Read Online What She Doesn't Know by Beverly Barton - Free Book Online Page A

he’d left, he had made sure everyone was accounted for and taken care of, to the best of his ability. Mallory had escaped to her room the minute they arrived home. But what should he have expected from her? She was just a kid. A spoiled little girl who was ill equipped to handle tragedy let alone lend comfort to others. In the days and weeks ahead she would need almost as much attention and pampering as his mother. Thank God for Yvonne. She was the only member of the household strong enough to actually be of help. She had given Georgette a mild sleeping pill and put her to bed. And when Max had abruptly asked Nowell Landers to leave, Yvonne had stepped in to soothe Clarice’s rattled nerves.
    He supposed he should have stayed at home, gone to bed, and prayed for sleep. But the tension inside him coiled tighter and tighter until he couldn’t bear another minute trapped inside Belle Rose’s ancient walls. He needed to escape, if only for a couple of hours, to a place where no one depended on him, no one asked anything from him. For the past few years, he had found an undemanding sanctuary in Eartha Kilpatrick’s arms. Sometimes he wondered why the woman put up with him, why she allowed him to wander in and out of her life without asking him for anything more than sex. He supposed half the town knew about their relationship, but he didn’t give a damn and apparently neither did Eartha. She was a good ole gal and deserved more than he could ever give her. But he’d told her from the beginning, been honest with her all along. He had no intention of ever remarrying. And as far as loving another woman—folks would be ice-skating in hell before that would happen.
    The tepid night air, heavy with warm moisture, settled around Max as he zipped the Porsche into the parking lot at the Sumarville Inn. Perspiration dotted his brow and dampened his white shirt. In the distance a rumbling roar and a groaning whistle announced that a freight train had just crossed the bridge over Owassa Creek. After putting up the top on his car and locking the doors, he kept his key chain in his hand as he entered the inn’s lobby. The clock on the wall behind the check-in counter read twelve-twenty-three.
    Max recognized the guy behind the counter. R. J. Sutton. Young. Twenty-four at most, possibly younger. Good looking in a low-class, dangerous sort of way. He had a tatoo of a scorpion boldly displayed on his forearm and a gold stud glimmered in his left ear. Was this what I would have looked like in my twenties, Max wondered, if Philip Devereaux hadn’t married Mama and brought us to Sumarville before I was born?
    “Good evening, Mr. Devereaux.” The guy nodded and smiled. “Can I help you?”
    “No, thanks. Ms. Kilpatrick is expecting me.”
    It was a lie, of course. He hadn’t bothered to call Eartha. Max didn’t like having to explain himself to anyone, least of all some minimum-wage flunky. He’d have to speak to Eartha about this boy. There was something about him that made the hairs on the back of Max’s neck stand up. Instinct warned him that if the guy stayed around too long, he was bound to cause trouble. And God knew that was the last thing he needed right now—more trouble.
    As Max turned and headed down the corridor leading to the rooms and suites on the first floor of the inn, he singled out the key to Eartha’s suite. Since her girls had left town, she’d moved from her apartment into the hotel. She’d given him a key this past winter. Tonight when she had stopped by the funeral home, she had squeezed his hand as she’d told him how very sorry she was about Louis. And she’d given him that look, the one that said she was hungry for him. Max didn’t have the slightest idea whether she had other lovers; he really didn’t care. But he suspected that although Eartha had known more than her share of men, she was the type who took them on one at a time.
    He inserted the key in the lock. Lucky for him she had left the