Read Online Southern Comforts by Joann Ross - Free Book Online

and wrists glistened like ice in the late afternoon sun streaming through windows in need of reglazing. “I’m sure there’ll be no problem.” She held out her hand. “Shall we shake on agreeing to come to an agreement, at least?”
    Cash took her outstretched hand. “Looks like you’ve just hired yourself an architect.”
    Arizona
    George Waggoner sat in the seat of the Greyhound bus speeding across the Sonoran Desert, stared blearily out thewindow and decided that this had to be the shit ugliest country he’d ever seen. It was all dirt. And rocks. Hell, it reminded him of somethin’ a tom cat would crap in.
    â€œAnd on the eighth day, God looked down, slapped his forehead and said, hot damn, I finally found the place to put the world’s litter box.”
    Enjoying his little joke, he chuckled, which in turn drew a nervous smile from the young woman sitting across the aisle from him. George glared back.
    Another goddamn slant-eye. Just like the one behind him. And the wrinkled up, yellow-skinned old bitch in front of him. Christ, the entire country was being overrun with the chinks, wetbacks and rag heads. Pretty soon there wouldn’t be any room left for the real Americans. He took a slug from the bottle of rotgut whiskey he had wrapped in a paper bag and waited for the kick.
    They weren’t like the niggers back home, either. Back in Georgia, blacks with any brains at all could take one look at him and know that it was better just to stay the hell out of his way.
    But these assholes were different. They were pushy. All the time crowding in where they didn’t belong, talkin’ their gibberish about Christ knew what.
    Hell. It was bad enough that the government didn’t do anything about keeping them out. Personally, if he was the president, he’d go on television and declare a national hunting day on immigrants. Make a bundle off sellin’ the hunting tags that would pay off the national debt, and let good old boys like George Waggoner take care of the problem.
    And not just a day, he decided. Hell, just pass a constitutional amendment making it open season on everyone who wasn’t a red-blooded American. That’d be a guaran-goddam-teed way to solve the problem.
    He took another pull from the bottle. Then pointed hisindex finger at the woman across the aisle, aimed and pulled the trigger. In his mind’s eye, he received a certain satisfaction from imagining that sloped head explode like an overripe crenshaw melon dropped onto the sidewalk from the top of the prison tower.
    She gasped, her gaze locked on his, like a scared mouse hypnotized by a swaying cobra. Enjoying the fantasy, and her fear, he winked.
    Visibly trembling, she jumped to her feet and hurried back up the aisle to the rest room. George barked a cigarette-roughened laugh that degenerated into a rattling cough. Then he settled back in the seat, returned to his bottle and contemplated the look on little ole Cora Mae Padgett’s face when he showed up on the doorstep of Roxanne Scarbrough’s fancy mansion.

Chapter Four
    New York
    A lthough Chelsea’s suit was comparatively restrained, the emerald color proved a stunning foil for her brilliant hair. As she dashed into the Plaza’s Palm Court, heads swiveled, watching her make a beeline for a table across the way.
    â€œI’m sorry I’m late.” She bent down and kissed her mother’s cheek. “I didn’t think I’d ever get out of that interview with Bruce Willis.”
    Deidre Lowell managed a brittle smile. “You could have simply informed the man that you had a luncheon date with your mother.”
    Chelsea grinned, still riding the high of her successful morning. “I suppose I could have tried that,” she agreed. “But then I would have missed the neatest story about the day he and Demi took the kids to the zoo, and—”
    â€œI’m sure it’s a delightful