Wildly Inappropriate (27 page)

Cynda could admit her dream had gotten bigger in the last week. Maybe because lying on that tiny bunk in an airless room, she hadn't had anything to distract from her misery whenever Lila slept, except her dreams.

She'd imagined living here with Daniel. She wouldn't let those peaches rot on the trees. Plenty of unemployed folk would be happy to come pick them to have the food. The local ministers would help her get the word out that there were peaches for the taking, maybe one day a week and on Saturdays.

Except for the peaches in the orchard at the top of the mountain. Those she'd sell herself. Her time working in food service taught her that the fancier restaurants had chefs that wanted to put signature items on their menus. What better way than with an exclusive fruit they could only get from her? Daniel didn't care about those peaches, but he might help her figure out what had to be done to assure a good crop of the special peach.

In jail, Lila had talked of her business and the delight she took in outsmarting those who looked past the stuff she bought, but turned around and came to her to buy. Cynda could relate to that. She'd started to believe she could make her dreams and his grandfather's come true at the same time. If she could find a way to market that peach, she'd be somebody, someone visible, and not just because she'd be by Daniel's side, but because she believed in herself and the dark-fleshed peach enough to make it happen. Raising peaches wouldn't interfere with raising Lila's baby. She'd hire people to do the labor. She'd be management.

If Daniel loved her, that is. If she could ever be enough for him, enough to make him willing to endure the slurs that would be sure to come their way, or the friends they'd both lose for choosing to be with someone of a different race.

If.

The yard was so still, it seemed she heard her heart break, but she wasn't the only one hurting. Distress emanated from every line of the slim body of the motherless teenager who was probably thinking a baby meant Lila and Colton no longer wanted him.

Quietly, she took a seat in the rocker closest to that end of the porch, tucking one foot under her and pushing off against the porch with the toes of the other. "When's baseball practice start?"

He gave the bloom a vicious twist. "Next week. But Lila won't be my coach now."

"Why's that?"

He snorted, looking up at her. She could tell from his expression he thought she was an idiot. "The baby. Duh. Uncle C already told her she can't. He's afraid she'll get hit by a foul ball or something and lose their baby." His voice broke. "He's real excited."

Cynda had learned a few things about the older woman while they'd been locked up together. "So, she does everything your Uncle C says, huh?" She knew Lila Walker had her heart set on coaching Jonah's team.

The young boy blinked at her owlishly. "Well… not everything."

She forced herself to give the child a smile. "That's what I thought. I hear she's been lettin' you drive even though Colton said he'd handle teachin' you."

His eyes rounded with surprise. Jonah lowered his voice to a whisper. "Just from Pete's grave to my mom's, when I go to the cemetery with her. She says I should be able to find my mother when I need her."

Cynda imagined the bright yellow crime scene tape the police had put up around the place where they'd found the skeleton. It wasn't visible from the farmhouse, but she knew it was out there, in the woods, and her heart ached—for herself, for Daniel and his brothers, as well as for the young man tearing up the flowers. She understood how Colton must be feeling. To get something he thought he'd never have made him want to hold on tighter.

"I'd have to agree with her 'bout that. If you hadn't already told me your mama was dead, I'd have thought Lila was your mama. She loves you. She's told me so about twenty times already. That baby won't take your place. She has Charlie but she loves you too, right? Mothers do that, they just add a room in their heart when a new child comes into their life." She chuckled. "That's why a woman is never as small as she was once a baby comes. That extra bit of weight is just our way of makin' room for a bigger heart, my Grams says."

"Yeah, I guess." He didn't sound enthusiastic, but at least he'd stopped killing defenseless flowers.

Honey chile', every woman's gonna pick her own pain.
Grams said that too. She was still wet with Daniel's seed, but it wasn't the right time for her to get pregnant, so she wasn't concerned. Still, at that moment, she could almost hate Lila, but she hated herself more for her fleeting thought that maybe she could trap him into her dream by making a baby he might not want. No, she wouldn't do that. That would only make her end up bitter because she was raising a child alone.

If she couldn't have the whole dream she wouldn't try to steal part of it. She'd take Lila's job and try to make being around the man she loved be enough. Maybe, somehow, he'd fall for her as hard as she'd fallen for him.

If and maybe.
The weight of those words seemed unbearable but the glimmer of hope they lent seemed to flicker in her heart like the mysterious glow of the lightning bugs.

"Soon as you lay eyes on your baby cousin, you're gonna love it," she said, hoping he couldn't hear the catch in her voice. "I'm no coach, but my brother taught me to catch and throw. I played softball in high school. Maybe we can throw a ball around tomorrow, after you register for school. Come inside and see Jacques. He's so fat he looks like a little butterball. His eyes and ears aren't open yet and his nose is still pink. He's beautiful."

"Wash your hands first."

Cynda jumped. Daniel was standing in the open kitchen door.

"The whole plant's poisonous," he added. "Be sure you use soap."

Looking at him right now made her feel too raw. She felt his gaze but she stared past him as she rocked, suddenly realizing all the police cars were gone. The only vehicles in the drive were her car and his brother's trucks.

Will the police drag their feet getting the skeleton out of the ground because Daniel called me his girlfriend? Is there that much hate in the world?

Thinking there wasn't seemed every bit as foolish as Lila thinking confronting the Klan would make them go away. There was a remote possibility the skeleton was someone who'd simply died, but she knew it was more likely that person had been murdered. So where were the police?

Jonah slouched up the steps, looking at his hands. Daniel moved out of the way, letting him pass. "Why grow a flower that's poisonous?" the kid asked.

"It's nice to look at, and it smells good."

It seemed the man had his grandfather's weakness for plants with a disagreeable downside. She followed Jonah into the kitchen, trying not to look at Daniel as she passed him. She wouldn't apologize for who she was or what she wanted.

"But I don't want a minivan," Lila was saying.

"Aw, Lila, Dan will paint flames on it for ya." Eric laughingly offered his brother's services. To Cynda's surprise, Eric tugged on a braid when she passed by. "Know a good store that sells crash helmets for infants?"

She stuck her chin in the air and crossed her arms under her breasts. "That baby won't need a crash helmet. I'm a good driver."

"So I'll buy Cynda the minivan and get me another truck," Lila said triumphantly. "Problem solved."

"I want purple flames," Cynda informed Daniel when he strode past. "C'mon, Jonah, let's go see Jacques."

"That dog's name is
not
Jacques." Daniel yanked his chair from beneath the table.

"Dude, I know it's been years since you had an actual date, but when chicks get their minds set on something, they never relent. Sorry to break the news to you, Dan, but you now own a bird dog named Jacques." Eric snickered. "I can't wait to find out what she calls you. Snookums? Sugar Pie?" His brows lifted several times, rapidly. "Big Daddy?"

"I might've written that down and put it in that drawer you're leanin' against." Cynda grinned, her dark mood becoming somewhat lighter at hearing the insider information about Daniel's love life that Lila hadn't known. "Double-dog dare you to look."

Eric practically vaulted across the bar, away from the drawers.

Laughing with the rest, Cynda directed a confused Jonah into the hallway and stepped over the gate to pick up the sleeping pup. Handing it to the young man, she explained, "Your baby cousin will be just as helpless. Be gentle with Jacques."

"Oh, I almost forgot," Lila said, once the laughter in the kitchen died down. "You remember that farmer that called you when I wrecked my truck, Dan? Our closest neighbor? He was one of those people wearing a sheet at the Klan rally."

"Did you see his face?" Cynda heard Daniel demand. "Because that makes no sense. I just saw him the other day over at Georgia's. He took her eggs. Next week they're gonna put up corn together."

"Just his shoes," she admitted. "But, Dan, I looked at those shoes for nearly an hour after I wrecked my truck. He spoke to me both times. It was him."

Cynda left Jonah holding the puppy and walked to stand in the arch, looking at the De Marco clan, filled with alarm at the thought that anyone living so close by might belong to the Klan.

She saw Colton kiss Lila's cheek. He touched her stitches gently. "Sweetheart, you had a hard knock on the head. I don't think we can rely on your memory. John Carpenter's a deacon at the Methodist church. I've put my pennies in a collection plate he passed many a time. It wasn't him. Every farmer I know wears the same brand of boots."

Dan was nodding. Eric spoke up. "He's right, Lila. I probably have a pair just like the ones you saw."

Lila's face took on the stubborn expression Cynda had come to know so well in jail, but her tone was mild when she let the subject drop. "If you'll excuse me, I need to go potty. Again." She sighed heavily as she stood. "Then we need to go and get Jonah into bed."

Cynda gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze as she passed, but she hoped with all her heart Lila was wrong.

"By the way, Dan, I put that old Berretta of Dad's you used to carry in your truck back in your glove box for now. It's loaded, so you know, but I figured you still had a carry permit for it."

"That's fine, but why? Don't you want it anymore?"

Colton sighed as heavily as Lila had moments before. "Because you know, five months from now, we're gonna have an infant that won't be able to crawl for another what—six, eight, ten months? But we have to start baby-proofing right this fucking minute." He threw up his hands. "It's not like I ever use it. I'll get a little handgun safe to keep by the bed when I buy a big gun safe like yours, but after the news about the baby, that purchase got bumped way down on my list. Right now, my priorities are buying the materials to add those two rooms and Lila's doctor bills."

"You poor, pussy whipped motherfucker," Eric muttered, looking plaintively at Daniel. "You know we're gonna have to do an intervention, right? Drag his ass off somewhere and fix him before his dick falls off."

"His priorities sound just fine to me," Daniel retorted.

The impromptu family gathering broke up shortly after. Daniel put his hand at her waist as they waved goodbye to his guests while standing just inside the back door to the farmhouse. He suddenly leaned over and when he straightened, she saw he was holding her shoes. With his free hand, he closed and turned the lock on the back door. He placed the shoes on the counter, and the look her gave her made her insides go liquid.

Silently, he folded a towel, then opened the drawer where she'd put all the shaving things. He placed a razor and the shaving cream beside the sink, but not the brush. She was already aching and wet by the time he ordered her to remove her dress.

His hands were on his belt when she pulled it over her head and placed it on the bar.

"Turn around."

He drew the belt tight around her arms. The leather bit into the skin above her elbows. He turned her with his hands on her shoulders.

He was half-hard now, she saw. "Kneel."

Sinking to her knees, she stared at his face, trying to guess what he was thinking. His hand felt warm against her cheek.

"If you fight me, this will be unpleasant. I don't want you to suck. I want you to open your mouth and keep it open. It's not a blow job. I want to fuck your mouth. If you trust me, it will be better for you, but I'll admit, this is about me."

That was part of her attraction to the man, she realized. He didn't resort to fake sweet-talk to get his way. If he ever said anything sweet to her, she felt she'd be able to trust he meant it. She dragged her tongue across her lips, watching his eyes while he undid his pants. He guided his cock to her face, pressing the head past her unresisting lips.

She had no control. No way to stop him from going too deep. Panic flushed through her. The act of forcing his cock down her throat was primitive, and her reaction was primal. She fought to breathe, struggled to free her arms so she could save herself from choking.

He paused, and a look of disappointment flitted across his face. "Cynda, you have to trust me, sugar. Breathe through your nose." His voice cracked on his admission. "I need this."

Those words, so obviously hard for him to say, were her lifeline. Cynda wanted to please him, needed to soothe the turmoil he was enduring, thinking his mother was out there in those woods and believing no one gave a damn. She realized he hadn't shared his concerns with his brothers. Realization dawned on her that he protected them, even if that made his own burden bigger. He joked and cut up with them, but everything the man did, from hiring someone to get her and Lila's charges dismissed, to the cutting glare he'd given Lila when he'd believed she was pregnant with another man's child and trying to pass it off as Colton's, to the curt order he'd issued Jonah to wash his hands, were all meant to protect them from harm. Those were just a few things she knew. How many burdens rested on his broad shoulders?

She went limp, because that was all she could think of to do to help him. She'd spent all her life feeling powerless. This was familiar ground.