Loe raamatut: «Naked Ambition»

Chapter One

November 2007

EVERY TIME SHE SO MUCH AS LOOKED at J. D. Johnson, Susannah Banner could swear she felt his big, hot hands removing all her clothes, never even bothering to leave behind the panties. Even worse, the undeserving man had had this bothersome effect on her since she was only five years old, knee-high to a grasshopper her daddy had called her.

Yes, J.D. had started ruining her life as early as grade school, where she’d had the misfortune of first meeting him, Susannah fumed as she drove her compact car along Palmer Road, past Hodges’ Motor Lodge. She then cornered off the main drag and into the back parking lot of Delia’s Diner to hide the car so J.D. wouldn’t see it if he followed her. She’d been young when she’d met J.D., and well, what little girl—especially one so innocent as Susannah—could have seen through a male as duplicitous as J. D. Johnson?

Years later, when Susannah was old enough, she’d fantasized about him for hours, a mistake that had led to hot-heavy sex and feelings of sincere regret. Not even in a proper bed, she reminded herself, her fury rising, but in the bed of his daddy’s pickup truck.

Just minutes ago, J.D. had drawn his last straw, and she was still reeling. Oh, Susannah knew he hadn’t been born with the sense God gave a gnat, but then what man had? J.D. possessed the devil’s double-edged tongue when it came to sweet-talking his way out of bad tasting situations, too. And he’d been gifted with a singing voice that could charm the skin off a rattlesnake, and worse, the pants off any female country-western fan in America.

Susannah wasn’t like those women, though, she thought as she headed toward the door to Delia’s. Why should Susannah be impressed by J.D.’s good fortune, after all? Like everybody else in Bayou Banner, she’d known him before he was rich and famous. In fact, she was one of the chosen few who knew what the initials J.D. stood for.

“I just wish I hadn’t married you, Jeremiah Dashiell,” she muttered. It had been her biggest mistake. Tears shimmering in her soft blue eyes, she tossed one of her trademark oversize handbags into the corner that she and her best friend, Ellie Lee, occupied every Saturday morning for breakfast.

As Susannah scooted in after the bag, Ellie set aside a tented white reserved card written in Delia’s calligraphy.

“Please forgive me!” Susannah began, scarcely registering that Ellie was still wearing sunglasses, although the day was overcast. “J.D. made me late.” Susannah shook her head, making the ends of her long, wavy sun-streaked blond hair swirl around her face. “God, I hate him! I just wish I’d had sex with somebody besides him just once. But no,” she continued, “I’ve always been faithful.” She’d doubted that was the case with J.D., and now her worst fears had been realized. She blinked back tears. “Do you realize he’s the only man I’ve ever slept with, Ellie?”

“Sure, I was born the day after you in the hospital in Bayou Blair,” Ellie reminded. “So I’ve known you even longer than you’ve known J.D. And I agree. I think you should have slept with that banjo player, at least. Remember the hottie who played in J.D.’s band in high school? The one who looked like Justin Timberlake?”

“The one who called every time me and J.D. hit the skids?”

Susannah muttered, wondering how she was going to tell Ellie what had just happened. Thinking about the banjo player was a welcome diversion. She’d kissed him and let him feel her breasts, but that was all. “How could I forget him? Of course, three weeks after I saw him, I married J.D.” She glared down at the gold band on her ring finger.

“You should have insisted on an engagement,” Ellie mused, eyeing the band. “That would have given you time to consider the consequences.”

“True.” After his career had taken off, J.D. had offered to buy her a diamond, so it would look as if they’d been engaged, but Susannah had refused, since that would have ruined the spontaneity of their wedding night. Now, of course, their whole marriage was a lie. “You think I would have stayed single if I’d talked to somebody with a crystal ball?”

“Honey, not even Mama Ambrosia could have seen your and J.D.’s future.”

The local fortune teller had a cabin on a meandering tributary near Bayou Banner. As angry as she was, Susannah could admit Ellie was right. Not even a professional such as Mama Ambrosia could explain the magic that still happened sometimes between Susannah and J.D. They’d even made up their own private language for it, with code phrases for lovemaking such as scarves and cards or hats and rabbits.

J.D.’s slow drawl rumbled in Susannah’s ear, and she could almost feel his warm breath tickling the lobe. “What about a game of scarves and cards, Susannah?”

He’d proposed on one of those liquid-velvet nights the Mississippi Delta had made famous, when the moon was just right, and shadows on the surface of the bayou rippled like fairy wings, making everything seem like an illusion, including scents of forsythia that stirred in the midnight air as gently as the cream in Madame Ambrosia’s darkest love potions.

Their prom clothes—his tux and her butter-yellow dress beside them—they’d been lying naked on their backs on pine needles, stargazing through the waving fronds of willow branches. With a voice as smooth as the inky sky, J.D. had sung the traditional song, “Oh, Susannah”—something he always did, since his family had come from Alabama—then he’d whispered, “I want to marry you right now, oh, Susannah Banner.”

She’d smiled into blue eyes, threading her fingers in the dark hair of his chest, then she’d kissed him, his light goatee tickling her nose and chin. “You want to marry me right now?” she’d teased, just to hear him say it again. She’d never heard anything as sexy as his drawl, and everybody else felt the same way. His voice was smoky and mysterious, a low bass rumble that came from his chest and shot into a listener’s bloodstream like a Cupid’s arrow tinged with sex. “I want to marry you this very second.”

“Why should I say yes?” she’d kindly inquired.

“Because when we’re legal, we can lie in bed all day.”

“Now there’s a typical J.D. answer.” She’d laughed. “Sex is never far from your mind, is it?”

“Does that bother you, oh, Susannah?”

“Your sex drive is the only thing I like about you, J.D.,” she’d assured, although secretly she’d hadn’t much minded his sense of humor, either.

She had been eighteen then, and since her parents had died the year before when their car crashed on the road between Bayou Blair and Bayou Banner during a flash flood, there had been nobody left to stop Susannah from marrying bad-boy J.D., except her big sister, June, who was ten years older. And of course, Susannah had never once listened to June.

“Well, J.D.,” she’d said reasonably. “All we have to do is drive into Bayou Blair and find ourselves a preacher and a place to get a blood test.”

And so, by the next morning, they were husband and wife.

Back then, J.D. had been playing music in clubs around the tristate, and he and his band could haul equipment in nothing larger than a cargo van. Now he came with an entourage, and she was lucky if his publicist, Maureen, would even share his most current cell phone number. Susannah had never been interested in gadgets, but her traditionally decorated house was full of them at the moment—everything from new phones to fancy laptop computers and an intricate home alarm system she couldn’t even operate.

“Susannah? You gonna have the usual?”

Delia’s voice cut through her reverie. Thankfully Delia was the polar opposite of J.D. Nothing had ever changed the diner owner—not two divorces, or losing her mama to cancer, or having her last boyfriend run off with the librarian from Bayou Blair. Come hell or high water, Delia remained as steady as a rock. She was a little plump, with a pretty face that never aged, and she’d always worn the same tan uniform and white apron. As always she was unsheathing a pencil from a mussed bun of tawny hair as if it were a tiny sword. She pointed it at an order pad, ready to do battle.

“What are you girls having?” she drawled.

Susannah shrugged undecidedly, thinking that Delia had even looked this way years ago when Susannah and June had come here with their folks every Saturday morning. Memories made Susannah’s heart squeeze. After her folks had passed, Ellie had begun meeting Susannah here every Saturday, keeping up the Banner family tradition. When nothing else in the world helped, smelling sausage frying on Delia’s grill could usually soothe Susannah.

“I’m not sure, Delia…” Susannah forced herself to stare at the menu, only to notice her wedding ring and feel a wave of depression. “I’m not very hungry. Maybe toast—”

Groaning, Delia dropped the order pad into her apron pocket and planted her hands on her hips. “I should have known something was wrong by the crazy way you pulled into my parking lot. What did your devil in blue jeans do now?”

“Not a thing,” Susannah lied, knowing if she opened her mouth—at least to anybody except Ellie—her dirty laundry would be hanging out for all of Bayou Banner to see. Of course, before J.D., Susannah’s own mama had caused a few eyebrows to rise around town, too.

Still, the Banners had been the town’s most prominent family, and Susannah had hoped to uphold tradition. However, instead of decorating the town square’s Christmas tree or spearheading the Easter egg drive, she’d spent most of her time apologizing for her rowdy husband and his big-city friends, all of whom made her mama look tame.

Suddenly, something inside Susannah’s chest wrenched, and she almost uttered a soft cry; she could swear her heart had done three somersaults and now, it was aching to beat the band. How could she get the old J.D. back? The sweet, gentle man she’d married?

If only her mama was alive! Barbara Banner would have known how to handle J.D. She’d been a delicate woman who read too much, painted in her spare time and was overly emotional and prone to indulge too many fantasies, the type to take to her bed in winters, and to get involved in dramas of her own making. Still, her advice about men was always on target. Realizing Delia and Ellie were staring at her, Susannah blinked.

“You sure you’re okay, honey?” asked Delia.

“Fine,” Susannah lied. Knowing only a hearty appetite would appease Delia, she added, “I changed my mind. I’ll have the usual. In fact, you’d better add extra grits.” As she said the words, her stomach rumbled. Like most Southern women, Susannah included, Delia had inherited enough mouthwatering recipes to open a restaurant. For years, Susannah had been begging Delia to share her recipe for strawberry-rhubarb pie, but Delia kept refusing, saying the ingredients were top secret. “I’ll have my favorite pie for dessert,” Susannah added.

For Delia, having dessert after breakfast showed proof of mental stability—it was as good as formal papers signed by the board of health—so she sighed in relief, then took Ellie’s order and headed for the counter, saying over her shoulder, “I’m puttin’ cornbread on top of them grits, too, honey-bun. That’ll keep that miserable excuse for a man from scrambling your noggin. Yes ma’am, the only thing I allow to be scrambled in Delia’s Diner is my own damn eggs.”

Lifting a hand so as to display her airbrushed nails, Delia held her thumb and forefinger an inch apart to indicate the minuscule length of J.D.’s penis. “Johnson’s johnson,” she called loudly, just in case Susannah hadn’t caught the allusion.

Susannah wished it were true, but unfortunately J.D. was hung like a racehorse, and he knew how to use every inch of his equipment. Otherwise Susannah would have divorced him by now, or at least that’s what she told herself.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Ellie drawled as Delia put in their order.

“I have. Of my own husband. Oh, he was always kind of wild. Everybody knows that, Ellie. I hate to admit it, but that’s why I fell in love with him. I think J.D.’s shenanigans remind me of Mama. Remember how dramatic she could be? So full of life? How she’d race around town in that little pink convertible Daddy bought her? But this…” She shook her head. “He threw another wild party.”

“That’s nothing new.”

“True.” But the house they shared, Banner Manor, meant the world to Susannah, and one of her dreams had been to restore its former glory. She and June had grown up there, and despite its sizable acreage and isolated location, nestled in a grove of mature oaks, Susannah had kept living there after her folks were gone. By then, June had moved into town with her husband, Clive, and they’d had two kids.

So naturally J.D. had moved in after he’d married Susannah. They hadn’t even discussed it, no more than they’d talked about having kids or sharing finances. At eighteen and twenty-two, respectively, passion had been their focus.

“What?” prompted Ellie, drawing Susannah from her reverie once more. “Did some cigarette-smoking guitar player burn another hole in the upholstery?”

Susannah visualized a nicotine stain left on her mama’s favorite love seat, wishing it were that simple. She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Do you remember how I was going to that two-day seminar you turned me onto, in Bayou Blair? The one about how to start your own business?” Because she figured J.D.’s new friends would only destroy any improvements she made at Banner Manor, and she wasn’t going to have kids while J.D. was acting like a kid himself, Susannah was considering opening a shop, although she didn’t yet know what kind.

“You went, right?”

“Yeah. I got back this morning, so I figured I’d stop by the house before I met you, drop off my bags and say hi to J.D. I mean, I’ve been gone for two days.” It was her longest trip away from home since high school, and the sad truth was, she’d enjoyed it, except that the seminar had been in the town where she and J.D. had eloped.

“You found a house full of people?”

“You knew?”

“You just missed Sheriff Kemp. He told everybody in Delia’s that he got complaints last night about noise.”

“Sheriff Kemp? Was he in here flirting with Delia again?”

“Yeah, but he didn’t ask her out yet.”

Ever since Delia’s boyfriend left her, the sheriff had been sniffing around. “How could he get a complaint about our house? You know how isolated it is!”

“Gladys Walsh drove up to the door out of sheer nosiness.”

The woman was a known town biddy. “Next thing you know, Mama Ambrosia will see parties in her crystal ball and start communicating with busybodies telepathically.” Susannah sighed. “I’m at my wit’s end,” she added, her throat closing with unshed tears. “J.D.’s a grown man. He ought to be thinking about settling down.” At first, she’d enjoyed the parties, been excited to share J.D.’s new success, but things had spun out of control, and lately she missed the normal life they’d once shared. But now the stuff had really hit the fan…

“He’s under pressure,” Ellie ventured.

“I know,” Susannah said. In the past six years, he’d become Bayou Banner’s most celebrated native son, the only homengrown talent, and she and Ellie had discussed the issues related to his good fortune many times. Nevertheless, even Ellie’s lover, Robby Robriquet, wouldn’t hang around J.D. anymore, and those two had been as thick as thieves since birth.

“When I married him, we had sex every five minutes, and I was ready to start a family. Everybody said I was too young, but Mama and Daddy were gone, and June was married, and I wanted that life for J.D. and me. I figured he’d keep playing music on weekends and take over the bait-and-tackle shop when his folks retired to Florida, since he worked there all his life.”

Instead, two years into the six-year marriage, J.D. had hired someone else to handle the shop, and Susannah had been trying to get pregnant. She and J.D. had even seen a fertility specialist, but he’d just said their timing wasn’t right.

Susannah squeezed her eyes shut, recalling the day J.D. and his band had auditioned to be on a nationally televised talent show. They’d gotten on, then won, but only J.D. had been pursued by a record company; they’d insisted he work with a new band. Not that his buddies held a grudge about that. Everybody agreed that J.D.’s talent was special. Still, one thing had led to another, and there were rumors that J.D.’s third record might be nominated in the coming year for a prestigious music award.

“He’s so full of himself,” Susannah continued. “Like a stranger. And not a stranger I’d want to know.” Sometimes after dark, she would sit in her car, in the driveway of Banner Manor, dreading going inside her own home. It was as if the world’s worst forces were in there, fighting to claim J.D.’s soul and he was losing.

“When I got home this morning, the door to Mama and Daddy’s old room was open. And you remember how I asked J.D. to keep that room off limits to his buddies?” Musicians, groupies, a cameraman and publicist were staying in the house, and more than once, Susannah had run into people in her own kitchen whom she’d never met before. “It’s the one thing I made J.D. swear he’d do for me.”

“I witnessed that conversation.” Ellie frowned. “And that woman was there, too. You know, the tall, gorgeous one who looks like a model?” Pausing, Ellie added, “I think she’d be more attractive if she lost the military look. She’s always wearing those heavy boots and flak-inspired jackets?”

Boy did she. “That’s her. Sandy Smithers.” She was with a group who’d come, supposedly, to help J.D. arrange music for his new lyrics. “Until this morning, I thought she was with that lanky blond bass player,” Susannah said.

“Joel Murray?”

“Yeah. He’s a studio musician.” Susannah nodded, feeling sick. She’d never changed anything in her folks’ room, and since their passing, that had comforted her. But…“When I went in this morning, Laurie—”

“Laurie?”

“Was in Mama and Daddy’s bed with Joel.”

“Laurie? June’s daughter? Your niece?”

Susannah nodded.

“She’s fifteen! That’s statutory rape!”

“She 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 and start another polling business to compete with Daddy and Robby.”

Ellie was leaving Robby and Lee Polls? It would work out fine, of course. Ellie had traveled more than Susannah, especially since Susannah had come to hate accompanying J.D. when he’d started playing to larger crowds. People had treated her like arm candy, and that had been a blow to her ego, invalidating her many years with J.D.

“Come with me, Susannah.”

“To New York? To do what?” Her résumé consisted of a high-school diploma and the two-day seminar she’d just attended at a hotel near the airport in Bayou Blair. She’d always planned to stay in Bayou Banner and raise a family.

“You could find a man,” said Ellie. “At least you could say you slept with somebody besides J.D.”

“Other guys never got Robby out of your system,” Susannah reminded, still reeling. “But not seeing J.D. on the street would help,” she suddenly added. “I can’t divorce him if he’s nearby.”

“He’d change your mind for sure.”

Yes, he’d start kissing Susannah, delivering those little nibbles which were almost as famous as his music, then he’d take off her clothes, undoing buttons with his teeth, murmuring sweet nothings all the while. He’d trail hopelessly hot, wet butterfly kisses down her neck, the ones he knew drove her crazy, and by the time her panties hit the floor, she’d do whatever J.D. wanted. It had happened every time she’d tried to leave him, which lately, was about once a week. “I hate him,” she whispered.

“Divorce is too good for him.”

“The only thing I want from my marriage is what I brought to it,” Susannah said bravely. “Just Banner Manor. And it would do me good to have sex with somebody else. Anybody, really. Maybe even a few people,” Susannah added, the idea taking hold.

“I’m going to sleep with everybody I can,” Ellie assured her.

Imagining all the hypothetical studs, Susannah said, “They wouldn’t even have to be very cute, would they?”

“No. The whole point would be to get our minds off J.D. and Robby.”

“I can’t watch J.D. pack his bags,” Susannah admitted. “I’d feel too sorry for him and maybe have pity sex. He’s the one who should move into Hodges’ Motor Lodge.” It was where all husbands in Bayou Banner went during separations.

“You have money. You’re still handling J.D.’s finances.”

She could write herself a check for the trouble he’d caused her, but Susannah never would. “I don’t want J.D.’s money.” She’d settle for the ghost of the man she married. She’d been so sure she was marrying a guy who would run a tackle shop his whole life, and who’d be a good daddy to his kids.

“We can share a place until he leaves Banner Manor,” Ellie urged. “I’ll lend you cash until he’s out of the house.”

It would only be for a week or so. “I hate leaving him in Banner Manor, even for ten minutes.” Especially with Sandy there. Fighting tears, she told herself that the other woman was no longer her concern since she was leaving J.D.

“It won’t be for long,” Ellie said. “Your folks left the house to you. J.D. doesn’t need it. Between a lawyer and Sheriff Kemp, all those people will be gone soon.”

By then, Susannah should have racked up some flings and J.D. would be just a memory.