Carnal Innocence Read Free

“Yes’m?”
    “You said you’d drive into town and bring me back a sack of rice and a case of Coca-Cola.”
    “Well, now …” Tucker rubbed the still-cool bottle over his torso before bringing it to his lips for a long swallow. “I guess I did, Della. Figured I’d ride in once it cooled off some.”
    “Get your lazy ass up and fetch it now. Else there’ll be an empty plate on the table at dinner tonight.”
    “Too damn hot to eat,” he mumbled under his breath, but Della had ears like a rabbit.
    “What is that, boy?”
    “I said I’m going.” Graceful as a dancer, he slid out of the hammock, polishing off the Dixie as he went. When he grinned up at her, the hat tipped rakishly on his sweat-curled hair, and the light of the devil in those golden eyes, Della softened. She had to force herself to keep her mouth pursed and stern.
    “You’re going to root to that hammock one day. See if you don’t. A body’d think you were ailing the way you’d rather lie on your back than stand on your feet.”
    “Lots more a man can do lying down than nap, Della.”
    She betrayed herself with a loud, lusty laugh. “Just make sure you don’t do so much you end up getting hauled to the altar with someone like that slut Sissy, who snagged my Dwayne.”
    He grinned again. “No, ma’am.”
    “And bring me back some of my toilet water. It’s on sale down at Larsson’s.”
    “Toss me down my wallet and keys, then.”
    Her head withdrew, then popped out a moment later just before she flung both objects down at him. Tucker snagged them out of the air with a deft flick of the wrist that reminded Della the boy wasn’t as slow as he pretended to be.
    “Put your shirt on—and tuck it in,” Della ordered, as she would have had he been ten.
    Tucker lifted it from the hammock, shrugging into it as he walked around the front of the house, where a dozen Doric columns rose from the covered porch to the lacy ironwork of the second-story terrace. His skin was clinging to the cotton before he reached his car.
    He folded himself into his Porsche—an impulse buy of six months before that he’d yet to grow tired of. He weighed the comfort of air-conditioning against the excitement of wind slapping his face, and opted to leave the top down.
    One of the few things Tucker did fast was drive. Gravel spat under the tires as he slammed into first and streaked down the long, meandering lane. He swung around the circle where his mother had planted a bounty of peonies, hibiscus, and flashy red geraniums. Old magnolia trees flanked the lane, and their scent was heavy and pleasing. He flicked by the bone-white granite marker where his great-great-uncle Tyrone had been thrown from a bad-tempered horse and had broken his sixteen-year-old neck.
    The marker had been set by Tyron’s grieving parents to honor his passing. It also served as a reminder that if Tyrone hadn’t chosen to test himself on that mean-spirited mare, he wouldn’t have broken his stubborn neck, and his younger brother, Tucker’s great-great grandfather, wouldn’t have inherited Sweetwater and passed it down.
    Tucker could have found himself living in a condo in Jackson.
    He was never sure whether to be sorry or grateful when he passed that sad old piece of stone.
    Out through the high, wide gates and onto the macadam was the scent of tar going soft in the sun, of still water from the bayou behind the screen of trees. And the trees themselves, with their high, green smell that told him, though the calendar claimed summer was still a week away, the delta knew better.
    He reached for sunglasses first, sliding them onto his face before he chose a cassette at random and punched it into its slot. Tucker was a great lover of fifties music, so there was nothing in the car recorded after1962. Jerry Lee Lewis shot out, and the Killer’s whiskey-soaked voice and desperate piano celebrated the fact that there was a whole lot of shakin’ going on.
    As the speedometer swung toward