hadn’t slept with him yet. They were just…Well…she was wearing panties, but he was naked.”
“The guy must be at least thirty. What did you do?”
“Shrieked like a banshee, tossed him into the hallway, then told Laurie to get dressed and wait in the car. After that, I headed for my and J.D.’s room—”
“And?”
“Oh, Ellie,” she said in a rush. “J.D. was in bed with that woman Sandy Smithers.”
“No!”
Invisible bands tightened around Susannah’s chest and she couldn’t breathe. “Well, I must have screamed. I don’t really know. I was in such shock. She jumped up, grabbed the sheet and ran—”
“She was naked?”
“Totally. By then, J.D. was up, and I said…” Shaking her head, she decided she’d never repeat what she’d said. Already the words were haunting her, and she had to fight the impulse to run home, find J.D. and take everything back. Just as in the past, a tender touch would make everything all right. Surely there was a reason he’d been in bed with Sandy. But what kind of excuse would explain that.
“Susannah?”
She barely heard her friend. “I told him I’m leaving him,” she managed. “Among a few other choice words. I love him, but I shouldn’t have stayed this long, Ellie.”
“Well, you never had a choice.”
“True.” Susannah was his. And J.D. was hers. Even as kids, they’d recognized they belonged together. He’d been mean at first—tweaking her braids at school and trying to get a glimpse of her panties every time she climbed trees, tomboy that she was. Later, he’d played the big brother she’d never had, defending her honor. Then, he’d started touching her in a way no other man ever would, proving there was more to sex than the mere merging of bodies. Call it chemistry. Or magic. But a thousand men could walk past and Susannah’s pulse wouldn’t race, and her knees wouldn’t weaken, and she wouldn’t feel breathless and painfully aware of every sweet place she wanted J. D. Johnson—and only J. D. Johnson—to touch.
Just thinking about loving him sent a rush of adrenaline through her system. Tingles skated down her spine, her nipples peaked and suddenly, she was aware of her upper thighs, not to mention the ache between them. A slow, enticing longing made her shudder. The truth was, she could almost orgasm just thinking about J.D. Dammit, she fumed, he was supposed to be her everything—her lover forever. A father to the kids they were meant to make together.
“Falling out of love is the worst thing that can happen to a person,” she whispered miserably. Could she get through a night without cuddling his hard, muscular body, or listening to his steady breathing lull her to sleep? Even now, when they were fighting, she spent hours craving the lovemaking they used to share, before they’d started growing apart. Her hands wanted to cup his broad shoulders, then trace over his pectorals and his washboard-flat belly.
Worse, with her mother gone and June married, there was nobody to give advice except Ellie—and Ellie had never been married before, either. Still, Susannah’s marriage had ended before this morning. Sometimes the spark would ignite unexpectedly, of course. Flames would devour Susannah and J.D., and for a moment, she’d believe their estrangement to be over, only to experience heartbreak once more.
“Mama used to say the secret to love is learning to forget,” she murmured. But now Susannah had no choice but to acknowledge all the things J.D. was doing wrong. An image of him and Sandy flashed in her mind, both naked as jaybirds.
“Where’s Laurie now?” Ellie finally asked.
“I dropped her off,” Susannah said. “June thought she’d spent the night with a girlfriend. Laurie was wearing an inchlong skirt, ripped fishnets, knee-high boots, and she had a fake tattoo on her thigh, of a skull and crossbones.”
“J.D.’s a lousy influence. Did she realize you found him in bed…”
Susannah quickly shook her head, her heart aching. All these years, she’d suspected him, but now…
“Here you go, ladies!” Delia arrived, setting down two oversize platters. “Eat hearty. Those plates better get so clean that I won’t have to wash them.”
“Ellie!” Susannah exclaimed when Delia was gone and Ellie removed sunglasses and lifted her fork, only to use the tines to toy with her eggs. Where Susannah was tall and willowy with honey hair and brown eyes, Ellie had a square-shouldered, almost boyish build. Her jaw-length, jet-black, wavy hair was pressed right up against her peaches-and-cream skin, making her look like a forties film star. “Your eyes are more red, white and blue than an American flag,” Susannah said. “You’ve been crying.”
“All morning.”
“I’m sorry! I’m so fixated on J.D. that I didn’t notice. What’s wrong?”
“Everything.”
“I thought things were great. Your daddy’s about to announce you’ll be running your family’s company after he retires next week, right?” Ellie was a shoe-in, mostly because she’d come from a family of n’er-do-well brothers—the sort of man Bayou Banner bred like fire ants. Ellie’s brothers weren’t reliable enough to run such an accurate polling service.
“Robby promised me that when Daddy made his announcement, we’d tell him about us. Then we made love all night.”
Susannah slid the charm along the chain around her neck as she did when she felt worried. Ellie had an identical necklace, and both charms had been engraved with the words, Remember the Time. Years ago, on a rainy Saturday in Bayou Blair, they’d asked a jeweler to make them.
“Then what?” Susannah prodded. After Robby had finished graduate school, he’d begun working for Ellie’s father, a man known around town as Daddy Eddie.
“When I woke up, I could tell he’d been staring at me while I slept.”
“And?”
“He said Daddy’s giving him the job.”
Susannah gasped. “Lees have run the company since it started. And that was back in the eighteen-hundreds.”
“Right. So I called Daddy. But he said it’s true. Robby could have told me last night, but before we made love, he sat there listening to me talk about how we’d work it out, once I got promoted and he was reporting to me.”
“Robby accepted the job?”
“This morning he said we should get married, and I should quit work and raise our family.”
“That snake in the grass!” Susannah exploded. She’d set out to be a homemaker, but Ellie had gone to college and graduate school. “You got honors in economics and statistics, and all the while, you were running Lee Polls. Your brothers were in school up North for years, flunking out of their classes, too.” Every single one of Ellie’s life decisions had been made with an eye to running the company, but Robby had just started working for Daddy Eddie this year. “What are you going to do?”
Ellie’s blue eyes turned steely. “Go to New York
