matched his to hers. Either way, together they made the dark trip over to the tarp.

Once again, Newland took out his phone and used the flashlight app to light the area.

What had the two men had been doing? From what she could see, there was nothing. The tarp wasn’t pulled completely over the dirt, the tree didn’t have a notch in it, and the grave looked undisturbed. Nothing. It was all the same.

“I just don’t know … ” He swung the flashlight one last time before cutting off the light.

“Wait. There.” Something twinkled in the light just before he switched it off.

“What?” He pulled his phone back out of his pocket and turned it on again.

Natalie took it from him, swinging it in the same arcs that he had used just seconds before. There in the grass lay something shiny. And not something one would normally see in an overrun graveyard.

She held the light steady as he bent to retrieve the item.

He held it out in his palm under the light so she could look at it as well. “A gold cufflink?”

“It has a C on it,” Newland said.

She could see that. But what did that mean? “Confederate?”

“Were gold cufflinks part of Confederate uniforms?”

It didn’t seem likely, but it wasn’t completely improbable.

“That’s something we could find out at the library tomorrow,” he said.

“Or maybe in Aunt Bitty’s reading room,” Natalie added.

Newland frowned in confusion.

“My Uncle Stan was something of a Civil War buff. He might’ve had a book on it. She’s kept everything that he had, perfectly intact. Right down to his underwear drawer.” She laughed as Newland made a face.

“Let’s skip that part, okay?”

“You got it.”

• • •

Newland took his cell phone back from Natalie and tucked it in his pocket along with the cufflink. He didn’t know much about such things like when cufflinks were first used and if Confederate soldiers had cufflinks or if the designs had changed over the years.

“What about the ghost?” Natalie asked as they headed out of the cemetery.

“What about it?”

“Why would a ghost need a cufflink?”

Newland almost stopped in his tracks. Somehow he managed to keep walking down the sidewalk and around the corner with Natalie at his side. He was ready to get back and look up all the information he could about Confederate uniforms. But that gave him pause. “They wouldn’t.”

“Unless … ” Natalie started.

He took three steps before he realized she wasn’t at his side. He had to backtrack to get her. “What if the ghost is actually someone reenacting? There’s a reenacting unit here in town. They go over to Corinth all the time and reenact the battle there.”

“But why would someone dress up like a Confederate soldier in the middle of the cemetery on the last Thursday of the month?”

“Beats me,” Natalie said.

• • •

Natalie wasn’t going to think about what a thrill it was to walk next to Newland all the way back to her aunt’s house. Of course she had thought on the way there what a thrill it was to walk with him all the way to the graveyard, but somehow this was different.

They had found out something tonight. Something exciting. Though she didn’t know what it was. Somehow she just knew that the cufflink in his pocket was important. It had to be. Why else would Darrell and Gilbert be looking for it?

Her excitement was something that couldn’t be touched by board meetings and financial reports and all the other things that she found herself doing on a daily basis.

“You never did say how you did in the science fair,” Newland asked as they walked.

“I wasn’t in the science fair. Aubie was.”

“Uh-huh,” Newland said.

A little bit of the thrill leached out of her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you go around doing everything for everybody, not caring one iota about the things that you do for yourself. Or even doing things for yourself. When was the last time you had a mani-pedi?”

“Last week,” she volleyed back.

“Posh,” he said, imitating Aunt Bitty spot on. “You only did that because you have to keep up appearances. When was the last time you had a mud bath?”

She shot him a dry look. “I have to say I was about ten.”

“Okay,” Newland said. “Something else then, something you find enjoyable. When was the last time you took yourself to get an ice cream? Watched a movie you wanted to watch? Or sat in that alcove in your aunt’s house and read a book without anybody bothering you?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut in before she could answer.

“Including Oskar.”

“That’s not fair. Oskar doesn’t count.”

“He sure does. Because you do everything for everybody and not one damn thing for yourself.”

“Why do you care?” It was Natalie’s job, albeit a job that she had been thrust into at a young age, but that’s what she did. She took care of things. “What about tonight? I got nothing out of tonight.”

They were almost to her aunt’s house, and the sidewalk was starting to get uneven. She had to maneuver a little more carefully as she walked next to Newland.

He stopped and whirled around to face her. “Nothing, huh?” And then he swooped in.

She wished she could say that she didn’t enjoy his kiss. But this was number three and each one seemed a little more spectacular than the one before. She wanted to push him away in case anyone was watching, melt into him in case no one was, and keep on kissing him just to see where it might go.

Somehow he knew just how to make everything hum. From the way he cupped her face, his thumbs cradling her cheeks, to the way his lips moved over hers, masterful yet soft yet urging and somehow the most remarkable thing ever.

She wanted that kiss to go on forever. And ever. And ever.

She sighed as he lifted his mouth from hers. Forever sure was a short time.

“Never say I didn’t give you anything,” he whispered, his voice lilting on a laugh.

Natalie’s eyes snapped open. “What? You—” She wanted to smack the smug look off his face. He knew just how to push all her buttons. Never mind the humming part. He was just testing her to see if he could push her over the edge. This time he had.

She yanked herself out of his embrace, stumbling over a particularly jagged section of sidewalk, then hollering for him to let her go when he kept her from sprawling flat on her face.

“You are the most ungrateful person I’ve ever met in my life.”

“I. Am. Not,” she said succinctly. “I never asked for your kiss, I never asked for your help, and I never asked for you to come here.”

“Why are you so threatened by my presence?”

Now that was the question she didn’t want to answer. It brought up too many things that she didn’t want to think about. “I’m not threatened by you at all.”

“Then I should be able to kiss you again.” He moved as if to just do that, but she put her hands up to stop him. She was so incredibly proud of herself. Though a little piece of her cried out in extreme disappointment. If the first kiss was great and the second kiss was spectacular and the third kiss was bone melting, what would his fourth kiss be like?

She shook her head. “I think we need to set some rules right now.”

He folded his arms across his chest and gave her that unreadable look. She had a feeling he was about to make fun of her. But she didn’t care. Mr. Chicago couldn’t come buzzing in, kissing her and wooing her only to run out of sight a week later. She wasn’t going to have it. She had her life perfectly lined out, and he wasn’t going to step in and ruin it.

“One: no more kissing.”

“I don’t agree to that.”

“You don’t have that option.”

“Yeah, I do.”

Natalie closed her eyes and shook her head. “Two: you are not to make the people in this house love you. You cannot come into our lives and then walk back out again breaking everybody’s heart.”

“What about yours?”

“Impossible. I love Gerald.”

“I doubt that very seriously.”

“Nobody asked you.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t.”

“He’s all wrong for you, you know.”

“Again, no one asked you.”

“Again, somebody should.”

Natalie closed her eyes and rubbed her fingers against her temples. “This is getting us nowhere.” Talking to Newland Tran was sort of like trying to herd cats. “Somehow I have become protector of this family. And as protector, I demand that you make sure everyone is just as you left them when you decide to fly on to your next freelance project.”

“Who said I was leaving?”

Natalie couldn’t stop the bark of derisive laughter. “And you’re going to stay here? In Turtle Creek, Mississippi?” She shook her head again. “I went to school with guys like you. You have ‘vagabond travel’ written all over you. You can’t stay in one place for long and certainly not a place as boring as this.”

“Who said I think this place is boring?”

“Don’t start that again,” Natalie begged, her voice stern. “Just do this for me, please.”

He seemed to think about it a minute. “Okay, then. Whatever you want.”

“Where are we going?” Natalie asked shortly after six the next afternoon. It was Friday and there weren’t a lot of things to do on the weekend in Turtle Creek. Come the fall, there would be football games, but until then …

“On a date.” Newland opened the front door and held it open for her to precede him out of the house.

“I know that. But you’re not going to tell me where you’re taking me for our date?”

“I will as soon as we get there.”

Natalie followed him out to his car. She eyed the rattletrap and tried to keep her expression from looking completely horrified. “I’ve got an idea. You want to drive my car?”

He shot her that bone-melting smile. “Normally I would tell you no. That you shouldn’t be such a snob and think you’re too good to ride in my car. It may not be the prettiest car, but it’s clean.” His eyes twinkled. “But I would love to get behind the wheel of that Jag.”

Natalie smiled to herself. Most guys would love to drive a car like hers. It was her one big luxury. The one thing she allowed herself to have. It was a beautiful car, and she loved it.

She held up the keys, and he palmed them, placing one hand at the small of her back as he led her toward the Jag.

Natalie ignored the warmth his palm spread through her as he helped her over the uneven sidewalk.

“Someone should fix this,” he commented, then he gave a discreet cough. “You know the mayor. Why not have him come take a look at it?” He opened the door for her, and Natalie slid inside. It felt strange being on the passenger side, but she was looking forward to being able to enjoy the car without driving.

“You want the mayor to fix it, you tell him. I have to tell him when it’s time to brush his teeth, when it’s time to go to bed, when he needs to go to school, and to finish all of his homework. I don’t really like telling him much else. That’s quite enough for each day.”

Newland walked around the front of the car and slid into the driver’s seat beside her, sighing with pleasure. The thought made her happy. Which was ridiculous. Why should she be happy that he enjoyed her car? Six more days and he’d be gone.

He put the key in the ignition, started the car, and backed out at the driveway.

“You’ve really have broken the biggest date rule of all, you know that, right?” she said as they headed off to who knew where.

“And what is that?” He cocked his head toward her, the wind blowing through the strands of his blue-black hair. He really was the cutest. And the Least Likely To. That was the one thing she needed to remember.

“You always tell the girl where you’re taking her. How am I supposed to know how to dress for a date when I don’t even know our destination?”

Those exotic brown eyes slid over her, and Natalie shivered despite the ninety-plus degree weather. “You look just fine.” The look and those words were more like a caress.

No, she wasn’t thinking about that. She’d only promised him this date so she could get her aunt’s stairs fixed in the cellar. And that was all. That’s exactly what she would tell Gerald when the time came and he found out.
If
the time came. She could only hope …

She dressed as she usually did: dress, heels, matching jewelry, matching handbag, up-do, and makeup. It was a girl standard. Surely she couldn’t go wrong with her slim-cut teal jersey knit and camel colored pumps. Teal was a color for any occasion, wasn’t it?

“Fine,” she said, her voice husky. He wasn’t going to tell her where they were going. So be it. She would find out soon enough.

Newland slowed the car for the one stoplight they had in town. It blinked yellow in one direction and red in the other. As a formality everyone stopped … just to be sure.

“Are we staying here in Turtle Creek?” She hadn’t meant for the question to slip out; it just had. And now that it was loose, she wanted to know the answer to it.

There wasn’t a whole lot to do in Turtle Creek. There was a movie theater over in Corinth, which wasn’t very far. They could drive there for their date. That might even be better actually. No one there knew her that well. And they surely didn’t know Newland Tran. The two of them could go have their date in Corinth, drive back, and she wouldn’t have to worry about Gerald’s reaction when—
if
—he found out.