Beneath Southern Skies

And she still had the downstairs to finish up.

Consolidated Investments, the firm that Norman Harper represented, wanted to take immediate possession of the house and the five acres of land that it sat on. She was scheduled to meet with him tomorrow afternoon to discuss terms and sign over the deed, and by then she was hoping to have everything in the house completely packed up and cleared out.

There wasn’t much that she wanted to keep—just a few odds and ends. The rest she was going to donate to charity. As for the house itself...well, giving it up would be bittersweet, but she had to face facts. She never intended to live in Mercy again and she desperately needed the money. It didn’t make sense for the house to continue sitting there like an unwanted and abandoned museum, or the land to go on being an unused burden on the town. As it was, she was itching to get back to New York and start reviving her career, and nothing here could help her do that.

Traffic to her online weblog had drastically fallen off in the months since her column had disappeared from the Inquisitor. Her website had once attracted nearly a million unique visitors daily, mostly because she had always reposted her print articles there, but there were also other tidbits and points of interest that drew attention. Fashion tips, popular high-end cosmetic and fragrance ad placements, updates on some of her favorite scandalous reality TV shows, exclusive celebrity interviews, and on and on. The kinds of stuff that interested women, which was her target audience, and kept them coming back for more. Just as she’d hoped, it hadn’t taken the public long to notice her absence and sound off about it both on her blog and in the Letters to the Editor section of the Inquisitor.

But the loyalty that she’d counted on had turned out to be a joke, and Saul was probably laughing his head off about it now. She could just see him, mumbling I told you so’s to anyone who’d listen, and comforting himself with the knowledge that he’d been right all along about her impulsiveness ultimately being her downfall.

Apparently, Vanessa Valentino was just another disposable commodity. After a few weeks’ worth of inquiring comments, her audience had dropped her like a hot potato and moved on without a second thought. The blog was silent as a tomb now, which had initially struck like a blow straight to her heart, but the more she thought about it, the more she was beginning to feel that maybe it was for the best. When she did make her comeback—and she would make a comeback—she’d make that much more of a splash. Saul wouldn’t be laughing then.

Ma’Dear had never completely understood what she did for a living, because Tressie had never really been completely forthcoming about her occupation. If there had ever been a Bible-thumping, God-fearing woman, it was Ma’Dear. She would’ve seen Tressie’s occupation as a celebrity gossip columnist as a complete and utter waste of God-given time. So Tressie had led Ma’Dear to believe that she was simply a staff reporter, a lowly one at that, who spent her workdays doing research and writing copy for the big-name reporters. If Ma’Dear had ever suspected that there was more to the story, thank God she’d never said so, because Tressie would’ve hated lying to the woman who had raised her after her mother had died in childbirth.

But she would’ve, in a heartbeat.

Fortunately, that was all behind her now. Ma’Dear was the only family that she’d had left in the world and she missed her every day, but without her to act as Tressie’s long-distance conscience, Vanessa Valentino was free to take her game to the next level. And without Saul breathing down her neck and constantly trying to rein her in, she could expand her reach in ways that she’d been wanting to for years. Vanessa Valentino could finally become a brand name.

No, Vanessa Valentino would finally become a brand name. She had the contacts, the ideas and the guts to make it happen for herself. All she had to do now was get her hands on the money from the sale of the two things still tying her to Mercy, Georgia, by a thin thread—the house and land that Ma’Dear had left her.

Determined to meet the deadline that she had set for herself, Tressie forced herself to rise from the rocking chair and stretch her tired muscles. Suddenly starving, she deposited her empty glass in the kitchen sink and went in search of her cell phone. First she’d take a quick shower and then order lunch. Then she’d finish dealing with the house today if it was the last thing she did.

* * *

After an inexplicably delayed clearance from the airport in Darfur and then an excruciatingly long red-eye flight that was riddled with nonstop turbulence, all Nathaniel Woodberry wanted to do was make his way to the nearest bed and hibernate for at least the next twenty-four hours. But there was still an hour-long drive to look forward to once his flight landed in Atlanta and he finally made it through airport security. Fortunately, his bag was the first to appear on the luggage ramp and, thanks to his publicist, who also doubled as his personal assistant, a rented SUV was waiting for him at the valet station outside.

Already missing the love of his life—a vintage Jeep Wrangler that had seen just as much combat as he had—he tossed his gigantic duffel bag into the backseat of an idling Lincoln Navigator, peeled off his leather blazer and slid into the driver’s seat. With the air-conditioning set to high, the radio tuned in to an all-jazz station and his cell phone switched off, he drove away from the airport and headed for the interstate and home.

For the past two decades he had called Seattle, Washington, home, but there was home and then there was home. Seattle was where he had settled right after graduating from college and accepting an entry-level staff reporter position with the Seattle Times. It was where he had gotten his start as a local news reporter and honed his craft—where he had fully indulged his photography hobby and invested in his first Nikon. Even back then his camera had pointed him toward chaos and controversy, which was how he’d found his twentysomething self wandering into the midst of an infamous Seattle riot and snapping a series of pictures that had ultimately catapulted him from staff reporter to frontline investigative journalist.

From there, his camera had taken him into the kinds of volatile and unpredictable situations that many journalists wouldn’t even dream of going into, let alone getting up close and personal with—wars in the Middle East and Africa, the jungles of South America, guerrilla soldier camps... By now the list was endless.

Somewhere along the way he had earned a reputation for being a daredevil. Probably right around the time he had decided to strike out on his own and become a freelance journalist, Nate thought as he picked up speed on the interstate, activated the cruise control and relaxed back into the plush leather seat. Some had thought him a fool for wanting to make his own rules and choose his own path, and others had predicted quick and brutal career suicide for him. But he’d been just hungry enough, just stubborn and fearless enough, to put both himself and his camera in imminent danger again and again for the sake of a story.

His pictures, the words he paired them with and occasionally the sound bites that he sometimes risked his life recording on location—all had graced the covers of magazines and newspapers around the world and been featured on countless online and television news outlets. Now his services were so in demand that his publicist was overworked and in need of a raise, and Nate was lucky if he was able to carve out time for a quick vacation here and there between assignments.

It’d been months since he had actually met with his publicist in person and even longer than that since he’d stepped foot inside his apartment in Seattle, and covering the aftermath of the conflict in Darfur was only partly to blame. Trips like these, trips back home to Mercy, Georgia, were the other half of the equation.

At the Mercy exit, Nate left the interstate and cruised along the two-lane service road that led into town. Traffic on the usually quiet and scenic road was heavier than usual, inching along in some spots and coming to a complete standstill in others. He passed a long stretch of farmland before the scenery opened up to clusters of residential communities and then a small industrial park. It was the same scenery that had always been there, except that now there was a new addition. Just past the industrial parks, new construction was going on, ground being broken and buildings leveled.

Seeing it caused a wrinkle of irritation to appear in the center of Nate’s forehead. He knew without having to track its progress that it was heading straight toward Mercy, Georgia. Short of a miracle suddenly happening, in a matter of months those demolition crews would be destroying the entire town and leaving hundreds of displaced people in their wake. People who wouldn’t be able to afford to live in the resort-style, luxury gated community that was slated to be built in its place. In political terms, it was called eminent domain, but as far as the people of Mercy were concerned it was theft, plain and simple.

Nate tended to agree.

When the Welcome to Mercy, Georgia, sign finally appeared on the side of the road up ahead, Nate picked up his cell phone from the passenger seat, turned it on and pressed a button to connect to his publicist. The phone on the other end had barely rung once before it was answered.

“It’s about time you called,” Julia Gustav said by way of greeting. “I was beginning to wonder if I should call the police and have an APB put out on you. Oh, but wait, I wouldn’t be able to give them an accurate description of you, now, would I? God knows I haven’t seen you in forever. Do you even care that I miss you?”

Nate chuckled, glad that Julia couldn’t see him just then. He was blushing like a schoolboy, which was exactly what she made him feel like sometimes. “I know, sugar, and I’m sorry. It can’t be helped right now, but I’ll tell you what. How about I take you out for a night on the town when I get back to Seattle?” he said. “We’ll take in a show, have a lavish dinner and drink bubbly all night. Maybe take a walk by the lakefront and catch up. Sound good?”

“Better than good,” Julia purred. “Promise?”

“Of course. It’ll be just like old times.”

Julia had been his publicist and personal assistant for more than a decade, which meant that she knew him better than he knew himself most of the time. At sixty years old, she was the closest thing to a favorite aunt he’d ever had, and he was crazy about her. Ever since his mother had passed away six months ago, Julia had taken it upon herself to become his keeper, insisting that he call her at least once every other day, regardless of where he was in the world or what he was doing, just as he had called his mother. Normally, he was able to deliver, but being damn near undercover in Darfur, with limited or no cell access for hundreds of miles and very little human contact that hadn’t required a translator, had kept him out of touch for longer than usual this time. It went without saying that he had some making up to do.

“No, it won’t,” Julia told him. “The last time we went out for a night on the town, your mother was with us.” Her voice turned wistful. “You flew us both to New York on a private jet, like we were queens, and took us to a Broadway show. We sat next to that famous actress and her husband, and your mother couldn’t believe that you were actually friends with them.” Julia laughed throatily. “She had the best time.”

“Yes, she did,” Nate said quietly, remembering. Merlene Woodberry had been like a kid in a candy store whenever she visited New York, and her last trip there was no different. When she hadn’t been dragging him around to every tourist attraction that the city had to offer, she’d spent hours on end walking him around Time Square, watching people and marveling at their antics. At the time, Nate had chalked up her hyperenthusiasm to the fact that she had decided that the trip would be her last for the next little while. She had more clients than normal back home, she’d said, and there were some things that she wanted to have done around the house that she needed to be home to oversee.

He’d had no idea that she was dying.

“So we’ll dedicate the night to her memory,” he suggested with a cheerfulness that he was nowhere near feeling. “She’d like that.”

“Hmm, I think she would also approve of what you’re trying to do for your hometown. It’s a special little place.”

“It was to her.”

His ancestors had lived in Mercy since the slaves were emancipated, and Merlene had lived and breathed the town. As for him—well, it had always been a nice place to live as long as he’d actually had to. But the minute he was old enough to start dreaming about places far, far away, he had started planning his escape route. Still, Mercy was special—Julia was right about that. His mother would never forgive him if he didn’t at least try to save it.

Julia’s voice broke into his thoughts. “So I’ll see you in, what? A couple of days? A week?”

“Maybe a little longer. There’s a town-hall meeting scheduled for tomorrow that I want to sit in on, and then I have a meeting the day after that. So we’ll see how it goes.”

After hanging up, Nate tossed his cell phone back into the passenger seat, only to have it ring again. He snatched it up again. “Woodberry.”

“When you said you were coming home today, did you mean today or did you mean next month today?” a deep, gravelly voice asked.

He rolled his eyes to the roof of the car and took a breath for patience. “I’m driving into town as we speak, Jasper,” he drawled. He rolled to a halt at the stoplight in front of the funeral home that Jasper Holmes owned and tooted his horn loud enough to be heard inside the three-story building. Jasper lived in the bachelor’s apartment on the top floor. “Did you hear that, old man?”

“That you?”

“Yep. You need anything while I’m in the area?” If he’d ever had an uncle, which he hadn’t, he probably would’ve been just like Jasper Holmes, Nate thought as he idled at the red light. Growing up, he had never quite cleaved to Jasper the way most of the town’s kids had, seeing him as a surrogate father figure, but the two of them had always had a grudging respect for one another. “Dinner? Your medicine? An ass-kicking in dominoes?”

Jasper cackled heartily at the thinly veiled but good-natured threat. “You wish, boy. You wish. I might take you up on that tomorrow sometime, though. Right now I’m thinking about putting some ribs in the smoker out back. Hallie Norris called me this morning and said that Elaine Gordon told her that Jessie down at Hayden’s Diner told her that Juanita Valentine’s granddaughter popped up in town the other day. Jessie says she’s been ordering takeout from the diner morning, noon and night, and we both know how Willie Burnett’s cooking can burn a hole in your gut. So I figured I might smoke a few pieces of meat, whip up some potato salad and see if I could talk Lilly Davis into throwing some stuff into a pot and ending up with her version of spaghetti. Figured the least we could do is feed the girl. Juanita was good people. She—”

Nate hadn’t listened to a word Jasper had said past hearing that Juanita Valentine’s granddaughter was in town. “Wait a minute. Did you just say that Tressie Valentine is in town?”

“Yeah,” Jasper confirmed. “Been here since the day before yesterday, the way I hear it. She’s staying in Juanita’s house. Well, I guess it’s her house now, but—”

“Do me a favor and hold up on setting out a buffet, okay? Let me look into some things and I’ll call you back.”

Nate disconnected the call and made a U-turn on two wheels in the middle of Main Street. Ignoring the blaring horns of drivers who had been suddenly and illegally cut off, he drove back the way he had come. Less than a hundred feet from the Welcome to Mercy, Georgia, sign at the entrance to town and directly across the street from the Greyhound bus station was a one-way road that circled around to the east side of town and opened up to a small cluster of residential streets. The area ran alongside a dense, wooded thatch and, years ago, it had been separated from the rest of the town by wrought-iron gates at each end. The houses inside the gates were the largest in Mercy, rambling three- and four-story structures that only the handful of wealthy residents in Mercy could afford to own. Beyond it, up on the hill, was the house that he and all of the other kids in Mercy had fondly referred to as the White House. Before the gates had been taken down, the farthest that he had ventured inside the gates had been to occasionally visit Moira Tobias, the owner of the White House. Now he made a beeline for another house, the one that Tressie Valentine had grown up in with her grandmother.

Nate skidded to a stop behind the small sedan that was parked in the driveway and hopped out of the Navigator before the machine had fully registered the shift from Drive to Park. It was still shuddering when he took the steps leading to the wraparound front porch two at a time and rang the doorbell.

Thirty seconds later and no response, he rang the doorbell again. Then again. Still no response. Cursing under his breath, he tried the doorknob. His eyebrows shot up in surprise when it turned easily and the door swung open.

The first floor was clear, he discovered after checking out each room. Other than stacks of already packed boxes and flattened boxes waiting to be packed scattered everywhere, there was no sign of Tressie. He was wondering if she had gone out somewhere when he heard sounds of movement above his head. Exactly what the source of those sounds was didn’t register with him until he was already on the second floor and approaching the first door to his left—the door to the hall bathroom.

The shower.

It was going full blast and she was singing along with the water’s spray. No, that wasn’t quite right. Actually she was singing—horribly—over and above the water’s spray. The sound of her voice scraped across his nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard, spiking his irritation level into orbit. Without stopping to think about what he was doing, he barged into the steamy bathroom and snatched the shower curtain back.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he bellowed.

Chapter 2

She turned just as a blast of cool air slammed into her skin, and then visions of warriors rushing in for battle flashed before her eyes—big, strapping men with bulging muscles, bloodthirsty expressions on their faces, and mighty swords slicing through the air. She saw herself being impaled to death and then buried in a shallow grave deep in the woods, where no one would ever find her. She saw, as plain as day, the likelihood that no one would even bother to look for her because the sad fact was that she wasn’t the most popular person in the world and she had no real friends to speak of. Every questionable deed that she’d ever done played before her eyes like a movie. Her killer would go unpunished and her death would be in vain. The public would probably celebrate once her true identity was revealed. They would—

Oh, God. She was going to die.

Partially blinded by soap bubbles and completely on the verge of hysteria, Tressie opened her mouth and did the only thing she could think to do under the circumstances. She screamed at the top of her lungs.

It seemed like an eternity, but it really took only a few seconds to wipe the soap bubbles from her eyes and focus. When she did, the first thing she saw through the steam was a pair of gorgeous hazel eyes staring into hers. Expanding her gaze to a wide-screen view, she took in a pair of perfectly shaped lips and a dimpled chin, thick eyebrows and smooth pecan-brown skin. Something in her brain eventually clicked and she recognized Nate Woodberry, but that didn’t stop her from continuing to scream like a banshee. The only difference was that this time the sounds she made were intelligible. “What the hell,” she shrieked frantically as she snatched the shower curtain from his grasp and wrapped it around her body, “are you doing in here?”

“I rang the bell. You didn’t answer.” He was the epitome of calm.

“So you just walk right on in and make yourself at home?” She slung her wet hair back and out of her face and shut off the water. “Idiot! Hand me a towel from over there, would you?” She snatched the towel he handed her and only released her death grip on the shower curtain long enough to make the trade. The fact that he had undoubtedly seen more of her naked body in the past thirty seconds than her doctor had in years burned her skin to a cherry-red crisp, especially since he hadn’t so much as given it a second glance in all that time. So much for cutting back on sweets and working out like a demon.

“Well?” they said in unison.

“Well, what?” they said in harmony again.

And then again in unison, “What are you doing here?”

“You first,” Tressie said, securing the knot in her towel and stepping out of the old-fashioned claw-foot tub.

“No, sugar, you first.” Nate folded his arms across his chest and stared her down. “You were told to stay the hell away from Mercy, Georgia, but yet here you are. Why is that, Vanessa Valentino?”

She resisted the urge to wince at the menacing way he said her trade name. Of the handful of people who knew that she was the pen behind the persona, unfortunately he had always been the least complimentary about it. “I’m sorry. Did I miss the memo that named you the king of my comings and goings?” She folded her arms underneath her breasts and looked at him from head to toe, then rolled her eyes. “Just because you had a bug up your ass about a story I was writing five years ago doesn’t mean you can order me around for the rest of my life. News flash, Nate. It was a long time ago. The rest of the world has moved on. You should, too.”

“What, you think I’ve spent the last five years checking for you?”

“Well, you are standing in my bathroom right now, aren’t you?” She looked up at him thoughtfully. “Tell me something, Nate. How did you even know that I was here? Which one of your little minions do you have keeping track of my every movement?”

He caught his mouth before it could drop open. “You’re out of your mind.”

“Says the man who’s hunted me down like a fugitive for the second time in less than a decade.”

“You are a fugitive.”

Now it was her turn to catch her mouth before it could drop open. “Excuse me?”

“That’s what you do, right? Hide behind a fake name and a fake persona so you don’t have to face the consequences of destroying people’s lives with the stroke of a pen? That’s you, right? A hack, so-called journalist, with nothing better to do than dig around in people’s private lives, because you have no life of your own? A coward who throws stones and then hides her hands? If the public knew who you really were, you’d never get another night’s sleep.”

Almost word for word, he was spouting the same speech now that he had given her five years ago, except that he wasn’t shouting the roof off this time. She didn’t know which was worse—enraged and volatile Nate, or the calm, almost reasonable-sounding Nate standing in front of her now. Either way, she wasn’t in the mood for a replay of five years ago, especially since she hadn’t exactly come out on top in the aftermath. Every time she thought about the way she had allowed him to bully her into dropping the story of a lifetime—and she had thought about it a lot over the years—she wanted to kick herself. If she had held her ground back then she would’ve been a wealthy woman right now. More than wealthy, she thought sourly. Probably rich. And none of the chaos that was currently going on in her life would be happening.

Was she pissed at the way things had turned out? Hell, yes.

Had she stood there five years ago like a deer caught in headlights and allowed Nate to insult her nonstop? Yes, she had.

That was then and this was now. He had won back then, and there was nothing she could do about that now. She wasn’t about to let him terrorize her again. She had too much riding on this visit to Mercy and, thankfully, it had nothing to do with him.