Czytaj książkę: «In Roared Flint»

One

Flint Durham was back.

A fury of emotions surged through Julie Travis Stevens as she clutched the lace curtains of her upstairs bedroom and watched him rip down Travis Boulevard toward the house.

Dressed in black and astride a Harley, he was roaring in the same way he’d roared out six years before. An unforgettable aura of dark intensity and menacing allure rode with him like a familiar. Unshaven, with a red bandanna on his head and his long black hair streaming behind him, he exuded a wild sensuality that was every mother’s nightmare. And every daughter’s secret dream.

Squeezing her lids tightly shut, Julie prayed that her eyes had deceived her, that her mind had conjured up an apparition. Oh, please, God. No. Not Flint. Not now. Not today. But when she opened her eyes, there he was—unmistakably real.

After six long years, why had he picked today of all days to come back?

One thing she knew for sure: Flint Durham was up to no good. A sick, sinking feeling gripped her stomach, and she groaned involuntarily.

“Julie, what’s wrong?” her younger sister, Melissa, asked. She gathered her long shirt and crossed the room to peer out the window. “You look like you’ve seen a—Holy horse patties!” She grabbed Julie’s arm in a death grip, and her eyes bugged out like a bullfrog’s. “Would you look at that? I can’t believe it. It’s him. It’s Flint. Flint Durham. Holy horse patties!”

Julie fought back the panic building inside her as she watched him roll to a stop behind the caterer’s truck and set the kickstand. Sure that she teetered on the edge of screaming hysteria, she clung to the shreds of her self-control as he came up the walk, his broad shoulders and long legs moving with the familiar, confident swagger that always had women in six counties swooning over him.

“Julie, he’s coming to the door,” Melissa said, her voice an octave higher. “What are you going to do?”

“If I had a gun, I’d shoot the bastard!”

The doorbell rang, and the melodious chimes above the double staircase reverberated throughout the big house like a disaster knell.

“Aren’t you even going to talk to him?” Melissa asked.

“No way. I’m not letting him ruin two wedding days for me. Hand me my veil before you completely mangle it, and go downstairs and tell Rosie not to let him in.”

Melissa sighed. “Why do I have the feeling that getting rid of Flint won’t be easy?”

“Tell him that I said, ‘Drop dead.’ That ought to do the trick. If not, call Uncle Hiram.” Uncle Hiram, the eldest of the town founder’s four grandsons, was the police chief in Travis Creek, and he ruled the small East Texas town with an iron fist. Uncle Edgar owned the Travis Creek Times; her daddy was the president of the bank. And Uncle William…well, Uncle William drank.

After Melissa hurried out, Julie sat down at her dressing table to finish her hair and makeup. She hummed loudly to drown out the ruckus downstairs. In exactly one hour and forty-eight minutes, she would say “I do” with Dr. Robert Allen Newly in her parents’ rose garden. And she was determined that nothing was going to spoil this day. Her pale peach dress was perfect; the weather was perfect; the roses were perfect. Rob was the perfect husband for her. Her parents said so frequently.

The only thing about her wedding that caused her the least bit of trepidation was that her name would be Julie Newly. It sounded like part of a bad jingle.

She would have to sign her letters: Yours truly, Julie Newly.

Shouting from downstairs stabbed at her composure, but she hummed louder.

Yes, Rob was a wonderful man. From a fine family. With a marvelous future as a physician. Perhaps if she’d known him when he was choosing his specialty she might have steered him toward heart surgery or even dermatology, but people needed proctologists, too, she told herself.

And what did a little bald spot matter when he was so good with the children? Perhaps his kisses didn’t exactly blister her nail polish, but she’d learned the hard way that other things were more important than wild, mindless passion. Rob was a man of character and substance, steady as a rock. Perfect.

Rob adored her. And best of all, his new practice was in Piano, north of Dallas. She and the children would be out of her parents’ house and into one of their own, one too far away for doting grandparents to hover over the kids and continue to spoil them rotten.

Julie heard the front door slam, but the ruckus downstairs continued—the doorbell chimed incessantly amid shouting and banging. She hummed louder and closed one eyelid to put on eyeliner. Her hand shook so badly that the line looked like rickrack.

“Dammit!” She threw down the pencil and wiped her lid with a tissue.

Melissa ran into the room. “The man is crazy. Wild. I don’t know what to do. He says he won’t go away until he talks to you.”

“Call Uncle Hiram.”

“Oh, Julie, are you sure? Can’t you at least talk to him? God, he’s such a hunk.” Melissa sighed and hung on to one of the posts of the cherry four-poster.

A spray of gravel clattered against Julie’s window and Flint bellowed her name from down below.

“Mommy, Mommy,” Megan said as she ran in the room, grabbed Julie around the legs and plastered her small body against her mother. “There’s a man yelling downstairs. And he looks mean. I’m scared.”

“I’m not scared,” said Jason, Megan’s twin brother. He puffed out his thin five-year-old chest as he marched in. “I’ll morph into a Power Ranger and kick his lights out.”

Julie knelt and gathered the twins to her. She kissed Megan’s forehead. “Darlings, there’s no reason to be afraid. Aunt Missy is calling the police right now,” she said, then looked pointedly at Melissa. “Aren’t you?”

“Right this minute. See?” Melissa snatched up the phone and reported the disturbance to Uncle Hiram. “Someone will be right here.”

Julie gave each of the children a hug. “Now why don’t you run along with Aunt Missy and get your wedding clothes on? The guests will be arriving soon.”

Melissa herded the kids out, and just as the door closed, another clatter of gravel hit the window. Flint bellowed her name. Furious, Julie stomped to the window, threw up the sash and poked her head out.

“Dammit, Flint Durham, would you shut up! You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”

Flint dropped the handful of pebbles he held and looked up. When he spotted Julie, his usual insolent scowl changed immediately into a broad smile with the power of a nuclear reactor.

“Hi, Julie. I’m back.”

“Well, isn’t that just ducky? Now go away!”

“But, Julie, I have to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. Go away! Melissa has called the police, and they’ll be here any minute.”

“Dammit, I’m not leaving until I talk to you!” He grabbed a limb of the oak tree that grew near her window, swung himself up and began climbing.

She shrieked, grabbed a vase of roses and upended flowers and water on him. It had the same effect as pouring gasoline on a fire. He roared, cursed and kept climbing.

She threw everything at him that she could get her hands on, pelting him with a jar of face cream, a candy dish, a pair of bookends. He dodged every missile and kept climbing. She took careful aim at the motorcycle emblazoned across the black T-shirt he wore and hurled a Waterford clock at his chest. It hit dead on target.

A thud, a loud ooofff, a curse. He lost his grip and fell, flailing and still cursing, to the grass below.

Momentarily panicked, Julie leaned out the window and looked down to where Flint lay. He didn’t move. His eyes were closed. Dear Lord, had she killed him?

One black eye opened. It zeroed in on her. “Now what did you go and do that for? I just wanted to talk to you.”

“We have nothing to say, Flint Durham.” As she slammed down the window, a siren wailed from the police car racing toward the house. She turned her back and walked away.

Once more she sat down at her dressing table and hummed very loudly.

“Mommy, Mommy!” Megan and Jason came tearing in her room with Melissa chasing after them, trying to tie Megan’s sash.

“The policemen are taking the mean man away,” Meg said.

“And one of them is riding his biiig motorcycle. Wow! Someday I’m gonna have a motorcycle like that,” Jason chimed in. “Buddennn, buddennn.” He made motor sounds and ran around the room holding imaginary handlebars.

“Not in my lifetime,” Julie told him. “Now run along and finish getting dressed. Mommy has to put on her wedding gown.”

At three o’clock on the last Saturday in April, the guests were assembled on rented chairs in the garden. Since this was Julie’s “second” marriage, the ceremony was kept small and intimate with only about fifty people present, mostly relatives along with a few very old friends.

Her favorite Uncle William sat on the second row, slighted potted Julie was sure, looking gloomy. Uncle William was the only one in the family who thought her marriage to Rob was a mistake. Perhaps because Rob was a teetotaler.

Although, by the end of April, the azaleas and the early spring bulbs were long past their season, Patricia Spalding Travis, Julie’s mother, in conference with God and three gardeners for the past two months, had seen to it that the garden resembled a fairyland of flowers, and the gazebo fairly dripped greenery and blossoms.

With the elderly Millicent Wall on the harp and her older sister, Eugenia, on the flute, magnificent wedding music rippled and trilled over the shaded grounds. The Methodist minister stood on the top step of the gazebo. Rob and his cousin stood two steps down, waiting.

Julie’s palms were decidedly damp. She clutched her bouquet and her father’s arm tightly.

George Travis smiled and parted Julie’s hand. “Nervous?”

“Extremely.”

Her father smiled again. “Rob is a fine man. Your mother and I couldn’t have picked a better husband for you or a father for the twins. There’s nothing for you to be nervous about.”

Julie knew that her father wouldn’t be so calm if he’d known about Flint’s visit earlier. Thankfully, her parents had been away from the house on last-minute errands. Just hearing Flint’s name was enough to dispatch her mother to bed with a migraine and launch her father into a tirade that sent his blood pressure soaring.

She took a deep breath and focused her attention on the ceremony. Her wedding day should be a joyous occasion. She was determined not to let anything taint it.

Megan and Jason led the procession. Jason carried a pillow with gold wedding rings tied securely atop it. An oddly shaped lump protruded from the back pocket of his navy suit, distorting the lines of the tailored jacket. As he had been instructed a score of times, he walked very slowly and carefully, the tip of his tongue at the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on his task. Only once did he swipe his nose with his sleeve.

Megan, wearing ruffled socks and with sash slightly askew, carried a small basket and exuberantly scattered petals from her grandmother’s prize Peace roses along the newly laid flagstone path to the gazebo. Distressed that she misjudged and had run out of petals before she reached her destination, she back-tracked and grabbed a few handfuls from the pathway to replenish her basket. These she dispensed sparingly until she reached the gazebo.

Watching her children, Julie smiled and her chest swelled with pride and love for the pair. Megan and Jason were the light of her life and worth every ounce of heartache she had endured.

When Melissa reached the gazebo, the music changed subtly. The crowd rose and turned.

“That’s our cue, sweetheart.” George Travis kissed his daughter’s cheek.

Julie took a deep breath, plastered a smile on her shaky lips and they started the walk down the flagstone path. Every muscle in her body seemed to quiver, and once she almost stumbled. Her father patted her hand and held his over it.

Why was she so nervous?

She looked at Rob, who waited for her at the gazebo, an adoring expression on his face, his eyes shining brightly as he watched her approach. He was such a dear, sweet man. How could anybody not love him?

They stopped and the minister began. His words echoed vaguely in the buzzing inside her head.

“Her mother and I do,” her father said, then stepped back to take his place on the front row.

The minister began again, and the buzzing in her head grew louder and louder until it was a roar. Was she about to faint?

The roar grew louder. Distracted, the minister stopped and looked up from his prayer book. The guests fidgeted and murmured. Rob glanced over his shoulder and frowned. Julie glanced over her shoulder and almost had a heart attack.

Flint Durham, astride his Harley, vroommed through the side yard, cut a swath across Patricia Spalding Travis’s bed of lavender petunias, and was headed down the flagstone path straight for the gazebo.

He screeched to a stop mere inches from the bride and groom, set one black-booted foot on the ground and scowled. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” he growled at Julie.

The guests gasped.

“Getting married,” she enunciated distinctly.

Flint’s black eyes swept over Rob, then he sneered. “To him? Like hell you are!”

“Flint, would you go away! You’re making a spectacle of yourself and ruining my wedding!”

“Damned right. You’re coming with me. Get on the bike.”

“I will not!”

“Now see here,” Rob said, stepping forward.

Flint reached beneath his leather vest, whipped out a gun and shoved it against Rob’s nose.

Rob froze.

The guests gasped louder.

A woman shrieked.

A man’s voice boomed.

“Mommy! Mommy!”

Panic rose up in Julie’s throat. He’d gone mad, absolutely mad. Dangerously mad.

“Get on the bike,” Flint said gruffly, ordering Julie with a quick gesture of his head.

“Flint, please, can’t we—”

“On the bike.” He gestured with his head again. The gun under Rob’s nose lifted him until he was tiptoeing in his patent leather shoes and sweating profusely.

“Mommy! Mommy!”

She hesitated only a millisecond. Her babies. She had to protect her babies. She tossed Melissa her bouquet, hitched up the short train of her dress and climbed on behind him.

Flint flashed Rob a wolfish grin. “So long, sucker.” He shot the groom with two good squirts from the water pistol he held, then revved up the bike and took off across the marigold bed.

With Julie cursing and beating her fists on his back and pandemonium breaking loose behind them, he threw back his head and laughed.