Southern Comforts

Welcome to Raintree, Georgia—steamy capital of sin, scandal and murder

To her fans, Roxanne Scarbrough is the genteel Southern queen of good taste—she’s built an empire around the how-to’s of gracious living. To her critics—and there are many—Roxanne is Queen Bitch. And now somebody wants her dead.

Chelsea Cassidy, Roxanne’s official biographer, knows that Roxanne is determined to keep her dark secrets buried, whatever the cost. But when Chelsea begins to unearth the truth about Roxanne’s life, her search leads her back into the arms of her college love, Cash Beaudine—a man Roxanne wants for herself. And suddenly Chelsea’s investigation takes on a very personal nature—with potentially fatal consequences.

Praise for the novels of

“[Ross] masterfully weaves a tale of momentum and curves. Between the intrigue and the steamy romance, you’ll be left breathless.”

—RT Book Reviews on Confessions

“JoAnn Ross takes her audience on a thrilling roller-coaster ride that leaves them breathless.”

—Affaire de Coeur on Confessions

“A steamy, fast-paced read.”

—Publishers Weekly on No Regrets

“A moving story with marvelous characters that should not be missed.”

—RT Book Reviews, 4 1/2 stars, on No Regrets

“JoAnn Ross masterfully paints a pictures of a magical, mystical land. With delightful touches of folklore storytelling, Ms. Ross tells a tale that delivers laughter, tears and so much joy.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Woman’s Heart

“A Woman’s Heart will find a place in every fan’s heart, as it is an extraordinary tale that will charm the audience. This is one time the luck of the Irish will shine on every reader.”

—Affaire de Coeur

Southern

Comforts

JoAnn Ross

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To Jay

Dear Reader,

Confession time—I’m one of those women who keep home decorating and craft magazines in business. In 1995, as I made plans for that year’s Christmas, I decided all our windows would have a wreath made from roses from my garden. And the big front-door wreath would be created from pinecones I’d not only gild myself, but would drive three hours to the mountains and personally gather.

A week before two parties (a dinner party Friday and a cocktail party for fifty of my husband’s business associates the next night), my roses—laid out in bins all over the floor of our garage—still hadn’t entirely dried. When my husband suggested I simply buy dried roses from a florist, I insisted they had to be homegrown.

Meanwhile, while waiting for my roses to dry, I set about creating a tabletop duplicate of the twelve-foot-tall Victorian Christmas tree I’d spent a week decorating.

Did I mention I was also writing toward a January 1 book deadline?

Somehow it all came together, but five minutes before the first guests arrived, when I was outside, hot-gluing the last of those gilded sugar pinecones onto the front-door wreath, I screamed, “All those people who encourage women to do this stuff must die!”

And that’s how Southern Comforts was born. I hope you enjoy Chelsea Cassidy and Cash Beaudine’s story, and I promise that no Diva of Domesticity was actually murdered during the writing of this book.

JoAnn

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Prologue

1989

It was a night made for romance. Outside the ballroom of the Hillcrest Country Club, sparkling stars filled the night sky like diamonds scattered over a jeweler’s black velvet cloth. Music drifted on air perfumed with the scent of lilacs, accompanying the soft sighs and whispers of lovers who’d slipped away to steal kisses in the shadows of spreading chestnut trees.

Inside the ballroom, seated at a damask-draped table, Chelsea Cassidy watched her cousin, Susan Lowell, dance with her groom.

The bride was, as brides are supposed to be, beautiful. She also looked as if she were dancing on air.

“I still don’t understand.” Chelsea’s date, Nelson Webster Waring, complained for the umpteenth time that night. He shook his head as he cut into his prime rib. “Why did you feel the need to actually have your name on that tacky story?”

For the umpteenth time that night, Chelsea tried to explain. “In the first place, I don’t consider it a tacky story—”

“A woman baring her breast in public?” Nelson arched a patrician brow that reminded Chelsea too much of the way her mother had looked at her so many times over the years.

“To feed her child, Nelson.” A champagne bottle, nestled in ice cubes in which pink rosebuds had been frozen, awaited the wedding toast. Tempted as she was to open the dark green bottle, Chelsea reached instead for her water goblet, only to have it taken away by a tuxedo-clad waiter.

“The woman unbuttoned her blouse to feed her infant daughter,” she said. “As women have, thank God, been doing since the beginning of time.”

“Hopefully not in public parks.” He took another bite, annoying her further by chewing his usual ten times, as he’d been taught by some nanny. Chelsea wondered if Nelson would actually choke to death if he swallowed the damn piece of meat after only six chews.

“Kathy Reed pays taxes.” Chelsea snatched the refilled glass from the waiter’s hand before he could return it to the table. “That makes her the public.”

She took a long drink of ice water she hoped would help calm her. It didn’t. “Which, in turn, makes it her park. And it wasn’t as if she tore off her clothes and went skinny-dipping in the fountain, Nelson. She was behaving quite discreetly. People didn’t have to look.”

“We’re getting off the point.” His own irritation beginning to show, he stabbed a piece of potato. “The issue is not whether the woman’s behavior was proper. The issue is why you insisted on having your name linked with hers.”

“Because I’m a journalist.”

“You’re merely an intern at the Register,” he re-minded her.

“I start getting paid next week. When I begin working full-time.”

“As a Sunday lifestyle reporter. Which doesn’t exactly put you on a par with Woodward and Bernstein.”

“Thank you for pointing that out to me.”

He appeared unmoved by her sarcasm. “Why can’t you cover the summer social season?”

“The job of society reporter’s already filled. Besides, covering weddings and yacht regattas would bore me to tears. I want to write important stories, Nelson.”

“Like that unsavory date-rape series?”

“That unsavory series, as you call it, received a great deal of national attention, Nelson. I’d hoped you would be proud.”

“Of course I’m proud of you.” He lifted his gilt-rimmed coffee cup, signaling for a refill. “That goes without saying.”

Exchanging the water pitcher for a sterling pot, the waiter obliged. When his mocking dark eyes met Chelsea’s, she glared at him.

“But if you’re going to insist on writing about such distasteful topics,” Nelson continued, oblivious to Chelsea’s silent exchange with the dark-haired man standing behind him, “couldn’t you at least use a pen name? Like George Eliot?”

“Pseudonyms are for fiction writers.”

“Honestly, Chelsea, I don’t understand why you can’t be like other women. Like your mother. Or mine.”

Nelson’s mother was, if possible, even more rigid than hers. Margaret Waring clung to the old WASP belief that there were only three times a woman should have her name in the paper: when she was born, married and died.

Chelsea sighed. “I know.”

“Know what?”

“That you don’t understand.” She stood up and placed her napkin on the table. “Excuse me. I need to freshen up.”

The women’s lounge was deserted, allowing Chelsea the chance to try to regain her composure. During the past four years, while working hard at her studies, along with writing for the Yale Review, she’d managed to build a lucrative freelance career working as a stringer for a syndicate providing news copy and interviews for a group of small weekly papers along the eastern seaboard. If all that wasn’t enough to keep her busy, she’d also talked her way into an intern job on the local New Haven Register.

And then a close friend had made the mistake of getting drunk at a party after the annual Harvard-Yale football game.

The series of date-rape articles Nelson found so objectionable had not been easy to write. Many of the victims had suffered feelings of shame and guilt and it had taken Chelsea time to convince them that only by bringing the issue to the bright light of day could the stigma be burned away.

Although the intensely personal interviews had definitely not been popular with her mother or Nelson, they had been met with ego-boosting approval on campus and won her the offer for a full-time position at the Register after graduation. They’d also been picked up by a few weekly papers around the country, technically establishing her as a national journalist.

Which was, Chelsea thought as she dried her hands and began energetically brushing her hair, a pretty good start for someone who’d just graduated from college. Her famous father, Dylan Cassidy, had been a year older—twenty-two—before he’d gotten his first national byline.

She left the lounge and was walking down the hall on her way back to the ballroom, when, without warning, a hand reached out of a doorway, snagged her wrist and pulled her into a narrow dark room.

Before she could utter a word of protest, her mouth was covered by another in a deep, punishing kiss that literally took her breath away.

There was no light in the room, which, from the scent of disinfectant, she realized was a janitor’s closet. Since her eyes had not adjusted to the dark, she could not see the man whose lips were grinding against hers.

But Chelsea didn’t need to see. Because she had everything about him imprinted on every inch of her mind and body. It was as if she’d been bewitched by some black magic, she thought wildly, as she dragged her hands through his dark hair and pressed her body even tighter against his. From the first day Cash Beaudine had shown up in her dining hall, hired to bus tables at mealtimes, she’d fallen under his spell.

Unlike any of the boys she’d grown up with—boys groomed from infancy to take their places in boardrooms all over America—Cash was a rebel. He was Heathcliffe, James Dean, Billy the Kid and Butch Cassidy all rolled into one dark, dangerous, smoldering package.

Other than the fact that he was from the South and was attending the college of architecture on a work-study scholarship, Chelsea didn’t know very much about him. She had no idea about his family background, what religion, if any, he practiced, or his political affiliation. Their relationship was not based on any high level of communication.

It was lust, pure and simple.

And it was wonderful.

“Why the hell do you put up with that guy?” Cash growled as he thrust his hands beneath the full-skirted bridesmaid dress.

“I’ve known Nelson for years.” Although talking was never at the top of their list of things to do when they were together, this was not the first time Cash had asked that question. Her answer was always the same. “I’m going to marry him. When I turn thirty.”

If she married earlier, she’d lose the inheritance bequeathed to her by her great-grandmother Whitney. But marriage and money were the last things on Chelsea’s mind right now. She gasped with a combination of pleasure and anticipation as Cash pressed his palm against the already damp crotch of her seashell pink panty hose.

“You might be able to fool Nelson. You might even be able to fool yourself, sweetheart.” His mouth scorched a trail of flame down her neck. Chelsea tilted her head back, giving him access to her throat. “But you sure as hell can’t fool me.”

There was barely room for one person in the close confines of the closet, let alone two. Chelsea was firmly wedged between a wall of wooden shelves and Cash’s rock-hard body.

“You’ll never marry that cold-blooded, self-righteous yuppie creep.” As if staking his claim, he yanked the waistband of her panty hose down. His long dark finger combed through copper curls before probing moist feminine folds. “Not after being with me.”

“Is that a proposal?” If he were the last male on earth, Chelsea couldn’t imagine marrying a man like Cash. Of course, she considered as his intimate caress made her head spin, the thought of bringing Cash home to her mother, then sitting back and watching the fireworks, was definitely appealing.

“Hell, no.” As forceful a lover as he was, Cash was not without finesse. Two fingers had replaced the one and his thumb was doing incredible things to her tingling flesh.

“I’ve already told you, baby, I’ve got too many things I want to do before I tie myself down with a ball and chain. And even if I ever do decide to get married, it damn sure won’t be to any uptown Yankee girl.”

Despite her disinterest in marrying Cash, the Yankee reference stung. Refusing to give him any more power than he already held over her, Chelsea chose to concentrate on his unflattering description of matrimony.

“A ball and chain. What a lovely original metaphor.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. Wanting to make him as desperate, as hungry as he was making her, she managed to snake her hand between their bodies and unzip his black waiter’s slacks. “I must remember to write it down.”

“You do that.” He was hard as marble in her hand. But much, much hotter. “When you can think again.” One last flick of that wicked thumb sent her over the edge. Even as she felt the first orgasm ricocheting through her, Chelsea knew there would be more.

Chelsea had never thought of herself as a particularly sexual person. Oh, she’d slept with Nelson, of course. After all, she’d known him all her life.

But this crazy time with Cash Beaudine had changed something elemental inside her. Since their first stolen time together, she couldn’t stop thinking of Cash.

Wanting him.

And heaven help her, needing him.

He’d filled her mind as completely as he’d filled her body. The more of Cash she had, the more she wanted.

Before the last of the ripples had faded, he’d set her away from him and was zipping up his slacks. “Let’s go somewhere there’s room to do this right.”

Now that her eyes had adjusted to the light, she could see his devilish grin. It was arrogant, mocking and sexy as hell. “An uptown girl like you deserves more than a quick stand-up fantasy fuck in a broom closet.”

“Once again your mastery of the English language overwhelms me.” Chelsea was not by nature a sarcastic person. She had, however, recently resorted to snapping back at him in order to maintain some small sense of balance in this relationship.

Not, she reminded herself firmly, that two people having sex at every opportunity could be considered a real relationship.

“Besides, Susan will be throwing her bouquet soon. I have to be there.”

“Which would you rather have?” His deep voice heated her blood all over again. “A bunch of overpriced hothouse roses tied up in pink-and-white satin ribbons?” Taking hold of her wrist, he pressed her hand against his swollen groin. “Or this?”

What should have been an easy question was anything but. Chelsea thought of Nelson, waiting back at their table, armed with new arguments he’d undoubtedly worked out during her absence.

She also thought of tomorrow when she’d be off to her mother’s summer home at the Hamptons for a week’s visit before beginning work at the paper, and Cash would be on his way across the country to San Francisco. He’d landed a job with a famed international architectural firm whose name she recognized.

And even as she wondered how this rebel would fit into the buttoned-down world of designing high-rise office buildings for the corporate elite, Chelsea couldn’t help being impressed.

“You’d better make up your mind quick.” The thick, south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-line drawl was the same one he pulled out whenever he sensed her wavering. “Before we croak from inhaling too much Pine-Sol. Or your boyfriend suddenly stops thinking about himself long enough to notice you’re gone and sends someone to find you.”

Leaving with Cash Beaudine would not only be wrong, it would be the most outrageous thing she’d ever done. And for Chelsea, that was admittedly saying something.

She hesitated another heartbeat. Then, as she drank in the mysterious male scent emanating from Cash’s dark neck, Chelsea pictured the rumpled, unmade bed where she’d discovered the true meaning of passion.

Heaven help her, she was going to do it!

Five minutes later, she was sitting on the back of Cash’s jet-black Harley, racing down the road away from the country club. The wrinkled pink taffeta skirt was hitched up around her thighs, her arms were wrapped around his waist and her hair streamed out like a copper flag from beneath the black motorcycle helmet he’d stuck on her head.

It was a night made for romance.

A night when anything was possible.

A night Chelsea knew she’d remember for the rest of her life.

Chapter One

New York City, Seven Years Later

The Power Behind The Pretty Face

Roxanne Scarbrough is the doyenne of decoration, the maven of modern style. In addition to her monthly magazine, Southern Comforts, several New York Times bestselling how-to books, videotapes and a syndicated weekly television program, America’s favorite Steel Magnolia has inked a six-figure deal with Mega-Mart stores. Middle-class shoppers frequenting the booming, 347-store chain can now live and shop the Scarbrough way.

Mega-Mart’s budget for the new advertising campaign announcing their Southern Comforts line is 12 million, which should make the folks over at Chiat/Day a great deal more comfortable. Whatta deal! Whatta gal!

Adweek, March 26, 1996.

For a woman whose public image made Donna Reed look like a slacker, Roxanne Scarbrough proved to be a dragon lady extraordinaire.

Chelsea had never met anyone like America’s most famous southern belle. Which, for someone who had managed to survive interviews with both Madonna and Roseanne, was saying something. As she sat on the sofa in Good Morning America’s greenroom, waiting for her interview with Charlie Gibson, Chelsea watched Roxanne’s off-screen theatrics in amazement.

Since the limousine had delivered America’s most famous lifestyle expert to the studio from her suite at the Plaza an hour ago, she’d thrown a brush at the hairdresser who had quick reflexes and ducked just in time, stomped out of the room when the makeup woman had made the fatal mistake of suggesting a concealer to cover the faint scars from recent eyelid surgery, and managed to deride her personal assistant at every possible opportunity.

The makeup room was too hot. The greenroom too cold. The orange juice was frozen. And the Danish, horror of horrors, were cold.

“Honestly,” Roxanne huffed with a brisk shake of her sleek blond bob, “you Yankees have absolutely no sense of style!”

“I expect that’s why you’ve been invited on the program,” Chelsea replied blandly. “To bring culture to the philistines.”

Only the sharpest ear would have caught Chelsea’s veiled sarcasm. The glint in her green eyes would have warned anyone who knew her. As it was, the other woman was so wrapped up in her pique, it flew right over her head.

Roxanne’s gaze flicked over Chelsea like a medical researcher checking out the dog pound for potential experimental material.

“A hopeless task,” she asserted between bonded teeth, then announced to no one in particular, “This is a shitty time of day.”

When she pulled a cigarette from a crushed gold mesh pack and planted it between her lips, her assistant, a harried, pleasantly plump thirty-something woman, leaped to light it. Chelsea noted the lack of a thank-you. Perhaps no one had bothered to inform the southern doyenne of domesticity that slavery had been abolished.

“It fucks up my biorhythms.” The proclamation was exhaled on a cloud of noxious blue smoke that came puffing out of both nostrils like dragon fire. Chelsea said nothing. But she did wonder what the Steel Magnolia’s legion of fans would think of such earthy language escaping their guru’s glossy pink lips.

Roxanne glared around the room, which had nearly emptied; the third guest of the hour—an economist from Harvard scheduled to discuss the potential impact of baby boomers reaching Social Security age—had already sought sanctuary in the restroom down the hall.

“Where the hell is that boy with my tea?”

A moment later, one of the interns returned to the greenroom. His name was Brian, Chelsea had learned. The son of a West Virginia coal miner and truck stop waitress, he was a scholarship student from Penn. He was, he’d told her earlier, thrilled to have won this highly coveted internship. But of course, he’d shared that little nugget of personal information before he’d met Roxanne Scarbrough.

When she glimpsed the red-and-white tea bag tag hanging from the rim of the foam cup in Brian’s hand, Chelsea braced herself.

“What the hell is this?” Roxanne demanded.

“Roxanne,” her beleaguered assistant, Dorothy Landis, murmured, “it’s the tea you asked for.”

“This is not tea.” Roxanne crushed her cigarette out into a GMA ashtray with enough force to break the slim cylinder in two. Blazing blue eyes hardened to sapphire as they raked the cup the young man was holding.

“Tea is properly brewed in freshly drawn soft—but never chemically softened—water which has been heated in an enameled vessel. The leaves—preferably Imperial Darjeeling—should be dropped into the water just as it arrives at a brisk rolling boil, giving them a deep wheel-like movement, which opens them up for fullest infusion.”

Her voice, as it slashed away at the intern, was as sharp and deadly as a whip. “After which time it is poured into a scalded, preheated pot to allow the essential oils to circulate through the liquid.”

A very good four-carat diamond sparkled in the overhead fluorescent light as Roxanne reached out and plucked the white cup from the intern’s hand. “This is not tea,” she repeated. Turning her wrist, she deliberately poured the brown liquid onto his shoes.

Chelsea watched the bright red spots appear on his narrow cheeks. Fortunately, before the young man could make a mistake that might cost him his job, another intern appeared in the doorway.

“Ms. Lundon is ready for you now, Ms. Scarbrough,” she said.

Roxanne immediately stood up. Chelsea watched, fascinated in spite of herself, at the woman’s metamorphosis. Her perfectly made-up face softened, the hardness left her eyes and her lips curved into her signature smile. She ran her hands over her spring suit—pink with black piping, from this season’s Chanel collection, Chelsea noted—smoothing nonexistent wrinkles.