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The food was delicious, but Camille’s mind didn’t concentrate on the meal as much as it did on the man sitting across the table from her. She had seen the tight fit of the camel slacks Zack was wearing when they walked into the dining room. The navy sweater looked so soft that she was sure it was cashmere. While striving to give her full attention to the moist chocolate cake, her mind strayed to the day in the attic when she had, in the still darkness, stroked the hard muscles of Zack’s chest with her fingertips. If she reached up under the sweater now, his skin would be warm, the hair on his chest crisp under her fingers and—
Her fantasy was interrupted when she realized that Zack was watching her and had a knowing smile playing around his mouth. Could he always invade her fantasies? She flushed and lowered her eyes quickly to her plate. Why did he affect her this way?
When she had the courage to raise her eyes again, she caught him giving her the same kind of appraisal she had given him. For attending church, she had put on a tailored brown wool suit with a peach-colored silk blouse underneath. Before they had gone into the dining room for lunch, she had taken off the jacket to her suit and hung it on the halltree along with Rayburn’s hat and coat. Under Zack’s blue stare, she now remembered that the blouse was somewhat sheer and that if she were going to wear it by itself, she always put on a special bra that covered more completely. This morning, knowing that she was wearing a jacket over it, she had worn another type of bra, one that was sheer and left nothing to the imagination. She had forgotten that fact when she had taken off the jacket.
Zack’s eyes lowered to her chest and lingered there for agonizing moments while Camille flushed hotly. If he had reached out and actually touched her, she couldn’t have felt his interest more keenly. His stare was like a physical caress, arousing and compelling. Finally, he raised his head and met her amber eyes, lit by an inner fire that she was cognizant of, but unable to control. She fought letting him see her love so nakedly revealed to him, but her senses were helpless when he looked at her so daringly.
Rayburn broke the spell by pushing back from the table and rescued her from Zack’s dangerous hypnotism.
“I’m going to change, then I’m off to the plantation for a while,” Zack said jauntily as he left the room, whistling again. Was she so easily dismissed from his mind?
Later, as she lay on her bed and stared at the same page of her book for minutes at a time, she convinced herself that she could erase his vision just as he could hers. Why then did she see him constantly? Why did all of her thoughts always come back to Zack? Zack’s soft brown hair, lit by the sun. Zack’s blue eyes that could melt her defenses with one warm glance. Zack’s hands with the long, strong, sun-tanned fingers that could stroke her flesh with utmost tenderness. Zack’s lips…
* * *
She must have dozed, for when the telephone on her bedside table rang, she started and it took her a few seconds to orient herself.
She answered the telephone on the third ring with a quick “Hello.”
“Come over to the main house right away, Camille.”
It was Dearly’s voice, and it was breathless and overwrought. The housekeeper hung up immediately after saying those brief words.
Camille had slipped into a pair of brown slacks earlier, but she had trouble stepping into her shoes and pulling on a blazer as she stumbled to the door. Something was dreadfully wrong. Dearly would never have been that peremptory, that abrupt. A premonition of disaster settled in the pit of Camille’s stomach as she crossed the terrace with long running steps.
She entered the screened porch and went toward the door leading into the kitchen. She opened it and went in, closing it behind her to keep out the cold air. She turned and gasped at what she saw.
Rayburn was lying on the kitchen floor. His eyes were closed; the fine, chiseled lips hung open, slack; his nose looked pinched; the white hair, usually immaculately combed, stood out at angles around his head; his skin was a sickening yellow-gray color. Simon had straddled Rayburn’s stomach and was leaning into his chest. With the heels of his hands, he applied sharp thrusts at regular intervals a few seconds apart to the still chest under him. Rayburn’s shirt was opened; his belt and top button of his pants undone. Dearly was standing by the telephone, wringing her hands and crying.
Camille took in the situation at one glance and asked hurriedly, “Have you already called an ambulance?”
“Yes,” Simon answered without breaking the rhythm of his CPR tactics. “Go find Zack. He’s at the plantation. Go straight to the hospital. The ambulance will be here in a few minutes. We’ll go there—one way or the other.”
“The telephone…?”
“No answer out there.” He was perspiring profusely, but his voice was calm. He gave a small cry of triumph as Rayburn gasped for breath, and Simon felt a faint pulse under his hand. “Thank God,” he prayed.
Camille echoed the prayer, but she wasted no time running to her car, which was parked in the large garage next to Zack’s Lincoln.
She got in and turned on the ignition. The car, thankfully, started immediately and she expertly guided it out of the garage and down the driveway. Did she remember the way to the plantation? She must! Over the Mississippi River bridge, through Vidalia, turn north. Yes. She would remember. But how long would it take her, and where on the vast acreage would she find Zack? Oh, God, please don’t let us be too late. She gripped the wheel firmly and tried to consciously slow the pounding of her heart. She had to remain calm. She had to be strong for Zack’s sake. He would be upset, and she must help him through whatever he would face when they reached the hospital. What if Rayburn—No! She wouldn’t even think about that possibility. Simon had started his heart beating again. The ambulance was on its way, had probably arrived just moments after she left. The paramedics would see that he got immediate attention.
She crossed the bridge and sped through the small town, grateful for the lack of traffic on this peaceful Sunday afternoon. Peaceful? How quickly one’s well-being can be shattered, how lives can be altered forever in the blink of an eye. Please, God, don’t let him die!
She came to the road leading into the plantation sooner than she expected to and turned, almost without braking to slow down. Where to go? She played a hunch and accelerated the car in the direction of the stables. She saw no one to ask about Zack’s whereabouts and remembered the ball games being played on television. No one was going to be out and about when they could be indoors watching football. Unjustifiably, she was angered that people would put so much stock in a sport. Especially at a time like this, she thought bitterly. She realized her thinking wasn’t rational, but these random, nonsensical thoughts kept her from thinking about Rayburn’s long body sprawled out on the kitchen floor, vulnerable and lifeless.
She spotted the derelict pickup parked outside one of the barns and whipped her small car up beside it. She didn’t cut the motor, but engaged the emergency brake and flung herself out the door, calling Zack’s name. She ran headlong into the barn and collided with a man in the dim interior.
“What the—”
“Where is Zack?” She gripped the man’s upper arms and arrested his attempt to question her. “It’s an emergency. Where is he?”
Apparently he read the alarm in her eyes. He answered her briefly. “He’s out riding one of the mares.”
“Where?”
“Out that way.” He pointed past her toward a large meadow that seemed to stretch to infinity.
“Can you signal him? Do you have any kind of fire alarm, anything?”
