Molly O'Keefe - The Temptation of Savannah O'Neill

There was an endless ocean of sound in the Bonne Terre Public Library.

The click and whir of the big black ceiling fans. The silky brush of paper over the gleaming oak counters. The hum of computers. The scratch of pencils. The whisper of shoes across the old wood floors. On the second floor, a toddler shrieked and a mother quickly shushed him. There was the quiet beat of her heart and, of course, the not-so-quiet whispering of the high school students at the computer bank.

Owen Johns and his gang.

It was always Owen Johns and his gang.

Summer school had been moved from the high school to the library so they could finally fix the roof of the gymnasium. This meant Savannah had been looking at the smirking faces of Owen Johns, Garrett Watson and their various hangers-on for a week.

And in the days since the Manor had been violated, their smirks were smirkier, their eyes as they watched her a little too smug.

They did it.

She saw it in their eyes, the sour glee in their smiles, the dark triumph that wafted off them like stink from garbage. They’d torn apart her courtyard, her grandmother’s orchids. Those boys had taken black spray paint to their stone walls, forcing her hand, and now there was a man at the Manor.

Matt Howe was in her home, in her courtyard, and Matt Howe made her heart pound and her stomach tremble and it was nearly intolerable.

And it was all Owen’s and Garrett’s fault.

She knew it with an instinct she didn’t question. The O’Neill instinct—never wrong. The O’Neill impulses, on the other hand, too often lured by pounding hearts and trembling stomachs, were always disastrously wrong.

She stood at the counter and checked in the books from the overnight drop box. She traced the gilt beak of Mother Goose before shelving the faded red book on the trolley.

Her hands didn’t shake. Her face didn’t change, but she stood there, listening to their whispers, catching words like “she had a kid” and “he was married.” She threw them, like logs, onto the fire of her anger.

She stood there as she had for years, calm and cool, pretending she didn’t hear the whispers, and contemplated her revenge.

Not that she would take it. She’d learned her lesson about vengeance and acting on these O’Neill impulses. She’d learned it too well.

Ten years ago, maybe, she’d have enacted revenge. But now it was just an imaginary exercise. A highly satisfying one.

A letter to their parents, perhaps? Regarding some obscenely overdue books of a high monetary value? Good, but not quite enough.

“You watching the love triangle?” whispered Janice, her assistant and Keeper of All Things Even Slightly Gossip-y.

“Love triangle?” Savannah whispered, keeping her eyes on Owen, Garrett and Owen’s girlfriend.

“Owen’s girlfriend,” Janice whispered in the juicy tones of a soap addict, “I don’t know her name, but I’ve been calling her The Cheerleader.”

Savannah laughed; it was true, the redhead seemed incomplete without pom-poms.

“But The Cheerleader has been watching Garrett when Owen isn’t looking.”

“Really?” Savannah asked.

“And Garrett is not looking away.”

Now that had the makings of revenge.

The phone rang and Janice waddled away to answer it while Savannah contemplated warm thoughts of love triangles blowing up.

“Hey!” Fingers snapped in front of Savannah’s face and she jerked out of her fantasy to find her good friend Juliette Tremblant, looking stormy and all too police-chiefy across the counter.

“Hey, Juliette.” Savannah smiled in the face of Juliette’s stern expression. She was always, always happy to see her friend—even when Juliette was coming around to chastise her. “What’s up?”

“What’s up?” Juliette repeated, incredulously. Her black eyebrows practically hit her hairline. “You just hired some stranger to work at the Manor?”

“Word travels fast,” Savannah said, amazed anew at the Bonne Terre interest in all things O’Neill. After twenty years she’d stopped being furious. Now she was merely irritated.

“One of my guys heard it from Wayne Smith who heard it from his wife who was taking her morning walk down your road and saw Margot and some stranger on the front porch shaking hands.”

“Shh!” Owen and Garrett said, over-loud, over-annoying in mockery of Savannah’s librarian battle cry.

“Excuse me?” Juliette turned to the boys, the badge clipped to the belt of her pants gleaming in the milky morning sunlight.

The boys went white and Savannah tried hard not to smile.

“Sorry, Chief Tremblant,” they chorused and quickly returned to their work and summer school teacher.

“I need a badge,” Savannah whispered.

“What you need is to have your head checked,” Juliette said, her voice lower. “I called Margot this morning, to see if it was true and she said you’d hired a drifter. I guess living alone in that mausoleum has finally gotten to your heads, because that’s not just notorious, it’s dangerous.”

“I don’t know if he’s a drifter,” Savannah said, not entirely convinced he wasn’t. And frankly, not entirely convinced that Juliette wasn’t spot on in her assessment of Margot and Savannah.

“But he’s not staying at the house. He’s going to get a room at the Bonne Terre Inn.”

“He’s still a stranger,” Juliette said.

“Right, and he’s the only person who has answered that ad,” Savannah pointed out. “Everyone in town who could do the work knows we don’t have a big budget and that the job is huge.”

“But a stranger?”

“I have vacation starting tomorrow—”

“And you’re going to spend it babysitting this guy and your courtyard?”

“No, actually, I’m going to spend most of it doing research on extreme religious rituals around the world for the Discovery Channel, but I’ll be home.”

“What do you know about this guy?” Juliette asked, brushing her suit jacket off her lean hips, revealing her gun and her whipcord build.

Juliette looked so masculine, such a change from the girl she’d been. The girl, a few years older than Savannah, who had seemed the epitome of Southern glamour. Like a Creole Liz Taylor or something. Juliette used to never wear pants, and never left the house without a thick coat of hot-pink lip gloss.

Savannah wondered how much her brother Tyler had to do with the change in Juliette. Of course, that was years ago and Juliette would take her head off for asking.

“I checked his references,” Savannah said, feeling confident until Juliette sniffed in disapproval. “And they were great.”

“References lie,” Juliette said.

“Give me some credit, Juliette. I’m a researcher. I searched his name on the Internet,” she said, “and Matt Howe, at least the Matt Howe doing work at my house, hasn’t been in the news for killing cats, or posting porn on the Web. He’s a nonentity.”

“Right, because the Internet is so reliable.” Juliette pulled her notebook from her pocket and hit the end of her ballpoint pen. “Matt Howe?”

“With an e.”

Juliette’s pen scribbling across the lined paper added to the music of her library.

Juliette jabbed the notebook into her pocket. “What do you think of this guy, really?” Her eyes narrowed and Savannah shrugged.

“I don’t like him. I don’t want him in my house. But, I think he’s safe. I think he’s a good man.”

“You’ve thought that before,” Juliette whispered and Savannah flinched at the reminder. The reminder she didn’t need.

“And I learned my lesson about handsome strangers, Juliette.” She even managed to smile. “The O’Neills don’t do love.”

It was nearly imperceptible, but Juliette’s right eyelid flinched.