Breath of Scandal(3)
"Rebecca was a pretty little thing, but screwing her was like sticking it in an icepack. She gave me what I wanted, though." Here Ivan had socked him lightly on the jaw. "A son. "
Neal thought that having one parent to answer to was bad enough, although Ivan was lenient and usually looked the other way whenever he got into trouble. Ivan paid for Neal's
Sandra Brown
Breath of Scandal
speeding tickets and covered the cost of the things he destroyed or shoplifted.
"For Chris' sake, do you know who my daddy is!" Neal had shouted to the hardware store clerk who had recently caught him stealing.
Sheriff Fritz Jolly had called Ivan to the scene to smooth things over. Neal had walked out of the store with the hunting knife he had pilfered, wearing a complacent smile that infuriated the frustrated sales clerk. The fellow later found his car with four slashed tires.
Neal wished he had something fun like that to do tonight. "Church is out." Lamar's observation pulled Neal from his musings.
A group of young people filed into the Diary Barn. Neal immediately dismissed the boys as Jesus freaks and thereby unworthy of his attention. But he gave each girl a smoldering once-over. Just that did wonders for a girl's ego and made her dream good dreams at night.
Besides, it never hurt to prepare a field for future plowing. He might be desperate for company some night and need one of these girls. If and when he called, she would remember the lustful look he'd given her. He had once boasted that he could convert a church-choir soprano into a slut in five minutes flat. It wasn't an empty boast.
"Hi, Neal. Hi, Lamar. Hi, Hutch."
Donna Dee Monroe stopped at the end of their booth. Out of habit, Neal's eyes slid down her body, then back up. "Hi, Donna Dee. Did you get saved tonight?"
"I'm already saved. But I'm sure you're going to bum in hell, Neal Patchett. "
He laughed. "Goddamn right. I look forward to every minute of getting there. Hi, Florene. "
One of the girls with Donna Dee had been at the country club Valentine's dance a few weeks ago. The pickings had been slim that night, so he'd flirted with her when ordinarily he wouldn't even have noticed her. He'd danced with her until she was melting-literally. When he got her outside and slipped his hand beneath her dress and between her thighs, his fingers had come away damp. Just
as it was getting interesting, her daddy had come looking for her.
Now Neal lowered his eyelids and, in a sultry voice, asked, "Did you have any sins to confess tonight, Florene? Been entertaining any impure thoughts lately?"
The girl blushed to the roots of her hair, mumbled something unintelligible, and hurried to catch up with the group of churchgoers she had come in with.
Donna Dee lingered. She was a cheeky girl with dark, flashing eyes and a quick, sometimes ribald wit. Unfortunately, she wasn't too much in the looks department. Her hair was straight and thin. She wore it parted down the middle, not from choice but because that's all she could coax it to do. Her profile came to a point where her nostrils met her upper lip. Together with her uncorrected overbite and darting eyes, she resembled a friendly rat. She had a thing for Hutch, but, as usual, he ignored her.
"Look who's here," he said, drawing Neal's attention to the parking lot beyond the window. "Mr. Student Body President. "
They watched Gary Parker pull his car into one of the spaces. His steady, Jade Sperry, was sitting in the front seat, close beside him.
"And he's got the best student body with him."
Neal shot Lamar a poisonous look, unable to tell whether Lamar was mocking him with that crack. Surely not. He had kept his interest in Jade Sperry a secret from everyone.
"That car of his is a piece of shit," Hutch commented to no one in particular.
Lamar said, "Doesn't seem to bother Jade."
101, Of course not, you creep," Donna Dee said. "She's in ve with him. It doesn't matter to her that he's as poor as Job's turkey. I'm gonna go say hi to them. See y'all later."
Neal glowered darkly through the window as he watched Gary and Jade. Gary must have said something amusing because Jade laughed and leaned into him, rubbing her temple against his chin.
"Damn, she's hot," Hutch groaned. "He's a frigging fanner. What attracts her?"
10
Sandra Brown
Breath of Scandal
11
"His brain," Lamar said.
"Or maybe she's impressed by his big plow," Hutch joked.
Lamar laughed. Neal remained stonily silent. Motionless, his eyes unwavering, he watched Gary softly kiss Jade's lips before opening the car door and stepping out. It had been a chaste, tepid kiss. Neal wondered, not for the first time, if she had ever been kissed by somebody who meant business-somebody Re him.
Jade was indisputably the best-looking girl in Palmetto High School. The best-looking girl was supposed to belong to Neal Patchett, just like the best clothes and the best car. His old man was the richest, most powerful man in the area. That alone entitled him to whatever he wanted. Apparently no one had informed Miss Jade Sperry of that.
No matter how high Gary's IQ was, Neal would never understand how she could prefer a piss-poor farmer like Gary over him. Not only did she show a marked lack of interest, but Neal got the impression that she felt disgusted by him. With an inexplicable reverse snobbery, she regarded him as a lowlife. Oh, she was always polite-Jade was courteous to everybody-but beneath her polite veneer, Neal detected a scornful attitude that ate at him.