The Best Way to Lose (4 page)

“Do you want me to put the car away for you?” The inquiry came from the shadowy
figure sitting in the front passenger seat. During the ride from the hospital their conversation had been desultory at best.

“No. I’m leaving it here in case the hospital calls in the night.” The interior light flashed on when she opened the car door, giving her side vision a glimpse of the craggy planes of his sun-browned face.

The slam of the passenger door echoed the closing of her side door. She paused to adjust the knotted sleeves of the lavender sweater tied loosely around her neck while he pulled his duffel bag from the rear seat. There was a chilling coolness in the air, fragrant with the sweet scent of gardenias.

Dragon Walk was famous for its floral gardens and flowering trees. Something was always in bloom year-round. Gardenias and camelias in the winter, azaleas and crocuses in the spring, roses and water lilies in the summer, and a profusion of chrysanthemums in the fall.

After sliding an absent glance in Trace’s direction to assure that he was coming, Pilar followed the short sidewalk to the fanned steps rising to the wooden porch. The upright pillars supporting the porch roof and second-floor balcony were carved from the trunks of cypress trees and layered smooth with coats of white paint.

White wicker chairs, sofas, and tables extended the living area of the large house onto the porch, with some of the hardier potted plants left outside to add life. The exposure of
the porch on three sides of the house insured that there would always be a place to enjoy a breeze in summer’s sultry season or sunshine during winter’s cooler days. It was one of the most frequently used areas of the house.

Her heels made clicking sounds on the gray porch decking as Pilar crossed to the massive, solid mahogany door, nearly three inches thick. Before she reached it, the ornate brass knob was turned from the inside and the door swung inward. She smiled wanly at the tall, straight black woman waiting to greet her.

“Hello, Cassie,” she said.

“I’ve been worried about you,” Cassie Douglas announced with faint reproval. In her middle fifties, nearly the same age as Elliot, she had few lines in her coffee-colored skin to reveal the accumulation of years. The silver that salted the soft black curls framing her proud features appeared to be the artful work of the best hairstylist. “I was sure you were going to get some wild notion in your head to stay at the hospital all night.”

“She did, but I talked her out of it.” Trace walked into the house behind Pilar and swung the duffel bag off his shoulder to hang at his side. He hooked an arm around the woman’s trim waist and pulled her close to plant a kiss on a smooth cheek. His gray eyes glittered with a rakish light. “How’s my favorite southern belle?”

“Don’t you go using your flattery on me, Trace Santee. It never got you anywhere when you were a boy and it won’t now.” She
mocked the expansiveness of his compliment even while she hugged an arm around his middle. “I talked to Digger after he left you off at the hospital, so I knew you’d be here tonight. I’ve got your room all ready, and I baked you my own special recipe for pecan carrot cake. It’s out in the kitchen along with a pot of fresh coffee.”

“I suppose I’ve got to promise to behave myself before you’ll give me a piece,” he teased.

“It wouldn’t do any good. I swear you were born looking for trouble,” she declared with a trace of regret. More than most, Cassie knew how much trouble he’d found.

Dragon Walk had been her home for the last twenty-six years. A highly intelligent woman, Cassie Douglas was a licensed practical nurse. She’d come to work for the family when Trace’s mother, the first Mrs. Santee, had contracted multiple sclerosis, a degenerative muscle disease. Trace was only eleven when his mother passed away, and Cassie had stayed on to look after him.

Yet, all the while she served in the role of housekeeper and cook, she never gave up her career. She constantly took refresher courses to keep abreast of medical advancements and new procedures, and took other home cases on a day-work basis. And she’d kept a house of her own, what had been the overseer’s cottage on Dragon Walk, and raised a family of three children.

Her late husband had been a riverman,
working the docks and the barges. Trace remembered little about him except that Ogden Douglas had introduced him to the river life. Looking back, Trace marveled at the way Cassie had managed to accomplish so much—something he’d been too young to appreciate at the time.

“You’re as bad as Oggie, coming straight off the river—and smelling like it, too.” Always immaculate herself, she ran a critical eye over his appearance, but there was a softness in her eyes, tender with memories of her husband. “I’m surprised they didn’t kick you out of the hospital for fear you’d contaminate something. You need a bath and a change of clothes.”

“Not as much as I need that coffee and cake in the kitchen,” Trace insisted with a lazy smile, then slid a half-glance at Pilar. “Don’t you think you could use some, too?”

Since her marriage to Elliot, Pilar had become very close to Cassie. As she had observed the reunion, there had been an odd feeling of jealousy at the open display of affection and deep closeness. Considering Elliot’s precarious condition, they seemed much too happy and uncaring for her liking.

“No.” She addressed Cassie. “I wanted to bring you up to date on Elliot.” She was sternly sober, inserting his name into the conversation to remind them why they were standing there at this hour of the night.

“There’s no need,” Cassie informed her gently. “My daughter, Melissa, is a nurse on
the maternity ward at the hospital. She’s been checking in with me regularly since she went on duty this afternoon, so I have the inside story on how he’s doing.”

“I see,” Pilar murmured stiffly and lowered her gaze. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going upstairs. There’ve been so many people at the hospital, I’d just like to be alone for a while.”

The front stairwell doubled back on itself to climb to the second floor of the house. Both Trace and Cassie silently observed her departure until she rounded the landing to go up the second flight. The imported crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling of the large foyer gleamed on the polished mahogany railing that zagged up the stairwell.

A long, troubled sigh came from Cassie, drawing Trace’s glance to her as she started toward the kitchen. “I don’t like to see her that way—all held in. I had a feeling they were too happy, that some kind of crash had to happen. You should have seen the two of them together.” She smiled absently, remembering. “They were always holding hands and snuggling on the sofa. Every day was a honeymoon. Your father saw to that. She’s a sensible, practical girl, but he kept her caught up in a romantic dream, all soft lights and violins. I think he was afraid she’d stop loving him if he didn’t court her every minute.”

“It might be a good idea if you fix a tray and take it up to her later,” Trace suggested. “She didn’t eat anything at the hospital.”

As she pushed open the door to the kitchen,
she gave him a wry glance. “You still don’t talk much, but you manage to say a lot. Sometimes I find it hard to believe you’re a southern boy.”

“You do enough talking for both of us, Cassie,” he countered dryly.

Talking was a favorite southern pastime, engaged in by most of its native sons and daughters, but Trace was not loquacious by nature. There were a lot of situations he probably could have talked himself out of if he’d tried.

“And there’s some things a woman has an instinct for knowing without being told. Those things I keep to myself.” It was a rather enigmatic comment that created an opening in the conversation, but he chose not to fill it.

He lowered his long frame into one of the high-backed wooden chairs around the cloth-covered table while Cassie sliced him a large piece of the frosted cake and poured each of them a cup of coffee.

“Have you spoken to Cal lately?” Trace asked, referring to her son. “I looked him up the last time I was in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago. That’s quite a new grandbaby you have.”

The conversation drifted around her family. Cassie did most of the talking while Trace ate his cake and washed it down with the strong black coffee. Cassie was never idle for long, preparing a small plate of sandwiches to take up to Pilar in between sips of coffee and the never-ending dialogue. When she had
finished with her family, she started bringing him up to date on some of his old friends.

“You’re a terrible gossip, Cassie,” he declared with a smiling shake of his head at the extent of her information and carried his plate and cup to the sink.

“My mother told me long ago that she had no use for gossip.” An amused glint appeared in her eyes. “She was absolutely right. The minute I get it, I just pass it on to the first person I see. It isn’t worth keeping to yourself.” She picked up the tray she’d fixed for Pilar. “I’ll just run this upstairs.”

“I’ll come along with you.” He moved ahead of her to open the kitchen door. “It might turn out to be a long night, so I think I’d better get some sleep while I can.”

Accustomed to snatching sleep at odd hours, Trace had problems dozing off that night. He tried to blame it on the absence of the thundering engines of a towboat vibrating his bed, pretending that he slept so lightly because of the stillness of the house, the slightest noise disturbing him. There were plenty of small noises that night.

His old bedroom was located next to the master suite. The floorboards creaked with each movement of that room’s prowling occupant. Three times in the night he heard the muted sound of the telephone being dialed. It didn’t take much guesswork to realize that Pilar was checking with the hospital.

The house was quiet when he wakened to the rosy sunlight streaking through his
windows around six in the morning. For another fifteen minutes he lay in bed, smoking that first cigarette and staring at the ceiling. After he’d showered, shaved, and dressed, he went into the wide hallway and started for the stairwell.

The door of the master bedroom stood open, inviting his glance into the room. The satin coverlet was turned back on the canopied bed, but there was no evidence that the bed had been slept in. Trace paused in the hallway, then took a step into the room and searched it with a sweeping glance.

Pilar was awkwardly curled into a narrow loveseat, sound asleep with her hands pillowed under her head. The sight of her pulled him into the room. Her long, sleek black hair tumbled in a rippling tide over her bare shoulders. The rose-colored satin of her nightgown followed the shape of her body, the roundness of her hips, and the slim length of her legs.

An empty milk glass sat on the coffee table in front of the sofa, but a bite had been taken out of only one of the sandwiches on the plate. The line of his mouth thinned. His look ran back to her sleeping face. Her cheek was smooth, no telltale streaks of tears marring its classical line. She appeared to be huddled in a ball for warmth.

After a second’s hesitation Trace crossed to the bed and removed the coverlet. Taking care not to disturb the sleep she so badly needed, he draped the satin quilt over her. But the soft weight of it seemed to jerk her awake. The
instant she saw him standing by the loveseat, she sat bolt upright, stiff and braced for the worst.

“Oh, my God, the hospital called.” The words came out in a quick rush of breath. “Elliot. He’s—”

“No. The hospital didn’t call.” Trace quickly squashed that fear and watched her sag limply against the corner of the loveseat. Her hand lifted to tiredly comb the weight of her black hair away from her face.

“When I saw you … I thought…” Her confusion faded into a frown as her puzzled gaze searched his face. “What did you want?”

“Nothing.” His glance slipped downward to the buttonlike impressions the nipples of her breasts made in the satin material of her nightgown. She seemed unconscious of the fact, not fully awake to be aware of the revealing state of her nightclothes. “When I walked by your room, I noticed the bed was empty.”

Pilar glanced at the bed, a forlorn light in her eyes. “I … just couldn’t sleep in it alone,” she admitted in a soft, anguished voice.

Belatedly she realized the coverlet that belonged on the bed was draped on her legs. She lifted a corner of it, trying to remember whether she’d taken it from the bed.

Trace read her bewilderment. “You looked cold.” His mouth slanted in a rueful line. “I didn’t mean to waken you.”

Reaching out, she picked up the small, gold-cased alarm clock sitting on the coffee table to check the time. “It doesn’t matter.” She lifted
the coverlet aside to swing her bare feet onto the floor. “I wanted to go to the hospital early this morning anyway.”

“Pilar.” He took a step to intercept her when she started for the dressing room.

Halting, she swung around to face him with a blankly questioning look. From the perfect sweep of her eyebrows to the arch of her cheekbones and the soft shape of her lips, she was incredibly beautiful. For an instant Trace was absolutely still.

Then his hands lightly stroked the bareness of her upper arms. “I’ll have breakfast ready when you come down. This morning you’re going to eat.”

“Yes.” She agreed without an argument and rubbed a finger on a point in the center of her forehead. “It’s probably hunger that gave me this headache.”

With an indifferent turn of her body she walked out of his loose hold. For a second longer his hands remained poised in the air where she had been, then slowly closed and came down to his side.

O
n the morning of the third day after Elliot’s heart attack, the consulting specialist sat down with Pilar and Trace in a corner of the waiting room to discuss his new patient with them. Although he sounded pleased with the way Elliot’s condition had apparently stabilized, he refused to be optimistic about his chances for a full recovery.

“At this point we simply can’t be sure how much damage his heart has suffered. Until we know”—he lifted his hands in a palm-upward gesture—“we’ll simply have to wait and see.”