Cynthia was not only beautiful, she was also a very successful lawyer. She loved her job, had many friends and best of all, she had a very faithful boyfriend named Clint, whom she was going to marry. Life had been very good to her; she was content, but perhaps a little bored. She felt that she needed something new in her life-and then she met Hank Dowler.
Dowler was not half as educated as she was. He was a daredevil driver who made his living by executing dangerous feats of courage. Cynthia was violently attracted to him-he possessed the wild carefree attitude towards life that Clint lacked. He was tempting and torrid, but he was not the marrying kind. Furthermore, she didn't know how to end her long term relationship with Clint. She has to decide whether she wants security or fireworks-and lust could very well get the best of her!
CHAPTER ONE
Cynthia was hot and angry.
It had been hot enough inside, but now out on the street the oven-blast turned her face a reddish glow, and dampened her tightly curled black hair.
A tall, sandy-haired young man in sports shirt and slacks who was advancing up the steps saw her, waved and peered at her with pretended alarm.
"How's the flower of our legal profession?" he demanded with a little grin, and then drew back. "Oho, storm clouds. "Who've you been battling now?"
"Oh, Judge Clinkscales is a-" she bit off the words, and the young man looked swiftly about him.
"Sh!" he warned her in a harsh whisper. "The very walls have ears. No up-and-coming young attorney, even if she is the prettiest gal in town, should ever speak of Hizzoner in that tone!"
Cynthia ran fingers through her close-cropped black hair and said wearily, "Oh, I know that, only-he makes me so darned mad!"
Clinton Kirby eyed her curiously.
"I take it you've been trying to get him to release Bud Conyers on bail," he said thoughtfully. "You should be enough of an attorney by now, Cynthia, after your five years of practice and the years of reading law with your father, to know that murder is not bailable."
"Bud is not a murderer!" Cynthia blazed hotly.
"Of course not," said Clint cheerfully, a twinkle in his blue eyes. "One's client is never guilty, no matter how the evidence stacks up against him."
"It's all circumstantial."
"Many a man has been hanged by such!"
Cynthia winced and rushed on. "The Judge will release him on bail, so he must not think the evidence is that good."
Clint looked startled. "Oh, come now, Cynthia, the charge is first-degree murder. He shot a man down in cold blood, from ambush," he protested.
"And that's why I know Bud didn't do it," Cynthia flashed. "I've known Bud Conyers all his life. He just isn't capable of a cold-blooded killing."
Clint said quietly, "I admire your faith in your client, Cynthia, but you may as well face facts. This is going to be a tough battle: Bud against the whole 'better element' of Reidsville, with everybody knowing there was bad blood between him and the murdered man. I hated hearing the court appoint you to his defense."
The court didn't appoint me," Cynthia answered curtly. "I offered my services to Bud."
"Well, you are sticking your neck out. Losing a client-"
"I'm not going to lose a client, and stop talking as though you believed Bud is guilty."
"I'm afraid I do, Cynthia. The whole town and most of the county thinks so, too. You may as well face that," Clinton said quietly.
She looked up at him, her brown-gold eyes anxious, her pretty mouth drooping a little. He met her eyes, and his own were troubled.
"But if the Judge is willing to allow him out on bail-" he began thoughtfully, and stopped as Cynthia gave a small, derisive snort.
"Oh, yes, he can be released on bail-twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of bail," she said wryly.
"Twenty-five thousand!" Clint whistled, his eyes wide.
"And of course the Judge knows that there isn't a man, woman or child in Reidsville who would contribute so much as five cents for Bud's defense. Nobody here has that kind of money to put up for bail, and even if they did, they'd never risk it on Bud, they're all so dead certain he's guilty."
Cynthia made a little weary gesture, tucked her battered briefcase beneath her arm and managed a faint smile.
"So Bud's locked up until the trial, which will be the first week in October. Bud has never before in all his twenty-two years been told he couldn't go anywhere he wanted to or do what he wanted to. It's like seeing some small, defenseless animal caught in a trap."
Clint nodded thoughtfully, his eyes warm on Cynthia's flushed face and troubled eyes.
Tough, honey," he said sympathetically. "But, after all, it's no good your getting emotionally involved. You're his attorney, and it's your job to keep yourself as remote-"
"Oh, don't start telling me that again, Clint," Cynthia flashed sharply. "If I didn't get emotionally involved with my clients and want desperately to see them get justice, I'd never have read law with my father in the first place. Bud is innocent, I tell you, and I've got to prove it."
Clint made a small gesture with an open hand that acknowledged the futility of arguing with her.
"You're a swell girl, Cynthia, and I wish like blazes I could help you defend Bud. But considering the circumstances, my position, I can't quite see how I could afford to align myself-"
"Oh, I understand that, Clint. As a rising young politician who wants to be County Prosecutor next year, you can't afford to get mixed up in a case that's going to create such a rumpus, especially when you are obviously so convinced that Bud will be convicted."
Cynthia managed a faint and unconvincing smile and went on down the worn stone steps to the street and across to her office, without looking back. Clint watched her go, frowned and then turned and went on into the courthouse, still scowling.
Cynthia climbed the dusty steps between two department stores and turned toward a door on which the words "C. Reid, Attorney-at-Law," were lettered in black against the white frosted glass panel.
Maggie Mitchel, who had been her father's secretary and who was now her own, as well as her closest friend and most trusted confidante, slowed her flying fingers over the typewriter and lifted her graying head as Cynthia came in.
Maggie was fiftyish, stout, matter-of-fact, down to earth and adored Cynthia.
"Well?" demanded Maggie. Then, as she saw the girl's face, she added, "Oh, Judge Clinkscales wouldn't allow bail?"
"Oh, he was most gracious." Cynthia's mouth was a thin bitter line. "Bud can be released on bail. Twenty-five thousand dollars' worth!"
"My sainted aunt!" Maggie gasped. "Why, doesn't the Judge know there hasn't been that much money in Reidsville since the FBI caught those bank robbers holed up in a motel outside the city limits?"
"Of course he does," Cynthia agreed grimly. "He even smiled as he mentioned the amount."
Maggie nodded soberly, her eyes warm and anxious on Cynthia's strained face.
"Bud's frantic," Cynthia went on. "Oh, not for himself. He's wild at the thought of Glad-die-May and the baby out there alone. I promised him I'd go out and bring them in town to stay with us until he is free."
"Well, sure, what else could you do?" Maggie agreed firmly.
"Call Chewning's, Maggie, and see how soon I can have my car," Cynthia asked, as she picked up her briefcase and turned toward her small private office.
It was not until then that she became aware of the man who was sitting quietly in a chair facing the railing behind which Maggie's desk was placed. The man was tall, lean, sun-bronzed, and watching her with frank admiration in his gray eyes that contrasted with his thick rough black hair and his suntan.
"Oh," said Cynthia, startled. "I didn't see you. I'm sorry. Were you waiting to see me?"
The man unfolded his six-foot-plus of lean, rugged-looking body and smiled down at her.
"I was waiting for Miss Cynthia Reid. I take it you are she," he said pleasantly, his voice a deep baritone, "though I have to admit you're not exactly my idea of a lady lawyer."
"Oh," Maggie was on her feet now, apologetic. "I'm sorry, Mr. Dowler. I forgot all about you. Cynthia, this is Mr. Dowler, who's head of that auto racing outfit that's going to try to get itself killed twice a day to amuse the crowds at the county fair in October."
The man laughed ruefully.
"Well, the trick is to amuse the crowds without getting killed," he protested.
"Should be quite a trick," Maggie growled, and went back to her typewriter.
Hank Dowler turned back to Cynthia and saw the faint chill in her eyes. He spoke hastily, as though fearful that he had aroused her resentment.
"I asked downstairs at the bank for the name of a thoroughly reliable and trustworthy lawyer, and they gave me your name and said you were the very best," he assured her. "Your secretary said you'd be back soon, so I took the liberty of waiting."
Cynthia nodded and pushed open the door of her office, motioning him to follow her. She seated herself at the very old roll top desk that had been in the office when her father was a child, and motioned the man to a chair beside it.
"What can I do for you, Mr.-Dowler, was it?" she repeated the name slowly as though to accustom herself to it.
"I'm Hank Dowler," he answered, "of the Lucky Devils."
Cynthia still looked politely interested, no more, and the man's brown face was touched with the white flash of a smile.
"And we thought we were famous and that just about everybody had heard of us," he mourned.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Dowler," said Cynthia briefly, and waited.
"Well, we're a team of race-car drivers, stunt men. We appear at state and county fairs and do test-driving for some of the more experimental cars the manufacturers turn out, to help get the bugs out before the cars go on sale to the general public. We are booked pretty solid through Florida during the winter season, but we are opening here at your county fair; a sort of dress rehearsal, I suppose you could call it. I came on ahead of the gang, to try to spot a headquarters from which we could fan out to our dates throughout Florida. I'm convinced Reidsville will be a perfect spot. Forty miles from Jacksonville, and within easy driving distance of our other dates."
"That's very interesting, Mr. Dowler, and as a member of the Chamber of Commerce here, I'm delighted to know you will have your headquarters here," Cynthia told him politely. "But I'm a bit vague about what you want of me."
"Oh," said Hank, as he brought out a legal-looking document, between two blue papers, and laid it on the desk. "I thought I'd like to have you look over this contract the county fair officials drew up. I'm not quite satisfied with a couple of clauses."
Cynthia unfolded the papers, scanned them swiftly, nodded and then looked back at him.
"It's the standard contract such as is given to all concessionaires and performers who are to appear at the fair," she assured him. "What clauses didn't you like?"
"Those about the Lucky Devils paying for all the insurance that is taken out on the grandstand and its occupants," Hank said. And before she could answer, he went on quickly, "Oh, we expect to pay half of it. We always do. We're glad to. We can't get insurance on ourselves, of course, because of the risks we take. And liability for damages to fair visitors from any accident we may have is something we realize is a vital necessity. But we don't usually have to pay for all of it. The fee is pretty steep, as you will see. And frankly, we don't make enough money from a small town fair to be able to afford the whole thing."
Cynthia tapped her pencil on the desk, studying the contract carefully, and then she folded it briskly and nodded at him.
"You have a point there, Mr. Dowler. I'll take it up with the fair committee. I'm sure we can get you a more equable arrangement," she told him.
Hank hesitated for a moment, and then, a scowl drawing his dark brows together, asked hesitantly, "It won't make any trouble for you, Miss Reid?"
Puzzled, Cynthia asked, "Why should it?"
Hank grinned, an engagingly boyish grin, and said frankly, "Well, we're outsiders, and you live here. Won't the committee feel you're being unfair to them to make them ante up for half of the insurance?"
Cynthia laughed. "I'm a lawyer first, Mr. Dowler, and I like to protect the interests of my clients. After that, I'm a hometown girl!"
"Well, now that's a relief-" Hank began just as Maggie opened the door and thrust an anxious, worried face into the room.
"Chewning's says your car won't be ready before noon tomorrow, Cynthia!" she announced unhappily. "They had to send to Jax for a part."
Cynthia cried out, "Oh, Maggie! I promised Bud that Gladdie-May and the baby shouldn't stay out there another night alone!"
Hank looked from one to the other and said quietly, "Could I be of assistance? My car is right downstairs. I'd be happy to drive you anywhere you'd like to go, Miss Reid."
"Oh, would you?" Cynthia turned to him in eager gratitude.
"It would be a pleasure, Miss Reid."
Cynthia sprang to her feet, turned to Maggie and said eagerly, "I'll take Gladdie-May straight home and get her settled. Do I have to come back to the office, Maggie?"
"I'm afraid you'll have to, Cynthia. There's that appointment with old Mr. Wells, who wants to change his will-again. He'll be here at three, and you know what he's like if you aren't here," Maggie answered reluctantly.
"I'll be glad to drive you, Miss Reid, and wait for you and bring you back," Hank offered pleasantly.
"Oh, that is good of you, and I'm very grateful," said Cynthia. "Shall we get started?"
Hank rose and followed her out of the office and down the stairs, to the sidewalk.
CHAPTER TWO
Hank, sitting in his car, had finished his third cigarette and very carefully stamped it out on the ground before the door to the Conyer's house opened and Cynthia came out, carrying a small baby in her arms. Behind her a slender young girl, in a freshly starched and ironed calico dress, tugged a worn old valise to the porch and turned to lock the door behind her.
Hank went forward to meet them, and the girl paused and looked up at him, eyes as blue as the sky overhead, her hair a mass of taffy-colored curls that hung about her shoulders. She looked no more than fifteen, and Hank was startled when Cynthia said, "Gladdie-May, this is Mr. Dowler."
"Howdy, Mr. Dowler," said Gladdie-May, grave, polite as a well-brought-up child. "Miss Cynthia told me her car was broke down and how kind you was to ride her out here for me and Buck. I'm right obliged to you, sir."
"It was a pleasure, Mrs.-" Hank began.
"The name's Conyers, Mr. Dowler; only folks call me Gladdie-May. And this here is Buck." The girl indicated the sleeping baby in Cynthia's arms.
Hank smiled warmly at her, took the valise from her hand and held the car door open for her. Gladdie-May hesitated, blue eyes shining as they swept over the car.
"My, I never rode in nothing as fine as this," she said childishly. "All me and Bud's got is the old pickup truck. It does all right, though. We don't have much use for a car 'cept to haul the hides and stuff in town once a week."
She turned anxiously to Cynthia, frowning.
"When do you reckon Bud'll be back home, Miss Cynthia? The traps ought to be emptied and reset, and I don't know how," she confessed.
"Soon, Gladdie-May, I hope," said Cynthia. Above the taffy-colored curls her eyes met Hank's and saw the sympathy in them as he glanced down at the girl. "Perhaps we can find somebody in town who knows about traps and will come out and empty these and reset them."
Gladdie-May nodded and stepped carefully into the car, then held out her arms for the baby.
"You sure I ain't crowding you none, Mr. Dowler?" she asked, as she tried to make her slight body even smaller.
"I'm quite sure, Gladdie-May. You aren't big enough to crowd anybody," Hank assured her pleasantly, with a smile that lifted some of the anxiety from her eyes. "Is it all right if I turn around here?"
"Oh, sure, there's plenty of room," Gladdie-May assured him. As the car turned, she looked back at the neat small house, and there was a dark look in her eyes that spoke of her sorrow at leaving the place.
With Cynthia directing, they came at last to the big old-fashioned Reid home, enclosed in its five acres of grounds, set well back from the road. There were azaleas and camellias, gray with dust, beneath the giant live-oaks that bordered the drive, and the big old house, for all its comfortable shabbiness and its mid-Victorian ugliness, looked very peaceful and dignified.
Cynthia turned to Hank as he stopped the car and said quickly, "You've been wonderfully kind, Mr. Dowler, and I'm most grateful. I can't impose on you any longer, though. I'll have to get Gladdie-May and the baby settled, and I can walk back to the office."
"Nonsense, you'll do no such thing! I'll be happy to wait as long as you like," Hank assured her firmly, and smiled. "Run along, and take your time. It's much too hot for you to walk."
"It's only eight blocks to town," she persisted.
"And the temperature must be at least ninety degrees," Hank insisted firmly. "Run along, and I'll wait."
Cynthia gave him her lovely, brilliant smile, her brown-gold eyes shining warmly.
"You're very kind, and thank you," she told him, and guided the girl across the drive and up the wide, shallow steps that led to the verandah that ran across the front and around two sides of the mellow old house.
Hank was lost in thought about the coming season when Cynthia came hurrying to rejoin him, breathlessly apologetic over keeping him so long, relieved when he convinced her that he hadn't minded the wait at all.
As he helped her into the car, he looked about him before he slid beneath the wheel and backed the car down the drive.
"You've got a nice, quiet place here," he commented as the car turned into the street, headed toward town.
Cynthia glanced at him and smiled. "I take it, judging from the tone of your voice, you don't care for nice, quiet places. Such as Reidsville, for instance."
"Oh, Reidsville's fine, and I can see how such a place would appeal to some people," he answered hastily, and looked down at her. "I admit I'm a little surprised to find a girl like you here. And a lawyer, of all things. How'd that happen?"
"Oh, my father, his father, his grandfather, as far back as we have ever wanted to look, have been lawyers," Cynthia answered casually. "It just never occurred to me to want to be anything else, especially after my brother, who was two years older than I, died in a school bus accident. He was supposed to have been the present-generation lawyer, and when he was killed, I suppose I just took it for granted it was up to me. And I've never regretted it. Law is a fascinating profession, especially if it's in your blood the way it seems to be in mine."
"I'm a little surprised, though, that you were contented to stay in a town the size of Reidsville. Didn't you ever yearn for city life?"
Cynthia laughed. "Heavens, no! My great-grandfather came here when it was just a wilderness. He bought land for fifty dollars an acre and became a timberman. And the town sort of grew up around us. I can't imagine ever wanting anything except to live out my life in Reidsville," she said to him. And then, with a faint trace of defiance, she went on, "But don't think I'm just a backwoods country gal who can't see beyond the nearest hilltop. I've been away from Reidsville to school; then to law school in Atlanta. Why, I've even spent vacations in New York City!"
There was a mocking note in her voice, and Hank looked at her sharply and saw that she was laughing at him. Once more his color deepened beneath the sun-bronze.
"I wasn't being offensive in wondering why you chose to live in Reidsville," he offered in brusque apology.
"Of course not." Cynthia smiled at him. "Anyway, Reidsville is my town, and I'm Reidsville's daughter, and we get along beautifully. Oh, there's a parking place. I'll get out here; my office is just three doors down."
Hank inserted the car neatly into the parking slot just vacated by a lumbering truck and looked down at her.
"It's been quite an experience, meeting you and collecting the girl and her baby," he said impulsively. "I hope I may see you again?"
"Well, of course," Cynthia assured him lightly. "I have to get your contract straightened out as soon as I can talk to some of the committee. If you could drop in to the office tomorrow after lunch-"
"Why don't I drop in before lunch and take you to lunch?" he suggested eagerly.
Cynthia said cheerfully, "Thanks. That would be nice; I'll see you then."
Hank was on the sidewalk now, walking beside her toward the entrance to the stairs leading to her office. As he looked down at her, he asked, "Why couldn't we make that dinner tonight, instead of lunch tomorrow?"
Cynthia smiled up at him demurely. "I won't have time to see any of the committee that soon. I have an appointment at my office now with an old and treasured client."
"Well, couldn't we have dinner and let the contract business go until tomorrow at lunch time?" Hank urged, and added wistfully, "Reidsville's a bit lonely for a stranger."
Before she could answer him, a man emerged from the entrance to the stairs leading to her office and came swiftly toward them, scowling as his eyes sped from Cynthia to Hank.
"Oh, there you are, Cynthia," Clint Kirby said curtly. "I've been waiting for you in your office. Maggie said you wouldn't be gone long."
"Oh, hello, Clint," Cynthia answered quickly. "Mr. Dowler and I went out to pick up Gladdie-May and bring her in."
Clint cut in curtly, "We've met. How are you, Dowler?"
"Fine, Kirby, thanks for asking."
Cynthia looked swiftly from one to the other.
"You've met?" she repeated.
"It was Kirby who felt that the Lucky Devils should pay all the insurance, instead of the customary half," said Hank pleasantly.
Cynthia said quickly, "Clint, you know that's not fair. None of the other performers or concessionaires do."
"None of the others are as potentially dangerous as this troupe of racers," Clint pointed out, and added, "I don't want to discuss it, Cynthia."
"I'm afraid you'll have to, Clint," Cynthia cut in coolly. "Mr. Dowler has retained me as his attorney to fight what we both feel is an unfair ruling."
Clint's eyebrows went up, and there was startled anger in his brown eyes.
"You're kiddin'!" he protested.
"Not at all, Clint," Cynthia said quietly. "Mr. Dowler inquired at the bank about an attorney, and they referred him to me. And since I felt the clause was unjust, I agreed to represent him. I'd like a meeting with the committee in the morning to discuss it. Shall we say ten o'clock at the fair grounds-or in your office? Since you are representing the committee, perhaps you and I alone could get it cleared up."
Ignoring Hank, Clint said eagerly, "Better yet, why don't we drive down to Jacksonville tonight for dinner? We can discuss it, and I can prove to you that the clause is perfectly fair."
Cynthia smiled as she shook her head. "Thanks, Clint, but not tonight," she told him. "Maggie and I have to get Gladdie-May and the baby settled. And I want to talk to Gladdie-May and see if between us we can't come up with some shred of evidence to prove what we both know is true."
"Namely, that Bud is innocent? What a hope!" Clint's tone was acid.
Cynthia stiffened slightly, her eyes chilling.
"But it is a hope, Clint! And an attorney has to follow every possible lead, even if it may not turn into anything worthwhile," she reminded him.
"I suppose so! You always were one to go tilting at windmills when your mind was made up about a client's innocence." Clint relaxed and smiled at her, ignoring Hank, who was looking on with a lack of expression belied by the faint twinkle in his eyes. "Well, then have lunch with me tomorrow."
"I'm afraid not, Clint. I have a date," Cynthia told him sweetly, and looked up at Hank, smiling. "Hank asked me first."
"Oh, I see," Clint growled, and turned away.
"Your office at ten in the morning, Clint?" Cynthia called after him.
"Why not?" Clint flung the words over his shoulder as he strode down the street to where his car was parked.
Hank watched him go and said gently, "I'm afraid he doesn't like me very much."
Cynthia glanced up at him. "Did you expect him to?" she mocked.
"Well, no, if a strange guy in town was trying to make time with my girl-"
"I'm not Clint's girl, and you are a client with whom I have a business appointment," Cynthia reminded him, and there was a definite chill in her eyes to match the one in her tone.
"That should put me properly in my place," Hank said as they reached the foot of the stairs, and she paused to say goodbye to him. "I don't suppose I could persuade you now to have dinner with me tonight?"
"I'm afraid not," Cynthia told him briskly. "You heard what I told Clint, and it's quite true. I'll have lunch with you tomorrow, after I've talked to Clint and the others. And thank you so very much for being so kind this afternoon. I really appreciate it."
"It was a pleasure," Hank began. But she nodded, smiling in dismissal, and went lightly up the stairs and to her office, tired and sleepy.
Cynthia usually didn't take a nap. But this afternoon she felt she needed it. She left word with Maggie not to disturb her until three. That was when she had her next appointment.
She closed the door to her office and stretched out on the sofa. Cynthia could not clear her mind of the image of Hank Dowler.
It was so sudden. It had been a long time since she had felt herself so conscious of a man. What was it about the lean, rugged Dowler that so interested her?
When Clint interrupted them, she had a chance to compare the two men-and in the comparison, Clint came off a distinct second-best.
It wasn't that Hank was more handsome than Clint-if anything, the reverse was true. It was just that Hank was a man, a real man, and Clint was a boy.
She smiled. Clint would die if he knew what she was thinking, he prided himself on being the epitome of masculinity. But Hank had it all over him. There was an easy confidence in Hank's manner, almost infuriating to a woman like Cynthia. Except that Hank carried it off. He gave the impression of not only being confident, but effective as well.
He could back up what he said with action. And nothing was more attractive in a man than the quality of effectiveness.
But Cynthia went back a long time with Clint. There were many shared experiences, many evenings of hot lovemaking.
How could a man that she had just met have such an influence on her? How come she was so ready to compare the man she was going to marry to a veritable stranger?
Cynthia couldn't reason it through.
She tossed and turned on the sofa, slowly drifting off into a light sleep-the perfect consciousness for dreaming. She faded from her office to a bedroom, done in pink and lavender.
At first she found herself looking around, trying to figure out where she was. The decor seemed funny to her-almost a caricature of what a woman's bedroom would be like.
And then she heard someone opening the bedroom door.
She whirled around and saw that Hank Dowler had entered the room. "Hi," he said. "How's it goin'?"
Cynthia didn't know what to say. "What are you doing here?" She managed to blurt out.
He smiled, revealing large even white teeth. "I think that's obvious," he said. "I'm here to make love to you."
She shook her head. "I'm afraid not, Mr. Dowler. I can't imagine what gave you the notion that you could just walk in and ... make love to me."
"Why not? Is it against the law?" He was taking off his clothing.
"Stop that!!" Cynthia shouted. "You can't march in here and disrobe like that!"
He was smiling eagerly. "Why can't I?" he asked. He tugged off his shorts and was stark-naked.
She gasped at the size of his smooth, stony-hard shaft. He held it out, swinging it at her. "Don't you want a taste of my love?"
"Put something on!" she cried at him.
He was walking towards her. She seemed to be frozen where she stood, unable to move away. Not that she really wanted to.
In fact, she felt a chilly trembling go through her body that also made her nipples pucker and her little clit start to itch and hanker for stimulation.
That was what interested her. She was crying out all the right things, but she didn't feel them. She felt her body flush as he took off his clothes, not with disgust, but excitement. She wanted him to walk up and take her in his arms. She wanted to feel his throbbing prick hard against her flesh.
That was when she noticed that she had no clothing on.
She felt his warm slab of flesh push against her. Her breasts mashed against his chest and his hands came around and cupped her buttocks, squeezing them and filling the round globes with pleasure.
"You want my cock, don't you?" he asked her sexily. "But are you ready for it?"
"I ... don't know." She couldn't bring herself to admit it while her whole wet slit pulsed at the thought of his pecker ramming into her womb. But she couldn't let him know how much he desired her.
But Hank didn't heed her answer. His mouth closed over hers and his tongue snaked in, entwining and playing with hers.
He felt her nipples, hard and firm now, pushing anxiously against his chest. His cock pushed at her thighs, hard and hot.
She felt weak, and rolled down into his strong arms. But he let her drape and sort of drop quietly to the floor. He followed her body downward and started to nuzzle her willing nipples. She rubbed her body back and forth, trying to break the sucking grip of his mouth from her stimulated tit. It did no good.
"Please stop!" she whined as he nibbled away. "Don't!! No!!! Not that ... Please!!!"
But of course he knew she meant the opposite. He wet her whole chest with his mouth, pulling in mounds of fruited flesh, grinding with heaving suction at her pert and prickly nipples, slurping about the roundness until she was breathing short and feverishly.
"NO! NO! NO!" she cried out in little spasms. "Stop!! Please!!" she squeaked halfheartedly.
"Why don't you just admit that you want me to fuck you?" he said to her.
"OH PLEASE!" she trilled as he kissed his way to her pubic patch. "NOT THERE!!"
"No, baby," he responded as he wet the forest, plowing through to her damp and soft pussy underneath. "You should be saying yes ... I'm going to chew you until you say YES!!!"
His hot little shout made her pussy twitch. His mouth slipped in and over the folds. He sucked the fleshiness up around his lips and teeth, chewing and savoring it.
"MY GOD!" she yelled. "PLEASE DON'T!"
"Yessss!!" he hissed back, spitting into her slit. The wet droplets stung her.
"OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH," she yelled out as his tongue slid deep into her steamy center. "YES!!! YES!!! YEEEEESSSSSS!!!!"
Her pussy began to swarm and sweat around his tongue, stimulated by his chewing into erotic contractions and convulsions. Cynthia was a woman with a restless body-a body that had its own rhythm and waves to follow.
Her hips circled around his tongue, helping him slip around and down to nudge at the most forbidden and lusting places.
She crawled around under his thighs. The big meat she had eyed before was now right in front of her face. She studied its thick roundness with her mouth, trying to cover the huge shaft sideways but not succeeding. She ran her face and lips down the length like that enjoying the bulges, ridges and tense skin that barely encased his bulging, blood-rushed love muscle.
Then for a second she turned her head away. She couldn't. She felt guilty, yet hot too, and was torn apart.
Hank was doing an admirable tongue job of stimulating her cunt. The way he pounced on her budding clit proved it. He surrounded the flesh-guarded little nub and sucked the whole area into his mouth in a fast swoop. His tongue dug under the folded hood and stabbed at the small button.
"OOOOOHHHHHH NOOOOOOOO!!!" she moaned. "YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!! OOOOOOOH-HHHHH NOOOOOOOO!!!!!"
If she couldn't make up her mind, at least Hank was making his case for passion. The spinning in her head brought her eyes back around to his tool. She was hungry.
She encased the pecker-head and licked it. She felt an immediate bulge.
She inched down a little further, all the while swirling him eagerly.
She felt him groan against her bush. "Mmmmmmmmmmm!!!"
She sucked at the few inches of cock as if she wanted to shed the skin and devour it.
She inched her way down like that, swaddling the long thick pecker with her mouth after each advance until the thing was quivering inside her hot breathy face. She let it nudge and graze at the back of her throat. It made her feel wanton.
She locked her lips to the flesh and pulled up. She could feel the pecker shift and bulge as she pulled at it sensuously.
She slipped her face back down with a wet plunge. The cock felt wonderful in her mouth-throbbing with power.
Meanwhile Hank had slithered open her clit so that his tongue hit bullseye on her love bundle with every little lick. He had his eyes wide open and his hands holding back the pink puckered hood so he could fire her into oblivion.
As she was hit with her first orgasm she gobbled at Hank's dick, slithering it into her throat and pursing her face with fervid sucking to try to milk him dry.
She ate at him madly, puckering up and snapping her face about on Hank's numb shaft that he couldn't control himself. He came in a hot gob that was more like a wave-a sheet. It hit her in the face as she pulled off him on a downstroke. She just lay there and grabbed his cock and beat off his sticky semen onto her whole face.
Cynthia couldn't believe herself. Her pretty cheeks were damp and hot with sticky white fluid. She licked it off herself like a cat, brushing the gunk onto her hands and then licking it off there. She cleaned around her lips with swirling licks. Hank pushed aside her dripping pussy and watched the girl clean herself of his fluids.
They lay there in a broken sixty-nine, side by side, looking each other over. She felt her body again quake with fear. What was she doing here, naked, cleaning herself of his jizm? She felt depraved.
That didn't stop her from noticing his cock, still hard and as energetic as before. She was amazed at how it stood there unflaggingly after she had sucked so much juice from it. It was quite a tool he had.
He sat up Indian-style and crossed his legs. His pecker waved like a flagpole. He put his hands at the base and offered it to her.
"This...." he said, "can make you very happy."
She rolled over and opened her slit with her hands. She rubbed away the protective folds and flashed her pink wetness.
He crawled over and began rubbing his thing up and down the length of her labia. He didn't penetrate her-only hinted. It only made it worse for her.
"OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH NOOOOOOOO!!!" she moaned, feeling tingling passion engulf her again.
What was going on? How did she get there-what was she doing?
She tried to push him away, but her efforts were halfhearted and she knew it. His prick was causing her no end of stimulation, and finally Cynthia sighed and relaxed, in his powerful arms.
"That's more like it," Hank said.
He led her to the bed and she reclined, her legs open, her center moist and hot. Now Cynthia wanted it badly. All she had to do was make up her mind.
He stood by the bed, massaging himself, getting it big and hard for her. She licked her dry lips, eager now to get it on.
Then he was atop her, his weight uncomfortable at first. Then-as he eased his prick into her hot cunt-she began to glow with excitement and pleasure.
Suddenly she was no longer conscious of his weight-all she could think about was his burning poker, stretching her, filling her with pleasure.
He moved slowly but the pleasure was overwhelming. Cynthia had never felt anything so good in her life. She began to moan as he rocked gently between her legs, and when she wrapped her legs around his muscular back she felt the jets of his orgasm and the sweet wetness brought her own orgasm on, fierce and hot.
He banged her mushy softness once again in that feverish dream, and this time she begged him.
The fat, thick, gobbing hot load of come had only made her fires more furious, her cunt more tingly and hungry.
She hopped over onto all-fours and jabbed her ass into the air. Then Cynthia growled like a tiger.
"Okay!" she prodded him. "Put that pecker back inside me and fuck me again. This time I want it even better than the last!!!"
Hank of course had felt his cock now finally sag a bit, but the way she twisted her quivering quim skyward prodded his erection to return. The folds of her flower tumbled apart as she jabbed her ass backwards. Inside the pink flesh seemed to yawn open as if to invite him.
"Come on," she said to him. "Take me like an animal!!!"
Hank acted like one, attacking her crotch like his last meal. He brought his hands up into her thighs and cradled the sweet, fertile crescent. Then his mouth dug into her hot chasm like chewing at a fat leg of mutton.
She could swear that he truly was eating her from the sensations she felt. His lips seemed to sink so deeply into her lips that they tore apart. When his tongue slashed at her pinkness, it seemed to scoop up feathering flesh in huge divots. Her pussy was being ravaged, decimated sexually.
"OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!!" she cooed, rubbing her ass at Hank's busy face. He responded by tearing open her center and shoving his face and tongue into her deepest parts.
Then he withdrew and quickly returned with his bulging bat at the doors to her quim. The lips that had let him in before quivered in fear. They were so stimulated that when he brushed them Cynthia jumped away. She knew that her womb was so alive, so burning with passion that as soon as he was inside she would be out of control.
At the first jab she felt her head spin. She flung it up while her ass jabbed down, only tugging in more cock to the tight and ticklish tunnel. It sent her over the top.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" she cried, starting to slash her ass up and down on his healthy, hearty sausage. She wanted the big thing to cleave her folds and stab her into submission. She slammed it into her, taking it deep and full and wetting it in her swirling hot fountain.
"FUCK ME!!!!" she yelled. "GIVE IT TO ME!!!"
Hank grabbed her hips and started pumping at a cross rhythm to her. The process made her bottom explode, and her insides caved and cavorted around the powerful thick thruster.
Her cunt walls shuddered as his load seared against them. His cock snapped as it shot, throbbing her bottom with a wild tug.
Cynthia was melted in passion. It was only a dream, but it felt so real and good.
CHAPTER THREE
The next day was like any in the lawyer's profession-stimulating in the human contact but all so routine and ordered in the procedure. For her the people made the difference, and Cynthia was proud of her ways as an understanding, compassionate lawyer.
By the time she and Maggie got home they were bushed to the bone. As they opened the door they caught a putrid whiff of something cooking.
"What in heaven's name?" murmured Cynthia.
When they sat at the table they got their surprise. Gladdie-May had fixed up a huge batch of fat collard greens. And all Cynthia wanted was a salad.
"I figured I'd cook you both some good, stout vittles," chimed Gladdie-May.
"Which you certainly did, Gladdie-May" she said firmly. Then as Cynthia flashed her a stern, warning glance, she added hastily, "You're a very good cook, Gladdie-May."
Gladdie-May beamed happily and preened herself a little.
"Bud always thought so," she assured them, and then the happiness faded from her young face and her full, red-lipped mouth quivered. "I just can't get over this awful thing that's happened. That old Mose Henslee dead-and Bud shut up in a cage, with folks thinking he shot Mose. He didn't, Miss Cynthia. Why, he was right there home with me and little Buck that whole night long! How could anybody think Bud would kill a man, shoot him in the back!"
For a moment she fought the threatening tears and then, with an effort that lit a glow of approval in Maggie's eyes, the girl had herself under control and gave them both a misty-eyed, tremulous smile.
"I'm sorry," she apologized humbly. "I know you're going to make 'em let Bud go, Miss Cynthia. And we and him'll never forget you for it. Not as long as we live, we won't."
Cynthia studied her for a moment and then asked quietly. "Gladdie-May, did Mose try to sweet-talk you?"
Gladdie-May's eyes widened with shock, and then blazed with anger.
"No, ma'am!" she flashed. "He knowed better than to try anything like that. Why, I'd shot him myself if he'd ever tried."
Her sense of outrage was so obvious that Maggie and Cynthia exchanged a glance, knowing she spoke the simple truth. But after a moment Gladdie-May's anger was followed by a startled, thoughtful look, and Maggie felt she could almost see the thoughts revolve in the girl's mind.
She looked hard at Maggie and then at Cynthia, and her jaw set hard.
"You mean if he had, Miss Cynthia, folks wouldn't blame Bud for killing him?" she asked softly, yet with a grimness in her voice that widened Maggie's eyes. "Then we'll just say he did! I'll swear it on a stack of Bibles high as my head, if it'll help Bud!"
"Hi, now, wait a minute," Maggie protested sharply. "You can't do that if it isn't true. That would be perjury!"
"If it would help Bud-" Gladdie-May insisted stubbornly.
"It won't help Bud for you to commit perjury, Gladdie-May; lying under oath could put you in jail, too!" Cynthia pointed out.
Gladdie-May's young chin tilted defiantly and her blue eyes were stormy.
"As long as Bud's there, you think it would make any difference to me if they locked me up, too?" she demanded harshly.
"With both of you in jail, who'd look after the baby?" Maggie asked, and saw the stormy look melt from Gladdie-May's eyes and the young shoulders droop.
"Yeah," said Gladdie-May heavily. "I reckon one of us has got to look after little Buck, seeing he can't do it for himself."
"Since he's a scant six weeks old, I hardly think we can expect him to start providing for himself just yet," Maggie agreed soberly.
"And besides, Gladdie-May, we don't want people to excuse Bud for killing a man; we want to prove that he didn't do it, don't you see?" Cynthia added gently.
Gladdie-May nodded despondently.
"Well, yessum, I know that's what we want to prove, but how are we going to do it? That's what's worrying me sick-how can we prove he didn't do it?" she wailed, and for a moment hid her face behind her work-roughened hands.
Maggie and Cynthia exchanged swift, pitying glances, and Cynthia made her voice very brisk and soothing as she answered, "Well, that's why you have a lawyer, Gladdie-May. It's my job to prove Bud innocent; yours to have faith in him and take care of his son and be waiting for him when it's all over."
Gladdie-May nodded and dropped her hands, managing a very small, heart-wrenching smile.
"I reckon Buck and me'll be waiting for him a hundred years from now," she said simply. "I can't ever remember a time when I didn't love Bud and want to be his wife. Yessum, we'll be waiting."
"Well, the case comes up for trial the first week in October, Gladdie-May, and that's two weeks from now," Cynthia told her. "That gives me two weeks to find the guilty man."
She tried hard to put force and conviction into her tone, but knew as Maggie glanced at her that she had not fooled Maggie. However, Gladdie-May wanted to believe her and therefore found it easy to do so.
"Y'all go on out on the verandah and set," Gladdie-May urged, as she stood up and began clearing away the dishes. "While I do up the dishes."
"We'll help, Gladdie-May. We're not going to make a servant out of you."
"You got to, Miss Cynthia. You got to let me work. I'm aiming to wash tomorrow, so you and Miss Maggie put out all your dirty clothes for me where I can find 'em. And I thought I'd wash the downstairs windows and scrub the kitchen. I like to work, Miss Cynthia-I got to! Else I'll just about go stark, starin' crazy!"
The words came in a swift, explosive burst as she caught up a pile of dishes and hurried out of the dining room into the kitchen.
Maggie and Cynthia hesitated, and then Cynthia made a little gesture of defeat and walked with Maggie out to the wide old verandah. There was a wicker swing in one corner, shielded by a mass of honeysuckle vines, and Cynthia dropped into it, while Maggie took a deep, comfortable wicker chair near her and lit a cigarette.
They sat for a few moments in silence. The afterglow of sunset lay over the scene. The deep shadows beneath the live-oaks were already thickening and in the big magnolia tree near the fence, the fighting among the sparrows as they made ready for the night filled the quiet with a spiteful clamor.
"That poor scrap of a child!" said Maggie heavily at last. "I never dreamed collard greens and pork chops on a hot night could be the perfect meal, did you?"
Cynthia managed a rueful laugh.
"Delicious, wasn't it?" she agreed. "Maggie, what am I going to do? I've promised to free Bud, and I haven't the vaguest idea how to go about finding out the guilty man. There are so many people in the county who loathed Mose-too many suspects, and each one with a seperate motive all his own."
"Well, you'll think of something," Maggie said comfortably. "You always have. But when I think of those two kids, after their miserable childhoods, finding each other and their happiness out in that swamp, minding their own business, asking nothing but to be left alone-and now this! Makes you want to pick up a sawed-off shotgun and storm the jail to set him free!"
Cynthia sighed and nodded complete agreement with the lawless but inviting thought.
Alone in her bedroom, Cynthia once again reviewed the events of the day. Hank was an unexpected complication, all right. But Cynthia figured that she could handle him.
Cynthia fell asleep quickly-something she had always been able to do. But this night was different from the others. Perhaps it was the murder case, which had been dominating her thoughts.
But more than likely, the dream was just what it appeared to be: a sign of the tremendous physical attraction that had occurred when she first saw Hank.
As she tossed and turned in her bed, Cynthia's hand wound its way between her legs. It felt good there, warm and secure.
At first she dreamed of cloudy days and vivid bursts of color that didn't make any sense at all. But then her dream become quite life-like-and much more entertaining.
She was in her office, sorting through some papers, when Hank walked in.
"Hi," he said."Still interested in representing the Lucky Devils?"
She looked up at him. "What makes you ask that? Have I given you any reason to suppose that I wasn't interested?"
Hank laughed. "I guess not," he said. "It's just that I'm not used to dealing with a woman lawyer."
She felt herself getting annoyed. "And what does my being a woman have to do with this?"
"Women-well, women mean just one thing to me. And that's not representing me as a lawyer!"
"Are you saying that I am not capable? If that's the case, I suggest you seek out another attorney!"
Hank held up his hand. "Whoa. I can see that I'm putting my foot in my mouth here-why don't we pretend that I just walked in and then start all over again?"
She smiled. "That's fine with me. Now-how may I help you?"
"Well, seeing as you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, I was thinking that maybe the two of us could get together and have some fun."
She felt her back stiffening. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, relax," Hank said. "You're a big girl-surely you know what I'm talking about."
"I do," she said. "And I think that you have some nerve, walking in here and propositioning me that way!"
Hank laughed and unbuttoned his shirt. He tossed it on a chair and then turned to the door. "Does this thing lock?" he asked.
"Yes-just push the button," Cynthia said. Her cheeks were aflame. Here she was, helping him set up his seduction of her!
He turned to her and said, "Why not get out of that dress? It's real pretty, but what's underneath is prettier by far!"
She bit her lip. She wanted to tell him to get out, but she couldn't find the words. Besides, his crude sexiness made her center swell and itch.
"Well?" He was staring at her, a smile on his lips. To speed things up, he dropped off his pants, draping then over a chair.
Next came his shorts.
Cynthia gasped when she saw Hank naked. Lean and rugged, with whipcord muscles and a piece of heavy machinery hanging between his legs. He palmed and stroked the thick tool into hardness.
"I think we should stop," Cynthia said weakly. But her pulse was pounding as she grew aware of the dampening feeling between her legs.
"Nonsense," Hank said. He walked over and ripped off her dress. He slid her bra off roughly upward while he pushed her panties down. He pulled her naked body to his and pushed his pulsing pecker against her goose-pimpled flesh.
She rubbed against him now like a cat who finally knew it was okay to nuzzle. Over her fear and stimulated by his powerful, supple body, she pulled him hard against her. Her stomach seemed to flutter as his cock grew against it.
But Hank knew what he wanted. He leaned back against her desk and presented his prick by the foot. "Suck my cock, baby!"
At first she was angered, but he knew what he was doing. That flush turned to a wave of passion and she dropped to the floor and grasped his tall pecker.
In a way she was angered by his arrogance, but that also was a turn-on. She knew what she was doing, though, and in spite of her mixed emotions she swallowed his bulging tree. Her lips sucked at the cockhead and drew it in.
As she sucked she became more and more excited. There was an element of degradation in what she was doing, but instead of disgusting her, it made her even more excited.
She felt totally wanton, able to do anything as long as it gave Hank pleasure. She was sucking eagerly now, taking more and more of his length into her mouth.
Her face gobbled at him, taking in inches with hearty wet gusto, slipping her lips eagerly around more and more of him. His crushing bruiser slid across her tongue feeling wide and rock-hard. The skin was pulled so tight she could perfectly feel the bulging muscle beneath it.
She knew how to get a man to give up his seeds. It took a subtle combination of moves, a little ballet of sucking and swirling at the right times and places.
She got her mouth down to his fat and hairy base and started out on phase one. Eagerly she pursed her face around the bottom of his manhood and sucked at it. Her lips sealed fast around the skin and tugged, putting special pressure on the underside where his jizm would come pulsing up.
Meanwhile her tongue had a whole section of fleshy inches around it in her hot mouth. She cradled the bulging skin with it and licked back and forth. Soon her wet curls extended up and around the fat shaft, until she was flicking at him in a way that made his skin curl.
Then she locked into phase two, which was a fast action pull on his foreskin upward. Down she then pulled with her face still puckered to rub his glans sensually. Then she sucked back up, keeping each stroke at a deliberate speed.
She knew that she had him on his way when Hank started to let out little guttural moans.
"MMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!" he said. "Pull on that pecker!!"
She slowly speeded up, keeping her mind set to maintaining a tight face that could encase and swirl about his cock. She knew that soft rubbing would get his cock up to the edge. Then she could finish him with a gourmet round of flick and suck.
Her pace was planned and, for Hank, perfectly executed. She bobbed even faster, until the mushy purse of her mouth was smacking up and down along his rail.
She weaved her face along his dangle, her lips gripping tightly and pulling at him insistently. Hank groaned in anticipation.
Then she throated him, whirling her whole head around to squirrel him into her tight throat. He jabbed down and felt it grip him. She drew up and shoved him down again, her lips still holding an airtight lock on his rippled foreskin.
His balls ached and bulged, and inside a sticky brew was coming to a boil. Cynthia could feel it too-something in the way his cock stiffened just before discharge.
She slipped her head upward with firm suction and hoovered out his load into her mouth. He looked at her kneeling there, wantonly sucking at his tip and letting it slip in and out of her mouth.
The cock spat heavy, creamy juices all about her mouth and tongue, but Cynthia lapped it up happily.
Then he was pulling her to her feet and turning her around. Cynthia had never been so excited in her life. Her center was wet and puffy and when Hank ran his large, rough hand over her sensitive flesh she felt as if she might pass out from the hot pleasure of it.
Then he was standing behind her, and he tugged her by the hips and slid his prick between her asscheeks and when she felt it part her cunt she screamed with pleasure and he drove it all the way home with one move.
Her inner depths burned with passion as he stabbed her. Cynthia knew a good rod when she felt one, and this big pole of Hank's had the depth and the thickness to really set her flying.
They kneeled on the' floor in their doggy hunch and slammed away. Hank reached around with one hand and tweaked a nipple while the other arm was around her waist and holding her from humping right off his erect and pulsing manhood.
Hank shoved right and left, up and down, taking her from all the aims he could and stabbing her to the max. She just rode it all out in passionate pleasure.
"HANK!!!" she yelled when he picked her right up on his hard pole and lifted her. "You're so huuuuge and stiff!!!!"
One of his arms held around the upper torso while the one around the waist slipped down to tickle her clit bud. Hank held her up in front of him on the pivot of his tool and frigged her love button.
Cynthia screamed and squirmed. "OOOOO HANK! I LOVE IT!!!! DO IT TO ME WITH YOUR BIG DORK!"
The heat of passion and shame inflamed her. She was a slave to his prick now, going in whatever directions the big pointer urged her.
Then Hank laid her back down and she hunched up her ass. Holding her rear tightly in position, she let him slam it to her with full force. She grunted in a most impassioned and wild way.
"UUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH-HH!!!!! SOCK THAT THING INSIDE ME!!!!! TEAR UP MY PUSSY!!"
She couldn't believe what she was saying, though Cynthia knew it reflected all the desires she felt right at this very minute. She wanted her womb to be pounded apart, chopped to a pulp by his pecker. That's what she was getting.
Hank banged at her insides furiously and mightily, mushing up her pussy with his slicing tool and keeping her up on the far reaches of desire. She swooned and spun as he wracked her heaving love tunnel, splitting her insides with his rail.
"HA A A A A A A A ANNNNNKK!!!" she yelled. " JAB IT TO MY CUNT! SOCK YOUR PRICK TO ME!!!!!"
He came in her with bucket loads of streaming, gooky come, humping the junk deep into her womb and making her insides buckle with his passionate fluids. She could not contain her joyful yelps.
"OOOOOO YOU'RE COOOMMINNGG!!! I LOVE IT!!! IT'S SOOOOO HOOOOTTTTTT!!!"
He spurted and shot within her until her little butt rested on his hard and hungry pivot. Hank wanted more sex.
He pulled his cock from her pulsing quim to discover that it was slathered and soaked with a mixture of his and her juices. The junk stuck to his fat pole and made him moist.
He slipped his cockhead out of the rear of her pussy and traced the few inches to Cynthia's asshole. He laid the thing against her small, tight hole. Just the mere presence at the gate of her tightest place made Cynthia's head rush with scared sensations.
"Oh Hank...." she cooed. "Will it fit? Your cock is so ... big, and my ass is so ... small. Please be gentle."
He tried to take it easy, but her rear was not entirely cooperative. At first he tried jabbing at the tight-fisted brown hole, but that seemed to no avail. With every knock of his cockhead the chute seemed to curl up tighter, locking him out.
Even the wet juices that were making her bum moist didn't help. She knew he wanted to be up there, so Cynthia loosened her muscles and tried to uncoil her rear. It did little good.
Hank knew he would have to dig his way in, and then tunnel and fight for every inch of her colon. It was the kind of battle he enjoyed-as good as a good court case any day.
He twisted his hips and tried to pry the flesh apart with his crowbar. Cynthia pumped her ass at him, trying to help.
Suddenly a tiny bit of the twisted skin gave way and let him up inside. He shoved and ground at her rear as it then tried to push him back out. After a fight, Hank held his inch and a half of ground.
He could feel the ass pinching and grabbing him, so Hank timed his jabs to coincide with the weakest moments in the fisted tunnel's heaving.
Finally as it untwisted for a second he grabbed another inch, and Cynthia screamed.
"OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH YOU'RE TEARING ME UP AND SPLITTING MY ASSHOLE!!!!!"
He pushed again, jiggling his hips about. The tight little coil let loose and he took two inches. It then clamped up tightly and hugged him hard and very hotly.
But Hank didn't stop. He dug and reamed and pushed until his head was lodged as deep as he could shove it in her ass. Then with little precise strokes he took her there in her burning bum, snapping at it fast and short, with the rear twist holding him as hard as it could. It milked his juices and made them spray as if from a firehose. She awoke still feeling violated in her rear.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cynthia smiled at the three men who sat facing her in Clint's office and stood up, zipping her briefcase on the revised contracts that were now ready for Hank's signature.
"Thank you, gentlemen," she said demurely. "I'm sure when you've had the time to think it over, you'll realize that we've made a good bargain. I'm glad you could see it my client's way."
Bill Hargreave, chairman of the fair committee, grinned at her, his freshly shaven round moon of a face lit by twinkling blue eyes.
"Your father would be proud of you this morning, Cynthia, same as he always was," he told her. "You put up a fine argument. I just hope you'll be able to do as well at the Conyers trial. That boy really needs help."
"He'll get it, Mr. Hargreave, the very best I can provide," Cynthia answered, shook hands with the three men and turned toward the door, slender, crisply cool-looking in her pale green gingham cress.
Cynthia grinned impishly and went back to her own office across the street from the courthouse. As she came into her office, Maggie looked up from the brief she was typing.
"Hank telephoned to say that he wouldn't be able to make it for lunch," Maggie told her briskly, and chuckled at the expression on Cynthia's face. "Don't look so woebegone. He'll be out of town a day or two, but will see you as soon as he gets back."
"I'm going out to the Henslee place, Maggie, to see what I can pick up."
Maggie glanced up at her. "A load of buckshot, probably, if you aren't careful," she suggested dryly.
Cynthia managed a rueful laugh.
The Henslee place was out not far from the Kaolin works, where most of the Henslee men worked.
There was a rickety fence behind which a large and vicious-looking dog was chained.
A woman appeared in the doorway and then vanished, and a moment later, another woman came to stand for a moment on the verandah, shading her eyes against the sun with a gnarled, work-worn hand as she called out sternly, "What do you want?" Cynthia got out of the car, so she could easily be recognized, but stayed prudently on her own side of the fence.
"I'd like to talk to you, Mrs. Henslee, if I may," Cynthia called.
The woman spoke sharply to the dog, who dropped to his forepaws and let his barking descend to a low, menacing growl.
After a moment the woman came down the walk: a tall, rawboned woman in a dark calico-print dress, her face brown and stern beneath the thinning gray hair brushed sharply away from her face and done into an uncompromising bun on top of her head. Her dark eyes were hostile and her thin-lipped mouth was a bitter line.
"Won't do you no good to talk to me, or any of my folks, Miss Cynthia," said Mrs. Henslee, her voice a harsh rasp of sound. "I know what you're here for. You're trying to get that murderin' Bud Conyers out of jail."
"Mrs. Henslee, I'm trying to find out who really killed your son."
"You got the man that done it, Miss Cynthia. He's as guilty as sin."
"I don't believe he is, Mrs. Henslee."
"You being paid to defend him, natural you wouldn't. Other folks know couldn't have been nobody else. I aim to see Bud Conyers hung for what he done to my boy."
Before Cynthia could speak, the woman's harsh voice went on swiftly, "Oh, I know what folks thought of my boy. Mose wasn't never quite right in the head; likely he done a sight of things he oughtn't to've done. But he never done nothing that made it right for Bud Conyers to shoot him down like a mad dog! And for that he's got to pay!"
"But, Mrs. Henslee-" Cynthia began, appalled by the dark fury in the woman's face and voice.
"No buts about it, Miss Cynthia. Bud's guilty, and I aim to see it proved and him hung," snapped Mrs. Henslee, and turned and went stalking back to the house. And this time, when the dog lunged the length of his chain and bellowed his fury at the intruder, Mrs. Henslee did not so much as glance at him or speak to him.
Cynthia got back into her car and turned to drive back to town.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was two mornings later that Cynthia saw Hank again.
He was waiting for her when she came back to the office from another disheartening and unproductive visit to Bud. She was startled at how her heart leaped at sight of him, and she greeted him with a warm friendliness that was deflated by his cold steel-gray eyes and his curt manner.
"Sorry I had to break our engagement the other day," he said. "I was called out of town on business."
"I quite understand, Mr. Dowler." Cynthia's tone matched his, as she brought the contract out of the files and laid it before him. "If you'll check this, I think you'll find that it is more nearly what you wanted."
Hank picked up the contract, leafed through it, nodded and reached for his pen. As he scrawled his name where she indicated, he said without looking up, "I have another job for you, Cynthia: a sales contract. One of the men in the troupe just had the trap sprung on him, and his dear little wife objects to his remaining a member of the Lucky Devils. So we're buying out his stock."
Cynthia looked justifiably puzzled.
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," she suggested politely.
Hank looked up, scowling, and his eyes were still chilly.
"Oh, sorry," he apologized brusquely. "The Lucky Devils are a cooperative group. We all hold shares, and split the profits and all that. Now my best driver, who has more nerve in his little finger than most racing drivers have in their whole bodies, was fool enough to get himself married this summer, and his dear little bride doesn't want him risking his neck racing. Wants him to sell out his share in the troupe and open a service station in her hometown!
"Jenks and I were planning to drive in the Grand Prix at Sebring next April," he went on harshly. "The kid was looking forward to it; he and I had some great plans! And now, just because he had a few weeks off during the summer, he had to go and make a fool of himself, all over some cotton-headed, mealy-mouthed, big-eyed little gal who baited a love trap for him and sprang it right in his face. And he's so besotted about her that he's not even grieving about missing out on the Grand Prix!"
Cynthia said curiously, "You seem to feel pretty strongly about this-love trap, you called it? I take it for granted, then, that there isn't any Mrs. Dowler?"
Hank looked at her, outraged.
"Me, married? Look, Cynthia, I'm really a Lucky Devil-I've managed to sidestep any traps that were scattered around for me!" he protested.
"Well, that's strictly a matter of opinion, Mr. Dowler," Cynthia told him crisply. "If you'll give me the details, I'll have Maggie type up the necessary papers for your friend's withdrawal from the troupe."
Hank nodded, and when she had finished taking down the necessary information, she stood up to indicate that the scene was finished.
"I'll have this ready for your signature late this afternoon, shall we say?" she suggested curtly.
Hank looked down at the notes she had made and said curiously. "So that's all it takes to end a man's career! What a rotten break for a kid like Jenks!"
"You speak of him as though he had died," Cynthia reminded him. "If he has found a girl he loves and has married her-"
"Oh, don't get me wrong, Cynthia," Hank assured her earnestly. "I think marriage is a grand institution-for fellows interested in leading a nice, safe life; making the seven-ten in the morning, battling their brains out to make a living for the wife and kids, home at five-thirty to watch TV and go safely up to bed. But for a fellow in my line-no thanks!"
"And that's the kind of life your friend wants?" asked Cynthia.
Hank's lean, brown face twisted.
"It's what his wife wants, and since he is fool enough to be in love with her, he has no other thought than to do what she wants!" he answered grimly. "Oh, I can replace Jenks easily enough as a driver. I know half a dozen guys that would jump to fill his place. But-well, Jenks and I had a lot of plans, and he was such a swell guy; everybody in the gang liked him and he was popular with the crowds. And now all that is kaput!"
Cynthia said quietly, "Well, after all, the choice was his."
"Oh, no, it wasn't! The choice is never the man's!" Hank was still seething with the cold anger that had driven him for the last two days. "It's always the gal who sets the trap, and then steps back and smothers a giggle when the poor blind fool steps into it. And from that moment on she leads him around on a string like a performing bear in a circus."
Cynthia straightened and her eyes flashed.
"You," she told him sharply, "are a menace to my sex. I'm not a bit sure I want to handle your legal affairs, Mr. Dowler."
He seemed to emerge, at least momentarily from the grip of fury that had held him since he had received Jenks' letter asking to be released from the Lucky Devils.
"Oh, there's nothing personal in anything I've said, Cynthia," he told her. "I'm sure you'd never need to set a trap."
"I'm a woman, Mr. Dowler."
"Oh, sure, but you're also a lawyer and a darned good one, and I'm sure you'd never have to set a trap for any man you wanted," Hank assured her. "It's just that I've talked my head off, both to Jenks and Janie, and neither of them would listen. I've lost two good men this year already and-well, I had hoped to have Jenks with me at Sebring. And to think of Jenks, who always worked out the most daring stunts and came through without so much as a singed eyebrow, chained down to a service station-it's like seeing a fine young stallion hitched to a farm plow."
"I see your point, but I'm afraid, being a woman, I can see the wife's point, too," Cynthia began.
"But that's what makes it so infernally maddening." Hank was newly angry. "Four of the men in the troupe are married, and their wives travel with us and never turn a hair when their husbands are doing their stunts! I suppose you'll say they don't really love their husbands?"
Cynthia raised her eyebrows and laughed lightly.
"Goodness, how would I know? Women are funny people, Mr. Dowler."
"It was Hank before I had to go see Jenks," he reminded her.
"Was it?" asked Cynthia coolly. "I'm afraid that was another man entirely. I don't seem to know this one very well. But if you'll drop in to the office this afternoon around four, Maggie will have these papers ready for your signature."
He hesitated for a moment, despite the flat dismissal in her tone.
"Would there be any chance that you would have dinner with me tonight, to make up for the lunch we missed?" he asked awkwardly.
"No chance at all, Mr. Dowler, thanks," she told him briskly.
Still he hesitated, while Cynthia waited for him to leave. "Some other time perhaps?"
"Perhaps."
He turned toward the door, hesitated and came back to stand beside the desk, meeting her eyes gravely.
"I hope I didn't-well, get out of line."
Cynthia's eyebrows lifted still more.
"Out of line?" she repeated. "I'm afraid I don't understand, Mr. Dowler."
"I meant talking about marriage. Are you married?"
"Of course not!" Her tone added plainly that she thought it none of his business.
"Or maybe engaged? Perhaps to Kirby?"
"Really, Mr. Dowler, you are being-that is, I can't see that any of this concerns you at all! Are you trying to ask whether or not I go out socially with men? The answer is that I do, and also, that I can't see that it's any business of yours." Her tone was sharp, her eyes blazing.
He stood studying her for a moment with that curious, oddly disturbing gaze, and then he stood straight, nodded, and his jaw set in a grim line.
"You're quite right, it isn't at all," he agreed. He turned and strode out of the room, and she heard the hard thud of his footsteps on the stairs as he went down to the street.
"Well!" It was a small, explosive sound as Maggie came and stood in the doorway.
"Well, indeed," said Maggie, eyeing Cynthia with an amused twinkle in her eyes. "Now there's a man-"
Cynthia reached for a paperweight on her desk, and her eyes flashed as she lifted it.
"You say one word about Hank Dowler being dangerous-" she threatened ominously.
"Well, you know yourself he is, so put down the paperweight," Maggie said firmly. "I couldn't help hearing him. He really is in a tizzy, isn't he?"
"And I couldn't care less." Cynthia dropped the paperweight and stood up. "Since you heard him, you know that he wants this sales agreement drawn up for his signature. I told him you'd have it ready for him late this afternoon. So you take care of it like a nice girl."
"You're not going to be here?" asked Maggie.
"I'm going to comb the highways and byways in the hope of finding a scrap of evidence that will help Bud, and I won't be back to the office," Cynthia said firmly. "Oh, I'll pick you up here."
"Skip it," said Maggie cheerfully. "I'll hitch a ride home. Sure to be somebody heading that way by the time I'm ready to leave. Not that I want to be nosy, but just what did you have in mind for this afternoon?"
"Oh, I thought first I'd try to talk to some of Mose's friends."
"Which shouldn't take more than ten minutes at the most."
"And some of Bud's friends."
"Possibly fifteen minutes."
"Oh, Maggie, stop needling me!" Cynthia burst out, and Maggie was startled at her tone. "Can't you see I've got to do something? I can't just sit here, knowing in my heart that Bud is innocent and not doing one blasted thing to try to prove it. I can't go there to the jail to see him, knowing he is counting on me, or face that pathetic child, Gladdie-May, every evening and not be able to tell her something's being done. Even if I don't know what or how to start-"
"Sure, honey, I understand," said Maggie, warmth and gentleness in her voice. "You run along. But watch yourself, honey; you don't know what you may be stepping into. Mose wasn't the most sterling character in the world, and his friends-if he had any-could be pretty tough."
"You think I don't know that?" Cynthia sighed.
"Promise me one thing, baby?"
"Of course!"
"Get home before dark!" Maggie was stern about it. "I won't have you wandering around in the kind of places Mose frequented after dark!"
"Oh, everybody knows me, Maggie. Nobody would do me any harm."
"Famous last words!" scoffed Maggie. "You get home before dark, you hear me?"
Cynthia managed a mirthless laugh and, as she walked past Maggie, hugged her tightly.
"Yessum, will do," she promised meekly.
CHAPTER SIX
Maggie, slightly mollified, watched her go and sat in thoughtful silence for a moment after the sound of Cynthia's footsteps had died away on the stairs. And then she shrugged her ample shoulders, her mouth a taut line, as she turned to the work that waited for her.
She knew the moment Cynthia got home that her efforts had been fruitless, and she admired the girl's courage as she spun out her tale of the visits she had made to Mose's various haunts and saw Gladdie-May's trusting look. Poor little devil, Maggie told herself, and heaved a deep sigh.
As they finished supper, the small querulous wail of the awakening baby was heard, and Gladdie-May stood up.
"He wants his supper, too," she said proudly. "He's already had his bath, and he's near 'bout ready for bed. I'll go give him his bottle."
"Gladdie-May, let me give him his bottle," pleaded Cynthia so unexpectedly that both Gladdie-May and Maggie looked at her, startled, and Cynthia laughed and made a little gesture. "I'll be very careful not to drop him, and I'll be sure to burp him when he's finished."
Gladdie-May beamed like any proud parent whose offspring has won favor with an outsider.
"Well, now, Miss Cynthia, if you're right sure you want to, I'd be pleased if you would," she glowed.
"I want to, Gladdie-May, very much," Cynthia said eagerly.
"I'll go get him," Gladdie-May offered, and disappeared.
Maggie eyed Cynthia curiously.
"Now what's all this? Your sudden enthusiasm for babies, I mean."
"Don't be silly. It's not a sudden enthusiasm. I adore babies-and Buck's darling," Cynthia defended herself, without meeting Maggie's eyes.
Gladdie-May came back with the baby, his bottle held carefully in her free hand, and placed him gently in Cynthia's arms.
"It's awful hot in here, Miss Cynthia. Why'n't you take him out on the verandah where it's cooler?" Gladdie-May suggested.
"You don't think he might take cold?" Cynthia wondered.
"A night like this?" Maggie protested. "It must be ninety at least."
Gladdie-May laughed richly. "Oh, no'm, he won't take cold. He's been out on the verandah all day. It'll be good for him."
"I'll help with the dishes, Cynthia. Now be quiet, Gladdie-May! I'm going to dry, and you can wash, and that's final!" Maggie said sternly.
"Well, if you're sure you want to, Miss Maggie, I'd be right glad of your company," Gladdie-May said happily.
Cynthia sat in the big wicker swing, the baby held in one arm, the bottle poised at what seemed to be the angle he preferred. He made small, happy sounds as he drew the milk from the bottle, and his tiny starfish hands waved gently, as though to indicate his complete satisfaction with the state of the world as he found it at present.
She was so absorbed in her task that she was completely unaware of the car that stopped in the drive, or of the sound of steps crossing to the house. And so when after a moment she looked up to see Hank Dowler watching her, she gave a small, convulsive start that drew the bottle from the baby's mouth so that he emitted a tiny, angry wail.
"Oh, I didn't hear you, Mr. Dowler," she stammered, and soothed the baby gently, feeling warmth in her face and knowing that she was blushing. "Maggie told me that you drove her home. That was thoughtful."
Hank studied her as though he had not heard her speak.
"This is about the last role I ever expected to see you playing," he admitted with a frankness that was disarming.
"It's one I rarely play, only it isn't a role," she protested. "It's just that I have never been around babies much. This is Bud's and Glad-die-May's baby. Isn't he precious?"
Without waiting to be asked, Hank dropped into a wicker chair facing her and looked at the baby, who was happily finishing his bottle. Cynthia put the empty bottle down, lifted the baby very gently, put him against her shoulder and patted his small back until the desired result had been achieved.
"There, now. That's a good boy!" she told the baby.
"A few years from now, he'll be taught it's bad manners to burp after a meal." Hank chuckled, and Cynthia laughed with him.
"But now it's necessary," she told him, and cradled the drowsy baby in the curve of her arms, the tiny head against her breast as she bent to lay her cheek on it, her eyes absorbed and happy. "I didn't know babies could be so sweet. Oh, I've heard about them a lot, but-well-"
She broke off, steadied her voice, and her eyes were cool as she met his intent gaze.
"And what can I do for you, Mr. Dowler?" she asked crisply.
"For one thing, you can stop calling me Mr. Dowler as though we had just met, and go back to Hank, which is what all my friends call me," he stated flatly. "And for another, you might try to forgive me for blowing off steam in your office."
"There's nothing to forgive, Hank," Cynthia told him quietly. "You hated losing your driver. He was important to you. So it's only natural that you should feel pretty bitter."
"The words are all right," Hank said slowly, still watching her as she cradled the baby close. "It's the tone that says you haven't forgiven me. And that's pretty sad, isn't it?"
"Why should it be?" Cynthia asked.
"Well, I'll be around most of the winter, and I'd hoped we could be friends."
"You don't think that might be dangerous?"
He repeated the word as though puzzled, and Cynthia laughed.
"Oh, feeling as you do about love traps and things, I'd think you would be pretty cautious about being friends with any unmarried female."
"Oh, but you're different!" Hank insisted.
"I'm not a bit sure that's a compliment!"
"It was meant for one," Hank said quietly. "And that's pretty funny, too, because you happen to be the only woman I've ever wanted to get to know at all well."
Gladdie-May came out on the verandah and said shyly, "If Buck's asleep, Miss Cynthia, I'll put him in his crib."
Cynthia handed over the baby and when Gladdie-May had gone inside, Cynthia turned her face toward the twilit lawn and drew a deep breath.
Hank watched her and waited, knowing that for the moment she had forgotten him. And then, as though remembering, she turned her head and said quickly, "I'm sorry, Hank. You were saying?"
Hank grinned wryly.
"I was saying that the gang will be here a week from today, and I've arranged a dinner party for them at the hotel. I'd like it very much if you and Miss Maggie could be there," he said pleasantly. "I do hope you'll like them all; I know they will like you. They're going to be very happy to know we have such a fine legal representation. Miss Maggie told you, didn't she, that I hoped you would consent to represent us in any legal matters that might come up?"
"Well, no, she didn't," Cynthia answered. "I was out all afternoon and got home just in time for supper. What sort of legal matters, Hank?"
"At the moment, I'm thankful to say, there are none, now that Jenks is all straightened out," Hank replied. "But we're going to be here several months. There could be things like-oh, traffic tickets. And sometimes there are accidents at the track. It would be nice for us if we knew we could just call on you. All we have to do is arrange a retainer, or however you want to make it."
"I'll be glad to represent you and the Lucky Devils, Hank, but there will be no retainer, just whatever fee is called for by whatever emergency there may be," Cynthia told him briskly.
Hank nodded his satisfaction with that, but still he lingered, and Cynthia waited.
As though suddenly conscious of the silence that lay between them, he looked up at her suddenly in the dying light that showed her as a luminous white figure across from him.
"If you aren't busy, how about letting me buy you a drink someplace?" he suggested. "Something long and tall and very cold, perhaps in an air-conditioned place? I'm sure you know where to find one in Reidsville."
"It's a very tempting thought," Cynthia agreed. "It's been so hot all day, and there's not much breeze even now."
"Then let's go and stir one up."
"It's a deal." Cynthia smiled and rose. "I'll tell Maggie."
She went into the house, where Maggie was already absorbed in her favorite TV program, and announced her intention of going for a drive with Hank.
"Good idea," said Maggie, without taking her eyes from the screen. "Have fun, you two."
Cynthia laughed and went back to the verandah where Hank was waiting.
"Perhaps Miss Maggie would like to go with us?" said Hank politely, without a great deal of enthusiasm.
"Maggie at the moment is traveling the West with a wagon train, and I can't think of anything that would persuade her to leave until the man comes on and says, 'Now a word from our sponsor.' At that point, Maggie returns to the present, peels an apple, gets a handful of saltines and is back in her chair for the next scene."
Hank walked beside Cynthia down the drive to his car, put her into it and slid behind the wheel.
"Where to, ma'am?" he asked. Cynthia sighed and leaned back against the seat.
"Anywhere, as long as it stirs up a breeze," she answered.
"We'll stir up a breeze," he promised her as he started the car, "even if we hear a traffic cop screaming behind us. And even if we do, I'll have my attorney with me to plead extenuating circumstances. 'Officer, we were just trying to cool off, s'help me.' "
"That ought to do it," Cynthia agreed lightly.
It was very pleasant riding along away from town, out into the open country.
"How about this place for that cold drink I promised you?" he asked as the car slowed. Startled out of her thoughts, she roused to see a barn-like place set back from the highway, its parking space well-occupied, a huge neon sign concentrating on the words, "AIR-CONDITIONED."
"Oh, this is the Green Lantern," she identified it.
"Respectable?" asked Hank.
Cynthia laughed aloud. "Heavens, yes, it wouldn't be permitted inside the county limits if it was not," she assured him. "We're a dry county-or hadn't you heard?"
Driving the car neatly into a parking space between a truck and a middle-aged sedan, Hank answered frankly, "Well, I hadn't heard-but I'm as well pleased. In my profession, 'hard likker' is frowned on. If you are really crazy about your job, as I am about mine, you don't need extra stimulants."
They walked across the parking area and entered the building, and a blast of music from the jukebox seemed to reach out to them and enfold them.
"Music?" Hank asked Cynthia, elevating his brows even as he winced at the noise.
"So-called," Cynthia answered, and winced. "I'm not sure whether it's rock 'n' roll or scat-singing. It's whatever the youngsters are spending their money on, anyway. I feel very old when I listen to it and watch their faces and see how absorbed they are in it."
"You old?" Hank scoffed at the thought. "Why, you're younger than springtime; not much older than the infant you were cuddling just now."
Cynthia laughed up at him, her tone mocking. "Why, Mis-ter Dowler!"
They stood for a moment eyeing the well-filled room, until finally Hank saw a booth that was vacant and steered her toward it.
When they settled, a waitress came hurrying towards them, smiling a warm and friendly greeting at Cynthia, looking curiously at Hank.
"The usual, Miss Cynthia?" asked the waitress, and Cynthia nodded.
"The usual, Minnie, thank you."
The waitress looked at Hank, who also nodded.
"I'll have whatever Miss Reid has," he offered. Cynthia and the waitress exchanged swift, conspiratorial grins, and Cynthia said quickly, "Take my word for it, Hank-you wouldn't like it. You'd better bring him a very cold beer, Minnie."
"Sure, Miss Cynthia." Minnie grinned and hurried away.
Cynthia looked about her at the crowded room, the small dance floor where several couples in their teens were earnestly gyrating to the blare of the jukebox.
Hank watched her, and when she turned her eyes back to him, something in his eyes brightened her color.
"Well, if they aren't having fun," she answered the look in his eyes, defiance in her own, "why are they working so hard on such a hot night?"
Hank smiled and looked at the gyrating youngsters, then back at Cynthia, shrugging.
"The riddle of the ages: Why do young people do the things they do? It must be fun or they wouldn't be here, would they?"
"They wouldn't be, anyway. Why, some of them can't be more than fifteen or sixteen. What are their parents thinking of to allow them out in a place like this?" Cynthia worried.
"Probably their parents don't know where they are. And anyway, you said this was a respectable place."
"Oh, it's respectable, and the waitresses and the barmen know how old they are, and not one of them could buy anything more intoxicating than a Coke or a ginger ale," Cynthia answered. "The place does have a beer license, but it's against the law to serve it to anyone under age."
Minnie came hurrying with a tray on which was a tall, thin glass of some sparkling liquid that bubbled around a scoop of ice cream. She placed it before Cynthia and the glass of beer, its sides frosty, before Hank, and paused a moment.
"See, mister?" Minnie said cheerfully, "We warned you, you wouldn't like Miss Cynthia's 'usual.'"
Hank was staring at Cynthia's glass with something approaching horror.
"What in blazes is that-devil's brew?" he demanded.
"Ginger ale, with ice cream in it," Cynthia said. "Delicious."
Hank's lean, pleasantly rugged face twisted slightly.
"Ice cream I can take, under pressure. Ginger ale I accept without question. But the two combined?"
Cynthia merely laughed at him and looked up at Minnie.
"Did you know Mose Henslee, Minnie?" she asked quietly.
"Well, sure, didn't everybody?" Minnie answered her question with another.
"You didn't like him?" Cynthia pursued.
Minnie's sandy eyebrows went up. "Did anybody?"
"I suppose you know Bud Conyers is accused of killing him."
"And a mighty fine job, too. They should decorate him or something like they used to soldiers during the war." Minnie broke off and added awkwardly, "You're Bud's lawyer, aren't you, Miss Cynthia? So of course you don't believe he's guilty or you wouldn't have taken the case. You sure got a job cut out for yourself. I don't believe even you can save him-not with elections coming up in the spring and all the peanut politicians busy as blazes trying to scare up votes."
"You haven't heard anything that might help Bud?"
"Well, sakes alive, Miss Cynthia, how would I?"
"I just thought perhaps Mose might have been in here a lot."
"In here, Miss Cynthia?" It was almost a snort, and touched with honest indignation. "The boss wouldn't have let him set foot in the place-and he wouldn't have wanted to, anyway. He made his own rotgut in his own still and didn't waste his time or his money buying anything anybody else had to sell."
Cynthia said swiftly, "Mose was moonshining?"
Minnie looked puzzled. "Well, if you didn't know that, Miss Cynthia, then you must be just about the only person in the county that didn't. Sure, that was the reason Mose spent so much time in the Big Swamp. He had his still in there and just brought out enough pelts and hides to make folks think he was trapping. Only thing he was trapping was all the bucks he could get from folks in these parts that don't like living in a dry county. He made a lot of money at it, too. Makes you wonder what he did with it. He sure as blazes never spent any of it for clothes or good living-he dressed and lived like the worst hobo that ever came down the pike."
There was a stentorian yell from a rear booth, and Minnie said hurriedly, "I got to go now. You want another drink, you just yell, Miss Cynthia."
She nodded, smiled and hurried off.
Cynthia sat silent, her brows drawn together, ignoring the drink before her, and Hank watched her curiously for a long moment.
"Does that help?" he asked at last.
Cynthia looked up, startled, and he realized she had forgotten his presence.
"Oh," she said quickly, and smiled disarmingly, "I'm sorry. I'm afraid I'm not very good company."
"Don't be silly," Hank cut in. "Does what the woman said help your client's case?"
Cynthia shook her head slowly, her eyes still thoughtful.
"I'm afraid not," she admitted. "Oh, I've heard rumors about Mose and his still in the Big Swamp; everybody has. But the Swamp has been searched from one end to the other, even from the air, and there's been no indication that a still is there."
"This Big Swamp," Hank said. "I've heard a lot about it, and of course I saw the Conyer's place on the edge of it. Looks like a place where you could hide Reidsville and not even know it was there."
"Oh, it's an enormous place, but most of it is water," Cynthia answered. "It's never been really explored, but from the air any illegal activity could be spotted. After all, you can't just tuck a still under a bush and know that it will never be found."
Above them a young, eager voice spoke, and they looked up to see a tall, thin youth looking down at Hank with worshipful eyes.
"You're Mr. Dowler of the Lucky Devils, aren't you?" the boy asked. "I saw you race at the Southeastern, and I told people they were crazy as blazes to think you'd come to a penny-ante affair like our county fair! Not the Lucky Devils! Man, you're the most!"
Hank stood up and shook hands with the boy, who beamed, his young, handsome face scarlet with pleasure.
"You see, Mr. Dowler, I'm crazy about racing, and I'd like to have your autograph," said the boy, and scowled. "But don't think I'm the kind of dope that breaks his neck collecting autographs of movie stars. It's just that I've always wanted to be a race driver! And I've always admired you because you do the darndest things. The way you can smash a car going one hundred miles plus an hour and just walk away from it-"
Hank laughed, offered the boy a chair and glanced at Cynthia, his eyebrows quirked a little as he scrawled his name on the piece of paper the boy offered.
"And here are a couple of tickets for opening night, son," he added casually.
"My name is Dock Blair, Mr. Dowler," said the boy eagerly. "And someday you're going to read that name in the papers, and it's going to say I won the Grand Prix at Sebring!"
Hank's eyebrows went up.
"Oh, is it now?" There was good-humored raillery in his voice. "That's been a hope of mine ever since the Sebring show began. What kind of car do you drive?"
Dock's young face fell a little.
"Oh, well, it's just something I put together myself," he admitted. "You know how it is-a piece here, a piece there. But, boy, does she ever run! I always place first in the drag races. The fair committee lets us use the speedway at the fairgrounds; they say it's safer than letting us clutter up the highways. I suppose maybe it is."
T imagine it's more fun, too," Hank said gravely. I'd like to see your car, Dock."
The boy's eyes shone with delight.
"Would you really, Mr. Dowler? Golly, I'd sure like to have you see it. Only-well, you mustn't make fun." The boy's voice broke awkwardly.
"Dock, don't be a fool! Make fun? I built the first two cars I had," Hank began.
Dock nodded. "And then you test-drove some experimental models, and the manufacturer was so pleased that he furnished you with others and you got the troupe together," he finished before Hank could and grinned as he saw the look of surprise in Hank's eyes. "Oh, sure, Mr. Dowler, like I said, I've always admired you and I've read up on you and-well, this is just about the biggest bang of my life, meeting you like this."
"Thanks, Dock. Coming from a fellow-racer, that's quite a complement," Hank told him, and his voice was quite sincere.
"Could I maybe come down to the fairgrounds and watch you tune up for the opening, Mr. Dowler? And maybe meet some of the others? That Jenks is a wonder. I'd sure like to meet him."
Hank's jaw set and his eyes cooled.
"Jenks won't be with us anymore, Dock. He got married, and his wife objects to his racing," he said quietly.
A look of blank horror touched Dock's face.
"Jenks-to go like that!" he breathed aloud, and Cynthia glanced at Hank and then at the boy and set her teeth. Dock spoke, as Hank had earlier in the day, as though this Jenks had died!
"I feel the same way about it, Dock," Hank admitted frankly. "But what can you do? She felt he was in constant danger, and she couldn't take it."
"Gosh!" Dock's eyes were blazing in his young, freckled face. "Women! How could Jenks ever get tangled up with anybody as chicken as that? Women sure are bad luck, aren't they, Mr. Dowler?"
Hank glanced at Cynthia, a twinkle in his eyes that died beneath the frost in her own.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that, Dock," he temporized.
"Well, I would!" snapped Dock, completely oblivious to Cynthia. "No dame's ever going to get me snaffled down like that! No, siree!"
A pretty girl, sixteen or less, her snug little waist tightly cinched by a wide leather belt above a voluminous black skirt that was patterned in gaily colored and quite improbable animals, came swaying up to the table, her black hair sleek about her shoulders.
"The crowd's leaving, Dock," she said icily. "Shall I let Pete take me home, or can you possibly tear yourself away?"
Dock straightened, looked up at her and rose so hastily that he almost stumbled.
"Oh, Julie," he said, "of course I'll take you home. Julie, this is Hank Dowler, head of the Lucky Devils troupe."
There was a tone of awe in his voice. Julie's dark, angry eyes flicked over Hank, dismissed him disdainfully and glanced at Cynthia.
"Oh, hello, Miss Reid," she said politely. "Come on, Dock."
She turned and, moving with the effortless grace of all young things, walked out of the place, while Dock hesitated to offer an apology to Hank for her rudeness and to be assured by Hank that he quite understood.
"I'll see you at the fairgrounds, Mr. Dowler," said Dock hurriedly, and held up the tickets. "Sure thank you a lot-and good-night, Miss Reid."
He hurried after Julie, and Hank and Cynthia watched them go, then glanced at each other and burst out laughing.
"He's not going to get snaffled by any dame," Cynthia mocked. "Oh, no, not him!"
"He may fool you at that," Hank objected, still grinning. "He's only a kid yet."
Cynthia said, shocked, "You're surely not going to encourage him? About being a racing driver!"
Hank said quietly, "You don't think much of the profession, do you?"
"A profession?" Her tone denied the implication.
"You don't think it is? I suppose you feel it's strictly a matter of-oh, well, of taking idiotic chances and not getting killed? How many racing drivers have you heard of being killed in races? Believe me, it is a profession, and it takes many years to train for it."
"I'm sure," said Cynthia curtly. "Shall we go?"
"No," said Hank, unexpectedly grim. "We'll have this out here and now. I'm tired of having you sneer at me and my job."
"I'm not sneering."
"You're giving a most excellent imitation of it, then!" Hank was genuinely angry now. "I've been working at this since I was younger than that boy. Not for the money, because after all, except for a few occasional large prizes, there isn't a heck of a lot of money in it. But there is a thrill that is found in no other sport in the world. You have to drive to realize that thrill. It's hard, grueling work, of course. The Grand Prix at Sebring, for istance, is a twelve-hour endurance run; twelve straight hours of driving a five-point-two-mile track. There are seven sharp corners and five curves, or bends. One of those bends you can take at a hundred and twenty miles an hour; and one of the corners slows you down to thirty-five. You have to constantly brake, shift, adjust the speed and balance of the car; and there's a straightaway where you can do one hundred and sixty miles an hour, if you and your car can take it. Only people who thoroughly understand the technique of racing can even begin to realize the skill of some of the top-ranking drivers. One of the greatest drivers that ever lived was an Italian."
"And you're planning to take over where he stopped?" Cynthia's tone was thin and cold.
For a moment he stared at her, his eyes wide and angry. And then his jaw set hard and he stood up. "I just might, at that," he said. "Shall we go?"
"By all means," Cynthia told him, and walked out ahead of him.
How could she be falling in love with a man like this? Cynthia didn't know how to figure it out. All of her life, she had been the most reasonable of women. Never making a move until she had reasoned out all of its ramifications.
And now she was falling in love with a racing driver!
She had to smile. This was, after all, exactly the way her father had told her life worked out. Full of surprises.
All of her adult life, Clinton Kirby had been the man she was supposed to marry.
Everyone knew it.
Cynthia had never doubted it. After all, Clint was a handsome young man-an attorney as well. She'd dated him for as long as she could remember.
And yet ... of course, there had been no rush to get married. They were both young and there was no pressure on them to tie the knot.
Cynthia was positive that if she really pushed, Clint would marry her in an instant. It was just that he hadn't gotten around to it yet.
As a companion, she found Clint to be stuffy and pompous. And she resented his small-town desire to be a big frog, what with his political ambition and all.
Still, he was a known quantity, while Hank, for all of his charm, remained very much a mystery to her.
She thought of the better times with Clint.
There had been the day he took her on a picnic. He never did things like that anymore. "Childish," he would have said if she asked to take her out to the lake.
But a few years ago, Clint had been different. That day was particularly beautiful, and when they arrived at the lakefront, Clint tossed down the blanket and then tugged her down atop him.
"Let's do it," he said.
He kissed her fat and full on the mouth. His tongue slipped into her cavern and slung around, hinting of sweet cunnilingus. She was shocked at his rare directness.
Then she felt his two hands come up and hold her tits through her sweater. There was a certain exciting anxiousness in his grip, the way he pressed her flesh together in his palm and studied its retreat. It made her chest quake with desire.
Then the hands came up underneath the sweater, atop the bra. Again he grabbed at her flesh and pumped it in his palms. His skin rubbed at the hardening nip, pressing against soft cotton cups that made her point up and out.
Then one hand came around and undid her bra. As the cups came loose they held around the opening and falling flesh. He drew them away and started pinching both nipples, folding the flesh in his hands and spinning the little tubs.
"Oh Clint!!!" she swooned. "Yes ... Yes!!! Let's do it now!!!"
He pulled his arms up and spread the sweater off her, freeing her boobs to sway and roll in the open air. Again he grabbed them, letting the puckered nubs peek out between his thumb and first finger. He put his face to the right tit and squeezed the darker round tub right into his waiting lips.
"Ooooo Clint!!" she moaned. "Suck at that tittie!!"
He let his lips chew away at the round areola that was the frame to her pudgy nip, which his tongue circled round in ever-faster wet slaps. The pert tip grew fatter and firmer as he went on.
He shifted to the other, this time holding and pressing the little pink bud in his teeth until it was rock-firm. Then he sucked it in gently and pulled at it with long tugs. She moaned with satisfaction.
"Ooooooooo the way you chew!!!! Keep going, baby!!!"
Then he started slobbering from tit to tit, fondly gumming both into his mouth and spitting his tongue across the flesh to excite her. Her skin felt warm and creamy to him-almost as if he could drink it.
He put his mouth close and sucked her in, hogging more and more tit inside.
She could feel her whole upper body begin to pulse with excitation, and she longed to have him chew at her even harder. She wanted her tits pinched and bitten, and when his teeth grazed her aching nip by accident, she told him.
"C'mon Clint," she urged. "Chew my titties right off my chest."
To encourage him she lifted the mounds up to his face and offered them with her outstretched palms. She held them there as they quivered with his fervent chewing, until the muscle and flesh inside seemed to be spinning underneath the skin.
Then she started to feed his sucking mouth gobs of her swinging glory, letting him slurp in more and more of the creamy flesh, until each tit felt like it had been totally encased and warmed in his biting and chewing mouth.
From there he started kissing downward, and when his face reached her belt he licked avidly at her belly-button. He ravaged the tiny hole until the skin around it was parting and rolling in waves.
Meanwhile Clint's hands were busy undoing the button and unzipping her front.. She wiggled her bottom and he had the pants off. Then with another wiggle he pulled off her panties.
Then she opened up her womb in glorious relief and let him dive in at her sweaty tissues. He chewed and gobbled at her slit as if it was his first bit of moisture after a week in the desert. With each inward breath he seemed to try to slurp all the juices he could into his mouth. Her lips quivered and her passage hummed. She was happy in his arms.
She felt free and alive, naked under the sun. Clint licked his lips, then stood up, and quickly undressed. He was well-built but with a tendency towards pudginess. She watched him as he stripped, loving the look of his body.
He was already hard when he skinned off his shorts and stood in front of her. She smiled, sat up on her knees and grasped his erect shaft.
Cynthia jerked it once or twice, loving the feel of it in her warm hand. Then she leaned forward and worked her lips around the swollen head of his cock.
He began groaning with pleasure-it was the one thing that Clint loved. Sometimes Cynthia thought he liked it more than what came later.
Cynthia liked it too. She took more and more of his hard shaft into her mouth, cupping his testicles in her hand. He was moving, pushing it in and out, loving the feel of the softness of her lips against him.
Then he pulled out-"I was ready to come," he said-and pushed her down on the blanket. Cynthia was on her back, her legs spread, and Clint knelt between her knees and began licking and biting her hot, moist cunt.
Then she humped forward, raising up on her ass. She pushed it into his eager face and Clint smiled in appreciation. If there was one thing he enjoyed more than being sucked, it was licking Cynthia's fragrant center.
Cynthia cupped her breasts in her hands, pinching the nipples into firm, jutting erections. She felt as if she'd been asleep for awhile, her consciousness clouded with pleasure.
Clint was probing her center with his tongue, digging and licking, his hands now on either side of his face, tugging Cynthia's center.
She was wide open and ready for it. Clint straightened up, grinned down at her, and then moved quickly between her legs.
He shoved it in abruptly-Clint usually took his time-and she gasped with pleasure when she felt herself widen to accept him.
Then he was moving quickly, jabbing her, and she yawned open her legs to more readily accept his hot bulky hardness. She felt him stretching her to the breaking point and then suddenly he was in all the way, rocking gently, filling her with the only real pleasure she'd ever known.
Then he began to speed it up, in and out, twisting his hips to stimulate her. All she wanted was a straight-ahead ramming, the feel of his hips and pelvis crushing her. But she liked this too, the way he tried to make it even better for her.
And then he was groaning and she felt his cock throbbing deep within her. His jets of warm wetness made her gasp with pleasure and she answered his come with an orgasm of her own.
CHAPTER SEVEN
They drove back home in silence. As Hank braked the car to a halt in the drive, he turned and looked down at her. Above them, the trees held back the moonlight, and she could glimpse his face only as a pale blur in the darkness. Beyond him the lawn lay dappled in moonlight and shadow, and there was the faintest possible stirring of night wind.
"Why is it," he spoke out of the silence that gripped them, "that every time you and I are together, we fight?"
"I honestly don't know," Cynthia said. "I think it must be that we live in two different worlds as far apart as the stars. The things that seem important to you are meaningless to me; the things I feel are important seem silly to you. So how could we possibly be friends?"
She saw by the shifting of the blur that was his face that he had shaken his head.
Her mind whipped off into fantasyland, which at this point was the only place she could meet Hank and explore their ideas of pleasure. Or at least her ideas of their ideas of pleasure.
But she knew what he would like right now. She could lean over and grab that big throbber that lay inert in his pants, and put her face and hands to it and smother the bulging and growing peckerhead with soft and wet sensations. As it grew she could trace the ever-larger line in the front of his jeans with her teeth, putting them lightly on either side of the fat bulge and gripping it.
Then she could bring her hands to the fly and clasp and open the trousers, letting his dork pop out and stand erect from the car seat like a flesh-toned stick shift. As far as Cynthia felt, the blue-veined pecker was a shifter. By riding it around she could gear up a man into overdrive.
She could put her hands around the bottom of the fat thing and make it get even harder with a few firm strokes. She wouldn't fist it-oh no. She would hold her thumb upon the top of the base and put her fingertips-right at the tickling nails-side by side along the thin line that ran at the bottom.
Then she would pull, slowly of course at first.
She would increase her speed, but only after long and labored minutes of pulling at his rippled foreskin and watching the prick stab away underneath her grip.
He would start making low noises in his throat, maybe start asking her to "Suck it,"
"Chew it!" or "Swallow my knob...."
She was ready and willing to do it all in her head, but not in real life....Not yet.
Then she thought about her mouth around Hank's custom shifter, licking the knob round and round until it shone like chrome.
Of course she would feel his poor cock bucking around and twitching between her lips. She didn't care-she was ready to gobble it down and deep-throat it.
She could feel the fat thickness moving along her spread lips, so tight that every ripple and vein in him could be felt as she slowly sucked him past and tucked his helmet into her throat.
Her lips would then be chewing at him, pulling up at the length to try to enjoin his juices to free flowing splendor. It would happen in time.
She would then be bobbing on the pecker, holding it at the bottom and jerking it deftly while her mouth swallowed and circled about the rest of it, keeping the tool hard and happy in her face.
Then she would be sucking him down and in and pulling his spitting love semen into her mouth, where it would flow easily down her gulping throat and make her stomach warm and content.
Then, she knew, he'd want to fuck.
What he would probably do was to lean over and grab her hips under her dress. He'd pull the dress up and her panties down. And then he wouldn't eat her cunny, but instead he'd give her his best hand job.
He'd form a cock with his fingers and take that hand and shove it in her bush. The other hand would grasp her clit, and in his complete control she would writhe there on the car seat, until she finally flowed so heavy and full that he climbed in and took her fast, wet, and gobbing with sperm.
But alas, Hank was talking too seriously tonight.
"The only thing I need is to know that you love me and that you're going to marry me!" he insisted firmly, as he got out of the car and lifted her down and held her cradled for a long, exquisite moment tight in his arms.
"I love you, Hank, but marriage?" Her voice shook.
"I know. It's a big word, and we're both scared of it and all it means, but we're not going to let it throw us, are we? Hush your mouth, baby," said Hank very softly, and silenced her quivering lips with a kiss. "I said we'd find a way, and we will. But we're not going to worry about that now. We're going to relax, and enjoy this earth-shaking discovery that we have just made.
He held her tightly for a moment, then let her go and without another word went down the steps and out to his car and drove away.
Cynthia stood where she was in the darkness, watching as the red taillight on his car winked out of sight, before she turned and went soberly into the house....
When she came down to breakfast next morning, Maggie shot her a probing glance.
"If you were a drinkin' woman, which, praises be, I know you're not, I'd swear you had a hangover," Maggie accused her.
"I didn't sleep very well," Cynthia answered, and there was a curtness in her tone that silenced Maggie's teasing tongue.
It was not until after breakfast, when they were in the car driving into town, that Cynthia said without preamble, "Hank Dowler is in love with me."
Maggie nodded, completely unsurprised.
"Of course," she said cheerfully.
Cynthia stared at her.
"What do you mean-'of course'?" Aren't you surprised?" she demanded sharply. Maggie's eyebrows went up slightly. "Should I be?" she asked mildly.
"Well, I am!"
"It's your own fault, then," Maggie said comfortably. "I tried to warn you and you wouldn't listen. Question now is-are you in love with him?"
Cynthia set her teeth hard, in the hope of steadying her voice, and said huskily, "Yes, Maggie."
Maggie nodded. "Then what's your problem?" she asked reasonably.
"Oh, Maggie, for heaven's sake!" Cynthia burst out sharply. "There are so many problems, and I'm scared of them!"
"Oh, fiddle-faddle!" snorted Maggie. "If you love him and he loves you, then I can't see any problem except the one that ends, 'And so they were married and lived happily ever after.' "
"Where?" asked Cynthia flatly.
Maggie stared at her, as Cynthia slid the car expertly into its accustomed parking place and switched off the ignition.
"Where? Well, here in Reidsville, of course," Maggie answered. "There are a lot of opportunities for enterprising young men like Hank Dowler."
"Such as opening a service station?" suggested Cynthia dryly.
"Well, why the blazes not? He ought to know a whale of a lot about cars."
"You heard him on the subject of his pal, Jenks, and the service station."
Maggie made a little gesture of dismissal.
"Oh, that was Jenks," she pointed out. "When it's Hank himself, he'll see what a smart trick it is."
"Maggie, he wants to drive in the Grand Prix at Sebring in April," Cynthia told her grimly.
"So let him run in the Grand Prix, whatever the heck it may be."
"It seems to be an endurance race for sports cars and their drivers, and whoever wins the most points is declared world's champion race driver."
"Well, that should give him a nice big cash prize."
"There's not much money in racing, he told me. The men who do it are in for the, the thrills!"
"Well, do tell!" Maggie was unimpressed. "That sounds like kid stuff. You'd think a man Hank's age would want something with a little more coin of the realm in it."
Cynthia got out of the car, locked it, and she and Maggie walked to the stairs leading up to her office.
"Funny," said Maggie, when Cynthia seemed disinclined to speak. "I wondered why an outfit as famous as the Lucky Devils would condescend to race here in our small country fair."
"It's a 'tune-up' for the more important stuff in Florida a little later, when the winter season opens. Their share of the gate here will just about pay their expenses, I imagine."
They were at the top of the stairs now, and Maggie, panting a little from the climb, fitted her key into the lock, swung the door and said cheerfully, "Oh, well, you're not planning to be married tomorrow, are you?"
"Of course not, Maggie," Cynthia gasped. "We're not even sure we're going to be married at all."
"Oh, come now. If you're in love-" Maggie scolded.
"But, Maggie, how could such a marraige work out? All the cards are stacked against it. It just wouldn't-it couldn't!"
Maggie said levelly, "That will depend on you and Hank, you know."
"What does that mean?" Cynthia demanded.
"It means that you'll both have to give in a little, adjust yourselves and your plans."
"It's hopeless, Maggie, and you know it," Cynthia said harshly, and went on into her own office.
Maggie uncovered her typewriter, carefully watered the pots of African violets that blanketed the sunny windowsill, and settled down to the morning's mail.
Shortly before noon there were footsteps on the stairs, and Cynthia's heart turned over in her breast and her eyes flew to the door. And then as she saw Clint Kirby, she tried hard to hide the disappointment.
"Hello, Duchess." Clint greeted Maggie with a bow, and turned his eyes to Cynthia. "Howdy, ma'am. I brung you some business."
Maggie snorted disdainfully.
"Why? Is it crooked?" she demanded. "On second thought, it couldn't be or you'd handle it yourself."
Clint looked mildly hurt.
"Now, Duchess!" he chided her, and turned back to Cynthia. "Come on, honey. I'll buy your lunch and tell you all about it in a more friendly atmosphere."
"Oh, Clint, I'm afraid-" Cynthia hesitated, and the glint in Clint's eye deepened to hostility.
"If you're waiting for Dowler to ask you to lunch, you may have quite a long wait," he said coldly. "He left for Jacksonville a couple of hours ago. Told the desk clerk he wouldn't be back until Thursday when his carnival crowd gets here."
Cynthia caught her breath and her eyes widened.
"Hank's gone?" She couldn't quite keep her voice steady.
Clint drawled, "You mean he didn't phone you? How very rude of him!"
"Clint Kirby, now don't you-" Maggie began, but Clint turned a cold eye on her.
"You keep out of this, Duchess." His tone was like the flick of a whip as he turned back to Cynthia. "Come on; I want to talk to you."
Cynthia stood up, her mouth a thin line, her eyes cool.
"You know where I'll be, Maggie, if I'm needed," she said, and walked with Clint out of the office and down the stairs.
In the hotel, when Clint had seated her and they had given their order, he leaned toward her across the table, his strong-looking, tanned hands locked together on the white-clad table.
"Now see here, Cynthia," his voice was low-pitched, but that did not conceal the fact that he was angry, "I've had about all of this I'm going to take. It's way past time that you woke up and realized what an utter fool you're making of yourself about this Dowler guy."
Cynthia stiffened, her eyes hot.
"I can't see that it's any business of yours what I do, Clint Kirby!"
"Oh, stop horsing around, Cynthia! You know you're my girl; that we're going to be married just as soon as I can get myself set so that I can take proper care of you."
"I don't know anything of the sort!"
"Then you're the only person in town who doesn't!" Clint told her. "It's been understood ever since we were kids. My folks knew it, your folks new it. And I won't let you go on getting yourself talked about by spending so much time with a here-today-gone-tomorrow circus mountebank like Hank Dowler!"
Cynthia said thickly, "You are being perfectly ridiculous!"
"I'm behaving like any normal man who wants his wife to be above the merest breath of scandal or idle chatter."
"I've lived in Reidsville all my life, and if I can't see a male client now and then without creating a scandal-"
Clint's eyes were shrewd, scrutinizing her sharply.
"If that's all he is to you-"
"What else could he be?" asked Cynthia.
"That's what I want you to tell me," Clint said grimly. "Do you always go dancing with your male clients in places like the Green Lantern?"
Cynthia caught her breath, and color touched her cheeks, and Clint nodded as though she had answered him.
"Sure, I know about that," he told her grimly. "I know every time you've seen him. His visits to your office, to your home, the long ride you took together out to the Big Swamp to collect Bud's wife and kid. And now I'm telling you that it's got to stop."
"Are you indeed?" Cynthia's eyes were blazing now, and her voice shook with the fury of her resentment. "And just where do you get off telling me anything, Clinton Kirby? You have no strings on me. You've always been very careful not to have."
"Oh, so that's it, is it? Just because I haven't put a ring on your finger and announced to the world at large that we are engaged and set a date for the wedding, you're trying to whip me in line by flirting with Dowler?"
"Why, you insufferable-" Cynthia choked on the epithet, her voice shaking so with fury that she had to see her teeth against the angry tears that threatened.
"It's a cute little trick, and old as the history of mankind, and the pitiful thing about it is that it usually works, " Clint told her grimly. "I don't say it wouldn't have worked this time, except that you chose Dowler, and I know that you'd never have any serious interest in a man like that."
"Oh, do you now?" she flashed at him so hotly that his voice stumbled and fell to silence as he stared at her, wide-eyed, shocked.
"Oh, come now, Cynthia!" he protested after a startled moment. "You're not going to try to tell me that a girl like you, with your background, your family, your intelligence and breeding, could think twice about a no-good like Hank Dowler. I refuse to believe it."
Cynthia drew a deep breath and tilted her chin at a defiant angle.
"Then don't bother trying to believe it, Clint," she said coolly. "After all, it's really not your affair."
Clint leaned a little closer to her, his eyes dark and his voice deeply in earnest.
"Cynthia, you've got too much sense to be swept off your feet by a dashing stranger from out of nowhere, who will go right back there as soon as the racing season is over," he insisted. "Even if you were in love with him-" He broke off, and after a moment he asked anxiously, "You're not, of course?"
"And if I were?"
"If you were, Cynthia, you'd be a complete and utter fool," Clint said earnestly, now genuinely worried. "He's not your sort, Cynthia, just as you're not his. Why, you'd be perfectly miserable married to him; dragging around the country to fairs and to race meets. Cynthia, what kind of life would that be for a girl brought up as you have been? No home, no ties of any kind, no children-and I know you love children. You want a family when you are married, don't you?"
"Of course I do. Any woman does."
"Then you don't want their father to be a man who is home only between races; nor do you want to drag them with you as you follow him around. Believe me, Cynthia, this man is no good for you! Surely you can see that?"
And of course she could. All his arguments made such excellent sense that she could find no words with which to answer him. And as the waitress brought their food, she was glad to lean back and relax a trifle. When the waitress had gone, he showed as little interest in his food as she did in hers.
"You and I can have a wonderful life together, Cynthia," he went on earnestly. "We live in the same world. I'd never object to your carrying on your profession; and if my political plans work out, as my advisers feel they will, you'd be a very valuable asset. A beautiful and clever wife-"
"Who'd look well in campaign photographs, and be on hand on the speaker's platform, and would be capable of addressing groups of women voters and PTA's and that sort of thing?" Cynthia broke in, her voice thin.
Clint scowled. "Well, what's wrong with that?"
"Nothing at all, Clint."
"Then why are you looking as if you'd bitten into a persimmon and found it wasn't quite ripe yet?"
"Was I?"
Clint studied her for a moment, and she saw the anger go out of his eyes and warmth touch them.
"Tell you what," he said expressively. "Finish your lunch and we'll go straight over to Marples and select a ring for you. And then we can announce our engagement in time for the weekly paper here on Thursday and make the Sunday editions of the state papers. They'll want a photograph of you, of course."
He had the air of one who, out of kindness, bestows a cherished favor on some deserving individual and for some reason she could not quite put her finger on, Cynthia felt a slow anger crawl through her.
"Haven't you overlooked one small item, Clint?" she asked.
Clint scowled. "Have I?"
"Well, am I just old-fashioned to believe that it's customary, when you ask a girl to marry you, to suggest that you are in love with her?"
Clint relaxed and grinned as he reached across the table and took her hand.
"Oh, that!" he scoffed lightly. "You know that without my telling you."
"How could I? I can't recall that you've ever said, in so many words, 'I love you and I want to marry you.'"
"Oh, for Lord's sake-" Clint exploded.
"So I think we won't choose a ring at Marples or announce our engagement or anything of the sort for the present," Cynthia told him with such unexpected briskness that he was startled. "And now, thanks for the lunch. It was very nice. Now I have to go over and talk to Bud. Sheriff Wayne says he's getting very restless and very ill-tempered. You can't really wonder at that, locked up for so long."
"Cynthia, why don't you get him to plead guilty; throw himself on the mercy of the court? That way he'd have a chance of escaping the electric chair, at least."
"And get ten to twenty years in prison?" Cynthia pointed out. "Do you think, given a choice, Bud wouldn't choose the chair rather than a living death that might stretch out to twenty years?"
"Maybe not," Clint agreed. "But you haven't got a chance, Cynthia, Oh, I know you believe he's innocent; I always insist all my clients are innocent, or else I wouldn't represent them! But this time, baby, all the cards are stacked against you and Bud! He'll be convicted, as sure as we sit here. The smart thing for you to do is face that fact and try to persuade him to cop a guilty plea."
Cynthia shook her head. "That's the last thing I'll ever do, Clint," she said stubbornly, and asked, "Did you ever hear that Mose had a whiskey still hidden in the Swamp?"
"Of course, Cynthia. I believe it, too, though no one was ever able to locate it. But Mose was a pretty shrewd individual, and learned a lot of the tricks about hiding stills from his old man. But what's that got to do with Bud shooting him?"
"Bud didn't," Cynthia insisted stubbornly. "What I'm trying to find out is-who did?"
Clint grinned wryly. "Still tilting at windmills, baby?"
"I suppose so," Cynthia agreed tautly. "You don't know anybody who held a grudge against Mose?"
"Dozens of them," Clint answered as she stood up, and he joined her, reaching for the lunch check as they walked out to the cashier's stand. "But none with a better motive for killing him than Bud had."
Outside, in the bright, hot sunshine, Cynthia felt the heat striking at her through the sheerness of her navy-blue dress with its polka dots of green that matched the narrow green band belted snugly about her waist.
"Sure you won't walk over to Marples?" suggested Clint.
"Quite sure, thanks."
"How about dinner tonight? No, hang it, I can't-a committee meeting. Tomorrow night, maybe?"
Cynthia smiled faintly. "Maybe."
"I'll call you, then," Clint told her, and stood on the hotel steps as she walked down the street beneath the dusty live-oaks toward the courthouse, whose top floor was the jail.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cynthia came back to the office, pale and weary from a session with Bud in which he had been bitter, hostile and quarrelsome.
More to divert him from his bitterness at being locked up, away from his beloved Swamp and Gladdie-May and the baby, than with any hope that he might be able to tell her anything she didn't already know, she had asked, as she was leaving, "Bud, do you know anything about an illicit still Mose was supposed to have hidden somewhere in the Swamp?"
Bud's young, thin-lipped mouth twisted.
"The still wasn't in the Swamp," he answered. "I dunno where he made the stuff or even if he made it. Way I always had it figgered was that he was just selling it for some of the fellows up in the mountains that hauled it down for him."
Cynthia asked quickly, "Do you know where he hid it?"
"Well, sure, Miss Cynthia-it's my swamp. I know it like I know every inch of this blasted cage!"
"Then, why, Bud, didn't you tell the officers when they were searching for a still?"
"Why should I? They was tearing the place apart, chasing all the game away, making so much trouble, only thing I wanted was for them to get out and leave things settle down way they always was."
"But, Bud, if they'd found Mose's hidden liquor, then they would have arrested him and sent him to jail."
Bud lifted broad shoulders in a gesture of dismissal.
"I figgered it was their job to catch him, not mine to tell on him," he pointed out grimly. "I never did hold much with the law, anyway; I had too many of 'em on my tail tryin' to tell me I didn't have no right to hunt and fish and trap in the Swamp. I took care of my job of feeding my wife and young'un; I figgered it was up to them to do the same."
"Do you suppose that perhaps one of those men who used to bring the stuff down to him from the mountains may have killed him, Bud?"
"I dunno, Miss Cynthia. Only thing I know is-it wasn't me. And I want out of here!" His voice rose to a note of fury that brought the attendant running.
"Better come outta there, Miss Cynthia.
Sounds like one o' them vi'lent fits is comin' on him," the jailer urged her. "Way I look at it, if he keeps carryin' on like this, he'll be lucky if he don't wind up down to the State Hospital. Nuts, he's goin' to be."
As Cynthia slipped through the door and it clanged locked behind her, Bud caught the bars and shook them savagely.
Cynthia tried to soothe him, but the jailer hurried her out, a hand under her elbow.
"Best jest leave him be, Miss Cynthia," he murmured. "I'm right sorry for the feller. Sure must be tough, shut up in there after being free in his swamp all these years. Still and all, murder's agin' the law!"
"I refuse to believe Bud killed Mose!" Cynthia insisted wearily.
The jailer grinned at her. "Look, Miss Cynthia, you don't remember me, but I've known you a long time. I'm Joe Henslee, Mose's cousin. And a lower-down skunk never breathed the breath of life than Mose. I had my way, I'd pin a medal on Bud and shake his hand and tell him he done a good deed. But murder's murder, and folks say it's agin' the law."
Cynthia turned to him swiftly as they reached the elevator.
"You are Mose's cousin?" she asked eagerly.
"Well, about thirty-second cousin, twice removed, like folks say, and if I'd had my way I'd been born in another family in another state, Mose was that much of a stinker."
"Did you know about Mose's still out in the Swamp?" Cynthia cut in.
Joe stiffened slightly as he slid open the elevator door for her to step out into the courthouse lobby, and his eyes were wary.
"Why, no, Miss Cynthia. Where'd you ever get that idea? Mose never had no still. Mose was too lazy and too dumb to know how to make even bad likker."
"Maybe it was made somewhere else and Mose just sold it?" Cynthia asked.
Joe shook his head, and his smile revealed two broken teeth.
"Somebody's been feedin' you a lot of malarkey, Miss Cynthia. Take it from me, if Mose had been up to anything like that, he couldn't a kep' it from me, and I'd sure as blazes have hauled him in. Been glad to!" he assured Cynthia firmly, slid the elevator door shut and gave her a slight gesture of goodbye as the elevator rose slowly and ponderously out of sight.
Cynthia had returned slowly to the office, so deep in thought that several people spoke to her twice before she was aware of them. As she entered the office, she looked swiftly at Maggie.
"Any calls?" she asked.
Maggie said flalty, "None from Hank Dowler."
Color poured into Cynthia's tired face. "Hank Dowler-who's he?" she asked curtly.
Maggie flung her a glance midway between pity and exasperation.
"Oh, just a client, and we have so many of them you can't be expected to remember all their names," she drawled, and followed Cynthia to the other office, where Cynthia dropped wearily into a chair.
Maggie stood looking at her from the doorway, watching as Cynthia rested her elbows on the old desk and put her face in her hands.
"Oh, come now," said Maggie, rallying after a moment. "There's nothing to get so worked up about. Hank had to go out of town."
Cynthia looked up at her with a glint in her eyes that made Maggie hastily dissemble.
"I can't wait to find out what bit of business Clint Kirby's tossing our way! Can't be anything important or straightforward, I'm afraid-probably a charity case from the welfare-"
"He wanted to ask me to marry him," said Cynthia, and met Maggie's eyes.
Maggie caught her breath, and her eyes widened. "You said yes, of course," she managed after a moment. "I hope you remembered to be very polite and said humbly, 'Thank you very much, kind sir.' "
Cynthia stared at her.
"You really don't like him, do you?" she asked.
"I loathe and abominate him beyond all the men I've ever known and I'd like to see him lying dead in a ditch somewhere," said Maggie.
"But why, Maggie? What a horrible thing to say!" Cynthia gasped after a moment.
Maggie nodded slowly and thoughtfully. "It wasn't very pretty, was it? But then, the way I feel about Kirby isn't very pretty, either, now I come to think of it." Cynthia looked up at her, deeply troubled. "Why, Maggie?" she asked huskily. "Why do you dislike Clint so much?" Maggie was thoughtful. "That's a good question," she answered at last. "I wish I could think of a good answer. It's just that for some reason I've never quite been able to understand, I've never been able to endure him. But then, that's not important. What is important is how you feel about him. Are you in love with him?"
Cynthia shook her head and rubbed her fingers across her forehead as though trying to get rid of some of the cobwebs that seemed to fog her brain. "Maggie, I just don't know," she said. "Then you aren't," said Maggie firmly. "How do you feel about Hank?"
Color poured into Cynthia's face and she would not meet Maggie's searching eyes. "I like him a lot," she said huskily. "I'm not sure that I don't love him. Only how could he and I possibly have a good marriage, Maggie? Our worlds are so far apart. He's dedicated to his work; I couldn't drag around with him the way the other wives in the troupe do! Oh, Maggie, what am I going to do?"
It was a small frightened wail, and her eyes pleaded with Maggie for understanding and help.
"Your father used to say, 'When in doubt about what to do-do nothing,'" Maggie said quietly at last. "It's still pretty good advice. Just wait for time to adjust itself!"
Cynthia grimaced wryly.
"You're a big help!"
"Maybe more than you realize at the moment," Maggie said quietly. "Just let things ride for the time being. You're not in any mad rush about marrying Clint, are you?"
"He wanted to announce our engagement in the weekly paper Thursday and in the Atlanta and state papers Sunday." Maggie's brows went up slightly. "What's he in such a rush about, after all these years?" she wondered, and added swiftly, "Pay no attention to me, honey. Do whatever your hearts tells you. Only be sure it is your heart, not your head, that's guiding you."
Cynthia gave a small, mirthless laugh. "What kind of advice is that, Maggie? Aren't we always supposed to follow the dictates of our hearts instead of our heads at times like these?"
"Might be a lot fewer divorces if we didn't," Maggie answered, and turned back to her desk.
Thursday night when Maggie and Cynthia entered the lobby of the hotel was the first time Cynthia had seen Hank since that night a week before when he had held her close and told her of his love. He had not called her; there had been no word from him beyond a telegram from Miami, very business-like, reminding her that she and Maggie were expected to the dinner party that night.
He was watching for them, and as they came into the lobby, smart and cool-looking in their light summer dresses, he came swiftly toward them, his eyes seeming to reach out to Cynthia with a hungry yearning that made her heart leap in her breast. But she stilled it angrily, and greeted Hank with a tilted chin and cool brown eyes that did not give away her secret.
"I was afraid you wouldn't be here," he began, greeting them both but with his attention centered on Cynthia.
"You pointed out that as your legal representative this would be a good opportunity for me to meet the rest of your troupe," Cynthia reminded him. "Did you have a nice time in Miami?"
"I booked some business, which is what I went for," he told her. "And I did a lot of thinking."
"That's nice," she told him sweetly. "So did I. Clint Kirby and I are announcing our engagement next week."
For a moment he stopped dead-still, and she caught the stunned look on his face, as though he had received a savage blow. And then as Maggie glanced curiously at them, his jaw set hard, and he went on guiding them to the dining room.
"That's nice." His tone was mocking. "Congratulations. Only I think I'm supposed to congratulate the lucky guy and offer you best wishes. Which, believe it or not, I do."
"Oh, I believe it," Cynthia told him softly. "It relieves the pressure on you somewhat, doesn't it? Now you don't have to run away anymore."
"What the devil are you talking about?" Hank's tone was louder than he intended, and Maggie looked at him, startled and uneasy. But Cynthia merely smiled and walked on ahead of him to where a long table had been set for the members of the troupe."
Four men and four women sat at the table, and watched curiously as Maggie, Cynthia and Hank approached. The men stood up, the women eyed Cynthia with a swift scrutiny that took her in from head to foot, and then they glanced at each other and smiled wryly.
"'How have the mighty fallen,' " a blonde in her mid-thirties murmured to the small brunette beside her.
"The bigger they are, the harder they fall," the brunette murmured back. "But Hank, of all people-for a small-town gal in a hick dump like this-" And then Hank and Maggie and Cynthia had reached the table.
"Cynthia, meet the gang," said Hank, very genial and bluff and gay. "Gang, meet Cynthia Reid, our legal representative. We won't bother about trying to get all the names straight just now. We're going to spend the winter here, so we'll all have time to get acquainted. And this is Miss Mitchel."
"The other half of my firm." Cynthia smiled a pleasant, friendly smile that took them all in as Hank seated her on one side of him, Maggie on the other.
The blonde leaned toward Cynthia and said eagerly, "I like your town, Miss Reid."
"Cynthia, please!"
The blonde shrugged. "OK, so it's Cynthia, and I'm Louise. What I was going to say, is there any chance of finding small housekeeping apartments here? Gordy and I are so sick of hotels and boardinghouses-I'd like to find out if I've forgotten how to boil water without scorching it, and if I can find my way around a supermarket again."
"Maggie and I will inquire around and see what we can find out for you," Cynthia offered.
"Thanks, you are a pal," said Louise, and turned to the brunette. "You and Fred would like an apartment, wouldn't you?"
The small brunette shook her head, smiling.
"Thanks, no, we were off all summer and kept house," she answered lightly. "I'm looking forward to having someone else plan meals, wash dishes and do the chores."
So softly that Cynthia barely heard the words, Louise asked, "How is Fred-now?"
The small brunette's face tightened.
"He's fine-until next time," she said through her teeth and blinked as though against the threat of tears.
"You can't persuade him to quit while he's ahead?" murmured the blonde.
The brunette's smile was taut and her face set.
"Quit? Fred? Are you out of your mind? He's got the fever, in a very advanced stage-all the same like your Gordy, pal! So let's face it!"
They seemed to realize that Cynthia had heard. They exchanged swift, guilty glances, and Louise launched into some amusing story.
Cynthia looked curiously around the group. Anne, the small brunette, was a woman whose prematurely graying hair gave her youthful face an added charm; a rather plump dark-haired woman about Cynthia's own age had eyes deep with trouble and a mouth twisted with bitterness as she watched the best-looking man in the group, who was busily outlining to Hank some new stunt he had just worked out.
When he had finished Hank said enthusiastically, "Great, Cal-just great! Think you can get away with it?"
"Why not?" asked Cal, grinning. "I've worked it out to the last detail and I've tested it over and over again-and it's a real spectacular. It'll have the yokels hanging onto the edge of their seats! You wait and see!"
"Swell! We'll try it out tomorrow night here, and if it works, we'll put in the act for the season," said Hank.
"And if it doesn't work," said the dark-haired, plump woman, her tone rasping, "we'll ship the body back home for burial."
"Florence!" the good-looking man snapped at her savagely.
For a moment their eyes locked, and Cynthia saw the woman begin to wilt, until at last she made a resigned gesture with a hand that was shaking and reached for a cigarette.
"Sorry," she said huskily. "I keep forgetting we're the Lucky Devils-and oh, how lucky we are! We have to keep on proving it-don't we, boys and girls?"
Cal stood up, his face set as though carved in granite.
"She's a bit tired, so if you'll excuse us, it's been quite a day." He held out his hand to Florence, and for a moment Cynthia thought she was going to defy him. And then, her shoulders drooping, her head bowed, she walked ahead of him out of the room without a word to those left behind.
Hank was scowling, and the other men looked uneasy, and the wives were very carefully not looking at each other. And then someone began recounting another amusing incident, and though on the surface the scene was once more pleasantly diverting, it was a relief to all of them when the dining room began to close and they all moved out into the lobby.
The wives clustered about Maggie and Cynthia, making small talk, and then Louise said brightly, "Well, we'll see you in the wives' box tomorrow night, Cynthia. You'll sit with us, of course, to watch the performance?"
"Well, thanks, but I'm not sure I can be there," Cynthia began.
"Oh, but you must, Cynthia. Who knows? We may need our legal representative before the performance is over," said Louise.
"Stop it, Lou," ordered the brunette in a savage whisper as Hank came over to them.
"I'll drive you home, Cynthia," he began.
"Thanks, that won't be necessary," Cynthia assured him crisply. "I have my car. Good-night, everybody, it's been a very interesting evening."
"We'll see you at the track, Cynthia," Louise said, and added quickly, "Oh, before I forget, wear any color you like-so long as it isn't green."
Cynthia looked bewildered. "What's wrong with green?" she asked.
"Bad luck!" Louise smiled, but her eyes did not reflect the smile as she turned and walked away with the other wives.
Cynthia looked up at Hank, frowning.
"What did she mean by that? Green is one of my favorite colors," she protested.
"It's an old superstition that ranks with a lot of other superstitions in other professions," Hank assured her, smiling.
"It sounds pretty silly to me," Cynthia protested.
"I suppose it does," Hank agreed thoughtfully, and added with a slight trace of anxiety, "You weren't planning to wear green tomorrow night?"
"I wouldn't want to upset any of your troupe, so of course I won't," Cynthia told him crossly. "But I still think it's silly."
"Do you deliberately walk under ladders?"
"Of course not, but that's because something might fall."
"Or cross the street when you see a black cat?"
"I like black cats!"
"Or start some important task on Friday the 13th?"
"Oh, for pity's sake, this gets sillier and sillier. Maggie, let's go home," said Cynthia," and walked away from him and across the lobby, Maggie trailing her.
Cynthia said nothing as she and Maggie settled themselves in her car, and they drove home without anything more than a tentative remark from Maggie that the troupe seemed made up of some nice, pleasant people.
When they reached the house, Cynthia stopped on the verandah.
"I think I'll sit out here awhile, Maggie," she said coolly. "I'm not sleepy yet."
"It's cooler here than inside," Maggie agreed. "But me, I'm tired. See you in the morning, honey."
The screen door closed gently behind her, and Cynthia dropped into the old swing and sat for a while, one white-shod toe edging the swing gently back and forth, her brows furrowed in worried thought.
She tried to tell herself that she was surprised when Hank drove up, but she knew she lied. Secretly, in the depths of her subconscious mind, she had been expecting him.
He came up on the verandah and hesitated, glancing toward the swing where she sat.
"May I come in?" he asked, and his tone was quite, formal, almost without expression.
"Why not?" Cynthia waved a hand toward a chair, and Hank dropped into it.
"Well?" Hank broke a silence that was threatening to become tense.
"Very well, thanks. I liked them. They seem a very nice group."
"I didn't mean that, and you know it." His tone held a ragged edge. "I meant-well, you know what I meant. About my leaving town-"
"You really needn't have, Hank," she told him coolly. "The trap hadn't been baited and wasn't about to be srpung. You were perfectly safe from me, Hank."
"There was business," he began, but her laugh silenced him. He glanced toward her in the swing and then looked out over the moon-drenched lawn. "All right, I'm lying. I did run out."
"But you needn't, Hank! Don't you suppose I recognize moon madness, or whatever you want to call it, as well as you do? Why else do you suppose I got myself engaged to a man I've known all my life the very next day?"
"That's what's worrying me now," Hank admitted grimly. "I think you were running out, too! You knew as well as I did that it wasn't moon madness. Was there a moon? I didn't notice."
"There was, one big enough and bright enough to create a lot of crazy illusions! I realized that the moment daylight came. So you see, you didn't have to run."
"And did you? To Kirby, I mean."
Cynthia tensed slightly and her chin went up.
"I've expected to marry Clint ever since I was a child, and it was understood by his family and mine. We just hadn't gotten round to it yet!"
"If you weren't running away from me, why did you get around to it the very next day?"
"Because," said Cynthia very carefully, paying him the tribute of honesty in her own desire to understand as well as to make him understand, "for the first time in my life I was frightened."
"Of me?" asked Hank curiously, as though he found that very hard to understand or to accept.
"Of myself," Cynthia went on. "I had a terror of being overcome by the moon madness, of doing something rash that we both might regret. You are enormously attractive, Hank."
Hank was silent for a moment, and then he came and sat in the swing beside her. Cynthia drew away from him with a small, startled gasp, but he made no effort to touch her. It was as though he bridged the space between them so that he could speak more softly, without danger of being heard by others.
"I know, darling," he said, and his voice was husky. "I felt the same way. I had to get away where I could decide whether it was real, or just because you are completely different from anyone I've ever known before; a girl, as you said yourself, who lives in another world as far away from mine as if it were a distant star. I had to get away to do a lot of thinking. And I did."
"And what did you decide?" she asked huskily, a note of sexual intensity in her voice.
"I've decided this," she said, grabbing at his hard pecker and giving it a pull. "I love you, even if it means working to bridge the gaps between us. But right now I want to bridge that gap with this big log," she said, shaking it through his clothes.
Hank felt himself grow hard. His tool filled to meet her grip, and then some.
He leaned over and started kissing her, taking Cynthia into his hugging grip.
She dropped her hand from his now almost rock-hard bulge. "Please...." she whispered. "We can't."
Cynthia loved the feel of Hank's strong arms around her and the warmth of his lips pressed against hers. She struggled for a moment but Hank wasn't having any of it, and for that she was glad.
"Hank-we mustn't! Someone might see!"
"Nonsense-it's night, and after all, there aren't that many people walking around!"
"But Maggie-"
"Maggie's asleep-or she's pretending to be, which is just as good," Hank said. His hands were roaming all over her body, and wherever he touched her, she felt good.
He cupped her breasts and squeezed them gently. She sighed with pleasure.
Then she sat back and he slid his hand onto her thigh and massaged her sofly, and then his hand traveled north and she felt the warmth of his palm pressed against her center.
She tried to close her legs but his hand was in the way and, oh, what the hell. She relaxed, loving the feel of his gentle lovemaking.
She reached down and pressed her hand against the hard bulge in his trousers. He smiled and she smiled back. "Pretty big," she said. "I hope it won't hurt."
"It won't," Hank said. "I promise you." And then his lips covered hers once again and she didn't give a damn who saw them now. She unzipped his trousers and hauled out his cock-it was already hard and thick and she loved the feel of it. She jerked it a few times, loving the wanton feeling she was getting into. She felt like a girl should, she thought, her mind free of the legalisms and the logic that marked so much of her life.
She was having her pleasure and that was all there was to it. Hank sat back on the swing and let her play with him and when she dropped to her knees in front of the swing he held her head gently between his hands.
She didn't know what had come over her. A few minutes ago the thought of making love to Hank, there on the veranda, in full view of anyone who happened to pass by-the thought would have left her cold.
But here she was, Cynthia thought, not giving a damn who saw what. She bobbed her head forward and captured the head of his shaft between her wet lips. Then she sucked, drawing at least half of his length into her warm mouth.
He chuckled softly and said, "I never thought I'd get along so well with a woman in my life!"
She lifted her humid face off his pole for a second and looked up at him. "I never thought that sucking a big fat cock on my veranda could ever be so much fun!!!"
Then she took him back into her moist and slurping mouth and chewed down his length until she had him nearly all the way in. Then she began her swooping draws and jabs, which made his cock start to boil at the base.
She swung upward with feverish motion, tugging with her lungs hard at the skin, making it ripple upwards and get tiny goose-pimples.
Downwards her whole face was pressed together to form a soft and mushy sort of casing for his fat sausage. It tickled his flesh and made it cringe.
"Oooooohhh yeah, Cynthia," he urged her. "Just keep sucking me like that and you'll get a big reward!"
She started turning her head fast from side to side as she bobbed on his pecker. It made her feel as if her face was being twisted onto his steely rod.
Those were the kinds of feelings that Hank enjoyed in his groin. He was fond of good head, performed with wet, slathering, sucking abandon.
So many women seemed to suck at it halfheartedly, with loose lips and distant minds. It usually made his pud flag and grow soft.
But not Cynthia. She rolled her face on and off him with the fondest of squeezes and contractions. Her lips formed a wet and pliable gate to a tube made of her cheeks and tongue. It was there she caressed him.
Hank grabbed her skull and started to guide her. First he just controlled the ups and downs, trying as best he could to get her to follow the most sensuous line of sucking.
But soon he was just holding her in place, fogging his hips upward and jamming his fat throbbing meat in and out of her now-soaking and dripping mouth. She had her eyes closed and was gobbling up his prick without a second thought. Her mouth clung tightly-nursed him and nuzzled him tightly.
He felt himself growing hotter in the groin, and started moving his hips circularly and rubbing his cockhead into every corner of her mouth. Cynthia just accepted him and sucked him tightly until he sprayed into her throat.
Even after the heated semen was gurgling down her throat, she sucked at him.
But he stopped her a few moments later, pulled her to the swing and flipped her skirt up over her hips. Then he rolled down her panties and slid them off. He knelt in front of her, his mouth pressed to her hot, wet cunt, and she got so carried away that she draped her legs over his broad shoulders.
As she spurred him in the back he stuck his projectile deep in her sweet hair-pie, licking her insides outward and opening up her hot center. He plied and ploughed at her, wrenching her tissues here and there until she cried out in hunger.
"OOOOOOO HANK!!!!" she yelped, trying to keep quiet for fear of waking Maggie. "Lick me right there!!" she passionately whispered.
As she instructed, he found the especially hot spot-the break in her wall-and ran his thing up and down the fleshy insides, pushing at the mush and massaging it until the surrounding area seemed to quiver.
She would then shift her cunt to the other side, making him nudge some strange upper corner that itched and begged. She rocked and kicked at him as he ate in sheer joy, Her cunny burned, growing ever more bubbling at the attentions his adept chewing gave to her sensitized sheath. Each slap left a scar of pleasure. She was writhing in heavenly bliss, soon to erupt with orgasm.
It took but a snap from his tongue at her clit to do it.
Hank lapped and licked until Cynthia thought she was going to scream from the pleasure of it-and then he stopped suddenly, sat next to her on the swing, and tugged her atop him.
She straddled him, facing him, and guided his thick cock into her warm nest. As soon as she felt his thickness penetrate her slick flesh she leaned forward and kissed him hard on the mouth, her arms linked around his neck.
She was moving like an animal, humping hard, swinging her hips, eager to get as much as he could give her. Hank was smiling at her, pleased that she was a woman of spirit, a woman of deep sensual promise.
She didn't know how long he could hang on, but it didn't matter-she was already climaxing, pouring her pleasure out, loving the feel of his throbbing rod deep within her. She worked it hard, running her cunt up and down over his stiff pole, giving him the best ride he'd ever had.
She wondered for a moment if anyone was watching and then she laughed out loud. Let them watch, she thought, as she bucked furiously atop him. She didn't care who knew what was going on, not now, not this instant.
And then she felt the warm jets of his pleasure filling her, and she sighed and leaned forward and kissed him once again. It might not ever be like this again for them, Cynthia thought, but there was no taking back the first time.
She let him take her inside by her hand. He led her to her room. She didn't give a damn if Maggie heard, or the whole neighborhood.
They took the remaining hanging clothes from each other's body with careful loving hands, smoothing the skin below and rippling each other's fancy. They stroked long and lovingly, kissing and holding their bodies firmly.
She could feel the warm patch of hair on his chest tickling her tits. She wanted him to do something special to her chest.
She grabbed his cattle-prod and led him to the bed. Lying there, she shut her legs tightly.
"I wanna be fucked, baby," she told him with a growl. "Not in the cunt, not in the face, not in the ass ... at least not yet."
Hank stood over her with his pecker bulging. Her manner of speech and constricted breath were making him horny.
"What I want," she told him, bringing her hands around to clasp her tits at either side and press them together, "is for you to fuck my titties! Now do it!!"
Hank straddled her and laid his big tool on top of the bunched slit that was her cleavage.
"You have to make it easier," he said, "and get my prick wet."
She was glad to oblige. She grasped the tool and swallowed it almost all the way, coming back off with such a moist combo from tongue and lips, he felt like he was shooting in her already.
Bobbing like a babe, she nursed at his cock for a minute or so until she'd slobbered it wet and soaking with her sweaty mouth.
"Okay," she told him, pulling the pulpy head out from her lips, "now fuck my tits and leave a load on my chest." He moved down and she cupped the golden goblets together once more. He aimed and started pushing up at the slit, his balls dragging across her flat and smooth stomach.
Cynthia pressed her milk muscles around his shaft for all she was worth, craving more of the feelings that came as he shoved across her tingling sternum.
He jabbed and pushed apart the tunnel she'd formed, pushing his sausage in to be encased and warmed by the big boobs. They wrapped him with firm delight.
He humped her chest while she moved her body in unison, holding the globes fast to the strides of his rounded and bulging prick.
Bucking her breasts like a cowboy, Hank came on an upward stroke that was accompanied by a loud grunt.
"Uuuuuugggggghhhhhhhhhh baby!!!" he cried. "I'm going to spill my load!!!"
She cocked her head down and opened her mouth. He was amazed at the way his pearls shot so hard from his gun and landed in her mouth and about her lips. She smacked at the warm stuff happily.
The next gobs came spitting and slurping out over her breasts and chest. As the warmth oozed over her body, Cynthia soaked up the good feelings.
"MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!" she moaned. "Your come is burning up my breasts!!! I can't believe how it feels!!!"
She grabbed his pecker and swished it through the muck as her tits fell aside. She ran the sticky pecker across her nipples, rubbing it at the edge of the nubs to nudge them to extra hardness. She cried and cooed at the wonderful way it made her feel.
"OOOOOOOO HANK!!! YOUR COCK IS SOOOO NICE!!!"
That made him feel like pulsing up harder, and giving her one last go-around.
Of course Cynthia was one step ahead of him. Holding his wet and sticky tool, she urged him downward.
As her hips reared up and opened up around his, he could feel her wet and folded center pass by his dick. She pulled her hips up further and stuck him hard into the gate of her butt.
"Now fuck me there and fuck me hard!!!" she told him. "Violate my ass with that prick of yours and make me scream!!"
He pushed in against the tightness and she brought her hands around to spread her cheeks. She grunted and twisted and contorted her posterior, trying to open it for him.
Hank meanwhile jabbed and shoved, trying to make his own way into her twisted bottom.
To his surprise her muscles were quite relaxed, and in only a minute or two he had his pole buried deep in her shit chute.
Then he banged her like that for ten, fifteen, maybe twenty minutes as far as she could tell. All she knew was this continually engulfing wave that overtook her and made her scream out for more. She didn't care if she woke the whole house, the whole city. She was going to enjoy the ass-fucking his huge rod was giving her....
And enjoy it she did, until he flew out with his juices and made her come, herself, one big last time. Then they fell asleep.
CHAPTER NINE
The county fair opened Friday but the races did not begin until Saturday. Sunday the fair would be open only for exhibits and the various concessions, and by Monday the whole thing would be in operation for the rest of the week.
Saturday night, Cynthia sat in a box directly behind the pit where the cars were waiting for the drivers. The whole atmosphere of the place, even though she had been attending fairs since childhood, seemed strange and exciting, and she watched eagerly as the drivers moved about their cars, mechanics scrambling about them like bees, checking, rechecking, consulting with the drivers.
When the flag dropped and the cars roared off, she felt herself dizzy with fear. She couldn't watch, fearing every minute that Hank might crash. After five laps she stumbled out of the box and away from the grandstand.
She never quite remembered how she got home. Her car was there somewhere, and when she next realized where she was, she was stumbling up the steps to the verandah and collapsing in the swing, long shudders racing over her body. She seemed still to hear the roar of the motors; to see them flashing about the track, coming within inches of crashing into each other; and again and again she saw that blazing hoop with Hank hurtling the small car through it, bounding to the farther ramp....
The thought of Hank was so dear to her that when she heard his voice and looked up to see him standing there before her, still in his racing clothes, she could scarcely make herself believe he was not just a figment of her imagination. When he came to sit beside her in the swing, she drew away from him, unwilling for him to touch her lest the warmth and exquisite tenderness of their feeling should once more blind her to what she now knew was the truth.
"What happened, honey?" Hank asked her, and his tone was touched with honest bewilderment. "Anne said you were ill."
"I was sick, Hank-sitting there watching you risking your life-doing all those dangerous things. I couldn't stand it. Hank, this is the end for us. We mustn't ever see each other again." Her voice was shaking, on the edge of hysteria.
Hank gave a small, tender laugh and reached for her, to draw her into his arms. But she pushed him away and stood up, her face paper-white, her eyes enormous, her voice shaking. "No, Hank, don't touch me. Don't ever touch me again. Go away, Hank-please go away!"
"Oh, come now, darling." His voice was coaxing, light, and it seemed to her there was a touch of amusement in it. "You've just got opening night jitters. I admit the show tonight was a little ragged, but that's because we haven't been working this summer. It'll settle down in a few days. The boys have been working on some new stuff, and as soon as we get it worked into the act-"
Cynthia said, her voice under some semblance of control, "And then it will be a lot more dangerous, won't it?"
Hank looked puzzled. "Well, I suppose so, though we are always as careful as we dare to be. After all, the paying customers want a thrill."
"And you give it to them by taking the most insane risks. Hank, when I saw you go through that fire-" she turned sharply away, her shaking hands tight above her mouth, unable to put into words the horror that shook her at the memory.
"Everything was timed to the second, Cynthia," he told her. "We take no unnecessary risks, I assure you."
"Unnecessary?" she caught the word up and flung it back at him.
"Cynthia, use your head!" Now there was no doubt that he was resentful. "We book ourselves because we are willing to take risks, to put on a show that the audience knows is dangerous. Why else would they want to see it?"
Cynthia turned slowly and faced him, her eyes dark pools in the pallor of her white face in the moonlight.
"I sat with the wives' tonight, Hank," she told him, as though that explained her disturbance.
"So?"
"So I saw what they endure night after night, sometimes for matiness as well, and it's not something I can accept, Hank! I'd rather never see you again then to sit in a grandstand somewhere and watch you do the things I saw you do tonight. You said the wives didn't mind. You should have watched them as I did-heard them-" Her voice broke and she turned from him again.
"I suppose Florence put on an act? I can't understand Cal putting up with her," Hank growled.
Cynthia stared at him, shocked, blindly angry, but before she could put her anger into words, inside the house the telephone clamored shrilly. Caught by surprise, Cynthia hesitated a moment before she turned swiftly into the house to answer its summons.
Hank followed her, and as she picked up the receiver, she saw swift alarm darken his face.
"That you, Miss Cynthia?" a rough masculine voice said. "Sheriff Wayne here. Look, that client of yours broke jail tonight and I'm rounding up a posse to go find him. I know his wife and kid are there with you, so he may make a break for your place."
Cynthia cried out wildly, "Wait, Sheriff. Are you talking about Bud Conyers?"
"Well, now who else would I be talking about?" Sheriff Wayne was very angry. "You better tell him to surrender fast if he shows up out there."
"But, Sheriff, how did he get out?" Cynthia demanded.
"Joe Henslee took his supper to him, and he clobbered Joe, tied him up, locked him in the cell and beat it," Sheriff Wayne answered grimly. "Rest of my crowd was at the fair; when we got back to the jail, Joe'd worked himself loose and was yelling bloody blue murder. Said Bud was armed, half-crazy and dangerous. We're waiting now for the bloodhounds, and I'm rounding up and swearing in a posse, with instructions to shoot on sight."
"Oh, Sheriff, no, you can't do that," cried Cynthia.
"Oh, can't I? Well, you just wait and see, Miss Cynthia. He's a dangerous fugitive, and I'm not aiming to let him make a fool of me and my boys by slugging Joe and walking out. Just thought I'd let you know if he shows up out there, best thing you can do for him and the law is surrender him fast. He'll probably make tracks to Gladdie-May and the kid, and you'd best bring him in. Otherwise the boys are warned to shoot on sight, and shoot to kill! I'm not foolin' around, Miss Cynthia. I mean it!"
Even as Cynthia cried out, the phone clicked in her ear and she whirled around to find Gladdie-May and Maggie on the stairs, white-faced and wide-eyed. Hank stood near watching her.
"Trouble at the fair grounds?" he asked swiftly.
Cynthia ignored him, looking up at Gladdie-May.
"Bud's broken out of jail, Gladdie-May. Where would be go?" she demanded sharply.
Gladdie-May cringed, and her tanned young face was ashen, her eyes wide and sick with shock.
"Only one place he could go, Miss Cynthia-the Swamp," she answered huskily.
"Oh, surely not, Gladdie-May! That's the second place the posse would look for him. This is the first place, since Sheriff Wayne knows you and the baby are here," Cynthia protested.
"Oh, he wouldn't come here, Miss Cynthia. There's a place in the Swamp where he could hide out the rest of his life, and nobody but me would ever know he was there," Gladdie-May answered bleakly.
"Then tell me how to get there, Gladdie-May. Hurry!"
"You couldn't ever find it, Miss Cynthia. Only me and Bud know about it. You better let me go to him."
"And leave the baby? Gladdie-May, I can talk to Bud. I can convince him that his only course is to give himself up and stand trial. Tell me how to find him," Cynthia insisted.
"It's right dangerous, Miss Cynthia, if you don't know the way like I do."
"Oh, dangerous!" Cynthia's tone threw the word away as of no importance whatever. "Don't you understand, Gladdie-May? The posse has orders to shoot him on sight. I've got to get to him, persuade him to surrender. Tell me how to find him."
Hank was watching, listening, his eyes swinging from one to the other, a curious gleam in them. Cynthia turned on him swiftly, her tone sharp as she ordered, "You like to risk your life driving dangerously; how'd you like to drive dangerously to save a man's life?"
"I'm at your service, Cynthia, anytime, anywhere."
Cynthia turned back to Gladdie-May.
"Tell me how to get to him, Gladdie-May," she urged in the same sharp tone.
"Well, best you change your clothes, Miss Cynthia. You couldn't never get get there in a dress and high-heeled shoes. Best you wear blue jeans or slacks and walking shoes. Come on; I'll help you change, and I'll tell you real careful how you can get there." Gladdie-May turned and scurried up the stairs, with Maggie and Cynthia following swiftly.
It was no more than ten minutes before Cynthia came down again, wearing slacks, a thin sweater slung over her shoulders and her feet in scuffed brown walking shoes.
"Let's go," she told Hank as she ran past him into the night.
Hank followed her and his car purred into action as, following her directions, he headed toward the road that led to the Conyers cabin. Midway in the narrow, crooked, unpaved road, Cynthia directed him to a trail that was barely visible. The big car fought its way down this trail, turning and twisting, and Hank swore under his breath at the limbs of trees that slashed at them, and the exposed roots that threatened to wreck them.
At last they came to the end of even this trail, and before them lay moonlit puddles of brackish water.
"Wait here," said Cynthia curtly, as, armed only with a large flashlight, she sprang out of the car.
"Wait?" barked Hank furiously. "Do you think I'm going to let you go off after an escaped murderer in this jungle, alone?"
Cynthia turned on him sharply.
"Bud's not a murderer, and even if he were, he wouldn't hurt me, and I forbid you try to follow me!" She snapped at him so hotly that he paused, his eyes widening. "This is my job and I don't want any interference from you. Wait here and I'll bring Bud back with me."
And she plunged away from him, and was almost instantly swallowed up in the shadowy darkness of the Swamp.
CHAPTER TEN
There were only a few patches of dry ground in the Big Swamp, and they were scattered so far apart, with such distances of water and spongy turf between them, that it was only by the rarest of luck that one could find them. This was the main reason the Big Swamp had never been explored; why only the outer fringes of it ever knew the feet of hunters or fishermen.
Cynthia crept along, inch by inch, foot by foot, holding her breath when it was necessary for her to step or to jump across one of those narrow, rushing black streams. At last, when she had begun to panic at the thought that she had not exactly followed Gladdie-May's directions, she came to the tiny island.
She stopped in the deep shadow of the trees and looked across at the island: a small, tree-shaded scrap of land that divided the Big River.
And then, like some animal that sniffs danger, she heard Bud's voice call out, rough, harsh, threatening, "Stay right where you are or I'll blast you to Kingdom Come!"
Cynthia could have wept with relief at the sound of his voice. After a moment she called out to him, "Bud, it's Cynthia Reid. I'm alone-see?"
She swept the round, yellow light of the flash over her face, and then in a wide circle around and behind her, so that he could see that she was alone.
"What you doin' here, Miss Cynthia? You go on back same way you come, Miss Cynthia. I don't want to hurt you."
"Listen to me, Bud," Cynthia called to him, and with all her heart and mind sought for the eloquence and the persuasiveness that would make him understand what he had to do. "You've got to come back with me and give yourself up and stand trial."
"In a pig's eye I will!" She could imagine the bitter twist of his mouth, the bleakness in his eyes. "Be locked up in that cage again? I'm not ever about to give myself up! I can live here in the Swamp for the rest of my life and nobody can ever lay a finger on me."
"And what about Gladdie-May and the baby, Bud? Do you want them to live here with you, hunted like wild animals, afraid of their very breath?"
"Gladdie-May and the baby don't have to come here."
"But who will make a living for them, Bud?"
"I will, same's as I've always done."
"That ought to be nice! Gladdie-May and the baby will drive the pickup truck into town every Saturday with a load of pelts and fish, and people will know that you're out here in the Swamp and that you're the one that did the trapping and fishing. How long do you suppose it would be before Gladdie-May was arrested and the baby placed in a juvenile home?"
She knew that she had shocked him, startled him, for he was silent for a long moment and in the silence she strained her ears for the sound she was dreading, the bloodhounds.
"Ain't nobody goin' to arrest Gladdie-May or take the baby."
"If she's known to be harboring a fugitive from the law, Bud-"
She heard him swear a lurid, furious oath, and she pressed on.
"I talked to Sheriff Wayne, Bud," she called to him. "If you'll give yourself up, come in with me and let me surrender you, you'll get a fair trial, and you'll be proven innocent of Mose's death. If you insist on staying out here, Bud, you may never see Gladdie-May or the baby again! And he's such a beautiful baby, Bud, and will need his father someday. Think about that, Bud. Think hard! For you don't have much time left! The bloodhounds will soon be on your trail-and they can find you even in here."
The silence seemed to stretch endlessly. All about her, unnoticed until now, was the small, scurrying sound of night creatures going about their nocturnal business. Between her and the shelter where Bud lay on the tiny island, the narrow black water glittered as it slid between the high, spongy banks.
"Bud?" she called at last when her nerves would stand no more waiting.
"Yessum, Miss Cynthia." His voice sounded subdued, very weary. "I'm thinking hard like you said, Miss Cynthia. I reckon maybe you're right; best thing I can do is go back to that cell."
"The trial opens on Tuesday, Bud, and if you're innocent, and I know you are, you'll be a free man within a few days. And then you and Gladdie-May can come back home and forget all this," Cynthia coaxed.
She heard a sudden splash and turned her flashlight in the direction from which Bud's voice had called; and for the first time saw the palm-thatched shelter where he had been lurking. But he was not there, and she swung the light until it found him, wading waist-deep through the black water until he pulled himself up beside her, wet, grimy, mud-stained.
"Let's go, Miss Cynthia," he said grimly, and took the flashlight from her, shining it down around their feet as he led the way with long, assured strides back along the path she had traveled with such caution and trembling.
At last they stepped out of the darkness into the light of Hank's car.
For a moment they stood impaled against the darkness, and she heard Hank swear. And then he came toward them, and Cynthia saw that his face was gray behind his suntan and his eyes were ablaze with anxiety and suspense.
Cynthia was begrimed with black mud, her hair loose about her face that was scratched from branches and vines through which she had fought her way. But Hank seemed entirely unaware of all that as he caught her and held her close and hard against him.
Cynthia pulled herself from his arms after a moment, managed a faint smile and said huskily, "We'll have to hurry. The posse may be here at any minute."
Hank flung Bud a curious glance and said, "Friend, when you get yourself into a jam, you drag everybody you know in with you, don't you? Come on; let's get along."
They all tumbled into the car, and Hank shot it back into the semblance of a road that led to the cabin, and then on to the highway toward town.
"Where to?" he asked Cynthia.
"The courthouse," she told him swiftly. "The jail is on the top floor, and if we're lucky we may get Bud there before anyone sees him."
Hank nodded, and the car went racing along through the town.
Hank brought the car to a stop in front of the courthouse and said grimly, "Take your time. I'll wait."
Cynthia nodded and, with Bud beside her, hurried up the steps and into the big, dim old building. Her footsteps and Bud's were loud on the tiled floor; at the far end of the hall she saw that the frosted glass panel of the sheriffs office showed a light. So he was still here; he hadn't gone out with the posse. For some reason that disquieted her, but she hurried on, Bud beside her, his tired face grim and set.
She swung open the door of the sheriffs office, and Sheriff Wayne, behind his desk, looked up at her and beyond her at Bud.
"I'm surrendering my client, Sheriff," she said formally.
"Do tell!" Sheriff Wayne's tone was acid. "What for?"
"Because he's sorry he broke out of jail."
"He sure looks it!" commented Sheriff Wayne, his eyes raking Bud's set face and angry eyes. "He sure as heck looks mighty sorry!"
"Look, Sheriff, it's late and I'm very tired," said Cynthia, trying hard not to lose her temper. "I'd like to get through the preliminaries of returning Bud to you, and then go home and get some sleep."
"Better take him along with you, Miss Cynthia, and hand him over to his wife and kid. I got no use for him here," said Sheriff Wayne quietly.
Bud stiffened, and Cynthia's eyes widened.
"Why, you were getting up a posse to go hunt for him," Cynthia protested.
"Sure was, Miss Cynthia, and just as the hounds got here and we was all ready to start, the guilty man broke down and confessed. Reckon the sight of the hounds was more than he could take. Must have been feeling right bad for a long time, of course, and the hounds finished him."
Cynthia clung to the edge of the battered old desk, her face white beneath the swamp mud, her eyes enormous.
"Who?" she asked.
"Joe Henslee," said Sheriff Wayne heavily. "Joe Henslee killed Mose?" Cynthia gasped. Sheriff Wayne nodded.
"Sure did," he answered. "Sure hate to think of Joe coming up on a murder rap."
"Sure, you'd a heap sight rather it was me, wouldn't you, Sheriff?" Bud sneered. "You've never had any use for me."
"Now you keep a civil tongue in your head, Buster," snapped Sheriff Wayne. "No, I never had no use for you. Sure, I'm sorry we had you locked up here, but it wasn't my fault. I thought you shot Mose; I'd still think so if Joe hadn't spilled the story. Seems him and Mose had been doing a little job on the side-selling moonshine. Mose handled the selling; Joe saw to it that he had the stuff to sell. Seems they had a run-in about the split-and Joe lost his head and plugged the daylights out of Mose."
Cynthia straightened and drew a deep, hard breath and turned to Bud.
"You're free, Bud! You can go home to Gladdie-May and the baby now." She turned swiftly to the sheriff. "He can, can't he?"
"Far's I'm concerned, he sure can!" said Sheriff Wayne grimly. And before he could say another word, Bud had turned and gone running out of the courthouse, down the steps and away from the town toward the Reid home.
As Cynthia came down the steps of the courthouse, she saw Hank at the wheel of his car. He just sat and watched her as she came slowly across the sidewalk, now acutely conscious of her disheveled appearance.
"I must look a mess, Hank," she stammered.
Hank eyed her with a look she could not analyze and swung open the door.
"I saw Bud come tearing out of the place and tried to stop him, but he said they'd turned him loose, because they had the guilty man," he said grimly.
"Yes, he confessed. It was Joe Henslee," Cynthia answered, and slipped into the seat and drew a deep, hard breath as she leaned back and tried to smile at him.
"So you went through all this, risked your neck, for nothing?" Hank's voice was harsh, stinging.
"Oh, that's not fair, Hank," she protested. "If Bud hadn't broken out of jail, if the posse hadn't been warned to shoot to kill at sight of him, if the bloodhounds hadn't been brought in-Joe might never have confessed. I think it was the sudden realization that Bud was in danger from the posse, from the dogs, that caused Joe to break."
"I suppose you're right." Hank's tone was cool, merely polite. But when he reached the side drive of her home, he turned to her and said violently, "And you have the nerve to say my job is dangerous!"
"Oh, but Hank, this sort of thing happens very seldom. This is the first time in my whole life that I've ever had anything like this to contend with."
But Hank wasn't listening. The thin gray light of breaking dawn lay across his face, which was bleak and granite-hard.
"When I saw you start off down that trail, and you forbade me to go with you-" He drew a long, hard breath and began again. "Sitting there, straining my ears, expecting any minute to hear a shot that would mean he'd killed you-"
"Oh, but, Hank-"
"Don't keep saying 'Oh, but, Hank-'" he snapped at her harshly. "When you ran out on my act at the fairgrounds, and I followed you here, and you told me you loved me too much to sit there night after night and watch me take such risks, I thought maybe I could persuade you to change your mind. But now, after tonight, I'm convinced you're right! I'd never know another peaceful moment; remembering tonight, and knowing that it might happen again-" His voice trailed off, and she saw his eyes widen a little beneath the impact of a sudden thought. "I suppose that's the way the wives feel, sitting in their box, watching the performance, wondering, scared to death-"
"Believe me, Hank, it is! I know; I sat with them tonight," Cynthia told him quietly.
He was sitting very still, staring straight ahead of him as the gray light thinned, grew brighter and somewhere in the big trees about the grounds sleepy birds began to stir, to twitter and to set about their business of the day.
"Do you understand now why Florence and the others are so frightened, Hank?" asked Cynthia very quietly.
"I'm beginning to understand a great deal," said Hank slowly, as though the words were forced from him against his will. "Most of all, I'm beginning to understand that you were right when you said you'd rather never see me again than to sit there in the grandstand night after night and watch me do my act. You're quite right, Cynthia. I couldn't endure the thought you might have to do something like this again; I'd never know another peaceful moment. So you can see where that leaves us, Cynthia.
She clenched her hands tightly and felt the grit and the dried mud cut into the palms. "Where, Hank?"
"At a point where we say goodbye to each other, of course. What else?" Hank answered brusquely. "There's no other way, Cynthia. Marry your hometown boy and the best of luck to you. This is goodbye, good luck and God bless you!"
He reached across her, swung open the door, and Cynthia stumbled out. And the next moment the car went racing down the drive, barely avoiding the big milk truck that was ambling past on its way to the railroad shipping point.
Cynthia stood dumbly until the car was gone. Then she stumbled to the porch and waited there until Maggie arrived, driving Cynthia's car.
"Look at you," Maggie said. "Where's Bud?" Cynthia asked. "I drove him home. You did a fine job, Cynthia."
"I didn't do anything. It was Joe Henslee confessing-"
"Enough of that," Maggie said firmly. "Let's get inside, clean that swamp mud off you, and get some rest."
The next day the town was filled with the news of Bud Conyer's release. Cynthia felt better, and when Clint called, inviting her to drive with him to Jacksonville for dinner, Cynthia accepted.
During the ride Clint asked her about Hank Dowler. "What is it with you two?" .
"Nothing," she said. "There's nothing between us." Then she turned to him. "Why do you ask? Are you curious?"
"I'm more than curious," Clint said. "Remember? I'm the guy who's going to marry you?"
"When?"
"Soon," he said. "I've just got to know that the thing between you and Dowler's over. I don't want you to ever see him again-you've got to give me your word on that!"
"I can't do that," Cynthia said.
"Why not?" Clint asked sharply.
Cynthia sighed. "Because I am still his attorney," she said, and looked out the window.
"Well, I guess that's all right," Clint answered. "But nothing else-and I mean it!"
It was a few days later-during the last night of the fair-when the accident happened. Cal Forrest misjudged a stunt by a split-second and went hurling to his death.
Cynthia heard about it the next morning when she got to the office. "I'm going to the hotel," she told Maggie. "I want to see if there's anything I can do for Florence."
Hank was there, as well as the other drivers and their wives. Florence had decided to bury Cal right there-it was as much of a home as they'd had in the past five years. Hank was looking sorrowful, and Florence tried to cheer him up. "It wasn't your fault, Hank," she said. "And besides, I should thank you."
"Thank me?"
"For making the last few years the happiest years that Cal could ever have had," Florence said. "Racing was all he ever wanted to do-and I kind of think this is the way he would have liked to go out."
No one knew what to say.
Cynthia handled all the funeral arrangements, and by the time she returned to the office Clint was there, pacing the floor. "Glad you got back in time," he said. "We have to get going to the Westmorelands'."
Cynthia shook her head. "I can't, Clint. I'm totally drained."
He flew off the handle. "You can't break a date with me this late! The Westmorelands are important people, and they're expecting me to arrive with a date!"
She looked him firmly in the eye. "Then find someone else," she said.
As he stormed out of her office he said: "I will!"
The Lucky Devils decided to fulfill the remainder of their contracts and give Cal's share to Florence. They left about a week later for a swing through the south.
Things were quiet then. Clint was pretty involved with the Westmoreland girl, and that was fine with Cynthia, And then one day Bud Conyers walked into Cynthia's office and told her he wanted her to act as his attorney and buy up the entire swamp for him. "Shouldn't cost more than five thousand," he said.
Cynthia blinked. "That's right," she said. "But do you have the five thousand?"
Bud showed her a bank passbook. That morning he had deposited twenty-five thousand dollars. "I've got it," he said. "Can't say where it came from-but here it is!"
"But why do you want to buy the swamp?"
"Make it into a hunting and fishing lodge. I've got it all planned out. Exclusive kind of thing, it'll make a lot of money."
Five months later, the lodge was completed. Bud stopped by Cynthia's to ask if she'd like to come out and see it.
"Certainly," she said. An hour later they were at Bud's-the only way into the swamp was from the dock at Bud's house. A short ride-fifteen minutes-and they were pulling up to the newly-constructed lodge, deep in the swamp. "It's beautiful," Cynthia said. She had no idea there was this much dry land in the entire swamp. As they pulled up in the dim twilight, Cynthia saw a man walk out of the lodge and head their way.
"My partner," Bud said.
Hank Dowler smiled shyly at her as she stepped from the boat. "Hank!" she said, flying into his arms. "Why? Why didn't you tell me?"
He shrugged. "I didn't want to get in the way. My racing days are over, and I think Bud's idea for a resort was just what I needed. I provided the money, and Bud provided the know-how and the skills that I lacked."
"You're settling down here?"
"That's right-if you'll have me."
"I would have had you as a driver-I didn't care!"
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her on the lips. "No more of that," he said. "Not when I've got a family to think of!"
