Southern Comfort (27 page)

• • •

Newland had never been more scared in his life. It was evident that Gerald Davenport was greedy and a little off balance, and would stop at nothing to secure his seven-figure future. Thankfully Natalie seemed to take Davenport’s threats with a grain of salt, but Newland wasn’t so sure. At least she wasn’t crying hysterically. He needed her to be strong; they were going to get out of this alive.

But they needed a plan.
Think, Tran. Think
. The main thing was not going to the house. Davenport might be desperate, but Newland was betting he wasn’t desperate enough to shoot them point blank in the street. It was a slim bet, but it was all that he had right now. No, he couldn’t go into the house, and neither could Natalie. They had to keep Davenport outside.

But the closer they got to the house without a solid plan in his mind, the more nervous Newland got. He had to do something, and he had to do it quickly.

They neared the sycamore tree in Bitty’s front yard. He didn’t have to look to know that they were close. The sidewalk was already becoming buckled.

Then the idea struck. He leaned a little closer to Natalie. “Do you still have your mask?”

“He’s not going to shoot us is he?”

He hated the fear he heard in her voice. Just a few minutes ago she had seemed incredulous over Davenport’s solution to them finding out about his nefarious activities, and now she sounded downright scared.

“Not if I can help it,” he said. “Now the mask?”

“In my back pocket.”

“I need you to follow my lead,” he said. “Can you do that?”

She gave a small nod. But he could tell she was terrified.

“I do not want to get shot and killed by that pantywaist stuffed shirt. Just trust me on this, Natalie.”

He saw something in her eyes, something more than trust. But he couldn’t think about that right now.

The sidewalk had started to become uneven. He slowed his steps and urged Natalie to do the same. The five or so feet that had been between them and Davenport narrowed to around three. Newland hated having the gun that close to them, that close to Natalie. But it was necessary if he was going to pull this off.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Then stuck one foot out and tripped Natalie.

He grabbed the mask from her back pocket as she started to fall, then stuck out his foot to trip Gerald as well. Natalie screamed as she fell. He said a small prayer that she didn’t skin herself up too badly. But it was better by far than getting shot.

Newland lunged at Davenport, using his superior height to pull Natalie’s ski mask over Davenport’s head, throwing him off guard. As he suspected and feared, the gun went off, the bullet flying upward at an odd angle. Natalie screamed again.

Newland fell on top of Davenport and rolled to the side, hoping to gain power over the handgun. Instead, he just got a jab in the ribs from one buckled piece of sidewalk.

Noise erupted around them. And light. People started coming out onto their porches to see what was going on. They turned on their porch lights and slammed screen doors. Dogs started barking and the whole neighborhood seemed to be talking at once.

He had to get that gun. But for all his stuffed shirted-ness, Davenport was surprisingly strong. Newland supposed there was something to be said about gym muscles. But he wasn’t about to let them get the best of him.

He twisted the gun in Davenport’s hands.

The man yelped in pain and surprise, but hung firm to the weapon. They rolled the other way and stars filled Newland’s vision as his head hit another uneven piece of sidewalk.

Dammit! If he got out of this alive, he was making Aubie fix this stupid sidewalk.

“Newland!” Natalie cried.

“Get away!” Newland shouted. He couldn’t have her too close. Fighting over a gun with a madman was not a good idea on any occasion, surely not in the dark, rolling around on an uneven sidewalk. But he had to get the weapon if he was going to save them all.

“Natalie, is that you?” Bitty called from the porch.

“Stay up there, Aunt Bitty,” Natalie called. As Newland lost his grip on the gun, Davenport executed some kind of Indian wrestling move that flipped Newland over on his back.

He groaned as another jagged edge of sidewalk tore into his side. He was going be lucky if he came out of this with anything less than all his ribs broken.

“Enough!” Davenport pushed to his feet, yanking the ski mask from his head as he wobbled the gun between Newland and Natalie.

Natalie!

She moved to stand in front of him and cut Davenport’s direct aim.

“Gerald, put the gun down.”

“Natalie!” Newland said. “What are you doing? Get out of here.”

“You’re not getting away with this,” Gerald said.

“You’re mistaken,” Natalie continued in that soft, level voice. She really should get a job as a hostage negotiator. The thought threaded through his worry and concern for her.

“Natalie, seriously.”

Newland pushed to his feet, but she was there, standing in front of him. They were so close together that any shot Gerald might let off would run through them both.

“It’s all easy when your money has been there for generations. I have a standard to uphold. Don’t you know?”

“Put the gun down, Gerald.”

She took a step toward him, and Newland reached out and grabbed ahold of the waistband of her jeans to pull her back next to him. She swatted his hand away without looking and started for Gerald once more. “There’s no need for anybody to get hurt, Gerald. It’s over.”

In the distance, a siren sounded. The sheriff was on his way. It was just a matter of time before he got there. But until then, Davenport still had his gun pointed directly at Natalie.

He went to move around her, but she moved in front of him still. Why was she protecting him like this? She was going to end up hurt. And he couldn’t take it.

Never in his life had he loved anybody the way he loved Natalie Coleman. And she was putting herself in harm’s way for him. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if she got hurt because of him.

“Gerald Davenport, is that you?”

All eyes turned as Myrtle came striding across the street, her purple Crocs almost on fire with the speed at which she moved. “What do you mean standing out here holding a gun on these people?”

Whether she held some power over him or it was simply shock, Gerald turned as Myrtle came up behind him. With one swift karate kick she knocked the gun free and before Newland could take another breath, she had Gerald’s arm twisted behind his back and him face first over the hood of Newland’s car.

“Ow! Ow! You’re going to break my arm!”

“I should spank your bee-hind,” Myrtle said. “You were the brightest student in your class and this is how you show your potential?”

“Did that just happen?” Newland asked as the sheriff pulled up on Sycamore Lane, lights flashing, twirling, siren blaring.

“I think it did,” Natalie said. She turned toward him then, and he saw the fear that he hadn’t seen before.

“I don’t feel so good,” she said, and with that she collapsed into his arms.

Two hours later, Sycamore Lane was quiet once more. Though Natalie had a feeling that everyone was still awake, talking about the most exciting thing to happen in Turtle Creek since Rodney Montrose caught that alligator out in Clements pond.

“Here you go, dear.” Aunt Bitty took her flask from inside her dress and poured a big dollop of brandy into each of their teas. Natalie wasn’t sure exactly how brandy would taste in Earl Grey, but hopefully the snort of an adult beverage would take some of the tremor out of her hands.

“That was the coolest thing I have ever seen!” Aubie said, his blue eyes sparkling. “First thing tomorrow morning I’m putting Myrtle in for citizen of the year.”

Natalie smiled, though she felt tears threaten. Myrtle coming to the rescue was more than heaven sent. Who knew the retired English teacher had it in her?

“That was incredible,” Newland said. He sat across from her today in one of those antique Louis the Something chairs, and Natalie wanted desperately for him to come sit next to her. Somehow she could feel a distance starting between them.

The mystery of the ghost was solved. Well, the problems in the cemetery anyway. Later she would work on convincing Aunt Bitty to be more careful in the kitchen. Her aunt could call the strange happenings in the house a ghost all she wanted but it didn’t change the truth. There was no ghost. There never had been. The cat jumped up on things, the house was drafty, and her aunt was forgetful. But that was a problem to be addressed another day.

For now, she and Newland had had quite a time. They’d had a brush with death and had come out on top. But everything had changed. Everything.

The sheriff had taken Gerald away on charges of attempted murder, but Natalie knew that once the county prosecutor got ahold of it, there would be a laundry list of misdeeds.

“They started to teach tae kwon do at the senior center,” Aunt Bitty said. “It was our suggestion.”

Surprise me
. Natalie shook her head. “I still can’t believe … ” She wasn’t sure what to finish that sentence with first. She still couldn’t believe Gerald was behind it all, that he was going to kill them—surely he wasn’t really going to kill them—that Myrtle knew tae kwon do, that Natalie loved Newland Tran enough to get between him and an armed madman. On all levels, the thoughts were scary. The last one doubly so. How could she have given her heart to a man she wouldn’t see past tomorrow? That just went to show what lack of control did for a person. She had taken a chance, let loose, let her hair down as they say, and all she was going to get for it was heartache.

And she knew he was leaving. He had to be. He had his story, a story bigger than the Civil War ghost in an old lady’s home. This was a story worthy of any major newspaper across the country.

“Would you like another snort, dear?” Aunt Bitty asked, her gaze trained on Newland. He held his cup toward her.

He hadn’t looked at Natalie since he had come in. She had no idea what was going on behind those exotic brown eyes.

Aunt Bitty uncapped her flask and started to pour. “Say when.”

“When.” Then Newland groaned as Mr. Piddles jumped into his lap.

Somehow, Aunt Bitty managed to save Newland’s tea from being spilled all over the floor as Newland doubled over in pain.

“Are you hurt?” Bitty moved to set Newland’s drink on the coffee table then shooed Mr. Piddles out of his lap. “Let me see,” she demanded, pulling him gingerly to his feet.

That’s when Natalie saw it, the pain glazed over in his eyes. He was hurting. Badly. Her heart fell to the ground. “Did you get shot?” The words were nothing more than a desperate whisper.

He shook his head. “Sidewalk,” he gasped as Bitty grabbed his shirttail and pulled it over his head. He was a roadmap of scratches and bruises. And he had one knot on his left side that looked like it needed medical attention immediately.

“You need a doctor,” Bitty said.

“I’ll be fine,” Newland said. The man and his pride.

She wanted to run to him, press little kisses to all those bruises and cuts. But something kept her in her seat. He wasn’t hers. He never had been. And even though he didn’t belong to another, he would never be as foolish as to give his heart to a conservative yet bossy southern belle.

“Aubie, run over to Josephine’s and see if her new boyfriend is there. He’s a retired doctor. I’m sure he can help.”

For once Aubie didn’t protest and did as he was asked.

When the doctor came in, Natalie used that time to slip upstairs unnoticed. Nursing a broken heart required rest and solitude, and right now she needed both.

• • •

Stiff was not the word to describe how he felt the following morning. Hit by a truck might work. Mauled by a sidewalk would also suffice, but didn’t have quite the same visual.

Newland tried to take a deep breath, but the pain in his ribs sent the white light flashing behind his eyes. For now he would just have to settle with whatever air he could manage to drag into his lungs before he passed out from pain.

Josephine’s new boyfriend/retired doctor had taken one look at his ribs and promptly wrapped them as tight as Newland could stand. Then he pumped him full of ibuprofen and told him to get some rest for a couple of days.

Like that was going to happen.

Aside from wondering where this crazy love for Natalie Coleman might lead, he had a helluva story running though his mind. And it was surely a better thing to think about than how she wouldn’t want anything to do with a vagrant like him.

Yep, he’d blown it big time. He had fallen in love with the wrong woman. Hell, he’d fallen in love with them all—Natalie, Bitty, Aubie, Mr. Piddles, even Oskar. There wasn’t a one of them he wouldn’t miss like crazy when he was gone.

Instead of thinking about misplaced love, he stayed up half the night writing his story. He would present it as a series of articles. One of the unbelievable secrets of the small southern town with a moonshine ring bigger than anybody ever believed and players more crooked than the sidewalk on Sycamore Lane. It was a great story, a great idea, and he was lucky to have found it.

Friday morning, he managed to pull his t-shirt over his head without blacking out, but decided to forgo his jacket. It wasn’t worth the effort. Then he let himself out of his room and gingerly made his way down the stairs. His torso had taken the brunt of it and he had a goose egg on the back of his head that was as big as his hand. He had managed to cut both knees and had a bruise in his calf muscle that cramped every time he tried to walk. All in all he felt like hell. But the main thing, the absolute best thing of all, was that Natalie was safe. Natalie, Bitty, and Aubie. No one had gotten hurt at Davenport’s hands. And that was worth every bruise, every cut, every pain he had this morning.

“There you are!” Bitty exclaimed, hurrying toward him as he entered the dining room. She had been seated, serving her own plate when he arrived, but she dropped all that to take a hold of his elbow and lead him toward his place at the table.