Wild Midnight Read online

  “D’Arcy, I’m all packed.” Rachel put her suitcase on the polished parquet floorboards of the downstairs hall. “If we don’t start soon, it will be dark before we get to Draytonville. And if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk to him.”

  D’Arcy pointed to the receiver still off the hook and lying on the mahogany table in the hall. “Just pick it up and say good-bye then.”

  “I’d rather not.” Rachel sighed. “D’Arcy, listen, I don’t want to be rude, but it will be impossible for me to come back to Charleston to visit with you. I wish I could in some ways, but it doesn’t serve the interests of the farmers’ cooperative or the work I’m doing for them to take these ... social vacations away from Draytonville. I don’t think I can mix the two worlds. The one I’m in right now is so different,” she said softly.

  “But honey,” the blond woman cried, “aren’t you just hiding out down there? Rachel, stop me if I’m saying things I shouldn’t, but haven’t you been running away from things since your husband died? Bless your heart, I know you’re dedicated to all kinds of helpful projects and all that, it’s part of what you believe in, but being so young and pretty there must be something else you want out of life!”

  “Oh, D’Arcy,” Rachel murmured. “You don’t understand. Even if I wanted—” She looked around the elegant hall, trying to put her thought into words. “Even if I wanted to come back to all this again, I can’t get away from Draytonville now. The co-op is something I’m committed to, and we haven’t achieved a tenth of our goals outlined in our original grant. People don’t really believe in us—I expected the support of the churches and they backed away because there’s been some talk, well, you know—all you have to say is that a cooperative for poor people is a socialist idea and somebody will label it communist. I think we’ve gotten over that initial reaction, but most of Draytonville is sitting back, waiting to see how we do. And then there are ... other problems.”

  There was no need to tell D’Arcy her cousin was the main difficulty Rachel and the cooperative both faced. By the look on the other woman’s face she could see that D’Arcy understood Rachel, yet didn’t believe her.

  “Rachel darlin’, I hear what you’re saying, and I just think you’re nuts! But you have to do what you’re committed to, I guess.” She sighed, turning back to the telephone. “Right now I think I’m committed to breaking poor old Bob Furman’s heart.”

  It was dark when they finally drove out of Charleston and turned onto Highway 17 southbound, but the soft evening air was still fragrant with the scent of flowers from the city’s gardens and the ever-present salty sea wind.

  D’Arcy was tired, Rachel could see that, but mysterious business in Draytonville took her back down to the coastal town. And she planned to spend the night at Belle Haven, returning to Charleston the next morning.

  Rachel would have been happy to doze as D’Arcy sped the big limousine southward, but the other woman had lapsed into a strained, unhappy mood. Feeling that she might have been the cause of it, Rachel made an effort to listen to D’Arcy’s restless chatter with more than her usual attention. But she couldn’t help thinking it would have been easier if D’Arcy hadn’t returned to one of her favorite subjects—her cousin Beau Tillson.

  D’Arcy rambled on as the big car ate up the miles with a childhood tale of how she and her cousin as small children had taken a leaky small boat, a bateau, out on St. Helena Sound, and then had gotten caught in a violent thunderstorm. They had swamped, but clung to the boat until they got to a sandbar in the marshes where they’d spent most of the night. Early the next morning they’d returned to the big house at Belle Haven, a mosquito-bitten and bedraggled twelve and seven year-old, feeling like heroes—only to find no one even knew they were gone.

  “It’s strange down here,” D’Arcy said morosely. “I swear; you read William Faulkner and how people rot when they’re isolated too long—well, don’t think it doesn’t apply to all the damned Beaumonts. Clarissa didn’t know where in the hell we were and wouldn’t have cared less. She was the world’s worst excuse for a mother. Lee Tillson was off somewhere whoring around, that was his answer to everything—women. And Eulie had gone home. She’s got a family of her own to tend to, or did back in those days. And there that house was, sitting out in the marsh just like it’d been for the last two hundred years or more, like it didn’t give a damn, either, what kind of humanity crawled in and out of it or lived or died.”

  “D’Arcy, things have changed,” Rachel said softly. “Draytonville’s not as isolated as it was once. Jim Claxton showed me where big developers are building condominium complexes right next door to Belle Haven. He even says the state legislature is considering a four-lane highway.”

  “Oh, yeah, Jim Claxton,” D’Arcy said with unusual bitterness. “Good old Jim, he helps everybody. He’s just a dirt-poor sharecropper’s son, did you know that? Jim Claxton helped the wrong woman once, he got married to her. And then she went off and left him with two little kids.” Before Rachel could say anything she went on, “You don’t know anything about this country down here, you’ve just been here two or three months, and you’ve got to be either born here or live here for fifty years before people will accept you. But I’m telling you that what you see on the surface of these little towns isn’t what’s there at all. You’d be surprised as hell if you knew.” Then she said abruptly, “You know who Loretha Bulloch is, don’t you? That good-looking minx who follows Til Coffee around?”

  “She came to plant tomatoes.” Rachel was remembering a slender young black woman with sultry eyes.

  “Stuck right to him, didn’t she? And Lord, how it drives him crazy.” D’Arcy gave the steering wheel a vicious twist as she turned off the highway onto the Draytonville road. “Have you seen their little boy, about eight years old?”

  “They have a child?” Rachel asked. She tried to remember what Loretha Bulloch looked like in greater detail and couldn’t. No one had said a thing to her, especially not Til.

  “It’s his child, his and Loretha’s. You take a good look at the boy sometime—big like his daddy, and good-looking and bright, like Til.”

  Rachel said absently, “Yes, Til is a very intelligent person.”

  D’Arcy made an impatient click between her teeth. “Oh, mah God, Rachel—I mean bright, like light-colored. It’s a word the black people use, I didn’t make it up. Til’s half white. You’d fall right out of your seat if I told you who his daddy was.

  Rachel stared into the darkness. Big, handsome Til Coffee was dark but not very black. But not very light either. It was something she wouldn’t really notice.

  “She hates him,” D’Arcy said emphatically. “She won’t let him near their boy. That’s why Til came down from Chicago. I can tell you the story, honey, but you’d never believe it.”

  Rachel opened her mouth to say something, then closed it without a word. It was gossip, and there was no comment she could make anyway. They had passed through Draytonville, the Polar Bear Drive In—the busy corner on the highway and the town’s main social center—closed and dark for Sunday night.

  “You have to be careful about choosing your friends,” D’Arcy went on. The Lincoln bumped smoothly as she turned off onto the dirt road that ran to Rachel’s house. “God knows you need friends down here, you just can’t live in this godforsaken end of the earth without meeting people and having some sort of friends. But you’ve got to be careful.”

  D’Arcy drew the automobile up under the live oaks of the front yard and left the motor running, and Rachel got out to retrieve her suitcase from the car’s trunk. When she walked around to the driver’s side D’Arcy had rested her elbow on the open window. Her pretty face looked downcast.

  “I’ve got to get on over to Beau’s,” D’Arcy said. “I’ve got to see if he’s going to take my head off again about spending the night. And if I don’t hurry, I won’t get a scrap of supper. Eulie will put everything away or Beau will eat it.”

  “D’Arcy,” Rachel
began, “I want to thank you for a wonderful time in Charleston.”

  “Then come back,” the other woman said shortly. “God knows I need some company, even if you don’t.”

  Before Rachel could say anything D’Arcy had put the big limousine into reverse and shot recklessly out of the yard and into the road. The tires made a groaning sound as she cut a sharp turn and disappeared into the night.

  Rachel sighed. The visit to Charleston had been wonderful—she wasn’t just being polite. But she was finding that her new friend’s quicksilver moods could range from distracted effervescence to something so unhappy it was desperate. Unless Rachel was very much mistaken, D’Arcy got more unhappy in proportion to how close they came to Draytonville.

  Rachel crossed the yard carrying her suitcase, glad that D’Arcy had reminded her to leave on her kitchen light; it was better than coming home to a dark house. But inside, the front room smelled dank after so much rain. And the bedroom, on the shaded cold north side of the house, wouldn’t be much better, she thought disconsolately. What she needed was a cup of hot tea.

  She dragged the suitcase to the bedroom door, turned the knob, threw the door open and stepped inside, reaching for the wall switch.

  Her hand never reached it. Instead an iron grip took her wrist and a voice in her ear growled, “Where in the hell have you been?”

  She knew that voice instantly, even in pitch darkness. It was Beau Tillson.

  “What are you doing?” Rachel shrieked. It was pure instinct to lash out at him. She flailed with her free hand, making contact with his warm, rock-hard chest, covered with the cotton fabric of his shirt. “I can’t even see you!”

  “But I can see you.” The low growl was right in her face. “Where the hell have you been?” She felt him grope across the top of her head, fingers finding the long braid of her hair coiled there. “Were you off somewhere with a man?”

  Rachel went rigid. Outrage quickly replaced shock, but she was still shaking. Her hand had inadvertently brushed his hard cheekbone, and the sudden memory of smooth skin and his handsome face unnerved her.

  She had vowed never again to let him touch her after what had happened, nor even speak to him if she could avoid it. And certainly never to let him provoke her into shamefully losing her temper. And now this—waiting for her, pouncing on her in the dark of her own bedroom! She strained for the light switch, her arm reaching out into blackness.

  “Why are you standing in the dark?” she cried. “Oh, very funny, aren’t you?”

  “Leave the light alone,” he warned her, his voice a soft rasp. “Where were you all this damned time?”

  In the shadowed blackness the muscles of his long thighs and the bones of his narrow hips pressed against her; the virile warmth of his lean body was as startlingly clear in her mind as though he were visible. More, Rachel thought with a panicky gulp: the nerve endings of her suddenly sensitized skin were supplying pictures of a sensuous, powerful male animal with hard crystal eyes that could see her while she couldn’t see him.

  “Leave me alone,” she blurted. “Turn on the light!”

  “No. I want it dark.” As she stood trembling he pulled her braid loose and raked his fingers through her hair, causing it to shower down over her shoulders. “It’s been four damned days—I’ve been sitting here every night waiting for you, thinking about you lying in your boyfriend’s arms someplace”—his voice dropped—”enjoying it while he made love to you. Where did you go?”

  “I haven’t got a—it’s none of your business!” she cried. It took every ounce of control she possessed not to struggle as his fingers stroked her loosened hair. “You have no right to say such a stupid thing.” She tried to jerk her head away. “Leave me alone! Let me turn on the light!”

  She sensed that he bent his head to her, and heard him inhale softly. “I remember the smell of you, just like soap and flowers,” he muttered. The note of rough yearning in his voice took her unaware. She felt him lift a handful of her hair and bury his face in it. “Ah, damn, Rachel, I haven’t been able to think of anything else. It’s been driving me crazy.”

  She fought the sudden rush of feeling that assailed her in the darkness. What was she going to do with him? Why did he have to say these things when he didn’t mean them? Why was it necessary to trick her, humble her like this when he’d already had his revenge?

  Her eyes, adjusting to the absence of any light except a faint glow from the bedroom window, could make him out as a dark shape towering over her. She was almost fearfully attuned to the sound of his slow breathing, the soft stroke of his hands in her hair, the warmth of his powerful big body, which soaked through the front of her clothes. He was a stranger, and yet familiar. She couldn’t quite see that hard, sculpted face below a tangle of thick gold-streaked hair, or the faint gleam of his eyes. But she remembered his nakedness, his skin like raw silk and his potent masculinity. It was all she could do to keep from touching him.

  There was nothing simple or uncomplicated about this man. He was so clever, so handsome, so experienced with women, so sure of his sexual magic. She felt a surge of righteous indignation. But what a juvenile trick—to wait in the dark for her like this and frighten her half to death!

  “You’re pulling my hair,” she cried. “Stop it! Leave me alone!”

  “I’m sorry.” His tone was unexpectedly contrite. His free hand lifted the unraveled mass of her hair and held it away from the back of her neck, but he did not let her go. “Just take it easy. I had to come back. I don’t know what the hell you did to me, but I want more.” His voice dropped to a seductive huskiness. “And I know you want it too.”

  “Stop it!” She tried to pry his big body away from her and couldn’t. “What are you doing inside my house? Why are you—how did you get here?” She was thinking of D’Arcy and how at that moment she was on her way to Belle Haven.

  “I came through the woods.” The touch of hard fingers had dropped from her hair to work at the buttons on the front of her shirtwaist dress. When it came open his hand quickly inserted itself into the deep pressing fullness of the cleft of her breasts.

  “But that’s miles!” She shuddered, unable to fight her own quick response to what he was doing. At the same time she felt his mouth tracing the side of her cheek, the line of her chin, wanting her to turn her face up to him.

  Perhaps it was his hand moving against her bared skin with such soft assurance. Or the realization that he’d come across the night-blackened countryside like a predator, stalking her, that restored her sanity. She squirmed in his grip. He was dangerous and cruel—how could she have forgotten so quickly?

  “Stop it!” She batted at him without thinking. “You have a woman at your house for this sort of thing!” she cried wildly.

  She heard him laugh. “What sort of thing? If you mean Darla Jean, I kicked her out. She was just hanging around anyway. It was over a long time ago.”

  Even writhing against him, Rachel could not dislodge his hand; it clasped her breast and stroked possessively, his thumb coaxing the hard point of her nipple.

  She was struggling now in earnest, terrified of her own quivering expectation of his mouth against her skin, of his tongue lavishing her, burning her, making her want more. She gritted her teeth as the tips of her breasts involuntarily contracted into tight aching buds, shooting arrows of excited painfulness deep between her thighs. “Let me go, I don’t want you to touch me! You’re crude, disgusting!”

  “God, yes,” he agreed huskily. “Always have been.”

  The pressure of his hard jeans-clad thigh against her knee and hip steadied her as her spine arched, thrusting her against him. In a moment he would put his mouth on her. Her taut breasts thrust out, wanting him, aching for him.

  He drew in a sharp breath. “Ah, baby, how can you fight this when everything I do to you makes that lovely body want me like hell? Like this. And this.” His hands were shaking as he pulled the still-clasped brassiere hurriedly down under her breasts. Her flesh was h
ard and swollen, upthrust against the maddening strokes of his circling touch. “Rachel, give me your beautiful softness and your lovely fire that wants me—wants me so much,” he murmured, his mouth finding her lips.

  She drowned in that sudden dark seizure of his kiss, the slow, savoring possession that stroked and caressed her with all the desire of his words. Her head spinning as the sensuous magic tried to drag her deeper into his spell, she squirmed against him with the last of her resistance. He finally let her drag her mouth away, the harsh rasp of his released breath loud in the dark.

  “Listen to me—will you hold still a minute?” There was impatience in his voice. His thighs and legs encased in rough denim clamped her legs and body hard against him, wanting her to feel his rigid arousal. “I ought to be sorry this happened, but how can I? You wanted me, you went to bed with me of your own free will, you can’t deny that. You can’t deny anything because I had you and you were a redheaded hellcat, bucking under me, climbing all over me and going crazy, you loved it so much.” When she made a small wordless sound of protest he went on. “And I had you again after that, I made love to you a third time until all you could do was lie there and moan for me.”

  “Don’t,” she cried.

  “Don’t tell me don’t—I had you, woman. I enjoyed the hell out of you until you couldn’t move. And still you wanted me. After something like that do you expect me to leave you alone?” Raw desire darkened his husky voice. “Look, let me make love to you.” When she jerked against him he growled, “One more time. If it’s bad—if it was all a big damned illusion—I swear I’ll leave you alone.”

  She heard his words dimly. She couldn’t allow him to do this, to invade her house like a burglar, to lie in wait for her in the dark and remind her of things she wanted to forget! Why, when she was near him, did everything dissolve into a sort of madness? “I’ll call D’Arcy!” An empty threat, but it was the only thing she could think of; D’Arcy had already left.