His hands moved as if he was going to comply, and she was caught off guard when he snaked the tie around her other wrist. “This isn’t funny!” she protested bitterly, trying to move away from him. He pushed her against a wall and held her there with the pressure of his body. Dinah squirmed desperately.
“I think it’s real funny,” he noted angrily. “The big, bad redneck is takin’ the snob prisoner.”
“Rucker. Rucker!”
Once he had her hands tied firmly, he hoisted her into his arms and carried her back into the dimly lit bedroom. Dinah was so furious that she gulped staccato breaths. He laid her on the big, ornate bed and pulled her arms above her head. “Last chance,” he noted, his voice grim. “I’ll untie you if you’ll give me your word that you’ll stay put.”
“No!” she said between clenched teeth. Tears of frustration ran down her face. “I want to see if you’ll really go through with it!”
He nodded brusquely. “Oh, yes ma’am, I will.” Then he tied her hands to the bed post. Dinah drummed her heels into the bedspread while he calmly said, “Let’s get these dirty shoes and jeans off you.”
She stared at him in silence as he calmly removed her shoes, socks, and finally, the grimy jeans. He eyed what remained, her blue silk panties, the sweatshirt, and her leather coat. “Hmmm. A technical problem I can’t solve. Guess you’ll have to keep the sweatshirt and coat on.” But he slid his hand under the shirt, found the front clasp on her bra, and flicked it open. “There. How’s that? More comfortable?”
Humiliated and mad, she turned her face away and refused to answer. He bent over her, his breath brushing her face as he worked the bedspread and sheets out from under her. He covered her with their downy warmth and arranged the pillows under her head. Then he went to the bed’s opposite side, sat down, and picked up the telephone on a small nightstand.
Dinah hardly listened as he called room service. She realized suddenly that she was too exhausted to fight him, too exhausted to care about this outrageous tactic of his or the problems she’d face tomorrow at home. She grew still as her tense muscles responded to the incredibly comfortable mattress and luxurious sheets. The room was cozy, lit only by a small bedside lamp. When Rucker got off the phone he glanced at her then went into the bathroom and returned with a fresh washcloth.
Dinah squinted her eyes shut. She didn’t open them when he began wiping her swollen face, or even when he gently took her chin and turned her face toward him for better access. “Come on, Dee,” he urged in a tired voice. “Give in.”
Give in reactivated her resistance. “You like me tied up, you keep me tied up,” she answered.
“Hellion,” he muttered without much conviction. He tossed the covers aside and ran the washcloth over her legs and feet. “You’ve got a blister on your heel. From all that walkin’ you and Lula Belle did today?”
She decided that silence was her only retaliation. When she didn’t answer, he bent over her foot and kissed the blister, his mustache tickling. “Sorry about your foot,” he whispered. “Sorry about Norins. Sorry about fighting with you. Sorry about tyin’ you up.” He rested his cheek against her ankle, and a traitorously tender feeling filled her chest. He covered her up, then went to retrieve the purse she’d dropped on the floor when she collapsed.
Like the living room, the bedroom had a floor-to-ceiling window covered in narrow blinds. In front of the window was a sitting area. Rucker went there and unceremoniously dumped the contents of her purse on the coffee table. Dinah raised her head to stare at him curiously but squelched the urge to demand an explanation. He found her hairbrush, went to his suitcase, and pulled the lace out of one of his jogging shoes.
“You’ll feel happier when your hair’s fixed up,” he assured her when he came back to the bed. He sat down beside her, arranged her hair on the pillow, and began to brush it using long, careful strokes. After her initial disbelief wore off, Dinah sighed in distress. His touch, as usual, was wonderful. She gave in a little.
“My hair is the least of my problems,” she told him.
“I know you,” he insisted. “You aren’t comfortable if your hair is all messy.”
He pulled it into a swathe that lay on her shoulder, then spent twenty minutes trying to form that swathe into a braid. Finally he proclaimed the result, “exquisite, if I do say so my own self,” and tied it with his shoe lace. He got a hand mirror out of the bathroom and held it up for her to look. Dinah didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help herself. Only Rucker McClure would tie a woman to a bed, then act as if nothing extraordinary was happening.
She looked. The braid was unsymmetrical, and little loops of hair stuck out all over it. “Hmmmph.”
“Thank you.”
There was a knock at the suite’s door and he strode out, shutting the bedroom door behind him. I should scream, Dinah thought with weary humor. That would serve him right. Let him try to explain to the waiter why he has a woman tied to his bed. She tucked her chin and looked at herself. A woman who’s still wearing a coat and a floppy sweatshirt. She tested her wrists against the soft silk of his tie, and flexed her arms. Hog-tied.
Rucker came back with an overloaded tray, which he set in the middle of the bed. He sat cross-legged beside it and fed her. She stared straight ahead and accepted each mouthful with cold silence. “Guess you’re grateful that I ordered all your favorite stuff,” he noted hopefully. Dinah looked at the odd assortment and couldn’t help feeling touched. Fettucini Alfredo, chocolate ice cream, clam chowder, and a chicken salad sandwich. Since she liked Burgundy wine best of all, he’d ordered that, too, heedless of compatibility.
After he cleared the dishes away he switched off the lamp and undressed in the dark, tossing his clothes onto the floor. Dinah couldn’t stand that. “Hang your jacket and slacks up!” She heard his rich, soft chuckle and realized that she’d been duped.
“I knew that would get you to talk!” he drawled. He got into bed and immediately slid over to her. Burning with new annoyance, Dinah turned her face away and shut her eyes as he pressed close to her side. He was naked.
“Howdy,” he drawled. He nestled one long, hairy leg between her thighs, rested his head on her shoulder, and slid one hand under her sweatshirt. He casually spread it, palm down, just beneath her rib cage. “Cold hand,” he explained coyly. “Needs a warm spot.”
The tentative, playful mood was a sham, and they both knew it. Lying there in the dark, the silver glow from the city lights sifting over them through the skylight window, they were enveloped in sorrow. Dinah quivered as Rucker’s thumb traced small circles on her bare stomach.
“You win,” he said wearily. “I can’t leave you tied up all night.” He reached behind her and freed her wrists. Dinah brought her hands down beside her and lay still.
“I have to go back to the airport,” she whispered plaintively.
“Sleep for a few hours, and I’ll go with you. Please.”
Dinah sighed. “All right. You win too.”
He helped her remove the coat and sweatshirt, tossed them onto the floor, then hooked his thumb into her panties. “Won’t feel right, if you keep these on,” he explained. “Wouldn’t be typical.”
She almost smiled at his blarney. “You’re right.”
He drew the panties off her body and sent them flying across the room. Dinah guided him onto his back and molded herself to his side, her head on his big shoulder and her fingers buried in his chest hair.
“Well get through this,” he murmured. He stroked her cheek with one finger. “I’ll always be beside you, taking care of you.”
Dinah swallowed hard. She already knew how she intended to handle things back in Mount Pleasant, but she wouldn’t upset the peaceful mood by telling Rucker right now. “No more talk for tonight,” she urged. “I know you have a lot of thinking to do about what I told you.”
“The hard part’s done, Dee. You’ve told me what I’ve wanted to know all this time, and now I can help make things better.”
/>
“I’ve never talked to anyone but you about this.”
“Feel relieved now?”
“Yes,” she admitted slowly, nodding. “It was easier to discuss than I thought it would be.” She paused. “I wish I’d had the nerve to tell you a long time ago.”
“Sssh. Everything’ll be fine, hon. You’ve got me. What else could you need?”
Nothing will be fine, she told him silently. But I trust you, and that’s all I’m going to think about right now. She cried again, silently and more from relief than anything else, and he murmured gruff reassurances to her. Eventually, without ever uttering a word, they began to stroke each other in tender, slow ways. The caresses became so intimate that Dinah couldn’t resist any longer. They both needed comfort.
She eased herself onto his thighs and took him inside her body, then made love to him with delicate movements and featherlight hands, showing that she cherished him and wouldn’t be satisfied until she gave him intense pleasure. She refused to rush even when he began shifting under her, his neck and chest arched up, his head tilted back into the thick pillow.
After a minute he cried out hoarsely and curved himself up to her, a bow pulled taut by the special bond of passion and devotion they shared. Dinah grasped his sides and urged him to rise farther into the harbor of her body. He did, and she gloried in the sweet, deep sensation of being completely filled. Breathing raggedly, he sank back on the mattress as her hands moved over his face and torso, stroking him toward sleep.
He started to speak, but she placed her fingertip against his mouth, then shook her head. He nodded. Dinah brushed her finger lightly across his mustache, then touched each of his eyelids. They closed, and she caressed the drawn, swollen skin under them until she felt the small muscles relax in sleep. Dinah remained where she was for a long time, listening to him breathe, drawing the backs of her fingers across his temples, skimming his chest with reverent caresses.
When he woke up a few hours later, she was gone.
Ten
The furnace at Twittle County High decided to break down around ten A.M., and at noon the principal recessed school for the day. Dinah drove to city hall and went straight to her office, hoping for sanctuary. Todd Norins had stayed busy. After barging into her office yesterday, he and his cameraman roamed around town, telling residents about their mayor’s criminal past and filming the responses. Today she’d been all too aware of the covert stares of students and teachers. They’re not quite ready to start asking me questions, but that won’t last long, she noted.
Dinah slumped over a strong cup of coffee at her desk, her eyes gritty from lack of sleep and her nerves frayed. She kept wondering how Rucker had reacted when he woke up alone. Not happily, she assumed. Lula Belle buzzed the intercom a minute later. “Do you know a feisty little blond woman named Millie Surprise?” Lula Belle asked.
Dinah stared at the phone console in disbelief for a moment. “Send her in.”
Dinah heard the quick tapping of energetic feet on the linoleum of the hall floor. Millie, bundled in a rugged looking sheepskin coat that made her look like a small, blond eskimo, burst into the office.
“Rucker sent me!” she exclaimed. “He called and said you got the last plane out of Dallas before fog shut the airport down. I’m supposed to look after you until he gets here. Dinah, he is fit to be tied! You shouldn’t have taken off like that!”
Dinah looked up at her, dumbfounded. Then she muttered under her breath, “He’s fit to be tied. I’ll tell you about being tied.” Millie studied her with a puzzled expression, and Dinah made a “nevermind” gesture. “Does he think I’m helpless?”
“Oh, no, certainly not! But I’m trained in martial arts”—she pulled a small pistol from her coat pocket—“and I’m a skilled marksman—marksperson, from my Navy days, you see.”
Dinah gasped in alarm. Even Rucker’s secretary was a Clint Eastwood type. “Put that thing away! I don’t need help. I’m going to take care of this alone.”
“Rucker said you’d feel that way. I’m supposed to ignore you.” She tucked the pistol in a big pocket in the skirt of the black shirtwaist dress she wore, hung her coat on a rack behind the door, shut the door firmly, and plopped down in a chair across from Dinah. “Now, what’s happened this morning? You look very tired. But terrific, as usual. Tall women. I envy you all. I love that red suit on you. Red’s a power color, you know.”
Dinah was overwhelmed and just stared at her for a moment. “Well,” she managed finally, “what’s happened, you ask? Word is getting around. I walked in the teachers’ lounge this morning and people practically cringed with discomfort. They obviously didn’t know what to say, so they didn’t say anything.”
The intercom buzzed. “Dinah.” Lula Belle’s high-pitched voice sounded worried. “There are four reporters in the lobby. Two television, two newspaper. They’re from Birmingham.”
“Want me to go browbeat them?” Millie whispered eagerly.
“No, no,” Dinah murmured. She closed her eyes a moment, gathering strength. “Lula Belle, tell them I’ll make a statement in two hours. On the steps out front. I won’t see anyone until then.”
The door opened suddenly and Walter Higgins started in. Millie leapt up and blocked his way. “Off limits!” she barked. “Move it or lose it!”
Dinah stood quickly. “Millie, this is a councilman.”
“Oh.” She sat back down, looking disappointed.
Walter came in and shut the door, eyeing Millie warily all the time. Then he turned his attention to Dinah, and his gaze became sympathetic. “I thought I’d better get your story firsthand. You know what kind of rumors circulate in a small town.”
Dinah smiled thinly, her heart sinking. She nodded. “No, I had nothing to do with the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. I was just a kid when Watergate was going on, so I’m innocent on that count. And you’ll never pin the Iran-Contra scheme on me.”
Walter sat down in a chair next to Millie’s. He tried to look relaxed and casual, but Dinah saw the concern underneath. He did his best Dragnet voice. “Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.”
Dinah took a sip of coffee and straightened her shoulders. Rucker, I need you, she thought desperately. Then she shoved the wistful thought away and looked at Walter with calm eyes. “Now the fun begins,” she told him.
The sky was a deep blue broken by high, scudding white clouds. The breeze was exceptionally cold for December. Standing on the steps in front of the city hall building, Dinah pulled her white wool coat around her for both physical warmth and emotional security. A crowd of townsfolk was gathering behind the reporters. Millie stood off to one side, her hands shoved in her coat pockets, her shrewd eyes sweeping the crowd as if she were daring anyone to make trouble.
So far, the reporters’ questions had been no worse than she’d expected. They mainly wanted to confirm what was quickly becoming common knowledge. After dropping out of the Miss America pageant, she’d served a year in prison. Her father had been up for indictment on a number of felony offenses involving twenty-five million dollars, five million of which were still missing. As Dinah answered the inquiries she wondered bitterly which person or persons in town had called the press. She felt betrayed.
A man from The Birmingham Sentinel called out, “What are your plans for the future, Mayor Sheridan? Any books or movie deals under discussion? Are you going to pose for Playboy?”
Suddenly she’d had all she could stand of the television lights, the indelicate questions, the scrutiny. “I’m still considering my options,” she answered. Actually, she was ninety-nine percent certain of her plans, but she wasn’t ready to say so. “That’s all I’m prepared to discuss right now. Thank you, and good day.”
She started down the steps, aching with the cold and determined not to show how depressed she felt. A sharp voice cracked out, halting her. “Heah, now! I got somethin’ to say to Madam Mayor and you press folks! I used to be mayor of this heah town!” Dinah felt repulsion settle in her
stomach as portly, red-faced Mervin Flortney pushed his way through the growing crowd of spectators.
He wore a quilted khaki jacket over an excessively packed blue suit. His graying red hair waved wildly in the breeze. All Dinah could think of was a description she’d heard Rucker use for an arrogant maitre d’ in a chic restaurant. Pompous, pig-lipped duck wart. It didn’t make much sense, but it had just the right flavor to it.
“Heah!” Mervin said again. He waved a sheaf of papers as he came up the steps toward her. Millie started over, but Dinah shook her head. Mervin, owner of the Flourtney Plaza shopping center, drew himself up in an outraged-good-citizen stance beside her. “These here are recall petitions! I’m puttin’ them in every bizness in town. We’re not gonna have a thief for a mayor!”
Incredulous, Dinah took a step back, one hand rising to her throat in an involuntary gesture of distress. “You’re entitled to start a recall drive,” she told Mervin. “But don’t you dare slander me!” This is revenge for my water main investigation, Dinah noted silently.
“And let me tell you another thing!” he blustered on, “we’re not gonna put up with a mayor who parades an immoral attitude in front of our children!”
“What?” Dinah gasped.
“Besides bein’ a convicted criminal, this woman used to model lingerie and skimpy swimsuits!”
Dinah groaned. “Mervin, check your Sears catalog from eight years ago. It’s not exactly a racy publication.”
“And Madam Mayor voted herself the biggest pay raise in the history of Mount Pleasant!”
“Why, yes, Mervin. And now that I make fifty-five dollars a month instead of forty-nine, I’m buying the yacht I’ve always wanted.”
“This woman cohabitates regularly with a divorced man!”
That was too much. “Mervin, don’t be a total fool.”
“Can’t deny it, can you?” he taunted. “Oh, yes. Everyone knows that your fancy-dandy writer boyfriend comes up here all the time and stays overnight at your house! Stays overnight there!”