not tonight.
Tonight he’d celebrate his freedom. Tomorrow he’d renew his driver’s license, buy a car and a used computer, then locate Ivy Stanton. And when he found her, he’d surprise her with a little visit.
Unlike the day the police had questioned her about her parents’ murders, this time she wouldn’t claim she didn’t know what had happened.
This time, she’d damn well do some talking.
ARTHUR BOLES WAVED his son into his office with a glare, popped an antacid tablet into his mouth and released a string of expletives. “Dammit, Crandall, I’ve paid you a small fortune to keep that Mahoney boy in jail. How did you let that confounded fool Willis get him free?”
“Listen, calm down, Arthur,” his attorney screeched over the telephone line. “I did everything I could. By all rights, the boy should have been paroled years ago.”
“But you managed to keep that from happening, so why couldn’t you stop this disaster?”
“I’ve used up all my favors and jeopardized my own reputation for you,” Crandall snapped. “Now I’m through, Arthur. Through doing your dirty work for you, through putting myself on the line. I fully intend to salvage my career and wash my hands of the whole mess.”
Arthur ran a palm over his thinning hair, watching as his son, A.J., paced the room like a caged animal. The boy was nervous. Hell, they all were.
“You can’t walk away from me now, Crandall.”
“I can and I will,” the lawyer snapped. “And if you dare try to use what I’ve done to blackmail me, I will expose you and your son.”
Crandall slammed down the phone, and Arthur cursed again, then raked a hand across his desk, sending papers flying in fury. Crandall wouldn’t reveal a damn word. Arthur would see to that.
“Dad,” A.J. said in a worried voice as he paused, jerked open the liquor cabinet and grabbed a fifth of bourbon. Tipping up the bottle, he drank straight from it like a heathen, the brown liquid dribbling down his chin. Just as he had fifteen years ago. The night the trouble had started.
“What in the hell are we going to do?” A.J. swiped a hand over his mouth. “Mahoney’s out. And you know the first place he’ll come.”
Traces of desperation and fear lined A.J.’s face, suddenly aging his son another ten years. Arthur’s own panic gripped his chest like a vise, but he stalked toward A.J., took the bottle from his hand. “I’ll take care of things. Don’t worry.”
A.J. relaxed slightly, but remnants of memories lingered in his eyes. The same ones that troubled Arthur. They both had made mistakes fifteen years ago. But they’d survived this long without anyone knowing.
And those mistakes would go with them to their graves.
Even if Arthur had to kill Crandall and Mahoney to keep them buried.
IVY HAD BEEN ALONE FOR SO LONG.
His dark eyes skated over her, and her body tingled in response. She wasn’t a cold fish. No, she craved his touch. Could not get enough.
His shaggy black hair nudged his collar, the desire in his dark eyes nearly bringing her to her knees. She reached for him, but he shook her hand away and made her wait. With one finger he flicked the buttons on her shirt free, the corner of his mouth twitching as he peeled it from her shoulders. Cool air brushed her skin, and her nipples budded beneath the flimsy lace of her bra. A hot look of hunger colored his irises, but he still didn’t move to kiss her. He simply stood stone still, watching her chest rise and fall as he slid her panties down her thighs. She stepped out of them, suddenly feeling shy.
But the hiss of his breath was so erotic that all shyness fled.
He smiled, then cupped one hand behind her neck, lowered his mouth and claimed hers. Her heart pounded as he tasted and explored, teased her lips apart and thrust his tongue inside. Then he trailed kisses down her neck and lower, to her breasts. Pleasure rippled through her. She had been waiting all her life for this moment. For his touch. His lips. His hands.
His fingers slid along her spine, over the curve of her hips, then lower to her blond curls that were already wet from wanting him. A groan erupted from his throat as he pulled back and looked at her. A fierce need glimmered in his eyes, making her ache to strip him and touch him all over.
But when she reached for him, he drifted away, swallowed by the darkness….
IVY JERKED AWAKE, panting and sweating, the sheets twisted around her legs and arms where she’d rolled from side to side as waves of erotic satisfaction splintered through her. She wasn’t the cold fish George had accused her of being. She was starved for love, for a man’s comfort, for his touches and kisses.
And the man in her dreams…this time she had seen his face.
And that face had belonged to the man who’d been imprisoned for killing her parents—Matt Mahoney.
God. She dropped her head into her hands, trembling. Matt Mahoney was not a man she would ever have sex with. Not a man who would want her.
The dark coldness of the room closed around her, suffocating her. The screams of terror suddenly exploded in her head again, and her heart pounded. A monster’s face replaced Matt’s, and she saw the blood. Brown, not red. Floating like a river around her mother’s body. A wail lodged in Ivy’s throat as the smell of death bombarded her. She had to run but her legs wouldn’t move. The silent voices screeched in her ears.
Run like the wind. Run from the monster or he’ll get you again.
Just as she had fifteen years ago. Anything to escape the horror.
Or he would kill her, too. And there would be no tomorrow.
TOMORROW WAS THE beginning of another bad day. The beginning of the end for some in Kudzu Hollow.
For years now, the dark cloud, as Lady Bella Rue called it, had hovered about the small mountain community, floating away only occasionally, only long enough to give the locals a momentary reprieve. But before hope could be rekindled, the cloud returned with a vengeance to dump more sorrow and misfortune on the town.
Lady Bella Rue gathered her shawl around her trembling shoulders, fighting the wind as she walked outside and descended the steps to her root cellar. Storm clouds brewed above, the smell of rain and trouble filling her nostrils, a streak of lightning splintering off the mountain ridges. Thunder followed like an unwelcome guest announcing its arrival.
The frizzled hen she kept in the yard scratched at the ground, a reminder of the West African legends. She had learned from the best. And she had visited the crossroads and prayed to the devil for nine days and nights to strengthen her powers.
But she did not practice evil sorcery, as the locals said. Neither was she a lady of darkness as the kids had taunted when they’d dubbed her Lady Bella Rue years ago. No she desperately wanted to save the town.
Thunder rumbled again, growing louder, and the impending pain and fear of what was to come pierced her heart, settling so deeply in her bones that she could almost feel the brittle edges poking through her paper-thin skin. Folks whispered that the evil had started the day the Stanton family had been murdered.
