The Best Way to Lose (7 page)

“Back seat or front?” Trace tried to smile, but his lip was starting to hurt.

“Front,” Digger grunted.

After he slid into the passenger side, Trace slumped in the seat, letting it support him. The soreness was beginning, the dull aches turning into painful throbs. He glanced briefly at Digger when he climbed behind the wheel and shut the door.

“You can just drop me off by the waterfront,” Trace said and shut his eyes.

“Did you get a good look at that bar when you walked outa there?” Digger Jones demanded.

“No.”

“You smashed it up good,” Digger assured him on an impatient note. “Dammit, Trace, I thought you’d told me you learned a few things. One of these times you’re gonna start a fight and somebody’s gonna get bad hurt. It probably won’t be you. The bad ones seldom come out on the wrong end of the stick,” he muttered angrily as he drove down the street. “But what happens if somebody does get hurt or killed? Did’ja ever think about that?” he hotly challenged Trace. “Did’ja? You could wind up in prison. All right, so maybe you don’t give a damn about yourself—but wouldn’t you care if you crippled some guy? Wouldn’t you care about his family?”

A frown pulled at Trace’s forehead as the words hammered at him. “Don’t lecture me tonight, Digger.”

There was a long run of silence in the car. At each chuckhole and rough patch in the road, Trace’s bruised and battered muscles protested the further abuse. He hurt so much, he didn’t even want to think—but that had been his intention all along.

“This is a fine mess.” Again Digger grumbled his disapproval. “They bury your daddy this afternoon and you damned near get yourself arrested for brawling in some barroom tonight. You’ve got a fine way of mourning the dead.”

“Shut up, Digger.” The remark had touched a sore spot.

“Yeah, I’ll shut up,” Digger agreed roughly. “’Cause I’m just wasting my breath. Look at you—all bloodied up until your momma could hardly recognize you. What have you got to show for all the living you’ve done? Nothing. And you know what you’re going to have tomorrow? Nothing. There’s only one way for you to go, Santee—and that’s down.”

This time the silence lasted. Trace kept his eyes shut and made no reply to Digger’s prediction, letting his head rock on the back of the seat with the motion of the traveling car. When it finally rolled to a stop, he roused himself with an effort, pain shooting through every inch of his body. His right eye was completely swollen shut. He reached for the door handle even before he looked at his surroundings.

A huge white structure loomed beside the parked patrol car. It took him half a second to recognize the rear entrance to Dragon Walk as he stepped out of the car.

“Why the hell did you bring me here?” Trace demanded and felt the cut on his lip start to bleed again. “I told you to take me to the waterfront.”

“I figured Cassie oughta take a look at you.” Digger climbed out of the car. “I’d have taken you to the hospital, but I wanted to save your family the embarrassment of having everyone in town know you were up to your old
tricks again.” He hitched his pants higher around his waist and glanced at the back door. “The lights are on in the kitchen. I reckon Cassie is still up.”

Trace stayed in the shadows and watched his friend walk up to the back door and rap lightly on the frame. It was several long seconds before the door swung open.

“What are you doing here at this time of night, Digger?” Cassie was silhouetted in the light shining from the kitchen. “Something’s happened to Trace.” She guessed immediately.

“He started a fight in some bar. I got him out of there and brought him along with me. I thought you’d better take a look at him.” He jerked his head in Trace’s direction.

Before he could say another word, Cassie was anxiously hurrying down the short flight of steps from the rear door and hustling toward the dark form half leaning against the car. Her hand reached for his chin to turn it and give her a better look at his face. She made a clicking sound of dismay with her tongue.

“It isn’t as bad as it looks,” Trace muttered and impatiently brushed her hand aside.

There was a part of him that wasn’t in the mood for solicitous concern. The fight had been a form of self-punishment, both a way to release all the turmoil inside and to scourge its presence. Physical pain was easier to cope with than mental suffering.

“Come inside and we’ll get you cleaned up.” She was brusque and firm as she took his arm with a strong grip to guide him to the door.

But Trace hung back, his one good eye running a glance at the plantation house. “No. I’m not coming in.” It was a subdued refusal, quiet and stiff.

Long adept at putting two and two together, Cassie guessed his reason. “She’s gone upstairs to her room, and you’re coming into the kitchen with me where there is some light so I can see what you’ve done to your eye.” She was professionally gruff with him, not tolerating any of his nonsense and pride.

This time Trace let her lead him into the house, his legs operating with stiff coordination. Each step seemed to jar some new sore spot and start some part of his body aching. She guided him to the table and sat him in a chair.

“The coffee should still be hot, if you’d like a cup, Digger.” Cassie absently offered the invitation while she began to fill a basin with water and gather the items she’d need to treat Trace.

“No thanks. I’m on duty. I’d better head back into town before they start wondering what happened to me.” His expression was grim as he sent a look at Trace. “Try not to get into any more trouble before you leave town. The next time I’ll have to haul you in.”

“I’ve done enough for one visit,” Trace assured the local officer with a trace of bitter irony.

“Look after him, Cassie. Lord knows, he needs it,” Digger advised and went out the door, closing it quietly behind him.

Everything was all arranged on the table beside Trace when Cassie finally bent to her task, first gently and thoroughly wiping the blood from his face. “Trace Santee, what am I going to do with you?” She murmured the words, never pausing in her ministrations or letting her attention falter from her actions. “Who’d you pick a fight with? Muhammad Ali? He certainly did a good job messing up your face.” She rinsed out the cloth, and the water in the basin turned a murky reddish brown. “I’d hate to see what you did to him.”

“Them,” he corrected, wincing when the wet cloth touched his face again. “There were three of them. Unfortunately they were all still standing when Digger arrived on the scene.”

“Three.” Impatience snapped in her dark eyes as she shook her head mildly. “You always did like to go against the odds. The bigger the better. I don’t suppose it would do me any good to ask what started it.”

“Something they said I didn’t like.” His whole face felt funny, all swollen and bruised, throbbing with soreness wherever she touched it.

“Something you didn’t like, huh?” Her attention remained intent on his face, but the corners of her mouth were pulled grimly down. “It couldn’t be that they made some remark about Pilar, could it?” Her hard
glance held his wary, one-eyed look for an instant. “It doesn’t take much figuring to come up with that guess. Your father was an important man in this town, and she’s got the kind of looks men talk about. And some remark about her would be just the thing to spark that romantic streak in you and push you into thinking you had to defend her honor. All your life you’ve wanted to slay dragons.” Her knowledgeable fingers pressed around his eye and pried the lids apart, letting a slit of light in. “That eye looks bad.”

“It hurts like hell,” Trace said, commenting on it rather than her observation, but he couldn’t leave one subject entirely alone. “I guess she has been an item of gossip for quite a while.”

“When she first came to Natchez to inventory and reappraise the antiques at Bentley Hall, she created quite a stir.” There was a widening flare of Cassie’s eyes to indicate that was an understatement. “Hardly anyone thought that someone so young and so beautiful could have any brains—or experience. It was quite a controversy for a while until they learned she had literally been raised in the business. Both of her parents were antique dealers in Virginia, and highly respected, too. The way Pilar tells it, she knew the difference between Belter and Chippendale when she was four. For three years she worked in London for the Sotheby company—that famous one that handles all those art and antique auctions.” All the while Cassie was absently
rattling on, telling him things he knew and some he didn’t, she was getting crushed ice from the ice-maker attachment on the refrigerator and making a cold compress with a clean, damp cloth. “Hold this to your eye.”

Gingerly Trace pressed it to the closed eye and felt the frissons of pain at the contact. Cassie noticed the skinned and cut knuckles of his hands and washed away the caking blood on them.

“Of course, Elliot’s whirlwind courtship of her really set the town on its ear. There were some that said they weren’t surprised she married him, since she obviously loved ‘Old things.’ Thankfully they were too happy to let a lot of gossip bother them. Elliot was sensitive to it, though—for a lot of reasons.” Her glance briefly caught his eye during that small hesitation but she didn’t pursue that topic. “Their marriage worked well. She took over the administration of the Santee Foundation, which Elliot had never liked,” Cassie said, referring to the trust set up by Trace’s grandfather to assist in the funding and preservation of historically significant southern landmarks or sites. “Plus she opened up a small antique shop in town, to keep her hand in the trade.”

“That must have given him a lot of free time,” Trace mused somewhat absently. “The talk on the river has been that most of the company decisions lately have been made by Cunningham.”

“Elliot didn’t spend as much time at the
office as he used to,” Cassie admitted. “But he wasn’t coming home to an empty house anymore either.” Although the home office for the Santee Line of river barges was located in Natchez, Trace had always worked out of the terminal in New Orleans. The arrangement had conveniently suited his needs. “What about your ribs? Did you get any of them cracked or broken?”

“No.” Trace flinched from the probe of her fingers. “They’re just bruised.” The pounding in his head seemed to increase in intensity. “Have you got any aspirin?”

While Cassie went to the sink to get him a glass of water, Trace managed to light a cigarette despite the stiff soreness of his fingers. But the smoke made the cut on his lip sting painfully, and he put out the cigarette after only one drag.

The muted sound of a car motor penetrated the thick walls of the house. The hairbrush paused in midstroke as Pilar listened, but there wasn’t any knock at the front door. After a few minutes she decided someone had driven slowly past the house and resumed brushing out her long hair.

It was only seconds later that she heard a car driving away. Puzzled, she walked to the balcony doors in time to see headlight beams as a car turned onto the road past Dragon Walk. A tiny frown creased her forehead. She tried to shrug it off, telling herself that Cassie
had probably spoken to the late callers and indicated that she had retired to her room.

Her
room, in the singular. It was no longer “their” room. Melancholy settled over her as she slid the brush onto the marble-topped vanity. After thinking in the plural for so long, it seemed unnatural. Sometimes none of this seemed real. A sudden tightness gripped her throat, trapping a breath.

Elliot. Sweet, gallant Elliot, a fine southern gentleman to the tips of his toes. How many times had she gotten upset over something, yet there had never been a harsh word spoken by him. He had openly adored her, and it had been impossible not to be completely captivated by his romantic charm. Never in her life had she known anyone like him. It was certainly apparent that Trace Santee didn’t take after him. The mere thought of him brought a ripple of disgust.

A restless discontent pushed her to the door. She ventured into the hallway with the vague excuse of finding Cassie and discovering who had stopped by a few minutes earlier. All the lights were on downstairs, reflecting their glow into the stairwell.

When she didn’t find Cassie in the parlor, Pilar headed for the kitchen. As she opened the door she was looking directly at the man sitting at the table with his back to her. Even though she couldn’t see his face, the clothes and the leanly muscled shape of him were enough to give away his identity.

“What are you doing here? I thought I told you—” Her simmering accusal was cut off in midstream as he turned in her direction and lowered the bulky cloth that had covered part of his face.

Practically the whole right side was a swollen, purpling mass of bruised flesh. An open cut puffed the top of his mouth, and there were less severe bruises on the other half of his face, distorting his rugged features.

“My God,” Pilar gasped at the brutal sight. “What happened?” She threw a short glance at Cassie, whose mouth was tightly shut in silence; then her questioning gaze darted back to Trace.

His back was turned to her again as he awkwardly straightened to his feet, giving her a narrow side glimpse of his jaw. “I ran into somebody’s fist.” It was a half-muttered, irritated response.

There was a moment of blankness until his answer finally sunk in. Her lips thinned into a narrow line. “You mean you were in a fight,” she retorted in disgust.

“Yes.” The clothpack was thrown into the sink.

“I can’t believe you are Elliot’s son!” Pilar declared in a kind of dumbfounded anger and contempt.

“Pilar—” Cassie attempted to insert a disapproval.

“No.” She refused to be silenced. “Maybe you feel sorry for him, but I don’t! He’s gotten
just what he deserves. And I have no pity for him at all.”

“I never asked for any!” He half turned to his left, bringing her into his vision.

Her raking glance skimmed his rangy build, the skinned knuckles, and the rumpled black hair. “You really are good for nothing,” she stated with a decisive pronouncement. “What do you think you proved by fighting tonight? That you’re a man? A tough guy?” she taunted him.