BEVERLY BARTON - The Daughter

He continued staring at her. Those incredible blue eyes hypnotized her. She couldn’t help wondering how many other women had been caught and held by the mesmerizing coldness in Reed Conway’s eyes. She swallowed. Get hold of yourself, Eleanor Porter. He’s just a man, like any other man. He puts his pants on one leg at a time, right? Yeah, sure. She couldn’t kid herself. Reed might put his pants on in the same way other men did, but he wasn’t like other men. He never had been. Not at eighteen. Not now. He had been a star athlete headed for the University of Alabama on a football scholarship when he’d killed his stepfather. He’d had a bad boy reputation with girls and women alike when he’d been Bryant County’s teenage heartthrob and the bane of concerned parents’ lives. She remembered accidentally overhearing her uncle Jeff Henry make an off-color comment about Reed all those years ago.

‘That boy’s got a man-sized ego because he’s bigger and better on the football field than anybody else. And the ladies seem to think what he’s got between his legs is bigger and better, too.’

She could still hear her uncle’s and her father’s macho chuckles, each in his own way both condemning and envying the boy from the wrong side of the tracks who had been destined for football superstardom.

And now Reed was different because he was a convicted murderer who had served fifteen years in prison. What had those years done to him? Losing everything – his freedom and the promise of a rich and famous future – must have embittered him. He had sworn revenge, hadn’t he? Against her father. But he had also sworn something else.

He had sworn he was innocent.

But that wasn’t possible. He’d been given a fair trial and was found guilty by a jury of his peers. Not only her father, but everyone in town knew he was guilty. He had to be guilty. All the evidence pointed directly to him. He had admitted beating his stepfather until he was unconscious. The knife used to slit Junior Blalock’s throat had belonged to Reed, and only his fingerprints had been found on it.

‘If you didn’t send me this letter, then who did?’ Ella asked. ‘Who else would have a reason to send me something like this? The content is very similar to those two letters you wrote to me …’

‘I shouldn’t have written those letters to you.’

Ella lowered the hand that held the scrunched envelope. She didn’t know if she moved closer or if Reed did, but suddenly they were nose to nose. A wave of dizziness forced her to blink and then refocus her vision so that she looked away, over his shoulder toward the dingy white wall behind him.

‘I was wild with anger when I first got to Donaldson,’ he said, his voice low, even and unbelievably calm. ‘I lashed out at everyone and everything. I hated your father and I wrote those letters to you to get a rise out of him. It was a stupid mistake. One I’ve regretted for a long time.’

He sounded so sincere that she almost believed him. Dear Lord, she wanted to believe him. She wanted to reach out and stroke his beard-stubbled cheek and tell him that she truly believed he regretted his past sins. She clenched her fist tightly at her side so that she didn’t respond physically, didn’t allow her own unchecked emotions to get her into trouble. As a small child, her spontaneous, emotional actions had worried her mother terribly, so she’d learned to curb those tendencies in order to please Carolyn.

‘I’d like to believe you,’ Ella said, proud that her voice didn’t tremble even though she was shaking like a leaf inside. ‘But it seems too much of a coincidence that the day after you’re released from prison, I receive a letter very similar to the two you sent me fifteen years ago.’

‘Maybe it’s not a coincidence,’ Reed suggested. He released the chair arms and rose to his full, imposing height.

Ella tilted her head and stared up at him. ‘What are you implying?’

‘I know that I sure as hell didn’t write that letter to you, but circumstantial evidence points to me. Maybe whoever sent it wants you to think I’m the person who wrote it.’

‘But why?’

‘To get me in trouble.’

Ella rose to her feet but quickly realized her mistake. Reed didn’t move out of her way, so only inches separated her body from his. She felt his heat, smelled his sweat, heard his indrawn breath when his leg accidentally brushed against hers. Or had it been accidental?

‘Why … why would someone want to get you in trouble?’

‘If I get in big enough trouble, I go back to the pen.’ Did Reed sway slightly toward her or did she lean into him? Only a hairbreadth separated them now. ‘Whoever really killed Junior Blalock doesn’t want me to stay free, doesn’t want me snooping around trying to find out the truth.’

For a split second, she thought he was going to kiss her. She froze to the spot, unable to move, unable to breathe. You don’t want him to kiss you, do you? She realized that yes, she did want him to kiss her, and the shock of it motivated her self-preservation instincts. Maybe Reed Conway fascinated her in a way no other man ever had. Maybe the aura of danger and machismo that was such an intrinsic part of him aroused some primitive female needs within her. But she was an intelligent, cautious woman who knew better than to succumb to baser instincts.

Ella eased around Reed, unavoidably brushing against him as she passed. He made no move to restrain her. Instead, he followed her to the door, reached around her, grabbed the knob and opened the door. His big, hairy arm looped around her waist. She was painfully aware of what their close proximity might look like to anyone who could see them. It would never do to have someone catch her practically in Reed Conway’s arms.

‘I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt this time,’ she told him. ‘If you say you didn’t write this letter’ – she glanced at the letter she still gripped tightly in her hand – ‘then I’ll take your word for it. But if I receive another, I won’t be able to dismiss it so easily. Do I make myself clear, Mr Conway?’

He grinned. Damn him! ‘Yes, Miss Ella, you make yourself perfectly clear. But you’re talking to the wrong man.’

A heated flush crept up her neck and colored her cheeks. ‘Just stay away from me … and from my family.’

‘It will be my pleasure.’

Ella practically ran from him, her footsteps clicking against the concrete floor of the garage as she made her hasty escape. She didn’t slow her pace until she reached her car; then, breathless with uncertainty and heightened senses, she halted long enough to get control of herself before she slid behind the wheel. Prompted by an urgent need to run, to get far away from Reed as fast as she could, Ella inserted the key into the ignition and started the engine. As she zoomed the Jag out into the street, the tires squealed loudly. When she dared a glance in her rearview mirror, she saw a smiling Reed Conway standing in the doorway, waving goodbye.

‘Now, there, my man, is one fine piece of ass,’ Briley Joe said as he walked up beside Reed. ‘Got class written all over her.’

‘Yeah, she’s a class act, all right.’ Reed shook his head and laughed. ‘She’s scared shitless of me. And I don’t think it’s just because I’m a convicted murderer.’

‘You think the judge has got the hots for you, cuz?’

‘I think she’s scared of me. That’s all.’

‘Yeah, but wouldn’t you like to know what it feels like to make it with one of her kind?’

‘Not much chance of that.’ Reed shrugged. ‘Women like Miss Ella are too high class for the likes of you and me.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Briley Joe snickered.