Here Lies a Wicked Man – Snippet 26
“Let’s have our dessert in the parlor,” Roxanna said, leading Booker to a sitting room off the hall.
Apparently a gathering place for her overnight guests, the room provided two conversation areas with sofas, chairs, and loveseats. A glass-front cabinet held board games. A table, already laid with napkins, glasses and utensils, defined a small dining area. Dishes of potpourri on the buffet scented the air.
While he poked around, she’d brewed two mugs of coffee and had cut thick slices of pecan strudel. Now she flipped a switch, filling the room with harpsichord music. For a woman who started the evening declaring their status strictly platonic, the innkeeper had set a cozy scene for romance. Roxanna was certainly a puzzle.
Booker held a chair for her to sit.
She hesitated, a smile playing around her mouth. “You do this automatically, don’t you? Without even thinking about it.”
“Do what?”
“Act the gentleman. Open doors, pull out chairs, rise when a woman approaches. You haven’t entered the liberated age, Booker.” Her smile softened the words. “Today’s male is liberated from being a gentleman.”
“Maybe I’m influenced by the inn’s old-world elegance.” Tucking her chair under, he caught a whiff of perfume and absurdly envisioned a summer meadow with vanilla cookies and sex under an apple tree.
“I have wine, if you’d prefer it over coffee,” she said.
“Thanks, but I’ve done enough damage with wine tonight.”
“No damage at all. My sandals are good as new, see?” She lifted one foot for inspection.
He slipped the shoe off then ran his hand lightly over her toes and the bottom of her foot, enjoying the small intimacy. “You’re right, it’s perfect.”
Now, what had made him do that? He slid the shoe back on. Except for the tinkling harpsichord, silence descended. Feeling like an ass, he busied himself stirring his coffee. All evening he’d wanted to touch her. A dozen times in the theater he’d almost reached for her hand or rested his arm along the back of her seat. Watching her slide into the Tahoe, he’d wanted to kiss the curve of her neck.
“Actually, Booker, you may have started me on an extravagant pagan ritual.” Her eyes glittered with amusement. She lowered them and toyed with her strudel, but he could see the corners of her lips wanting to turn upward. “Some women swear the ultimate luxury is bathing in wine. It adds a rosy glow to the skin and titillates the senses.”
Picturing Roxanna in a bath of blush wine was titillation enough to be dangerous. “Sounds habit-forming.”
“Only if enjoyed with an appropriate partner.”
Booker laid his fork down. He allowed himself the brief pleasure of admiring the gentle curve of her throat. “Lady, unless you have lustier plans for the remainder of this evening than I do, we’d better change the subject.”
“I wasn’t the one who started with the foot massage.”
He couldn’t deny it. As they enjoyed what turned out to be an excellent pecan confection, he steered the conversation to O. Henry. She stood to take away the plates, and he rose to help.
“Would you mind looking at that guest room now?” she asked, frowning as they deposited the plates beside the sink. Her mood was suddenly dark.
“Not at all.”
Upstairs, she guided him to a snug bedroom with a four-poster bed that reminded him of his grandmother’s home. He touched the “wallpaper” before believing she’d created it with paint. The rug and hatstand, though not quality art by any means, were a brilliant job of fakery. As an artist himself, of sorts, he understood her need for validation. Anyone would find the room charming and comfortable. Southern Affairs might even find a story here: “Photographic Tour of a Quaint Texas Inn.”
“Impressive,” he told her, meaning it.
“You don’t think it looks penny-pinching?” Her eyes appeared moist, her mouth tight and white around the corners.
“Nothing penny-pinching about that goose-feather mattress.”
“You could tell?”
“My grandmother had them on every bed. Sink in, snuggle down, and sleep like Rip Van Winkle.” Roxanna’s self-confidence had impressed him from the beginning. Now he was seeing nervous insecurity. Complexities abounded in this woman.
As they descended the stairs, Booker debated how to approach the goodnight-kiss part of the evening. He ran a few scenarios in his mind, delaying the matter by visiting the necessary room.
Best idea was to let her call the plays. Moody or not, Roxanna was delightful company. When she shoved him out the door, he’d tip his hat and ride off into the sunset.
Metaphorically, of course. If he finished the evening without making a further fool of himself, maybe she’d agree to another non-date in the future. Possibly she’d be open to giving him archery lessons. She’d be more fun to learn from than Littlehawk.
Returning down the short hall, he saw her office door open. He paused and couldn’t resist popping in, this time to study Pocahontas’s quiver. His recollection had been correct: her arrows were fletched with turkey feathers, cock feather dyed red, exactly like the arrow that killed Fowler. According to a notation at the bottom, the Pocahontas photo was taken two years before Fowler’s demise. Besides, Fowler himself had a quiver full of those arrows.
As Booker turned away, a face in the Calamity Jane skit caught his eye, a face that churned up acid in his stomach. He lifted the picture off the wall and tilted it toward the light. It, too, was dated two years earlier. Booker didn’t recognize the man Calamity Jane had lassoed from the audience, but the late Chuck Fowler was sitting at a table near the stage. In her story of Fowler’s trickery over the mortgage agreement, Roxanna had failed to mention she knew her landlord long before she bought the inn from him.
Was he jumping to conclusions? Hopefully, yes…but if she hadn’t known Fowler when the picture was snapped, his presence seemed damned coincidental.
Returning to the living area, he found her waiting for him at the front door to the inn. She slid her arms around his neck, and Booker wished he could press “delete” on the suspicious part of his mind.
“Booker Krane, you’re a fine man and I had a fine evening. I appreciate more than you realize, your taking a look at that room, and even if you had laughed I’d still like you. But don’t leave here thinking my heart is anywhere but in this business.”
“Does that mean we won’t be seeing each other again?” His brain kept flashing an image of Roxanna and Chuck Fowler together. How well had she known the man?
“It means we can be friends, maybe even more than friends, but I don’t have time for games. I know exactly what it takes to make a place like this successful, especially on the frayed shoestring holding it together. If I blink, my business could vanish. I don’t intend to blink.”
She stretched high on her toes, pulling him down at the same time, and pressed her soft, warm lips to his. She tasted sweeter than their dessert, more intoxicating than the wine.
He wrapped his arms around her and enjoyed the firmness of her curves beneath the white silk.
Then she pushed him across the threshold, shoved a wrapped chunk of pecan strudel in his hand, and shut the door without another word. He was left wondering about the many moods of Roxanna Larkspur, wondering, appreciating, and praying that she was merely a charming eccentric, not a psychotic killer.
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