Breath of Scandal(111)

CHAPTER



TwMty-TWO

"Say, Mom?" "Say, what?"

Graham looked up from the Sports illustrated he was thumbing through. He was stretched out on the floor of their living room, lying on his stomach. "That sounded funny coming from you. Mostly black guys say that to one another. "

"I met a man once-a white man-who began most of his sentences with 'say,' and it annoyed me so much I sent him to jail."

Graham rolled to his back, then sat up. "No kiddin'T' "No kidding."

His dark hair was tousled, his eyes bright. Unabashedly, Jade took a moment to adore him. Since his and Cathy's arrival in Palmetto the week before, Jade couldn't seem to look at him enough. She had missed him terribly during their six-week separation- It was the longest stretch of time they had ever spent apart, and she hadn't enjoyed it.

-if you don't believe me," she said, "ask Mr. Burke the next tirne you see him. He knows better than I that the man belonged in jail."

"Mr. Burke's so cool.'9 "Cool?"

Jade tried to apply the slang adjective to the man. He worked incessantly and took every delay-such as incle-

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ment weather or malfunctioning equipment-as a personal affront. He elevated conscientiousness to the degree of fanaticism. Building the plant had become his crusade. He was almost as obsessive about it as she.

"I guess you could call him cool." She deliberately kept her tone noncommittal.

Dillon had no vices that she knew of. He had never been drunk or hung over in her presence. If he saw women, he saw them away from the trailer. To her knowledge, he had never brought a woman to the construction site.

"When I first met him, I thought he was sorta mean," Graham told her.

"Mean?" "He doesn't smile a lot, does he?"

"No, I guess he doesn't," she said thoughtfully. On the few occasions she had seen him smile, it had been a selfderisive expression.

"And the first day you took me out to the site, he yelled at me when I climbed up on the bulldozer. "

In the brief time he'd been in Palmetto, Graham had talked her into taking him to the site three times. He was fascinated with it. Now she wondered if it was Dillon and not the excavation that attracted him.

461, in glad Dillon yelled at you. You had no business playing around that machinery. It could be dangerous."

"'Mat's what Mr. Burke said, too. He told me that people who flirt with getting hurt like that have shit for brains." "Graham!"

"He said it, Mom, not me. I'm just telling you." "What other quaint expressions have you picked up from Mr. Burke?"

He grinned. "I think he likes me now, but he totally lost it when Loner and me got up on that gravel heap."

6 - WnerT9

"His dog. 71at's what Mr. Burke calls him. Anyway, I was just scaling it like a regular hill when Mr. Burke carne ninning out of his trailer yelling at me to get the bell down from there-that's what he said, Mom. Then he took my



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arm and kinda shook me and asked me didn't I have a lick of sense and didn't I know that kids smother in gravel heaps all the time.

"I told him I wasn't a kid. He said, 'You aren't grown, either. And while you're around here, you'll do as I say.' He was scary, 'cause when he talks all quiet and mean like that, you can't see his lips move under his mustache, you know?"

"Yes, I know." She'd seen Dillon lose his temper. Like Graham, she had caught herself watching his mustache and his lips for signs of movement.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"Hell no. I mean, heck no. Later he apologized for grabbing my arm. He said when he saw me and Loner up on the gravel, he was scared shitless it would swallow us whole. " She frowned at his language. Again Graham grinned up at her guilelessly. It was fun to be saying words he was ordinarily forbidden to use. "He's gotta grip that would break bone. 9'

His strength had never been in doubt. On more than one occasion Jade had paused at the window of her portable office to gaze at him while he was at work and unaware that anyone was watching. His stride was long and sure as he moved about, overseeing the excavation. Even at a distance, she could pick him out from the other workers because he always wore a white hard hat and aviator sunglasses ... and there was his mustache, of course.

". . . if I could. Can IT'

"I'm sorry, Graham. Can you do what?"

He rotted his eyes the way teenagers do when their parents demonstrate incredible stupidity. "Can I ride my bike out to the site? I know the way."

"But it's several miles." "Please, Mom."

"It sounds like some big-stakes negotiating is going on here," Cathy said. She entered the room carrying a tray of cookies and drinks. There was a glass of milk for Graham and coffee for Jade and her. "You'll need sustenance to carry on. 11



In the brief time she'd been there, Cathy had already exercised her knack for making a house into a home. Jade hadn't realized how vital Cathy was to her until she'd had to do without her for six weeks. She did all the shopping, cooked 0 their meals, and managed the house. That's what she wanted to do, and she was excellent at it. Without someone to fuss over, Cathy would consider her life meaningless.