The best way to lose

JANET DAILEY
CAPTURES THE HEART OF AMERICA
Look for:
The Four-Volume Calder Saga:
This Calder Sky
This Calder Range
Stands a Calder Man
Calder Born, Calder Bred
For the Love of God
Foxfire Light
The Glory Game
The Hostage Bride
The Lancaster Men
Mistletoe and Holly
Night Way
The Pride of Hannah Wade
Ride the Thunder
The Rogue
The Second Time
SeparateCabins
Silver Wings, Santiago Blue
Terms of Surrender
Touch the Wind
Western Man
Available from Pocket Books
and
The Great Alone
Available in hardcover from Poseidon Press
Trace said gruffly. "I don't believe that you
haven't had volunteers."
Something about the way he looked at her
set off little twinges of unease.
"In case you haven't noticed," she replied,
"'there isn't exactly a surfeit of single
males
over the age of thirty in Natchez. Besides,
I'm not that desperate for a man."
"Aren't you?"
"No, I'm not," she retorted.
"You want to be looked at, but you don't
want to be touched ..., by anyone. Is that
it?" he murmured.
Pilar avoided his eyes. "I don't know what
you're talking about."
"I'm not sure that I do, either," he said
dryly.
Books by Janet Dailey
The Glory Game
The Pride of Hannah Wade
Silver Wings, Santiago Blue
Calder Born, Calder Bred
Stands a Calder Man
This Calder Range
This Calder Sky
The Best Way To Lose
For the Love of God
Foxfire Light
The Hostage Bride
The Lancaster Men
Mistletoe and Holly
The Second Time
Separate Cabins
Terms of Surrender
Western Man
Night Way
Ride the Thunder
The Rogue
Touch the Wind
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PUBLISHED BY POCKET BOOKS NEW
YORK
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and
incidents are either the product of the author's
imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual events or
locales or persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental.
Copyright (c) 1983 by Janbil,
Ltd.
All rights reserved, including the right
to reproduce
this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Simon and Schuster, Inc.,

Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY.

Originally published by Silhouette Books.
ISBN: 0-671-62510-1
First Pocket Books printing August, 1986

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Dr. Webster. Dr. Webster, please report
to
Emergency. Dr. Webster." Striking chimes
preceded the call by the disembodied voice
paging through the hospital corridors.
The sounds, the smells permeating the air,
all seemed intensified to Pilar Santee as she
stood by the window in the waiting room. Her
slim body was tense almost to the point of
rigidity. Everything seemed so loud--the
hushed murmur of worried voices within
the room, the rustle of polyester uniforms in
the hallways, the alerting chimes of the hospital
page. Like the strong, medicinally antiseptic
odor that burned her nose, they had a
highly irritating quality.
"Would you like some coffee, Pilar?" The


THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
soft, solicitous inquiry came from a point
near her elbow.
Stiffly Pilar turned from the window and
checked the impulse to respond with a sharp
negative. The rawness of her violently
churning
emotions and aggravated senses had
darkened her eyes to near-black. For an instant
pilar could only stare at the lingering
traces of shock and tears in Sandra Kay's
face. The sight of all that sympathy from her
friend nearly sickened her.
"No, thank you." It was a taut and quick
reply.
Her glance swung to the others who had
gathered in the waiting room to share this
vigil with her. All their expressions showed
some form of deep concern. It seemed such a
contradiction to her own feelings, which were
dominated by anger. Her agitation increased
because it was so wrong to feel this way. Pilar
glanced at the heirloom ring on her wedding
finger and rubbed it absently as if it were
some kind of talisman. She didn't understand
why her eyes were so dry. Why wasn't she
upset like the others? Elliot was her husband.
It became imperative to get out, to get away
from all this caring sympathy. She didn't
understand the raw, raging anger that was
bottled inside, and she was much too well
bred to let it show.
"Excuse me," she murmured tautly as she
started to walk by Sandra Kay Austin. "I'm
going to step out for a moment."
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

"I'll come with you."
"No." Pilar paused, fighting the hot urges
to
scream at her friend that she wanted to be
alone. With brittle control she managed to
insist, "I'd rather you would stay here with
the others. I won't be long."
There was hesitation in Sandra Kay's expression,
an unwillingness to accept that
Pilar really meant what she said. Before the
searching gaze could uncover the feelings
Pilar was fighting to contain, she walked to the
door and into the hallway. Her steps immediately
slowed, her glance drawn to the closed
door of the Intensive Care Unit room.
She'd
been allowed to see him once--for a very few
minutes only.
Her unusually acute hearing caught part
of
a remark made by someone in the waiting
room. "--taking it very well." She wanted to
laugh, because she was "taking it" badly.
Snatches of other conversations came rushing
back. "--collapsed on the tennis court--
massive corenary--heart damage--" Rage
tumbled inside her, driving her forward.
The chapel sign beckoned to her. With a
challenging tilt of her dark head, Pilar entered
the hallowed sanctuary. Beneath all the
taut anger, there was a desperate wish that,
here, she would find relief from these bitterly
resentful feelings.
A deep stillness surrounded her as she
moved quietly to the polished oak pew in the
front and sat down. Her gaze became fixed
on

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE"
the cross at the altar. The strength of her faith
had always been something she could rely on,
but it seemed to have forsaken her.
Pilar sat very still and very quiet, her hands
folded calmly in the lap of her
smoke-blue
skirt and her head unbowed. Light spilled
from the altar to shine on her proud features
and sable-black hair. Her mind's eye brought
back the riling image of Elliot as she had
last
seen him--so deathly pale, tubes stuck in his
arms and nose, with all sorts of monitoring
gadgets attached to him and surrounded by
beeping machines.
A raw groan came from her throat, almost
animal in its origin. It wasn't fair that this
should happen to Elliot ... with no warning ...,
no reason. He was in excellent physical
shape, trimly muscled and lean. Someone,
attempting to comfort her, had tried to assure
her that sudden attacks were to be expected
for a man of Elliot's age. Pilar violently
rejected
that reasoning. Elliot Santee was unquestionably
the youngest fifty-five-year-old man
she'd ever met.
Anger trembled again, an emotion that
should have been alien in this place of worship.
Pilar quietly sank to her knees in
front of
the altar, clasping her hands in a prayerful
pose and resting them on the smooth railing.
But no words of prayer came to her lips.
All she could remember was the way she
constantly teased Elliot about his daily ritual
of exercise--jogging, swimming, and weight
lifting, plus a couple of games of golf or
tennis
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

each week. And Elliot, so handsome and
charismatic,
had always teased her back, insisting
that a man his age had to stay in shape when
he had such a young bride. After five years of
marriage he still referred to her as his bride,
surprising her with gifts of flowers or jewelry
for no reason at all other than a desire
to give.
Their May-December marriage had raised
many an eyebrow in Natchez and brought
forecasts of its early demise, but their age
difference had never bothered them. It was
something they joked about. Elliot was always
fond of bragging that he'd swept Pilar off her
twenty-four-year-old feet when they'd first
met.
So many plans for the future had been
made, so many things they wanted to do together.
It wasn't right that he might be taken
from her. pilar railed against the thought,
violently opposing the very idea of it.
A hand touched her shoulder and she cast a
startled glance upward into the benignly sympathetic
eyes of the minister from their
church. He smiled gently.
"I thought I might find you here, Mrs.
Santee."
When she started to stand up, his hand
increased its pressure slightly to prevent the
movement. "Let me join you in prayer."
As he knelt at the railing beside her, Pilar
was plagued by the hypocrisy of her emotions.
She didn't want to pray; she wanted to demand.
She wasn't righteous--she was indignant.
"Our
heavenly Father ..." As the minister

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
began, Pilar shut her eyes and ears to the
words she couldn't genuinely support. His
quiet voice droned in the background of her
hearing while she remembered how Elliot
had carried her up the stairs of their beautiful
antebellum home in Natchez just last week.
Which was hardly the sort of thing to be
recalling at this particular moment ... and
give comfort to those who love him. Amen."
Unclasping her clenched fingers, Pilar
pushed at the railing to lever herself upright
the instant he finished. "Thank you, Reverend
Chasmore." Her finely controlled expression
showed none of the emotions smoldering
within.
He was slower to rise. "It was my pleasure,
Mrs. Santee." Again he spoke in a comforting
tone. "I hope you haven't tried to reach me
earlier. I was out calling on some of my
parishioners
and decided to stop by to make my
hospital rounds before returning to the parsonage.
Mrs. Parker in Admissions told me
the news about your husband."
"Yes." She searched for something to say.
"It was very good of you to come." Words
without meaning, polite phrases spoken because
they were expected.
"Have you taken the time to eat something
since you've been here?" The minister fell in
step with her as she turned away from the
altar and walked to the door. Her soul had
supposedly been nourished by prayer, so now
he was trying to see that her body was fed.
"No. I'm really not hungry," she replied
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

firmly even though she had missed the late
breakfast Cassie had been preparing for her
when Field Carlton had come by to break the
news to her.
"Mrs. Austin told me you haven't left the
waiting room since you arrived this morning."
It was a benevolent reproach. "Why don't you
come to the cafeteria with me and have some
coffee?"
"Honestly, I don't want anything." Pilar
insisted, struggling not to snap at him. She
sensed his desire to press the issue, but the set
of her features seemed to make him
hesitate
as he opened the chapel door for her to exit the
quiet room.
"I'm not certain if you were informed that
the authorities were successful in contacting
your husband's son. I understand he's on his
way to Natchez now."
"Good." Her response was short and completely
indifferent to the information. In her
five years of marriage to Elliot, she had
seen
his son no more than three times. There was
no estrangement between father and son;
they had simply never been close even though
Trace Santee worked in the family-owned
barge line. Pilar had long ago stopped trying
to reason out why it was so. Neither Elliot nor
his son had appeared to be bothered by the
infrequent communication between themselves,
so Pilar had ceased to be concerned by
it.
"Are you certain you won't reconsider my
invitation and come to the cafeteria? We can

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
leave word at the nurse's station where you'll
be if there's any change in your husband's
condition," the minister assured her. "You
really should have something, if only a cup of
soup."
"No, thank you. Cassie will fix me something
when I go home tonight." If she went
home--but Pilar didn't raise that point.
The same group of close family friends were
in the waiting room when she returned to it,
even though only members of the immediate
family were permitted to see Elliot, and only
for specified periods. As Sandra Kay had
said,
they wanted to sit with her during the long
vigil. Pilar knew she should have been moved
by their thoughtfulness, but she truly wanted
to be alone. She also knew they would never
understand if she told them that, so she silently
rejoined them to await further word from
the doctor on his prognosis.
The props of the tender's motor boiled
coffee-colored foam in the stem's wake as the
boat bucked the current of the silt-laden waters
of the Mississippi River and aimed for the
landing below a high bluff. Old wooden buildings
were tucked back against the wall of the
bluff--all that remained of the notorious
hellhole of a town along the waterfront area
known as Natchez-under-the-Hill. The long
rays of a late-afternoon sun struck the buildings
full force, glaringly revealing their age.
There was a lot of talk about rebuilding the
THE BEST WAY" TO LOSE

area as a tourist attraction, but it was mostly
talk with some refurbishing accompanying it.
Nothing changed, it seemed. Trace carried
the half-smoked cigarette to his mouth,
protectively
cupping his hand around it to keep
the wind from blowing any hot ash from the
tip--a holdover from the times he'd pushed off
barges up the river. A worn captain's hat
was
pulled low on his forehead, slightly off center
in a rakish touch. His strong, jutting features
were leather-tan from hours spent outdoors,
and sun lines sprayed from the corners of his
steel-gray eyes, their color made
to appear an
even lighter shade by ink-black lashes that
matched the thick eyebrows and shaggy hair.
As the tender from the towboat approached
the landing, Trace tossed the cigarette over
the side and reached for the duffel bag at his
feet. There was a suggestion of impatience in
the rippling muscles under the faded denim
jacket. The small boat maneuvered close
to
the bank and Trace stood up, easily
balancing
on his river legs, and heaved his duffel bag
ashore. He threw a glance at the man at the
tiller.
"Tell Ned I'll buy him dinner the next time
we meet up," he said, raising his voice to
make himself heard above the noise of the
idling motor holding the boat in position by
the bank.
With an agile leap, he was ashore and hefting
his duffel bag onto his shoulder. Trace
paused to toss a saluting wave in the direction

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
of the towboat, its engines screaming while it
pushed a dozen fully loaded barges lashed
together up the channel of the mighty river. A
horn tooted in reply, and the hard mouth
almost quirked into a smile, then sobered as
Trace turned to face the long, steep hill to the
town at the top of the bluff.
Shifting the bag more squarely onto his
shoulder, he started up the hill, long easy
strides carrying him smoothly along. His
frayed denims rode comfortably on his narrow
hips, the frequency of wearing shaping them
to his leanly muscled thighs and legs.
Despite
the steep climb, Trace was barely out of breath
when he reached the top of the hill, where the
town of Natchez spread out before him.
The last time he was back, two years ago, it
had been a two-taxi town. It seemed
unlikely
that the cab company had expanded. He
stepped into the street and followed the curb
line, sticking out his thumb to the first vehicle
that passed by. It didn't stop and Trace
kept walking. Another car came and
went,
weaving out around him.
There was a short burst of a police siren as
he turned around to face the front again. The
police car was in the oncoming lane of the
narrow street. The patrolman stuck his head
out the window.
"Hitchhiking is against the law--" Recognition
broke across the older man's expression.
"Santee? Trace Santee? Is that you?"
He
pulled the patrol car into the opposite curb
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

while Trace waited for a car to pass before
crossing the street.
"Hey, Digger. How's it going?" he
laconically
greeted the graying man who had been a
fixture on the local police force for as many
years as Trace could remember.
The officer shoved a pudgy hand out the
window to shake hands with him. "Trace
Santee, you ol' rakehell son of a gun, how

hell are you?" Digger Jones declared with a
wide grin. "That's a new scar on your cheek,
isn't it? No need to ask whether you've had
any better luck staying out of trouble. Ya
gotta
learn to stay out of those riverfront dives."
Trace absently rubbed the faint white scar
that slashed his cheek and smiled indifferently.
"Some Cajun got a little free with his knife
one night."
"It couldn't be that you were messin'
around with his gal?" the officer chided with a
knowing look.
There was a faint lift of one shoulder. "She
wasn't objecting." He leaned a hand on the
hood of the patrol car, bracing himself easily
with it. "I need a ride to the hospital. How
about giving me a lift?"
"Yeah, I guess you heard about your daddy."
A grim kind of sympathy flashed across the
aging lines of the man's face, shortly replaced
by a half-hearted smile. "I'll take you there
An' for a change, you can ride in the front
seat."
Trace circled around the car to the

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
passenger side, stowed his bag in the back seat,
then
climbed in the front. As Trace shut the door
Digger shifted into driving gear and swung
the car back into the street, making an illegal
U-turn.
"You're an emergency." Digger Jones
briefly
slid a smile at him. "I wondered how long
it
would take them to track you down."
"I wasn't hard to find." Trace settled
loosely
into the seat, showing a relaxed composure,
but his fingers were lightly drumming on the
door's armrest--restless, impatient energy always
just below the surface. "I took the Betty
Lou out this time. I got the radio call when we
were halfway between here and nowhere,
headed downstream. Ned Hanks happened
by, and it was quicker to catch a ride with him
than wait until we reached a town." He
leveled
a glance at the officer with disconcerting
directness. "How's Elliot?"
Trace Santee had been rowdy as a youngster,
giving Digger all kinds of trouble. There
had been times when some had given up on
him, calling him wild and worthless, but Digger
never had. Maybe because he liked the
way Trace looked a man square in the eyes.
"Ten years on the river sure hasn't tamed
you down any." Digger absently prefaced his
reply with an observation. "It looks real bad,
Trace."
"I figured that." There was a slow swing of
his gaze to the road ahead of the patrol car.
"But you're wrong about the river. It's taught
me some things. I roll with the flow now
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

instead of fighting it every inch of the way. I
discovered I don't get caught in quite so many
eddies and undercurrents that way." The corners
of his mouth lifted in a lazy movement as
he slid a sleepy glance at the driver.
"Glad to hear it." Digger nodded in an
approving
fashion. "Wisdom doesn't come with
age. If you don't have it now, you never will.
You must be--what--" He measured Trace
with a quick glance, trying to put the years
together. "Thirty-four? Thirty-five?"
"Thirty-five."
"It's about time you got smart," Digger
stated. "Being a wild fool when you're young--
well, that's to be expected. But when you're
older, hell, you're just an old fool."
"Like my father?" It was softly suggested, a
hint of challenge in its very quietness. But
Trace was looking out the windshield when
Digger glanced in his direction, and he spoke
again before Digger had to come up with an
adequate response or ignore the comment. "I
heard Elliot was playing tennis when he had
the attack. I suppose his wife was with him."
There was a slight narrowing of his gaze as he
looked at some distant point down the road.
"No. I talked to Cassie. It seems
Elliot had
jogged over to Booth Carlton's place for a
game of tennis early this morning. Mrs.
Santee was just sitting down to breakfast when
Booth's youngest son, Field, came over to
fetch her. They arrived at the hospital about
the same time the ambulance got therewith
Elliot." The officer shook his head with
The BEST WAY TO LOSE
wondering confusion. "Always excercising, your
daddy was. Always pushing himself to keep
that young-looking body of his. He pushed
himself too hard this time."
"He always had to compete and he always
had to win." The recollection dragged the corners
of Trace's mouth downward with a faint
grimness.
It seemed his relationship with Elliot Santee
had always been one of rivalry--competing with each
other for his mother's affections when she was alive, then
shifting
to other fields until Trace had dropped out of
the game somewhere around the age of fifteen.
For a long while, he had believed he'd
outgrown that competitive urge--until the
last few years, when it had welled strong
within him again.
"Maybe I shouldn't say it ..." Digger
paused to draw in a deep breath. "...
but
your daddy never played any game unless he
was damned sure he could win it before it
started. He never did like bucking the odds.
And the odds aren't too good for him this
time."
Before Trace entered the private waiting
room off the Intensive Care Unit, he met
the
doctor attending his father and cornered him
to obtain the full particulars. He pressed for
substantiated answers until he got them,
indifferent
to the doctor's irritation at his persistence.
When he entered the waiting room, he was
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

met by the auburn-haired Sandra Kay Austin,
only a few years older than himself. Glancing
at the handful of people in the room, he noticed that
most of them were somewhere
around their forties. As his father grew older
his circle of close friends had grown younger.
"Trace, I'm so glad you're here." Sandra
Kay clutched at his arm when he slung
his
duffel bag into an out-of-the-way corner. The
level of her voice dropped to a
conspiratorial
pitch. "Patti and I can't stay any longer.
We
sent the boys over to his mother's, but they're
going out tonight and we simply have to get
home. But I just didn't want to leave Pilar
here alone. She needs someone with her at a
time like this. You'll look after her, won't
you?"
"Yes, I will." He nodded stiffly.
"I knew you wouldn't be a rat about this,"
she declared with a relieved smile, indifferent
to the backhanded insult she'd just delivered
by implying that he was capable of uncouthness.
"Try to convince her to eat something.
She hasn't had anything all day. She's
barely
been out of this room except once to see
Elliot
and pray in the chapel She's putting on a
brave front, but I know she's scared sick like
the rest of us."
"We're all very worried about him," Trace
agreed and finally let his gaze stray to the
window where his father's wife stood. Yellow
sunlight poured through the window, showering
the tall, ebony-haired woman with its
golden hues.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Paul and I will let Pilar know we're
leaving."
Either his arrival or the Austins' departure
seemed to signal the exodus of the rest. Trace
stood to one side and observed the comforting
hugs and kisses each bestowed on his
father's wife, along with encouraging words
of hope.
The room became oddly silent when only
the two of them remained to occupy it. Trace
removed his much-worn captain's hat and
combed his fingers through his black hair,
rumpling the flatness left by the hat. Then he
held the cap in both hands to keep them busy
so they wouldn't get other ideas about holding
something else.
"Hello, Pilar." It was a bland
greeting, too
contained and too reserved.
Pilar held the directness of those gray eyes
for a few seconds while he wandered leisurely
across the room to the window. A sudden
resentment flared at the sight of such healthy
male vigor, so strong and rugged. The sweaty
male smell of him merely seemed to emphasize
his virility. It made no sense, but she
hated him for standing there when his father
was lying in a hospital bed, stuck full of
tubes
and wires and needles. That anger was back,
impotent and frustrating.
"Hello, Trace." Always she searched for
some resemblance to Elliot and found none.
Elliot was handsome and urbane while there
was something earthy about his son.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

She walked past him, twisting her fingers
together in distressed agitation. With her
friends, she'd had little desire for conversation.
She had even less with Trace Santee,
who was virtually a stranger to her. But he
was Elliot's son. Out of consideration for him,
she felt a sense of duty to go through the
motions.
"I don't know how much you were told
about what happened and the extent of ..."
Pilar faltered, her poise breaking for the first
time at the task of verbally expressing the
ver situation she so violently resented.
"There's no need to fill me in on the
details,"
Trace inserted into the involuntary
pause.
He could hear the strain in her voice. When
she turned to face him again, he observed the
tension around her mouth and eyes. He also
noticed the absence of swollen, puffy eyelids
and the redness from tears. Whatever she was
feeling, it was locked up inside. There was a
slow traveling of his gaze over her face to take
in its smolderin beauty, the classic cheekbones
and warm red lips.
There was so much fire there, so much
passion. Trace swung away before wayward
urges took hold of him. The first time he'd
met
her, it had been at the wedding. At the time
he'd joked that he was sure she'd understand
if he didn't call her "Mother." Only it
hadn't
been a joke. With each passing year the
humor had faded until it was no longer

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
something to laugh about. Nagged by guilt over the
feelings the sight of his father's wife aroused
in him, Trace had kept his distance and channeled
all that restless energy into other pursuits.
A vinyl-covered chair was in front of him
and Trace lowered himself into it, stretching
out his long legs and hooking his hat over the
end of the armrest. It wasn't easy to keep his
eyes off her. His glance traveled up the
shapely
calf of her leg to the hem of the smoky blue
skirt, then made a quick run to her face.
"I thought you'd want to know what happened."
There was something half angry
about the curtness of her statement that
seemed to challenge him for his lack of concern.
"Digger Jones gave me a ride to the
hospital.
He got the lowdown from Cassie and filled
me in," Trace explained and reached inside
his jacket to the shirt pocket for his cigarettes.
"Mind if I smoke?" A negative shake of
her
head gave him permission, then refused the
one he shook from the pack to offer her. "And
I spoke to the doctor in the hallway just before
I came in."
Another vinyl-covered chair was companionably
angled toward his. Pilar sat down in it
and leaned earnestly toward him, her dark
eyes probing his expression. "What did he
say?"
"Probably the same thing he told you." He
bent his head to the match flame and puffed
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

on the cigarette, then lifted his head while he
shook out the match.
"Elliot's going to recover. He told you that,
didn't he?" It was a demand.
As he lowered his hand to toss the burned out
match in an ashtray, Trace noticed
that
Pilar's hands were clenched into fists on her
lap, knuckles showing white. There was a
moment when he debated whether to let her
believe what she wished or to prepare her for
the worst.
"It's too soon to make that kind of judgment."
He opted for a middle road that would
at least provide a cushion. "The first twenty
four
hours after a massive coronary attack
such as Elliot's are critical. If he
passes that
crisis point without another attack, his chances
improve. Three days afterward there's another
critical period. But either way" Trace
finally looked at her--"it's likely some kind of
heart surgery will be needed. Any operation
involves risk."
"He'll make it." She was staring at some
unseen spot on the floor. "A lot of people have
heart attacks and recover to lead normal
lives. A year from now Elliot will be jogging
again. Today will just seem like a bad
A nurse appeared in the doorway.
"Mrs.
Santee, your husband is conscious. I think
he'd like to see you," she said with a gentle,
encouraging smile.
For an instant pilar was motionless, then

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
she was squaring her shoulders to gracefully
stand. Trace watched the way her lips came
together in a smooth, straight line. It seemed
to go against her nature to be so controlled.
"You are his son, aren't you?" the nurse
inquired. "Perhaps you should come now,
too."
"He is extremely weak," the nurse cautioned
in a hushed tone as she escorted them into the
room. "Don't let him try to talk too much
or
exert himself. I'm afraid I can only allow you
a very few moments."
There was an absent nod of understanding
by Pilar but the advice seemed to glide right
out of her mind. Her whole attention was
focused on the man in the bed, a grotesque
copy of her husband. She walked slowly
to the
bed, trying to shut out the sight of all the
apparatus around him.
His dark hair was all mussed. Hesitantly
she reached out with tentative fingers to
smooth it. There seemed to be more strands of
silver present than she remembered. At the
light touch of her hand, his eyes opened.


THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Hello, darling." She bent down to press her
lips to his cheek but his skin felt cool and
odd.
There was fear lurking in his light blue
eyes as they clung to her. His mouth moved
and some nearly unintelligible sound came
out of it. Pilar cast a panicked look at the
nurse.
"He's having trouble with his speech, but
it's nothing to be worried about now," the
nurse assured her.
"Ssh, don't try to talk too much." She
managed
to smile at him but she was inwardly
struggling with this new vulnerability. Elliot
had always seemed so indefatigable, invincible
almost. Now he was helpless as a baby.
"I love you." Each word was separately
spoken. Although badly slurred, Pilar understood
them. It reassured her.
"I love you, too, darling." This time the
smile came more easily to her.
But his glance was already leaving her and
searching out his son, standing discreetly at
the foot of the bed to give them a few minutes
alone. He grunted out an A sound. Pilar
had
already followed the direction of his glance.
"I think he wants you," she murmured a
little resentfully and started to step back from
the bed. Then she noticed the puny movement
of Elliot's fingers, clawing at the bedsheet in
a
grasping gesture. When she took hold of his
hand, he tried to squeeze it.
"You want me to stay here?" she asked to be
sure she'd understood. His eyes slowly closed
in an affirmative reply. It was frightening to
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

realize that even that seemed to be an effort to
him.
"I'm here, Dad." Trace stood close beside
her, their shoulders almost brushing. The perfumed
scent of her hair was a sweet incense
in the room. "Don't try to talk anymore."
Pilar felt his attempt to lift the hand she
held, so she did it for him. His gaze, however,
continued to cling to his son's face.
"Take ... care ..., of ... her."
The significance of his request escaped
Pilar for the span of a few seconds. When the
inherent finality in his words hit her, she
threw an accusing look at his son, as if he
were somehow to blame for Elliot giving up.
There was a long moment when Trace neither
looked at her nor responded to the request.
Reluctance seemed to claim him as a muscle
in his jaw flexed convulsively.
"I will," he said finally and slid a half
screened
look at her, measuring her reaction.
An angry protest seethed through her system.
Tightly she held on to Elliot's hand
when
it went limp. "Don't be silly, Elliot."
Her
chiding voice was falsely light and she had to
force it through her teeth. "You're going to get
better. I'm not going to let you go, so you have
no choice."
There was an attempt at a smile as the
corners of his mouth twitched weakly. "You ...
no ... say." Only three words could she
understand, but the resignation that seemed
to be in his expression was sufficient to make
it clear. Elliot was conceding the outcome.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"You aren't going to die." The low pitch of
her voice was taut and vibrating with forceful
rejection. "Do you hear me, Elliot?" There
was the smallest nod of his head for an answer,
then the nurse was touching her arm
and issuing a warning shake of her head.
"You'll have to leave now so he can get
some rest," she advised them in a soft undertone.
Reluctantly Pilar let go of her husband's
hand and turned to plead with the nurse for
compassion. "Please, may I just sit with
him?" It was difficult to be humble when all
her impulses wanted to make demands.
"I'm sorry, no." The firm refusal was
tempered
with a gentle sympathy. "I'm afraid it's
doctor's orders."
Before Pilar could argue the unfairness of
them, a pair of large hands fitted themselves
to her shoulders. "We understand." Trace
Santee's voice came quietly in
response and
undermined any argument she might have
put forth.
The guiding pressure of his hands turned
her away from the nurse toward the door.
Pilar glanced over her shoulder for one last
glimpse of Elliot. His eyes were closed but
reassuring beeps were coming from the machines
monitoring his vital signs.
Her shoulders were released but it was a
mere shifting of contact as an arm curved
itself to her back, his fingers lightly gripping
the lower rib cage. The latent strength that
seemed to emanate from his touch was often
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
sire to Pilar, a cruel and physical reminder
of
how pitifully weak her husband was. That
Trace Santee was of Elliot's flesh and
blood
made it even harder to bear.
The warmth of her flesh seemed to heat his
hand, but the rigidity of her carriage was its
own kind of rejection. Regardless of how
distraught
she might be about his father, her
body signals discouraged any attempt at
familiarity
by him. It put his teeth on edge. In
the hallway Trace let his arm slide away.
"He'll rest for a while," he announced,
quietly
inspecting her profile, so tense yet
expressionless.
"It's a good time for us to go to the
cafeteria and get a bite to eat. I don't
know
about you, but I haven't had anything since
lunch."
"No, thank you. You go ahead," she refused
and moved away from him to the waiting room.
For a long moment he watched the natural
sway of her hips as she walked from him. It
was a graceful movement, yet so subtly
provocative.
His jaw hardened as he tossed a
half-glance over his shoulder at the hospital
room door and cursed himself for allowing his
thoughts to take that wayward direction. His
father was lying in that room and he was
standing out here coveting his wife. A bitter,
black bile seemed to coat his tongue. Trace
turned abruptly, long crisp strides carrying
him away from the waiting room.
Twenty minutes later he returned with a
cup of sweet, black coffee for his father's
wife.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
A family acquaintance was with her. She
thanked him for the coffee, but Trace noticed
that she didn't touch it.
Through the course of the early-evening
hours, several friends came by. None of
them
stayed long, speaking a few minutes with
Pilar or himself and offering any assistance
the Santees might need at this particular
time.
By nine o'clock, it was just the two of them
again. Trace took his time crushing out a
cigarette in the ashtray, half filled with
smoked butts. When his glance ran to her, she
stood up and restlessly paced to the window.
"What time are you planning to go home?"
Trace studied her through eyes that were half
closed to mask the closeness of his interest.
"I'm not." There was nothing to see beyond
the darkened window and Pilar turned away
from it, absently rubbing the stiff muscles in
her neck, knotted with tension. "You can
leave whenever you like. Cassie will be there
to let you in. I'm going to stay here tonight."
"Why?"
Her dark gaze shot to him, irritation simmering
in their black brilliance. "So I can be
here in case ... Elliot calls for me."
The question hardly warranted an answer.
She avoided the lazy probe of those
gray eyes,
too rawly conscious of the unreasoning dislike
that had sprung up for the healthy son of her
dangerously ill husband. There was a vague,
nagging wish that he was the one in that
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 33
hospital bed instead of Elliot, which only
added to her feelings of guilt.
"You need a good night's rest as much as he
does." His head was tipped slightly back, its
angle suggesting a challenge that his voice
hadn't carried.
"If I get tired, I'll curl up in one
of the
chairs," Pilar retorted. "I know Elliot
asked
you to take care of me, but I'm more than
capable of taking care of myself. There's no
need for you to be concerned about my well being."
That bedside request had only added
to her building resentment of this son of
Elliot's.
He rolled to his feet in a leisurely slow
fashion and ambled across the room to stand
in front of her, his thumbs hooked in the
hip
pockets of his smooth-fitting denim pants.
All
that lazy male indolence made her bristle.
She ached inside, hurting so much that lashing
out in anger seemed her only means of
vocalizing this pain and fear.
"Maybe you'd like to explain how long you'll
be able to function on sheer nerve alone," he
murmured. "That's all that's keeping you
going now. No food today. No sleep tonight."
"I think that's my problem." Her chin lifted
a fraction higher, exposing more of the
magnolia-smooth curve of her throat.
"Are you trying to impress someone with a
devoted-wife act?" He cocked his head to the
side, measuring her with a dry glance. "No
one but the hospital staff is going to witness

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
your all-night vigil. All of Elliot's
friends are
home. Or are you doing it because you think it
proves you love him?"
"I'm not staying for anyone's benefit
except
my own," she flared with indignation. "I want
to be close by him."
"Staying here tonight won't do him any
good--or you any good," he countered, unmoved
by the cutting edge of her voice. "If he
recovers from this attack, there will come a
time when he'll need every bit of your
strength. Exhausting yourself now won't help
him later."
It was very difficult to argue with his logic.
Pilar wavered indecisively, a darkly troubled
glance straying in the direction of Elliot's
room, blocked from her view by intervening
hospital walls.
No matter how superstitious it sounded, she
couldn't help wondering if Elliot might not
have suffered that attack if she'd gone with
him to play tennis. And it was a different face
of that same superstition that insisted she
stay at the hospital if she didn't want
something
else to happen to Elliot. In the light of
his son's argument, her reason sounded crazy
and childish.
"The hospital will call if there is any change
in his condition." Trace added a further argument
while he watched her struggling-to
make up her mind.
"All right." Pilar gave in, refusing to be
ruled by ridiculous superstition.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

The imposing two-and-a-half-story house
was a white blue in the night's darkness,
surrounded by gardened lawns shaded by live
oaks draped with ghostly Spanish moss. Its
architecture was generally considered as fairly
typical of the southern planter style, with a
porch circumventing the house on three sides
and supporting a balcony above it, protected
by the wide overhang of the house's slanting
roof.
In its history, it had gone by many names.
The first Mrs. Santee had resurrected the
name of Dragon Walk, given to it by one of its
previous owners, an amateur archaeologist.
The chain of steep loess hills, which stretched
northward from Natchez to Vicksburg, were
fossil-rich in the skeletal remains of
mastodons
and giant sloths, mammoth prehistoric
beasts upon which the dragon myth
was based. The old plantation home was located
in these hills on the northern edge of
Natchez, hence its colorful name, Dragon
Walk.
When the car turned into the carriage-wide
driveway, the front porch light came on.
It
was a welcoming touch and Pilar experienced
a moment's relief that she wasn't going home
to an empty house. Cassie Douglas was there
to fill the large, rambling home with her
warmth. Pilar stopped the car at the head of
the circular drive and reached for her purse in
the middle of the front seat.
"Do you want me to put the car away for
you?" The inquiry came from the shadow

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE his
figure sitting in the front passenger seat.
During
the ride from the hospital, their conversation
had been desultory at best.
"No. I'm leaving it here in case the hospital
calls in the night." The interior light flashed
on when she opened the car door, giving her
side vision a glimpse of the craggy planes of
his sun-browned face.
The slam of the passenger door echoed the
closing of her side door. She paused to adjust
the knotted sleeves of the lavender sweater
tied loosely around her neck while he pulled
his duffel bag from the rear seat. There was a
chilling coolness in the air, fragrant with the
sweet scent of gardenias.
Dragon Walk was famous for its floral
gardens
and flowering trees. Something was always
in bloom year-round. Gardenias and
camelias in the winter, azaleas and crocuses
in the spring, roses and water lilies in the
summer, and a profusion of chrysanthemums
in the fall.
After sliding an absent glance in Trace's
direction to assure that he was coming, Pilar
followed the short sidewalk to the fanned
steps rising to the wooden porch. The upright
pillars supporting the porch roof and
second
floor balcony were carved from the trunks of
cypress trees and layered smooth with coats of
white paint.
White wicker chairs, sofas, and tables extended
the living area of the large house onto
the porch, with some of the hardier potted
plants left outside to add life. The
exposure of
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

the porch on three sides of the house insured
that there would always be a place to enjoy a
breeze in summer's sultry season or
sunshine
during winter's cooler days. It was one of the
most frequently used areas of the house.
Her heels made clicking sounds on the gray
porch decking as Pilar crossed to the massive,
solid mahogany door, nearly three inches
thick. Before she reached it, the ornate brass
knob was turned from the inside and the door
swung inward. She smiled wanly at the tall,
straight black woman waiting to greet her.
"Hello, Cassie," she said.
"I've been worried about you," Cassie
Douglas announced with faint reproval. In
her middle fifties, nearly the same age as
Elliot, she had few lines in her
coffee-colored
skin to reveal the accumulation of years. The
silver that salted the soft black curls framing
her proud features appeared to be the artful
work of the best hairstylist. "I was sure you
were going to get some wild notion in your
head to stay at the hospital all night."
"She did, but I talked her out of it." Trace
walked into the house behind Pilar and swung
the duffel bag off his shoulder to hang at his
side. He hooked an arm around the woman's
trim waist and pulled her close to plant a
kiss
on a smooth cheek. His gray eyes glittered
with a rakish light. "How's my favorite
southern
belle?"
"Don't you go using your flattery on me,
Trace Santee. It never got you anywhere
when you were a boy and it won't now." She
38
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
mocked the expansiveness of his compliment
even while she hugged an arm around his
middle. "I talked to Digger after he left you
off
at the hospital, so I knew you'd be here tonight.
I've got your room all ready, and I
baked you my own special recipe for pecan
carrot cake. It's out in the kitchen along with
a pot of fresh coffee."
"I suppose I've got to promise to behave
myself before you'll give me a piece," he
teased.
"It wouldn't do any good. I swear you were
bern looking for trouble," she declared with a
trace of regret. More than most, Cassie
knew
how much trouble he'd found.
Dragon Walk had been her home for the last
twenty-six years. A highly intelligent
woman,
Cassie Douglas was a licensed practical
nurse. She'd come to work for the family
when Trace's mother, the first Mrs. Santee,
had contracted multiple sclerosis, a
degenerative
muscle disease. Trace was only eleven
when his mother passed away, and Cassie
had stayed on to look after him.
Yet, all the while she served in the role of
housekeeper and cook, she never gave up her
career. She constantly took refresher courses
to keep abreast of medical advancements and
new procedures, and took other home cases
on a day-work basis. And she'd kept a house
of
her own, what had been the overseer's cottage
on Dragon Walk, and raised a family of
three
children.
Her late husband had been a riverman,
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

working the docks and the barges. Trace remembered
little about him except that Ogden
Douglas had introduced him to the river life.
Looking back, Trace marveled at the way
Cassie had managed to accomplish so much
--something he'd been too young to appreciate
at the time.
"You're as bad as Oggie, coming straight off
the river--and smelling like it, too." Always
immaculate herself, she ran a critical eye
over his appearance, but there was a softness
in her eyes, tender with memories of her
husband. "I'm surprised they didn't kick you
out of the hospital for fear you'd contaminate
something. You need a bath and a change of
clothes."
"Not as much as I need that coffee and cake
in the kitchen," Trace insisted with a lazy
smile, then slid a half-glance at Pilar.
"Don't
you think you could use some, too?"
Since her marriage to Elliot, Pilar had
become
very close to Cassie. As she had observed
the reunion, there had been an odd
feeling of jealousy at the open display of affection
and deep closeness. Considering Elliot's
precarious condition, they seemed much too
happy and uncaring for her liking.
"No." She addressed Cassie. "I wanted
to
bring you up to date on Elliot." She
was
sternly sober, inserting his name into the
conversation to remind them why they were
standing there at this hour of the night.
"There's no need," Cassie informed her
gently. "My daughter, Melissa, is a
nurse on
40 THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
the maternity ward at the hospital. She's been
checking in with me regularly since she went
on duty this afternoon, so I have the inside
story on how he's doing."
"I see," Pilar murmured stiffly and lowered
her gaze. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going
upstairs. There've been so many people at the
hospital, I'd just like to be alone for a while."
The front stairwell doubled back on itself to
climb to the second floor of the house. Both
Trace and Cassie silently observed her
departure
until she rounded the landing to go up the
second flight. The imported crystal chandelier
suspended from the ceiling of the large
foyer gleamed on the polished mahogany railing
that zagged up the stairwell.
A long, troubled sigh came from Cassie,
drawing Trace's glance to her as she started
toward the kitchen. "I don't like to see her
that way, all held in. I had a feeling they
were too happy, that some kind of crash had
to happen. You should have seen the two of
them together." She smiled absently, remembering.
"They were always holding hands and
snuggling on the sofa. Every day was a honeymoon.
Your father saw to that. She's a sensible,
practical girl, but he kept her caught up
in a romantic dream, all soft lights and
violins.
I think he was afraid she'd stop loving
him if he didn't court her every minute."
"It might be a good idea if you fix a tray and
take it up to her later," Trace suggested.
"She
didn't eat anything at the hospital."
As she pushed open the door to the kitchen,
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

she gave him a wry glance. "You still don't
talk much, but you manage to say a lot. Sometimes
I find it hard to believe you're a
southern
boy."
"You do enough talking for both of us, Cassie ," he
countered dryly.
Talking was a favorite southern pastime,
engaged in by most of its native sons and
daughters, but Trace was not loquacious by
nature. There were a lot of situations he
probably
could have talked himself out of if he'd
tried.
"And there's some things a woman has an
instinct for knowing without being told. Those
things I keep to myself." It was a rather
enigmatic comment that created an opening
in the conversation, but he chose not to fill it.
He lowered his long frame into one of the
high-backed wooden chairs around the cloth
covered table while Cassie sliced him a large
piece of the frosted cake and poured each of
them a cup of coffee.
"Have you spoken to Ca lately?" Trace
asked, referring to her son. "I looked him up
the last time I was in New Orleans a couple of
weeks ago. That's quite a new grandbaby
you
h."
The conversation drifted around her family.
Cassie did most of the talking while Trace
ate
his cake and washed it down with the strong
black coffee. Cassie was never idle for long,
preparing a small plate of sandwiches to take
up to Pilar in between sips of coffee and the
never-ending dialogue. When she had

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
finished with her family, she started bringing
him up to date on some of his old friends.
"You're a terrible gossip, Cassie," he
declared
with a smiling shake of his head at the extent of her
information and carried his
plate and cup to the sink.
"My mother told me long ago that she had
no use for gossip." An amused glint
appeared
in her eyes. "She was absolutely right. The
minute I get it, I just pass it on to the first
person I see. It isn't worth
keeping to yourself."
She picked up the tray she'd fixed for
pilar. "I'll just run this upstairs."
"I'll come along with you." He moved ahead of
her to open the kitchen door. "It might turn out
to be a long night, so I think I'd better get
some sleep while I can."
Accustomed to snatching sleep at odd
hours, Trace had problems dozing off that
night. He tried to blame it on the absence of
the thundering engines of a towboat vibrating
his bed, pretending that he slept so lightly
because of the stillness of the house, the
slightest noise disturbing him. There were
plenty of small noises that night.
His old bedroom was located next to the
master suite. The floorboards creaked with
each movement of that room's prowling occupant.
Three times in the night he heard the
muted sound of the telephone being dialed. It
didn't take much guesswork to realize that
Pilar was checking with the hospital.
The house was quiet when he wakened to
the rosy sunlight streaking through his windows
The Best WAY to Lose 43
around six in the morning. For another
fifteen minutes he lay in bed, smoking that
first cigarette and staring at the ceiling. After
he'd showered, shaved, and dressed, he went
into the wide hallway and started for the
stairwell.
The door of the master bedroom stood open,
inviting his glance into the room. The satin
coverlet was turned back on the canopied bed,
but there was no evidence that the bed had
been slept in. Trace paused in the
hallway,
then took a step into the room and searched it
with a sweeping glance.
Pilar was awkwardly curled into a narrow
loveseat, sound asleep with her hands pillowed
under her head. The sight of her pulled
him into the room. Her long, sleek black hair
tumbled in a rippling tide over her bare
shoulders.
The rose-colored satin of her nightgown
followed the shape of her body, the roundness
of her hips, and the slim length of her legs.
An empty milk glass sat on the coffee
table
in front of the sofa, but a bite had been taken
out of only one of the sandwiches on the plate.
The line of his mouth thinned. His look ran
back to her sleeping face. Her cheek was
smooth, no telltale streaks of tears marring
its
classical line. She appeared to be huddled in
a
ball for warmth.
After a second's hesitation Trace crossed
to
the bed and removed the coverlet. Taking care
not to disturb the sleep she so badly needed,
he draped the satin quilt over her. But the soft
weight of it seemed to jerk her awake. The

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
instant she saw him standing by the loveseat,
she sat bolt upright, stiff and braced for the
worst.
"Oh, my God, the hospital called." The
words came out in a quick rush of breath.
"Elliot. He's--"
"No. The hospital didn't call." Trace
quickly
squashed that fear and watched her sag
limply against the corner of the loveseat. Her
hand lifted to tiredly comb the weight of her
black hair away from her face.
"When I saw you ... I thought ..." Her
confusion faded into a frown as her puzzled
gaze searched his face. "What did you want?"
"Nothing." His glance slipped downward to
the buttonlike impressions the nipples of her
breasts made in the satin material of her
nightgown. She seemed unconscious of the
fact, not fully awake to be aware of the revealing
state of her nightclothes. "When I walked
by your room, I noticed the bed was empty."
Pilar glanced at the bed, a forlorn light in
her eyes. "I ... just couldn't sleep in it
alone," she admitted in a soft, anguished
voice.
Belatedly she realized the coverlet that belonged
on the bed was draped on her legs. She
lifted a corner of it, trying to remember
whether she'd taken it from the bed.
Trace read her bewilderment. "You looked
cold." His mouth slanted in a rueful line.
"I
didn't mean to waken you."
Reaching out, she picked up the small, gold
cased
alarm clock sitting on the coffee table to
check the time. "It doesn't matter." She
lifted
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the coverlet aside to swing her bare feet onto
the floor. "I wanted to go to the hospital early
this morning anyway."
"Pilar." He took a step to intercept her
when she started for the dressing room.
Halting, she swung around to face him with
a blankly questioning look. From the perfect
sweep of her eyebrows to the arch of her
cheekbones and the soft shape of her lips, she
was incredibly beautiful. For an instant Trace
was absolutely still.
Then his hands lightly stroked the bareness
of her upper arms. "I'll have breakfast ready
when you come down. This morning you're
going to eat."
"Yes." She agreed without an argument and
rubbed a finger on a point in the center of
her
forehead. "It's probably hunger that gave me
this headache."
With an indifferent turn of her body she
walked out of his loose hold. For a second
longer his hands remained poised in the air
where she had been, then slowly closed and
came down to his side.
On the morning of the third day after Elliot's
heart attack, the consulting specialist sat
down with Pilar and Trace in a corner of the
waiting room to discuss his new patient with
them. Although he sounded pleased with the
way Elliot's condition had apparently
stabilized,
he refused to be optimistic about his
chances for a full recovery.
"At this point, we simply can't be sure how
much damage his heart has suffered. Until
we know"--he lifted his hands in a palm upward
gesture--"we'll simply have to wait
and see."
"It's all so frustrating." Pilar's hands were
balled into agitated fists of protest.
"I know." The physician appeared
regretful
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that he couldn't be more specific in his prognosis,
but there was an eagerness in the way
he pushed his hands on his knees. "If there
aren't any more questions, I'll get back to my
rounds."
"I have just one request." Trace spoke up to
delay the man's departure. "Mrs. Santee
has
been having trouble sleeping at night. Perhaps
you could give her a prescription for
some sleeping tablets."
Her mouth opened to protest as the doctor's
inspecting glance swept the faint blue circles
under her dark eyes. "I'll leave some at the
nurse's station for you. We can't have you
collapsing from exhaustion."
"It really isn't necessary."
"It's no trouble at all," he assured her and
patted her hand before bustling out of the
room.
It was true that she'd barely been able to
sleep at all the past two nights--and the
lack
of sleep made her irritable. Knowing these
things, Pilar was determined not to let them
color her reaction.
"I know you're just trying to be helpful," she
addressed Elliot's son with a forced calm.
"But if you had said something to me before
you spoke to the doctor, I could have told you
that sleeping pills don't work. I've tried them
before."
"Then take twice the dosage," Trace
replied.
"Maybe you don't mind being deprived
of a full night's rest, but I do. It's been very

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
difficult for me to sleep with you prowling the
house until the wee small hours of the morning."
"Maybe you should take the sleeping pills,"
pilar retorted.
"Maybe I should," he agreed with a mild
shrug.
Instantly she regretted being so sharp with
him. "I'm sorry." It was a stiff apology.
"I
hadn't realized I was disturbing your sleep."
"It's extremely difficult not to be aware of
you moving about in the next room, Pilar."
Dryness rustled through his voice, its tone
seeming to put another meaning to his
remark. Wariness flickered briefly through her
before she dismissed it.
That evening, when she retired to the master
bedroom for the night, the envelope of pills
was sitting on her bedside table next to a glass
of water. The instructions said to take one pill
as needed. Pilar hesitated, then shook two
from the envelope into the palm of her hand
and washed them down her throat with water
from the glass. She crawled into the bed,
which seemed so large and empty without
Elliot.
Her dark eyes were wide and staring as she
lay on her side. It seemed a very long time
before the tension in her body began to dissolve.
Her eyelids grew heavy; she closed
them, just for a minute, then remembered
nothing else as she sank into a black, dreamless
void.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

In the next room Trace crumpled the empty
pack of cigarettes and irritably threw it
back
on the bedstand. The silence was worse than
the faint noises. He swung his legs out of bed
to sit on the edge of it, his fingers digging into
the mattress. The luminous hands on the
clock dial showed the hour to be one thirty in
the morning.
His shirt was draped over the back of a
straight chair in the corner, an extra pack of
cigarettes in the front pocket. Trace
pushed
off the bed and padded across the dark room,
clad only in his Jockey shorts. After
rummaging
until he located the pack, he walked back
to the bed, tearing off the cellophane wrapper
around the pack.
With the first ring of the telephone, Trace
grabbed for the receiver to choke off the sound
before it wakened Pilar. He paused a beat,
then carried the receiver to his ear.
"Santee residence," he said, then
listened
to the voice on the other end of the line for a
long, long while. He leaned an elbow on his
knee and began to rub his forehead, pressing
hard. "Yes. Yes, thank you. I'll make the
necessary
arrangements."
In a slow, halting motion he replaced the
telephone receiver on its cradle, then rubbed
his face as if trying to wake from a bad dream.
His hand trembled when he reached for the
pack of cigarettes he'd just opened and left on
the bedstand. He lit one, but the lump in his
throat wouldn't allow him to inhale the

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
smoke. It billowed out from his mouth, rising
to sting his eyes.
Her eyelids seemed so heavy when she tried
to open them. Some kind of bright light was
shining somewhere. Pilar attempted to roll
onto her back, but her body felt weighted and
thick. Her eyelashes finally dragged themselves
apart. The room was filled with sunlight.
The
sleeping pills had worked their magic
after all. All her senses felt dull. The
thought
of Elliot prodded her into moving even though
she wanted to do nothing more energetic than
shut her eyes again. She fumbled for the clock
on the antique bedstand and raised herself up
on one elbow with an effort. A groan of dismay
came from her throat when she saw that it
was past nine o'clock.
The covers were thrown aside as she made
a swiveling turn to sit on the edge of the bed.
The drug-worn feeling made her pause to
gather her wits. When she looked up, Pilar
noticed Trace half sprawled in an armchair
near the bed.
"Why did you let me sleep so late?" she
complained in irritation and lifted a hand to
the dull throb in her head. "I'll never make
it
to the hospital in time to speak to the doctor
when he makes his morning rounds."
A small frown marred the smoothness of
her forehead as Pilar absently brushed a hand
over her mane of thick black hair and
impatiently
rose to her feet. The matching robe to
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
her rose-satin nightgown was lying across the
foot of the bed. She reached for it.
"There's no need for you to go to the hospital
today." The low and flat announcement by
Trace seemed to freeze her with its ominous
undertones.
Her fingers curled into the slick material of
her robe, clutching it in front of her. With a
turn of her head, Pilar stared at him, her
eyes
rounded and searching.
"What do you mean?" Pilar demanded in a
low rush, her body taut.
He sat forward, drawing his legs up under
him and leaning his arms on his thighs. There
was a moment when he avoided her gaze and
studied the roughness of his sun-browned
hands. His thick, shaggy hair was rumpled,
shining ebony-black in the sunlight that
poured into the room.
"Elliot ..." Trace paused to look at
her.
There were no easy words. "... had another
heart attack in the night." He let that
statement
settle in before he grimly continued.
"They weren't able to revive him."
"No." It was a small sound as she backed
away from him, her head slowly moving from
side to side in a rejection of his words. Shock
had drained much of the color from her face.
"You're lying. It isn't true." The denial
came
quickly, her tone of voice frightened and half
angry. She whirled around and grabbed for
the telephone at her bedside in a desperate
attempt to prove it wasn't true.
In a single, fluid action Trace was out of the

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
chair and crossing the few feet that separated
them. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her
upper arm to pull her around to face him
while he wrenched the receiver from her
hand. Her head was thrown back, long hair
spilling down her back in ropes of black
silk.
Her arms were stiffly bent in resistance to his
hold, her hands clenched into taut fists.
"Don't put yourself through this, Pilar," he
insisted roughly.
"There's been some sort of mistake," she
declared and attempted to twist away from
him to reach the phone again.
"There's no mistake. I took the phone call
myself. Elliot was officially pronounced dead
at one twenty-five this morning." Trace
bluntly
pushed the cold facts at her and forced her
to accept the truth.
"You're lying!" Her teeth were bared to
clamp down on the wretched pain.
Impatience shattered the attempt at gentle
reasoning. "He was my father! Why would I
lie about something like this?" Trace demanded,
in rough anger at her persistent refusal to
believe him.
For a long agony of seconds she stared at
him, her dark eyes reflecting the awful pain
and grief that were tapped inside. Her
clenched hands loosened to curl her fingers
into his shirt as if needing to cling to something.
Trace understood that raw, inexpressible
anguish. He wanted to hold her close and
let the warmth of her body assuage some of
his hurt while he absorbed some of her pain.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
The touch of his hands became protectively
gentle.
"The hospital called?" Her soft voice
sounded dazed and weak.
"Yes, around one thirty this morning." He
slowly nodded a confirmation.
"But ... I didn't hear the phone ring." It
was a vague protest mixed with confusion.
"You were sleeping too soundly." Trace let
his hands glide to her pale shoulders and
down her back onto the satin material of her
gown.
Her chin dipped as her breath came quick
and deep. All she could see was the front of
his shirt, but she wasn't looking at anything.
"It was those damned sleeping pills. I never
should have taken them," Pilar declared bitterly.
Her head lifted so she could glare accusingly
at that roughly virile face, tormented by
this painful regret on top of her intense
grief.
"Why did I listen to you?"
"You needed to rest."
But she wasn't interested in his answer.
Her thoughts were too disjointed, flitting from
one thing to the next in a subconscious desire
to avoid dealing with the reality of Elliot's
death.
"Why didn't you wake me up when they
called from the hospital?" Pilar was
unconsciously
trying to blame someone. "I should
have known about it right away. You had no
right to keep it from me."
"There was nothing you could have done.
Telling you right away wouldn't have changed
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
anything. He was already gone when they
called. I--" The dark thick brows came
together.
Trace was vaguely troubled by the
decision he'd made in the early-morning
hours, but his motive had been simply to
spare her the pain and grief for a little while.
"I didn't think it was necessary to wake you
and ruin the one good night's sleep you'd
had."
"How dare you make that kind of decision
for me." Pilar raged with hurt. There seemed
no release for it. Her eyes were so dry, they
ached like all the rest of her--one mighty
throb.
With a violent shove, she pushed away from
him and turned. She found herself facing the
antique rosewood bedstand. Her glance fell
on the small envelope containing the few
days' supply of sleeping tablets. Pilar
scooped
it up and hurled the hateful thing into the
brass-plated wastebasket. Then she stood
rigid and motionless, so brittle that she felt
like an eggshell that might shatter to pieces at
the slightest jar.
"I'm sorry." Trace's husky male
voice murmured
the words.
At the light touch of his hands on her shoulders,
Pilar stiffened still more and extended
her arms from her sides, fingers spread wide.
"Don't touch me." Her voice was
hoarse,
rasping from the well of her agonizing grief.
"Just go away and leave me alone." It was a
low and insistent demand for privacy.
Trace took his hands away, but he was
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reluctant to comply with her second request.
There had not been a tear, nor a single outcry
of grief. Too much emotion was being
suppressed. It was unnatural to be so
controlled.
This containment of her feelings
bothered Trace more than a hysterical outburst.
"I've
already made preliminary arrangements
for the funeral services to be held the
day after tomorrow, pending your approval."
He tried to press the reality of his father's
death onto her, but there was no reaction.
"You'll need to speak to the funeral director
later on to let him know where you'd like
Elliot to be buried. It was a question I didn't
feel I could answer for you, since I wasn't
sure
if you wanted him buried in the family plot
next to my mother or whether you preferred a
different gravesite."
"Get out!" She choked on a hacking sob as
terrible shudders racked her shoulders. A
spinning pool of pain swirled around her.
Pilar never heard the door close behind him
when Trace left the room. It was the worst
kind of crying--the type with no tears to wash
away the awful ache.
The black wreath brushed against the mahogany
front door as Pilar closed it on the last
of the departing mourners. She paused to
switch off the porch light, then turned to walk
to the former parlor of the old house. Cassie
was just leaving the room, carrying a tray of
dirty cups and glasses.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"I'm just carrying these out to the kitchen,"
she assured Pilar. "We'll leave the cleaning
up
until tomorrow morning."
Satisfied that Cassie did not intend to do any
more than clear away the dirty dishes,
Pilar
merely nodded a silent agreement with her
plan and continued into the high-ceilinged
parlor with its ornate moldings dominated by
a chandelier. A smattering of antiques lent an
air of authenticity to the room's furnishings.
The clatter of ice cubes in a crystal glass
drew Pilar's glance to the side table where
Trace Santee was standing. A black arm band
encircled the sleeve of the dark jacket he was
wearing. The suit and tie took away the ruffian
look that had always made him seem
coarse and uncultured to her. There was a
polished, experienced air about him that reminded
her of Elliot even if the physical
resemblance
to his father wasn't there.
Trace picked up two glasses and crossed the
room to hand one of them to her. While he
sipped at the iced bourbon, his gray glance
studied her over the rim of his glass. Although
it wasn't strictly necessary, she had elected to
wear a plain black dress, chicly simple in
style. Her neck and wrists were devoid of any
jewelry; only the wedding ring adorned
her
finger.
Her black hair was skinned away from her
face and coiled in a sleek twist on the back
of
her head. Only a woman with Pilar's
strikingly
classical features could get away with such
a severe style and still appear beautiful. The
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 57
haunting shadows in her eyes appealed to him
with the vulnerability they indicated. She was
a picture of black and white perfection, from
the jet-blackness of her hair, eyes, and dress
to the marble-white of her skin.
The neat liquor burned her throat, making
her cough, but the heat that coursed through
her body took away some of the dead sensation.
She wandered over to the fireplace with
its mantel of Italian marble. Logs were
stacked on the andirons in preparation for a
fire that had never been lit. She rolled the
glass between her hands, the precious metal
of her wedding ring clinking against the crystal.
"We were going to bring down all the
Christmas
decorations from the attic this weekend,"
she recalled absently.
"I can carry them down for you tomorrow,"
Trace said.
"No." She turned from the mantel, which
would have been bedecked with garlands of
holly in another week. The drink glass was
clammy and cold with moisture. Pilar set it
onto an empty coaster, not liking the feel of
it,
and rubbed her hands over the snug-fitting
long sleeves of her dress as if needing
warmth. "I don't think I'll be wanting
to celebrate
Christmas this year."
"I suppose not." He swirled the cubes in the
amber-colored liquor and watched their spinning.
Pilar looked up to the brilliant chandelier,
the dangling crystals multiplying the light

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
from its candle-bulbs. She blinked her eyes in
an effort to ease their wretched dryness.
There was such an aching void inside her that
she wanted to cry.
"What's the matter with me?" She murmured
the question, then bit at her lip. Turning,
she cast a silently beseeching look at
Trace, as if he might be able to provide the
answer. "I'm a woman who's just buried her
husband. I should be crying my eyes out, yet I
haven't shed a tear--not once."
After an initial stillness at her confessional
rush of words, Trace set his glass on the table
next to hers and slowly approached her.
They'd spent the better part of the last three
days together, but this was the first time she'd
shown that she felt any closeness to him
because of what they'd been through.
"Sometimes it hurts too much to cry." His
gray eyes darkened with a gentle light as he
brought his hands up to cup the rounded
points of her shoulders.
For so long, Pilar had been denying herself
the physical comfort so many had attempted
to offer her, rejecting such contact. Now she
was unconsciously seeking it. Her hands
seemed to automatically curve themselves to
his middle. She felt the life flowing in
the hard
flesh beneath the jacket material and the heat
of a living body.
"But I want to cry," she insisted, feeling the
many threads of control snapping one by one.
A trembling started, the vibrations growing
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 59
stronger until she began to shake visibly with
her pain. "Why can't I cry for him?" Her
breath was coming in little sobs. "Why can't I
cry for myself?" She closed her painfully arid
eyes as the dry sobs shook her shoulders. She
beat her head against the point of his chin.
"Why? Why?"
There was a sudden collapsing of all the
bonds of restraint and she swayed into him,
letting her head rest against the side of his
jaw. The contents of the soothing words he
murmured were unimportant; it was the
sound of his voice that mattered, and the
human arms that held her close. His hands
rubbed and stroked her as if trying to massage
away the empty ache within.
His body absorbed the shuddering force of
her silent crying while the molding
pressure
of his hands urged her closer. The powerful
desire to comfort her was slowly being overridden
by the sensation of her firmly round
breasts and the slim saddle of her hips imprinting
themselves on his flesh. Raw hunger,
too long stifled, began to surface with a gnawing
strength that ate away at his sense of
decency and discretion.
He turned his mouth into the side of her
hair near her temple, moving to seek the
intoxicating feel of her skin. It tasted warm and
sweet, scented with some elusive fragrance.
Her head was tipped back, making it easy for
him to follow the patrician curve of her
cheekbones down to the corner of her lips.
60 THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
When his mouth rolled onto them, her lips
seemed to soften under the possessive
warmth of the contact.
It was a fleeting response, too casual and
too
indifferent, not at all what he needed to satisfy
the urges that had been with him too long.
When she would have turned away from his
kiss, Trace spread his fingers into her hair and
cupped her head between his hands to hold it
still.
Shocked by the blatant, driving passion of
the hard mouth eating at her lips, Pilar
tugged at his forearms and struggled to break
away. The protesting sounds from her throat
were muffled by the smothering pressure of
his kiss. Her heart pounded wildly in panic.
One minute she had known only comfort in
his arms. There had been nothing to warn her
of this aggressively sexual assault. On
top of
all the emotional torment she'd been through,
it seemed too much.
In desperation Pilar clawed at his face with
her fingernails. An inch-long set of red lines
made parallel tracks in his cheek where her
nails had raked at his flesh as he jerked his
head away and grabbed at her hand.
With a quick twist, she slipped free of his
hold and backed away warily--especially with
the steely glitter of his gaze swung back to
her. Tentatively she drew the back of her
hand across her throbbing lips. She was
trembling,
but less from fear and more from a
bitter anger.
"I was told you had no respect for
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anything." She was breathing hard. "I never
guessed how true that was."
His chest lifted in a deep and visible breath
that seemed to wipe all expression from his
face. "There's no excuse for my behavior just
now," he admitted stiffly. A nerve twitched
in
his cheek. "So I won't attempt to make one.
But believe me--I regret this as much as you
d." She had wanted comfort and he had
shown her lust. The knowledge disgusted him
far more than she knew.
"You regret!" In the face of his irreverent
treatment of her, Pilar was outraged by his
lack of contrition. "I want you to leave! Now!
This very minute!"
There was a second when Pilar thought he
would protest being ordered out of the house
that had been his home. After surveying her
with a long, measuring look, Trace turned on
his heel and walked out of the parlor. She
heard his footsteps on the stairs, and suddenly
her knees felt very weak.
She sank into the nearest chair and pressed
a hand to her lips. She could still feel the
sensation of his hard, cruel mouth rocking
across them, so forceful and demanding. Her
eyes began to fill with tears--tears she hadn't
been able to cry before, but this time no sobs
accompanied her spilling of pain.
When Trace came down the stairs, he was
dressed in the same clothes he'd worn the day
he arrived, and the duffel bag was on his
shoulder. He headed straight for the front
door.
62 THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Trace?" Cassie's voice was filled with
question. "Where do you think you're going?"
He paused, his glance sliding past her toward
the parlor. "I've been away from the
river too long. You know how it is, Cassie."
"I know how it is with some, Trace, like my
Oggie. But you--you're seeking the danger
and excitement of the river for some other
reason. It doesn't bring you any peace." She
eyed him with a shrewd and knowing look,
her glance darting to the two faint red lines on
his cheek. "What have you done this time,
Trace? You're running again."
"I was born to trouble, you said it yourself,"
he reminded her with a twisted smile. Then a
grimness settled over his features. "He asked
me to look after her. I guess you're going to
have to do it for me." His thumb caressed her
cheek for an instant, then he pulled it away
and headed for the front door.
Cassie watched him walk out the door, so
tall and straight--and alone. She was troubled
for him. Trace had matured into a fine
figure of a man, strong and intelligent. The
aimless life he led was such a waste.
A heavy sigh came from her when the door
closed. She supposed it had been wrong to
hope Elliot's death might be good for his son.
Slowly she walked to the parlor, wondering if
anything would ever turn Trace around and
prod him into making something of himself.
When she entered the parlor, Cassie observed
Pilar hastily wiping the tears from her
cheeks. "Trace has left."
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"Yes, I know." Pilar's voice was husky and
stiff. "He stayed for the funeral. What more
did you expect?" She was brittly flippant
and
derisive.
"Don't misjudge him," Cassie cautioned.
"Trace isn't as shallow as he might seem."
"I'm really not interested in discussing
him." She swung away, agitation rippling
through her. "It's been a long day. I think
I'll
go to my room and read for a while."
As Pilar started to leave the room, Cassie
noticed the two glasses sitting on a table.
"Now where did those come from?" she declared
with a trace of exasperation. "I thought
I'd carried everything out to the kitchen."
"That one's mine." Pilar picked up the one
sitting on the coaster. "I'll take it
upstairs
with me. Alcohol is supposed to be a
depressant.
Maybe it will help me get to sleep."
It was a brisk night, typical of early
December
weather in the South. The long walk into
town did nothing to ease the self-derision that
hounded Trace. Nor did it erase the memory
of the way it felt to hold her in his arms. Just
for a little moment he'd gone crazy with wanting
her--comand that's all it had taken.
A neon sign blinked an invitation from a
building just ahead of him. His steps slowed
as Trace approached it, pausing to snap the
smoldering butt of his cigarette into the gutter.
When he walked inside, the air was stale
with the smell of beer and tobacco smoke.
It was a small bar, a little dingy, a little

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
rundown. Most of its patrons were sitting in
chairs or on bar stools positioned to give them
a view of the television set on a high shelf
behind the counter.
The stool at the near end of the counter bar
was at a bad angle to the television set, so it
was empty. Trace walked over to it and
propped his duffel bag against the wooden
bar, then climbed onto the stool, digging a
hand into a side pocket to lay some money on
the countertop.
The bartender backed grudgingly toward
him, unwilling to look away from the car
chase on television. He threw him a quick
glance, then looked back at the screen. "Yeah,
what'll it be?"
"A bourbon on ice--comand be generous."
The drink was fixed, the money taken and
change given, and all the while the bartender's
attention remained on the television
show. There was some talking among the men
in the bar, but it was kept low, and ceased
whenever there was any dialogue. None of
them paid any attention to Trace, hunched
over his drink at the end of the bar.
At the commercial break he ordered another.
The first one hadn't even begun to quench
the hot fires that burned inside him. He was
angry at himself, and that anger turned
everything sour. There was a crazy urge to hit
something--a wall, anything--as if lashing
out would make him feel better.
Familiar theme music began playing to signal
the show's end, and everyone in the bar
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 65
seemed to start talking at once, laughing and
ordering drinks. Trace crushed out his third
cigarette and resisted the impulse to tell all
of
them to shut up.
"Pipe down," someone else complained for
him. "The news is comin' on."
"I wonder if they'll say anything about
Santee
gettin' buried today," someone else said.
Trace searched out the man who'd spoken.
There was a big, husky man sitting down the
counter from him, with two other fellows.
"Did you ever see the gal he was married
to?" The middle one grinned. "She is one
sexy-looking woman. And just about half his
age, too."
"Do you suppose the new widow will have
someone to console her in her time of grief?"
The first one chortled lasciviously.
"She's got too much class for you, Frank,"
the third man declared.
"Yeah, Frank." Trace slid off his stool
and
walked down the bar as the three men turned,
startled by his sudden intervention. He
stopped in front of the one they called Frank.
"She's got too much class for you." His mouth
curled into a sneer. "So why don't you just
shut up."
"Nobody asked your opinion." The man
frowned and started to turn back to face the
bar.
Trace never gave him a chance, grabbing
him by the arm and throwing a right cross
that caught him on the chin. His companion
shouted a protest at the unprovoked attack,
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and Trace made a swing at him, but it glanced
off the man's shoulder. He barely managed to
duck away from the fist aimed at his face. It
clipped a cheekbone.
All his senses were instantly heightened.
He could hear his heart pumping and feel the
blood pounding through his veins. The rush of
air in and out of his lungs was almost a
drunken high. There was only one of him and
three of them.
Fragments of the fight stayed in his memory
--the moment when he'd buried a fist in
someone's stomach and felt the hard muscles
collapse, the sight of the ring on a man's
finger just before it split his lip, the second
when a blow reeled him and the floor came
rushing up to meet him. Most of the rest of it
was mixed up in the grunting sounds of
straining bodies, his or somebody else's, and
the shouts of patrons above the blare of the
television.
The wail of sirens came toward the last.
One eye was so swollen he couldn't see out of
it, and there was blood in his mouth from his
split lip. His legs were getting wobbly and he
was having trouble just staying upright. For
the moment his body had tuned out all sensation
of pain.
Someone grabbed him from behind and
locked his arms behind his back. Trace relaxed
when he saw a couple of uniformed
police cornering his three opponents. The
voices and confusion were just a loud buzzing
in his ears. A pair of handcuffs were
locked
around his wrists and he was shoved up
against the bar. Grateful for the support,
Trace slumped against it, his lungs laboring
for air.
"All right! All right!" A voice called for
order and quiet, piercing Trace's dazed brain
with a glimmer of familiarity. "I wanta know
who started this." He hadn't the breath to answer,
but there were plenty of witnesses to
point the finger. A hand grabbed his arm to

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
turn him around. "All right, tough guy. Aw,
hell, I might have known it was you," the
voice muttered.
Trace had to turn his head way around to
focus the eye that wasn't swollen on the man.
"Hey, Digger." His mouth curved in a weary
smile. "Like old times, eh?" Trace panted
between the words.
"Yeah, old times." The aging officer nodded
grimly and turned to the barkeeper. "He's
good for the damages." Then to the others,
"Anybody gonna press charges?"
There was some low grumbling in the background,
but no one spoke up. Digger Jones
clamped a hand on Trace's arms and pushed
him in the direction of the door.
"My gear?" Trace managed to nod his head
at the duffel bag on the floor by the bar.
Digger mumbled something under his
breath and picked it up. Once they were outside,
he removed the handcuffs and waved
Trace toward one of the patrol cars, its blue
lights flashing.
"Back seat or front?" Trace tried
to smile,
but his lip was starting to hurt.
"Front," Digger grunted.
After he slid into the passenger side, Trace
slumped in the seat, letting it support him.
The soreness was beginning, the dull aches
turning into painful throbs. He glanced briefly
at Digger when he climbed behind the wheel
and shut the door.
"You can just drop me off by the waterfront,"
Trace said and shut his eyes.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
69
"Did you get a good look at that bar when
you walked outa there?" Digger Jones demanded.
"No."
"You smashed it up good," Digger assured
him on an impatient note. "Dammit,
Trace, I
thought you'd told me you learned a few
things. One of these times you're gonna start
a fight and somebody's gonna get bad hurt.
It probably won't be you. The bad ones
seldom
come out on the wrong end of the stick,"
he muttered angrily as he drove down the
street. "But what happens if somebody does
get hurt or killed? Did'ja ever think about
that?" he hotly challenged Trace. "Did'ja?
You could wind up in prison. All right, so
maybe you don't give a damn about yourself, but
wouldn't you care if you crippled some
guy? Wouldn't you care about his family?"
A frown pulled at Trace's forehead as the
words hammered at him. "Don't lecture me
tonight, Digger."
There was a long run of silence in the car.
At each chuckhole and rough patch in the
road, Trace's bruised and battered muscles
protested the further abuse. He hurt so much,
he didn't even want to think--but that had
been his intention all along.
"This is a fine mess." Again Digger grumbled
his disapproval. "They bury your daddy
this afternoon and you damned near get yourself
arrested for brawling in some barroom
tonight. You've got a fine way of mourning the
dead."

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Shut up, Digger." The remark had touched
a sore spot.
"Yeah, I'll shut up," Digger agreed
roughly.
""Cause I'm just wasting my breath. Look
at
you, all bloodied up until your momma could
hardly recognize you. What have you got to
show for all the living you've done? Nothing.
And you know what you're going to have
tomorrow? Nothing. There's only one way for
you to go, Santee--and that's down."
This time the silence lasted. Trace kept
his
eyes shut and made no reply to Digger's
prediction,
letting his head rock on the back of
the seat with the motion of the traveling car.
When it finally rolled to a stop, he roused
himself with an effort, pain shooting through
every inch of his body. His right eye was
completely swollen shut. He reached for the
door handle even before he looked at his
surroundings.
A huge white structure loomed beside the
parked patrol car. It took him half a
second to
recognize the rear entrance to Dragon Walk as
he stepped out of the car.
"Why the hell did you bring me here?" Trace
demanded and felt the cut on his lip start to
bleed again. "I told you to take me to the
waterfront."
"I figured Cassie oughta take a look at
you."
Digger climbed out of the car. "I'd have taken
you to the hospital, but I wanted to save your
family the embarrassment of having
everyone
in town know you were up to your old
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

tricks again." He hitched his pants higher
around his waist and glanced at the back
door. "The lights are on in the kitchen. I
reckon Cassie is still up."
Trace stayed in the shadows and watched
his friend walk up to the back door and rap
lightly on the frame. It was several long
seconds
before the door swung open.
"What are you doing here at this time of
night, Digger?" Cassie was silhouetted in the
light shining from the kitchen. "Something's
happened to Trace." She guessed immediately.
"He started a fight in some bar. I got him
out of there and brought him along with me. I
thought you'd better take a look at him." He
jerked his head in Trace's direction.
Before he could say another word, Cassie
was anxiously hurrying down the short flight
of steps from the rear door and hustling toward
the dark form half leaning against the
car. Her hand reached for his chin to turn it
and give her a better look at his face. She
made a clicking sound of dismay with her
tongue.
"It isn't as bad as it looks," Trace
muttered
and impatiently brushed her hand aside.
There was a part of him that wasn't in the
mood for solicitous concern. The fight had
been a form of self-punishment, both a way to
release all the turmoil inside and to scourge
its presence. Physical pain was easier to cope
with than mental suffering.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Come inside and we'll get you cleaned up."
She was brusque and firm as she took his arm
with a strong grip to guide him to the door.
But Trace hung back, his one good eye
running a glance at the plantation house.
"No. I'm not coming in." It was a subdued
refusal, quiet and stiff.
Long adept at putting two and two together,
Cassie guessed his reason. "She's gone
upstairs
to her room, and you're coming into the
kitchen with me where there is some light so I
can see what you've done to your eye." She
was professionally gruff with him, not tolerating
any of his nonsense and pride.
This time Trace let her lead him into the
house, his legs operating with stiff coordination.
Each step seemed to jar some new sore
spot and start some part of his body aching.
She guided him to the table and sat him in a
chair.
"The coffee should still be hot, if you'd like a
cup, Digger." Cassie absently offered the
invitation
while she began to fill a basin with
water and gather the items she'd need to treat
Trace.
"No thanks. I'm on duty. I'd better
head
back into town before they start wondering
what happened to me." His expression was
grim as he sent a look at Trace. "Try
not to get
into any more trouble before you leave town.
The next time I'll have to haul you in."
"I've done enough for one visit," Trace
assured
the local officer with a trace of bitter
irony.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 73
"Look after him, Cassie. he
needs it," Digger advised and went out the
door, closing it quietly behind him.
Evet was 1 red on the table
beside Trace when Cassie ly nt her
tk, t gently and thoroughly p e
blood from his face. "ace Stee, what I
go to do you?" She md e
wos, never paus her safions or
let her auenon fter fm her actions.
"o'd you pick a fit his M
his He cey d a gd job mes up
yo face." She sed out e clo, d e
water the b ed a m sh
b. "I'd hate to see what you d ."
"em," he corcted, c when e
wet clo touched s face ag. "ere we
ee of em. Unfonately ey we 1
s still when gger ved on e
scene."
"ee." Impaence snapd her dk
eyes as she shook her head you. "You ways
d le to go against e odds. e
bigger e tter. I don't supse it wod do
me y gd to ask what sted it."
"Some ey sd I 't ." s
whole face felt y, were' swollen d bsed,
bb this soreness wherever she
touched it.
"Somet you dn't e, huh?" Her at
tenon remed tent on s face, but e
coe of her mou we pled y
d. "It co't that ey me some
mk aut , cod it?" H h

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
glance held his wary, one-eyed look for an
instant. "It doesn't take much figuring to
come up with that guess. Your father was an
important man in this town, and she's got the
kind of looks men talk about. And some remark
about her would be just the thing to
spark that romantic streak in you and push
you into thinking you had to defend her honor.
All your life you've wanted to slay
dragons."
Her knowledgeable fingers pressed around his
eye and pried the lids apart, letting a slit of
light in. "That eye looks bad."
"It hurts like hell," Trace said, commenting
on it rather than her observation, but he
couldn't leave one subject entirely alone.
"I
guess she has been an item of gossip for quite
a while."
"When she first came to Natchez to inventory
and reappraise the antiques at Bentley
Hall, she created quite a stir." There was a
widening flare of Cassie's eyes to indicate that
was an understatement. "Hardly anyone
thought that someone so young and so beautiful could have any
brains--or experience. It
was quite a controversy for a while until they
learned she had literally been raised in the
business. Both of her parents were antique
dealers in Virginia, and highly respected,
too.
The way Pilar tells it, she knew the difference
between Belter and Chippendale when she
was four. For three years she worked in
London
for the Sotheby company, that famous
one that handles all those art and antique
auctions." All the while Cassie was absently
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 75
rattling on, telling him things he knew and
some he didn't, she was getting crushed ice
from the ice-maker attachment on the refrigerator
and making a cold compress with a
clean, damp cloth. "Hold this to your eye."
Gingerly Trace pressed it to the closed eye
and felt the frissons of pain at the contact.
Cassie noticed the skinned and cut knuckles
of his hands and washed away the caking
blood on them.
"Of course, Elliot's whirlwind courtship of
her really set the town on its ear. There were
some that said they weren't surprised she
married him, since she obviously loved 'old
things." Thankfully they were too happy to let
a lot of gossip bother them. Elliot was
sensitive
to it, though--for a lot of reasons." Her
glance briefly caught his eye during that
small hesitation but she didn't
pursue that
topic. "Their marriage worked well. She took
over the administration of the Santee Foundation,
which Elliot had never liked," Cassie
said, referring to the trust set up by Trace's
grandfather to assist in the funding and preservation
of historically significant southern
landmarks or sites. "Plus she opened up a
small antique shop in town, to keep her hand
in the trade."
"That must have given him a lot of free
time," Trace mused somewhat absently. "The
talk on the river has been that most of the
company decisions lately have been made by
Cunningham."
"Elliot didn't spend as much time at the

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
office as he used to," Cassie admitted.
"But he
wasn't coming home to an empty house any
more either." Although the home office for the
Santee Line of river barges was located in
Natchez, Trace had always worked out of the
terminal in New Orleans. The
arrangement
had conveniently suited his needs. "What
about your ribs? Did you get any of them
cracked or broken?"
"No." Trace flinched from the probe of her
fingers. "They're just bruised." The pounding
in his head seemed to increase in intensity.
"Have you got any aspirin?"
While Cassie went to the sink to get him a
glass of water, Trace managed to light a
cigarette
despite the stiff soreness of his fingers.
But the smoke made the cut on his lip sting
painfully, and he put out the cigarette after
only one drag.
The muted sound of a car motor penetrated
the thick walls of the house. The hairbrush
paused in midstroke as Pilar listened, but
there wasn't any knock at the front door.
After
a few minutes she decided someone had driven
slowly past the house and resumed brushing
out her long hair.
It was only seconds later that she heard a
car driving away. Puzzled, she
walked to the
balcony doors in time to see headlight beams
as a car turned onto the road past Dragon
Walk. A tiny frown creased her forehead. She
tried to shrug it off, telling herself that Cassie
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

had probably spoken to the late callers and
indicated that she had retired to her room.
Her room, in the singular. It was no longer
"their" room. Melancholy settled over her as
she slid the brush onto the marble-topped
vanity. After thinking in the plural for so long,
it seemed unnatural. Sometimes none of this
seemed real. A sudden tightness gripped her
throat, trapping a breath.
Elliot. Sweet, gallant Elliot, a
fine southern
gentleman to the tips of his toes. How many
times had she gotten upset over something,
yet there had never been a harsh word spoken
by him. He had openly adored her, and it had
been impossible not to be completely captivated
by his romantic charm. Never in her life
had she known anyone like him. It was
certainly
apparent that Trace Santee didn't take
after him. The mere thought of him brought a
ripple of disgust.
A restless discontent pushed her to the door,
She ventured into the hallway with the vague
excuse of finding Cassie and discovering who
had stopped by a few minutes earlier, All the
lights were on downstairs, reflecting their
glow into the stairwell.
When she didn't find Cassie in the parlor,
Pilar headed for the kitchen. As she opened
the door she was looking directly at the man
sitting at the table with his back to her. Even
though she couldn't see his face, the clothes
and the leanly muscled shape of him were
enough to give away his identity.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"What are you doing here? I thought I told
you--" Her simmering accusal was cut off in
midstream as he turned in her direction and
lowered the bulky cloth that had covered part
of his face.
Practically the whole right side was a
swollen, purpling mass of bruised flesh. An
open cut puffed the top of his mouth, and
there were less severe bruises on the other
half of his face, distorting his rugged features.
"My God," Pilar gasped at the brutal
sight.
"What happened?" She threw a short glance
at Cassie, whose mouth was tightly shut in
silence; then her questioning gaze darted
back to Trace.
His back was turned to her again as he
awkwardly straightened to his feet, giving her
a narrow side glimpse of his jaw. "I ran
into
somebody's fist." It was a half-muttered,
irritated
response.
There was a moment of blankness until his
answer finally sunk in. Her lips thinned into a
narrow line. "You mean you were in a fight,"
she retorted in disgust,
"Yes." The cloth pack was thrown into the
sink.
"I can't believe you are Elliot's son."
Pilar
declared in a kind of dumbfounded anger and
contempt.
"Pilar." Cassie attempted to insert a
disapproval.
"No." She refused to be silenced. "Maybe
you feel sorry for him, but I don't. He's
gotten
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

just what he deserves. And I have no pity for
him at all."
"I never asked for any!" He half turned to
his left, bringing her into his vision.
Her raking glance skimmed his rangy build,
the skinned knuckles, and the rumpled black
hair. "You really are good for nothing," she
stated with a decisive pronouncement. "What
do you think you proved by fighting tonight?
That you're a man? A tough guy?" she taunted
him.
"It proves I'm human," Trace shot
back.
"That I've got feelings and hurts the same as
you. You're so wrapped up in your own grief
that you think you're the only one who cares
that he's dead. All right, so maybe I offended
you this evening, but all I wanted to do was
give comfort and be comforted. It started out
all very innocent, but unfortunately I got
carried away. When I left this house, I
felt
about as low mad rotten as a man can get! But
I don't expect you to understand that. According
to you, I don't feel anything!"
The bitterness and suppressed anger in his
voice lashed out at her. Pilar didn't
retaliate,
although her dislike of him continued to glitter
in her eyes. Perhaps there was some truth
in his explanation even if it didn't justify his
behavior.
He swung away from her silence and
reached for the duffel bag sitting on a corner
of the countertop. "I'm going to borrow your
car, Cassie. You can pick it up tomorrow
morning under-the-hill."

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
The slamming of the door vibrated through
the kitchen. Pilar unconsciously
flinched
from the sound but her expression remained
hardened against him. She flashed a look at
the black woman, standing so silently by the
table.
"You think I was wrong for speaking out the
way I did, don't you?" Pilar challenged,
preferring
to air their disagreeing views.
There was a faint shrug of Cassie's shoulders
that wouldn't pass judgment. "I know
him better than you do. I know the things that
are good about him, and I know the things
that are bad. He has troubles that you don't
know about and I think it's better that way."
"What do you mean?" Pilar frowned at
Cassie's
deliberate attempt at mystery.
"I mean that you're going to have a hard
enough time without taking on any of Trace's
problems," she replied. "He'll have to work
them out himself. I just hope he does a better
job of it than he's done so far."
A fine drizzle fell from the low, murky
clouds, instilling a damp chill in the
air, but
Trace didn't feel it under the bulky thickness
of his navy wool sweater and unzipped
windbreaker.
The deck beneath his feet vibrated
with the whine of the engines. Wisps of fog
trailed across the surface of the intercoastal
waterway, too thin to present any hazard.
There was a single, blaring blast of a towboat's
horn, which was echoed by his boat.
Straightening from the railing, Trace swung
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
his gaze to the front, beyond the prow of the
first barge, and spied the towboat pushing
barges toward them. They were riding high in
the water, a clear indication that their holds were
empty. One blast of the horn signaled
the towboat's intention of passing on the port
side.
As the tow vessels drew abreast, a smile
twitched at the corners of his mouth. A string
of multicolored lights circled the pilothouse
of
the towboat, and an artificial, faded green
wreath was tacked onto a large life
ring on the
side, near the name Sophie B. Trace
lifted a
hand in silent greeting to the man at the
controls. Engines throbbed, turning props and
churning up water in a muddy wake as the
towboats passed.
The faint smile lingered on his face as Trace
pivoted to slide an amused glance through the
opened window of the wheelhouse at the pilot
taking his turn at watch on the Delta
Belle. "Either the Swede hasn't been sober
since
Christmas, or else he's getting a headstart
on
next year."
"I'll ask him." Dan Bledsoe chuckled and
picked up the radio mike. There was a crackle
of communication over the short-wave before
he came back with the answer. "He said he
hasn't been home for Santa Claus to visit
him.
It'll be another week before he gets back.
Hope we don't get stuck like that. My
wife's
due to have her baby the end of the month."
"This is supposed to be a turn-around haul,"
Trace replied.

THE BEST WAY to LOSE
"Yeah." There was a skeptical quality in the
response. "I've heard that before."
So had Trace, but he wasn't a family man
like some of the others on the crew. He didn't
complain about the delays in port, or the junk
hauls they'd been making recently. He tapped
the windowsill in a gesture of decision.
"I'm goin' below. She's all yours."
"Aye, Cap'n," Bledsoe replied
absently, already
looking ahead at the bend in the channel.
After hours at the wheel negotiating
through an early-morning fog and drizzle
with one eye on the radar screen and an ear
tuned for the blast of a horn, Trace was ready
for a break. It hadn't been his watch, but as
the senior pilot, he hadn't been willing to let
the green Bledsoe take it alone, since he'd
only obtained his river pilot's license seven
months ago.
A pot of coffee was cradled on a back
burner
of the stove in the mess cabin. Trace filled a
cup and carried it to the table where Evers,
the cook, was cheating at a game of solitaire.
"Want something to eat?" Evers chewed out
the words through the cigar in his mouth.
"Nope." Trace took off his hat and dropped
it on the table while he combed a hand
through his hair, then let it rub the knotted
muscles in his neck.
"Your mail's still sittin' over there. Ya never
did open it," Evers reminded him and slipped
an ace from the pile.
"It's just bills." Trace rocked his chair
back
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

to reach the short stack of envelopes with his
name on them, then leafed through them,
looking at return addresses before bothering
to open them.
"What do you suppose is gonna happen to
the line now that your old man's gone?" Evers
lifted his chin to frown curiously at
Trace, the
cigar wigwagging from his teeth.
"What do you mean?" He used his pocketknife
to slice open an envelope. An eyebrow
arched briefly when he saw the amount listed
as damages at the bar where he'd had the
fight six weeks ago.
"There's been some speculation that his
widow might sell it. I just wondered if you
knew." The ash fell off Evers' cigar onto the
cards. The cook muttered under his breath
and swept it off the table with his hand.
"Could be." Trace shrugged with disinterest.
Evers began flipping down cards again.
"Can't imagine a woman running a barge
line." He darted an interested look at
Trace.
"You'd get some of the money if she sold it,
wouldn't you?"
"Mmhmm." It was an ative sound as
he slid the knife blade under the flap of
another
envelope. He unfolded the official-looking
letter and skimmed the notice of a special
stockholders' meeting of the Santee
Line, Ltd.
Disinterested, Trace shoved it back in the
envelope.
"She wouldn't get much for it if she sold it,"
Evers announced, continuing the

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
conversation whether Trace was interested in the
subject
or not. "The business has been going
downhill the last few years. Equipment's
getting older and prices are getting higher."
"There have been too many cheap loads to
undesirable ports," Trace acknowledged--
undesirable from the standpoint of getting
good loads to haul out. "And too much money
has been spent on repair and maintenance of
equipment that's too old to warrant it."
"Hell, anybody on the river knows that,"
the cook declared. "But I wouldn't want to
take bets on how long it's been since anyone
at
the main office has been out on these waters.
These boats and barges are just numbers on
paper to them--and the ports are just places
on a map. You let me run this company for a
month, and you'd see plenty of changes."
"That's what we all say." Trace's mouth
quirked as he drank down his coffee.
"Yeah, I guess so." Evers smiled, too,
at his
own braggadocio. "It's just talk, and it never
amounts to nothing. That's why I'm sittin'
here on this vibratin' machine and they're
sittin' in some plush office and smokin' five
dollar cigars. They don't make presidents
out
of river burns."
"Right," Trace agreed absently as he
scooped up his mail and fingered the envelope
with the notice of the stockholders' meeting.
A chair was pulled out for her at the conference
table. Pilar smiled briefly at the attorney
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

before smoothing the back of her navy linen
skirt to sit down.
"Thank you, Mr. Forrestown," she murmured.
"I believe you know everyone here," he
said.
"Yes, I do." Pilar glanced at the
half-dozen
men slowly resuming their places at the table
now that she was seated.
"I hope you don't object to my inclusion of
Mr. Cunningham," the attorney offered,
respectfully.
"I know he isn't a shareholder in
the company, but since he's been acting as an
interim president, I felt he should be present
for this meeting."
"Of course," she agreed and nodded to the
squat, balding man sitting across the table
from her. "I'm glad you could join us."
Payne Forrestown remained standing.
"Since all the directors are present, and the
shareholders are represented, either by proxy
or their presence, perhaps we should get down
to the business of electing officers and appointing
a new member to the board." There
was a nodding assent around the table. He
smiled down at Pilar, slightly patronizing.
"We won't be formal about this. Whenever you
wish to speak or ask a question, feel free to do
so."
"Thank you."
None of them were entirely comfortable
with her in the room, and Pilar could feel their
restiveness. Many of them clung to the old

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
tradition that kept women and business separate.
"Perhaps we should begin by nominating-was
He was interrupted by a knock on the
door to the conference room. "Come in," he
called out impatiently.
When Trace Santee walked in, Pilar
sensed
the ripple of surprise that passed through the
room. Unlike the other men, dressed in dark
business suits and ties, he was wearing a tan
windbreaker over a white shirt, opened at the
throat.
"Trace, I--" The attorney stopped and
glanced down at the papers on the table in
front of him. "I didn't realize you were going
to attend. I believe I have your proxy right
here."
"I believe you're mistaken, Payne.""
A
smooth smile spread across his rugged features,
which carried none of the bruises that
had marred it the last time Pilar had seen
him. "I didn't mail one in."
"I see." But it was obvious that the attorney
didn't see anything. Trace's appearance had
thrown everyone in the room off stride.
"You'll have to forgive me. I must have presumed
you wouldn't come, since you never
have attended any of our previous meetings."
It seemed everyone in the room drew an
audible breath when Trace pulled out the
chair at the head of the table and sat down. "I
haven't," he agreed smoothly. His gray
eyes
made a slow survey of the men seated at the
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

table and lingered an instant on Pilar. "But
I've never owned the company before."
A little shock seemed to vibrate through
Pilar. It wasn't possible. According to the will,
the bulk of Elliot's shares had come to her.
"In case you haven't counted them lately"--
Trace looked straight at her when he
spoke--
"between the shares my father left me and the
ones I received from my mother's estate, I
hold the majority of shares in the Santee
Line."
"Well, yes ..., that's true." The
attorney
nodded a dazed confirmation. "But--" He was
plainly at a loss for words.
It was not resentment of his ownership that
smoldered behind the calm facade Pilar
showed him. After all, he was Elliot's son, so
it was natural that he should inherit control of
the company. It was a distrust of the capricious
whims that ruled him, and his lack of
respect for the established order of things. She
saw the gleam in his gray eyes that issued a
challenge and amusement. Trace Santee was
enjoying the discomfort he was creating.
"How typical of him," Pilar thought, "to
arrive unannounced and throw everyone into
confusion--stirring up trouble." She quietly
seethed, conscious of the heated tempo of her
pulse. He sat crookedly in the chair, a
pose of
lazy indolence with one arm stretched on the
table to idly turn a pencil in a circle.
Cunningham hunched forward in his chair
and turned his bald head in the direction of

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
the end chair. "You have never taken any
interest in the operation or management of
the company before, Trace. Naturally the
members of the board are surprised by this
apparent turnaround."
"It's been four or five years since the
company
has issued any dividends to the shareholders."
Trace seemed to throw that out as a
reason while he eyed the interim president
through the tops of thick lashes.
"In the past," Pilar said and heard the
huskiness in her voice, "you never bothered to
attend any of the previous shareholders" or
directors' meetings. This is rather a sudden
concern about the financial stares of the company,
isn't it?"
"But in the past"--he paused, eyeing her
steadily, yet with that gleam of mocking
amusement that had taken on a harsh note--
"my father ran the company, Mrs. Santee."
He picked up the pencil, and tapped the
eraser end on the table. The little gesture
seemed to draw to a close any further discussion
of this subject. The lazy pose was thrown
off as he straightened in the chair and rested
his forearms and elbows on the table. With
the action, the control of the meeting seemed
to flow to him.
"I don't know how these procedures are
conducted, but"--his cool, challenging gaze
swept the table--com8maybe we should begin by
installing a new president."
The brief silence was broken by the attorney
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

as he sat down in the empty chair next to
Pilar's, relinquishing his authority over the
proceedings. Nervously he cleared his throat,
conscious that the others were looking to him.
"Dale Cunningham has been acting as interim
president" he said. "I believe the general
opinion has been that the position would become
permanent. Elliot thought very highly
of his management abilities."
"I have one quarrel with Cunningham taking
over as president of the Santee Line,"
Trace stated, apparently indifferent to the
tension in the air. "He hasn't been on the
river
in twenty years or more. He's lost touch with
the business and the changes it's made."
No one commented on his assessment of
Cunningham or his lack of endorsement.
Payne Forrestown studied the documents on
the table in front of him, giving them a pretense
of attention, and asked the question no
one else wanted to voice. "Is there someone
you would like to suggest for the post?"
Me." The slow smile that spread across the
bluntly chiseled features held no humor.
Forty-five minutes after Trace had walked
into the conference room, the meeting was
concluded. It had been awkward for everyone
except Trace. So Pilar wasn't
surprised when
they all remembered appointments elsewhere
and cut short the idle talk that usually
followed the formal gatherings.
Pride refused to allow her to join the stampede
from the room. There was calm
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
deliberation e e she k, s her gd-be
her le hubd" bue ends
he worked her w lowl e dr. Ye her
senses we ways e to ace, wi
her at ey wod ately meet at e
dr.
e It hdbag hu fm a sap over
her shoulder. Pilar paused to put on the black
kid gloves, conscious at Trace
beside her. Eny combs swept e t
sleeess of her h away fm her face d we
e pel studs pierc e lobes of
her shegg'ful-e es.
"I ess I shoed you for vo for
me." e sold of s low voice brated over
her so.
"You' welcome," e plied smooy
d kept her ge do--cast we she fitted
e so materi e her ers.
s crossed nt of her ion as
he leisely brac a hd against e w
d blocked her path to the dr. Her ce
made a d 1 W s face fo she
mined to e task of and a on e oer owe .
"Eyeeaone wted to follow yo le. Wi
e sup, you cod have me a fit of
it," he ted out, fl-Z head dow
d to one side to p cously at her ssion.
"You obviously ce 1 for uble.
I'm so I sapted us." She child a cl se, aw
of e sing taumess
of her nerves.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

His earthy virility was a physical presence
in front of her, the bronzed column of his
throat and the wisps of chest hairs springing
into view where his shirt collar was unbuttoned.
She was conscious of his rough good
looks and the firm line of his mouth. There
was a thready awareness that she missed the
contact with a man's body--Elliot's body.
"I don't think you're sorry," he mused.
"Does it matter?" Pilar countered with
forced indifference. "You own the majority
stock. And you're Elliot's son, so why
shouldn't you take over now that he's
gone?"
It was her reason for not attempting to block
his takeover of control. "Besides, as you pointed
out, the company hasn't been paying any
dividends, so I didn't have anything to
lose."
"That's true." But his eyes continued to
probe.
"The company is yours to do with as you
wish." There was a curtness in her voice.
"That's what you wanted. I don't know what
you intend to do with it--probably ruin it the
way you've blackened everything else in your
life. I'm sure you tore all your toys apart
when
you were a child. Now you have a bigger toy
that you can destroy. I don't particularly
Care."
His jaw hardened at her coolly aloof condenmation.
He made an unhurried push away
from the wall and shifted out of her path to
the door. "I'm going to be making a lot of
trips
back and forth between Natchez and New
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
Orleans these next few months. I'm sure
you'll understand if I'm too busy to call on you
when I'm in town."
"Of course." Briefly Pilar inclined her
head,
nodding to him before she moved smoothly to
the door. Her flesh tingled with the sensation
of his gaze, observing her departure.
The cuffs of the white shirt were rolled
halfway back on his forearms. The dove-gray
jacket to his suit was hooked on a finger and
slung over his shoulder, a multistriped gray
tie sticking out of a side pocket. The top
buttons of his shirt were unfastened to invite
the evening breeze onto his damp skin.
Without that stirring of air, it was sticky
and sultry, but the ice cream cone was refreshingly
cold. Trace strolled along the street
in the general direction of the riverfront park
atop the bluff and took his time eating the
melting ice cream, licking it and letting its
coldness glide down his throat.
There was already a small gathering of
people in the park. Some were lounging on the
grass and others were standing or tossing

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
Frisbees. The local school band was putting
on a summer concert from the bandstand in
the park. Brassy notes filled the air, some
times discordant. A hot summer sun held its
ane in the sky, stubbornly lingering above
the horizon.
A scattering of lethargic applause followed
the final note of a song. Trace stopped in the
shade of an old oak on the edge of the park and
rolled the ice cream around in his mouth.
There was a break in the band's playing, a
shuffling of music and licking of reeds. His
glance wandered idly over the park grounds
with their panoramic view of the bridge spanning
the Mississippi River below and the
green cluster of trees on the opposite bank.
His attention lingered on the stone marker,
erected to commemorate the historic old trail
known as the Natchez Trace. It had been
established by the Indians long before any
white men ever set foot on the continent, part
of a trade route that extended as far north as
the Great Lakes. In the settling of the
nation it
had been a post road for the mail, connecting
Natchez to Nashville and creating a highway
in the wilderness.
An announcement was being made from
the bandstand and Trace let his gaze wander
back to it. Only snatches of the words reached
his hearing, the rest of it being carried away
by the rushing breeze. He couldn't make
heads or tails out of what was being said, but
he recognized a couple of the local
dignitaries
on the bandstand. Some sort of plaque was
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

being presented to a dark-haired woman in a
cherry-red dress.
His tongue paused in its lick of the ice
cream, the sight of Pilar momentarily jolting
him. A restlessness ran through his nerve
ends, coiling and uncoiling in frissons of
tension.
In the last two years he'd seen her,
maybe, three times and the last one over
seven months ago. Yet nothing had
changed,
not the feelings she aroused in him nor her
stiffly cordial attitude toward him.
His gaze locked onto her form, searching for
little details. She was wearing her hair shorter;
its length brushed the tops of her shoulders
now instead of cascading onto her back, and
its style was fuller and softer. The material of
her cherry-colored dress was a shiny fabric
like silk, padded at the shoulders in an old
fashioned
style with short capped sleeves.
The soft wind caressed it, blowing it against
her figure to outline the shape of her hips and
thighs, then swirling it to hide them.
There was a movement in his side vision,
and Trace glanced off his shoulder to see a
stocky policeman ambling past him. More
white hairs than iron gray were sticking out
from under his cap. The short-sleeved shirt of
his summer uniform was clinging damply to
his thickening middle. Dark sunglasses
protected
his eyes, but it didn't keep Trace from
recognizing him.
"Hey, Digger." It was a lazily drawled
greeting that brought the man up short.
There was an initial blankness in Digger's

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
expression while Trace came under the scrutiny
of those sunglasses before a surprised
smile broke across Digger's face. He
changed
his course to wander over and stand next to
Trace.
"Hell, I didn't know it was you standing
there," he declared and rested his pudgy
hands on his hips to let the air circulate
around his body. "When did you make it back
into town?"
"I grabbed a ride on the Sophie B when
she
left New Orleans." His attention strayed to
the bandstand while he answered the question.
"She dropped me under-the-hill about an
hour ago."
"Are you gonna be in town for a spell?
You've been comin' and goin' like a yo-yo
lately. In and out, in and out. You've
done
more travelin' since you became a respectable
businessman than you ever did before," Digger
observed. "And here I thought you were
gonna drop anchor."
"The whole system needed a major overhaul.
It should start getting smoother." He
munched on the sugar cone while he continued
to watch the dark-haired woman on the
bandstand.
"A lot of people didn't figure you'd stick it
out. They thought you'd come into the business
a-swingin' and a-fightin', then walk
away when it was knee-deep in trouble."
"Weren't you one of them?" Trace slanted
Digger a dryly amused glance and finished
the ice cream cone. With a handkerchief from
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

his pocket, he wiped the stickiness from his
hands, momentarily draping his jacket over
his arm, then swinging it over his shoulder
again when he was done.
"Yeah," Digger admitted a little sheepishly.
Trace changed the subject. He'd
already
faced down all the doubts from others. Considering
the heller he'd been, it wasn't surprising
that no one believed he'd actually stay
with it. There had been a couple of times
when he'd wondered if it was worth the resistance
he met on all fronts, including the men
he'd worked with on the tugs.
"What's this all about?" He gestured to the
bandstand, where Pilar was making some
kind of acceptance speech. "Do you know?"
"It's some kind of civic award, recognizing
all the things she's done for the betterment of
the community or some such thing like that."
Digger shrugged away the inexactness of his
answer. "The idea of making it a public
presentation
was just a way of getting people to
come to the concert."
At the conclusion of her short speech Trace
joined in with the desultory applause, his
jacket swinging from his mildly clapping
hands. As she was escorted down the steps he
hesitated, then glanced at Digger.
"Guess I might as well say
hello to her so
the gossips don't start talking about me being
rude and ignoring my father's widow." It
sounded like a good excuse.
"Yeah." A dry smile lifted the corners of the
man's mouth as he seemed to gather up energy.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"I'm supposed to be checkin' out a complaint
about kids smokin' pot up here. Some
poor old lady swears she could smell it.
See ya
later."
The band instructor lifted his baton and
looked to see that all his young musicians
were in readiness. The bronze plaque felt
heavy in Pilar's arms, its wood sticking to her
bare skin. She was hot and tired of sling for
everyone's benefit, but she was obliged to stay
through a few more songs before it would be
proper to leave.
At least she was out of that hot sun, and
there was a breeze. She longed to take her
shoes off and feel the cool grass under the
bottoms of her feet. She feigned
an attentiveness
to the band's rendition of a popular song.
A hand lightly touched her arm, drawing
her sharp glance to the auburn-haired woman
standing with her. "Look who's here," Sandra
Kay murmured, her eyes alive with interest as
their glance went past Pilar. "I didn't know
he
was in town again, did you?"
When she saw Trace Santee strolling across
the grass toward their small party, heat-raw
nerves prickled. "Hardly." Her attention
reverted
to the bandstand in a struggling attempt
at indifference.
"In a way it's a shame you and Trace never
became close. After all, he is Elliot's
son,"
Sandra Kay mused with absent regret, then
shrugged faintly. "Of course, I don't think
Trace has ever felt any strong family
ties. He's
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
always been something of a lone wolf." She
lowered her voice even further, an
indication
to Pilar of Trace's imminent appearance. "I
wish some psychiatrist would explain why
women find rogues like Trace so
attractive--
even happily married women like myself.
They always seem a little wicked, and a little
dangerous. And I guess there's the feeling
that if you had a wild little fling, he'd never
tell."
It was just innocent female talk, but Pilar
was agitated by it. She didn't care for the
subject or Trace Santee. It had always
been
impossible to think of him as Elliot's son,
especially since he was six years older than
she was.
"Why, good evening, Trace." Sandra Kay
greeted him, pretending that she hadn't seen
him coming. "I never knew you attended
something as tame as a band concert."
"On a lazy summer evening like this, who
has the energy for anything more?" he countered
with a sleepy look that was faintly sexy.
When it wandered to Pilar, a thready tension
caught her system in its web. "Evening,
Pilar."
"Evening, Trace," she returned the greeting,
a taut breathiness in her voice. All her
senses were alert in a wary reaction to his
presence while she maintained an attitude of
aloofness.
The breeze had ruffled the virile thickness
of his dark hair, and there was a bronze sheen
to the chiseled angles and planes of his face.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
His stance was relaxed, loose and at ease. The
jacket of his summer-gray suit was slung over
one shoulder, and the material of his shirt was
sticking to his skin, outlining the flatly muscled
chest and the width of his shoulders. The
mat of chest hairs visible where his shirt was
unbuttoned seemed to add to the reek of
earthy masculinity. Pilar stiffened at its pre
potency.
"I see you've thrown off your mourning
rags." The idle roam of his gaze made her
conscious of the way the breeze flattened the
silk fabric of her dress against her
figure.
"New dress. New hairstyle. Very nice."
The
nod of approval seemed to dryly mock the
changes.
"Thank you." There was a curling of her
fingers into the palm of her hand, nails digging
in to distract her Sensitive nerves.
His glance drifted to the plaque she was
holding. "I wasn't close enough to hear your
speech after you were given the award.
What's it for?"
He shifted to her side, angling his body to
read the words engraved on the bronze shield
as she tipped it away from her body.
There was no contact, but a rawness ran
down her entire right side at the closeness. It
was as if she could actually feel the heat of his
body radiating onto her flesh, and the musky,
warm smell of him was all around her. The
agitated beat of her pulse only added to the
brittle tension that wouldn't let her go.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

"It's just a community service award."
Pilar deliberately sounded off-hand about it,
putting no special importance on the standardly
worded plaque on which her name had
been engraved.
""In recognition of meritorious service--
""
His voice trailed away after the beginning
phrase as he skimmed the rest of the high
sounding words. Her sidelong glance checked
to see if he had finished and met the taunting
brilliance in his half-lidded eyes. "That
should warm the cockles of your heart on a
cold night."
"I have no doubt that something like this
would mean nothing to you," she challenged,
all smooth and poised on the outside, except
for the glitter of anger in her eyes.
"I'm not likely to find out, since it's doubtful
I'll ever be given one." Dryness riddled his
voice, but there wasn't a hint of regret or
remorse over the fact as Trace changed his
position, creating more distance between
them.
"That would be a day to mark on the calendar."
A suppressed laugh bubbled from Sandra
Kay. Belatedly she and Pilar applauded the
conclusion of a song by the band.
"How long are you going to be in Natchez
this time?" Sandra Kay asked when they
started playing again. "It seems like you're
never here for more than a few days at a
time."

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Everything seems to be running smoothly.
So unless something comes up, I should be
here for a while," he replied.
The confidence in his voice irritated Pilar.
She didn't resist the urge to prick it. "The
business may be running smoothly, but it still
hasn't paid any dividends since you've taken
over."
"No," Trace agreed, unaffected by her
veiled barb. "But it's been operating
inefficiently
for some time. All the changes
couldn't be accomplished overnight. But it's
kept me busy and out of trouble." He gave her
a considering look. "You've been busy, too.
Everytime I pick up a local paper,
I read Mrs.
Santee this or Mrs. Santee attended that.
No
wonder they awarded you that plaque."
"I couldn't possibly keep up with her,"
Sandra
Kay declared. "She's constantly going
somewhere or doing something. It exhausts
me just to look at her schedule. I don't see
how she spends any time at Dragon Walk."
"Between the foundation and the antique
business, I manage to keep busy, but it's
hardly as grueling as you make it sound,
Sandra Kay," Pilar insisted, but she did try
to
keep herself occupied as much as possible to
avoid the loneliness of having nothing to do
and no one to share idle time with.
"It sounds like "all work and no play,""
Trace observed and appeared to study her
closely, looking for signs of strain and overwork.
""Idle hands are the devil's playground,""
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

Pilar countered with another quotation and
noticed his glance slide to her fingers.
"Lucky devil," he murmured in a very low
voice, but the brief quirk of his mouth appeared
harsh.
She chose to ignore the comment. "Regardless
of Sandra Kay's opinion, I do have time to
play. I just came back from spending two
weeks with my parents in Virginia."
"It wasn't a vacation," Sandra Kay inserted
in an aside to Trace. "She went antique
buying." The
whole subject became distasteful to
Pilar. "I don't think Trace is really
interested
in what I do with my time," she insisted to
end this discussion and swung a cool glance
at him. "There are a few boxes of things at
Dragon Walk--family belongings like old
photo albums, some of Elliot's personal
items,
and a few things that evidently belonged to
your mother. When you have time, you can
come by and pick them up."
"How about tonight?" he suggested. "It's
Sunday, and I have nothing to do."
She was briefly thrown by his proposal, not
expecting him to make it so soon. The boxes
had been sitting in a corner of the old butler
pantry for more than six months. She had
postponed contacting him, knowing that
sooner or later they were likely to see each
other when he was in town, so there wasn't
any need to make a special point of calling
him.
"If that isn't convenient"--there was a faint
104 THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
edge to his voice as his narrowed glance
observed her reluctance--"I can come by another
time. If you aren't home, I'm sure Cassie
could show me where the boxes are."
"No," she heard herself say. "Tonight is
fine. I wasn't planning to stay for the entire
concert."
A flicker of surprise showed in his expression.
"In that case, I'll stop out between eight
thirty and nine."
"All right." She nodded stiffly in agreement.
"Do you see what I mean?" Sandra Kay
spoke up. "She isn't satisfied doing just one
thing tonight. Now she's arranged for you to
come over and cart off a bunch of boxes."
The comment lifted the corners of his
mouth slightly, but the movement carried
only an acknowledgment of the words. "I'll
see you later, then," he said, looking at
Pilar.
There was a small inclination of her head.
Her gaze watched him move away, leisurely
strides carrying him out of the park. The
rawness within her didn't go away.
When she pulled into the tree-lined driveway
of Dragon Walk, a car turned in behind
her. A glance in the rear-view mirror
identified
Trace as the driver. Her fingers flexed
their grip on the steering wheel as she blanked out
her thoughts and followed the
lane that branched to the separate garage at
the rear of the plantation house.
As Pilar walked out of the garage after
putting the car away for the night, Trace was
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

climbing out of his sedan. Nothing was said.
pilar was awkward with the silence, but she
couldn't seem to break it. He was only a
couple of steps behind her when she entered
the house by the rear door.
"Cassie." Pilar was startled into speaking
her name when she saw the black woman
sitting at the kitchen table and looking very
smart in a matching slack and summer-top
set. "I thought you said you were going out
this evening."
"I was and I am," she stated. "Eddie called
twenty minutes ago to say he had a flat
tire so
he'd be late. He should be coming any time."
A smile broke across her impatient
expression
when she saw Trace walk in behind Pilar.
"When did you get back in town?"
"Late this afternoon. You've got a date tonight,
have you?" he concluded with a twinkling look. "Eddie
Tabor?"
"Yes, and no remarks from you are necessary,"
Cassie warned him, but the wideness
of her smile took any strength from the
response.
"I asked Trace to come by and pick up
those
boxes that are in the pantry." Pilar justified
his presence and crossed to the serving alcove
between the kitchen and the dining room to
show him where they were.
"All of them?" he inquired, coming up behind
her and glancing at the half-dozen boxes
piled on top of each other in two stacks.
"Yes." She didn't pause in the small
room
for long, not liking the close quarters. "I've
THE BEST WAY to LOSE
already been through them, so whatever you
don't want to keep yourself, you can give away
or dispose of however you want." She returned
to the kitchen and walked straight to
the refrigerator.
For an instant he let his gaze follow her,
then swung his attention back to the boxes
and walked over to size them up. From the
kitchen came the rattle of ice cubes being
dumped into a container. Trace hefted the top
box and turned around to carry it outside to his
car.
"Will you open the back door for me,
Cassie?" When his request met with no
response,
he glanced at the black woman, who
was looking worriedly after a departing Pilar.
"Cassie?" The prompting of his voice
attracted
a blank stare.
"Did you want something? Oh, the door,"
she realized and moved to open it for him.
"Is something wrong?" Trace noticed the
way her attention immediately returned to the
inner door through which Pilar had disappeared.
"It's none of my business," Cassie insisted
and the line of her mouth was pulled straight.
"She's told me that often enough."
With the box in his arms, Trace had to wait
until he had stowed it in the trunk of his car
and returned to the kitchen before he could
ask, "What is none of your business?"
Cassie
wouldn't have said that much if she didn't
intend for him to know the rest of it.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 107
"The way she's been drinking lately." She
came straight to the point. "It started out
so
innocently ..., just a small drink before she
went to bed to help her relax so she could
sleep. Then it was a bigger one. Then it became
two--sometimes three or more. Now
she's at it again--loading up the ice bucket
with cubes and carrying it off with her."
"Everybody has their own way of dealing
with things." He made a deliberate attempt
to
sound indifferent, but there was a hardness in
his features that hadn't been present before.
"I know what she's going through." Cassie
sighed. "I went through it myself. It's something
you fight at first "cause you don't want to
accept it. The loneliness eventually you can
handle, but it's the hunger for a man that's
tearing her up. Don't you look at me like that,
Trace Santee," she reproved him sharply
when he reared his head in open skepticism.
"A woman has physical needs the same as a
man. It doesn't make her bad to ache for the
touch of a man's arms around her or the
warmth of his body lying beside her in bed.
That's a natural urge."
"I agree." Trace didn't argue with her
point.
"But, somehow, Pilar doesn't strike me as
being quite as desperate as you're making her
sound."
"Only because she's not ready to accept it,"
Cassie replied. "She drinks to pretend it's
Elliot she's missing. She doesn't want
to
admit why she's hurting, because then she'd

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
have to deal with the frustration of wanting,
and having no one to satisfy that desire. She's
going to have to face it sometime, just like
everyone else who's lost their mate."
A car horn honked in the front driveway,
signaling the arrival of Cassie's date and
ending the conversation. Trace picked up a
second box and carried it out the back door
while he thought over the things Cassie had
told him and tried to fit them with the image
of self-sufficiency that Pilar projected.
Upstairs in her bedroom Pilar kicked offher
low-heeled shoes and stripped out of her
dress. It was too hot and sticky to put a lot
of
clothes back on, so she took a sleeveless
wraparound
dress of strawberry-pink cotton from
the large wardrobe closet and slipped it on,
tying the sash into a bow at the side of her
waist. She pushed the weight of her hair away
from her face and secured it with a pair of
combs. She heard the honking of a horn out
front, followed by the shutting of the front
door a few minutes later.
Before leaving the bedroom to go back
downstairs, Pilar picked up the drink she'd
set
on the vanity and carried it with her. At the
bottom of the stairs she hesitated, then
walked to the kitchen. Trace was just heading
out the back door with two of the lighter boxes
in his arms.
"Are you managing all right?" she asked,
conscious of the brief way his glance noted
her change of attire.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
109
"Yes." He pushed opon the screen door with
a corner of the boxes.
"Then I'll leave you to it," Pilar replied with
a tense effort at indifference. "I'll be on the
side porch if you should need help with anything."
On her way through the house she stopped
in the den to collect the correspondence that
needed answering as well as some auction
circulars. There was still plenty of light on the
west side of the house. Pilar spread her papers
out on the glass top of a low wicker table that
matched the rest of the white wicker furniture
grouped around the porch in inviting clusters.
A breeze, cooled by the shade of the big oaks
in the gardened front lawn, drifted onto the
porch. Hanging baskets of pink and lavender
fuchsia repeated the pastel colors of the
patterned
fabric covering the furniture cushions.
Before Pilar took a seat on the narrow sofa,
she went to the tall wicker stand where the ice
bucket and bourbon decanter were placed.
She added more cubes and a splash of bourbon
to her watery drink.
Sitting down, she picked up the auction
circulars first and began to check their dates
with her appointment calendar. She leaned
forward and absently rubbed the cool, moist
glass against her cheek. She tried not to listen
to the sounds of the back door slamming as
Trace made his trips to the car with the boxes.
When the last one was sitting in the rear
seat of his car, Trace pulled a handkerchief

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
from his hip pocket and wiped at the perspiration
trickling down his neck. On a sultry
evening like this, it didn't take much effort to
work up a sweat. He rubbed the kerchief over
the top of his lip and glanced absently toward
the porch. With a slow gathering of his muscles,
Trace turned and walked in that direction.
At the side steps leading up to the porch, he
paused. His glance was pulled to the figure of
Pilar, seated on the white-backed cushions
with sprays of pink flowers. She was leaning
forward, studying some papers on a wicker
table. Her legs were crossed, the skirt of her
dress splitting to provide him with a view of a
creamy thigh. There was a stirring
pressure
in his loins. With a tightened jaw, Trace
climbed the steps to the porch. Her glance
skipped to him, then back to the papers
where it stayed as she took a swallow from the
glass she was holding.
"Didn't anybody ever tell you you shouldn't
drink alone?" Trace remarked dryly and
walked to the stand to help himself to the
bourbon and ice.
"At the end of a day I find a drink
pleasantly
relaxing," she returned smoothly, barely
looking up when he wandered over to the
wicker chair with the tall, fan-shaped back.
"Just one drink?" He glanced pointedly at
the quantity of liquor in her squat glass,
which couldn't all be attributed to melting ice
cubes.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Sometimes a large one," Pilar admitted
with a challenging tilt of her head. After that
earlier rawness in his presence, she felt
pleasantly
loose and able to deal with him. It
showed in the artificially bold glint in her
dark eyes.
Her shoulders were hunched to allow her
forearms to rest on her crossed legs. The
action allowed the crossing front of her wraparound
dress to gape slightly. Trace's angle
from the chair permitted him to view the
exposed slope of a breast. There was a hardness
in the steel-gray of his eyes as he tried
not to look, but his gaze kept slipping to it.
Pilar appeared totally oblivious to the
exposure-and to him.
"Were you able to load all the boxes in your
car?" she asked while she ran a pencil down a
list of items on a paper.
"Yes, I did."
Outside of a nod, she didn't appear interested
in his answer as she flipped pages in an
appointment calendar, then thoughtfully
rubbed the soft eraser end of the pencil along
her lower lip. Its slow movement was an
unwanted diversion that had his mouth
pressed tightly shut.
Everything about her--from the way she sat
to the way she was dressed to her gestures
---
seemed to be deliberately provocative,
designed
to arouse and stimulate. Yet she
showed about as much interest in him as she
did a piece of furniture. They were conflicting

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
signals, her body flashing him one set, and
her attitude slapping him away.
If he thought for one minute that she knew
what she was doing to him, he'd ... Trace cut
off the thought because there was no answer
to it. He had to move out of that chair while he
still had a grip on himself.
Rising, Trace took a quick swig of his drink
and walked to the tall wicker table to replenish
it. Silently he blamed Cassie and her talk
for all his wild imaginings. For purely selfish
reasons he wanted to believe that Pilar was
attempting to be alluring for him.
When he finally turned back to face her, she
had shifted her hands to the seat cushion and
stiffened her arms in a bracing posture that
emphasized the jutting roundness of her
breasts. Yet she continued to look at the papers
on the table with thoughtful concentration.
"What's so interesting?" A hint of gruffness
put an edge on his question.
"What?" Her dark glance hardly touched

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
him, but she did shift out of that pose to a less
disturbing one. "I'm trying to decide how I
could rearrange my schedule so I could attend
this auction. They have a silver service by
Reed and Barton listed that I'd like to see, as
well as some Meissen porcelain."
"Where is it?" Trace wandered over to look
at the flyer.
"Just outside of Vicksburg." She scratched
out the appointment listed on the day of the
sale, changed it to another date, and wrote in
the auction. Something was marked on nearly
every day, and Trace noticed, when she had
turned pages, that many of them were auctions.
"You go to a lot of them, don't you?" He
swirled the liquid in his glass to hasten the
cooling by the ice cubes.
"Yes. They're fun, especially those
rare
times when you find some treasure that the
people didn't even know they had. And there's
always that competitive edge when you're
bidding against another dealer on some piece
you'd kill for," Pilar declared with a faint
laugh that derided the seriousness of her
statement. Her head was tilted back to look up
at him, her features all womanly soft and
impishly gay.
"All you'd have to do is bat those long, black
lashes at him and he'd forget all about the
item on the auction block," Trace informed
her in a thickening voice and took a fiery
swallow of his drink to burn out the fire that
had suddenly blazed.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 11
"The problem is when it's another woman,"
she retorted and took a sip of her drink. "It
needs freshening," she murmured and glided
to her feet in a graceful motion.
Her path to the table brought her close to
him, close enough for the fragrance of her
hair to stir up his senses. But as she passed he
noticed that she was weaving slightly.
"Maybe it's time I was leaving," he muttered,
too aware that there was no one else
around.
"You haven't finished your drink." She gave
him a short look of surprise. "After loading
all
those boxes in the car, you might as well take
a few minutes to cool off." She turned her
back to him again, and he heard the clink of
ice being dropped into a glass.
Needing a diversion, he picked up her
appointment
calendar and flipped through a few
pages. "You're going to be in New Orleans the
middle of July?"
"Yes." She turned to see the appointment
book in his hand but made no sign that she
objected. "I try to go there a couple of times a
year just to browse through some of the smaller
antique shops in the suburbs. Sometimes
it's an easy way to find a bargain or
to locate
the fourth chair to some table set of a client."
"That's about the time a new towboat is
supposed to be coming out of the shipyards.
Maybe if the dates coincide, you can come to
her launching."
"Maybe." She didn't dismiss the suggestion,
but she didn't appear interested in it either.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
Masking his frustration, Trace studied the
datebook again. "I don't see many social
engagements
listed."
"Couples are usually invited to parties," she
informed him smoothly and crossed the wooden
deck to remove the leather-bound appointment
book from his hand. "Single women
tend to be the bane of most social gatherings.
Half the wives are afraid that I am so
sexually
deprived that I'll seduce their husbands if
I'm
alone with them for more than five minutes.
And half the husbands are hoping that I will."
There was a bitter ring of ironic amusement
in her voice.
"You could always arrange to have a male
escort," Trace countered. "I
don't believe that
you haven't had volunteers."
"In case you haven't noticed, there isn't
exactly a surfeit of single males over the
age
of thirty in this area. When you find one, I
can almost guarantee there'll be something
wrong with him. If he isn't grotesquely
overweight, stupid, or a drunkard, then he's
probably an ex-wife beater. Besides, I'm not
that desperate for a man," she declared
coolly.
"Aren't you?"
Pilar didn't like the way he looked at her
when he said that. There was something dry
and measuring about it that set off little
twinges of unease. He reached out and lightly
rubbed the back of his knuckles down the
bareness of her arm. The unexpected caress
of his hand stunned her, and she pulled away
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

from it. The sudden action made her a little
dizzy.
"No, I'm not," she retorted.
"You want to be looked at, but you don't
want to be touched ..., by anyone. Is that it?"
he murmured.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Her pulse fluctuated wildly as she avoided
his
eyes, stiff and resistant to their probe.
"I'm not sure that I do, either." There was
the clunk of a glass being set down. Then a
hand, cool from the iced glass, was gripping
her arm, its pressure firm but not forceful.
Pilar let herself be turned to face him
squarely.
Defiance ran hotly through her blood.
"Maybe you can explain some things to me."
"If you don't know what you're talking
about, it isn't likely I will," she countered
with frosty indifference, but she felt unsteady.
"What am I doing here tonight?" he challenged.
"What a ridiculous question!" Pilar declared with
incredulous amusement. "You
came to collect things that belonged to your
family." She swung away from him and started
to take a sip of the bourbon, but Trace took
the glass from her hand before it touched her
mouth.
"You've had enough to drink," he stated and
ignored the indignant breath she drew in
protest of his high-handed action. This time
he held both her arms so she couldn't turn
away. "Now, tell me--comwhy tonight?"

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"It was your idea," she reminded him curtly.
"I didn't suggest it."
"But you agreed to it," Trace countered,
watching her closely. "And you agreed to it
believing that Cassie wasn't home--that she
would be out for the evening."
"So? That has no bearing on it. I'm not
afraid to be alone with you," she insisted and
raked him with a look designed to put him in
his place.
"And I can't believe you're usually this
careless about the way you dress. A couple of
times I had the impression I was watching the
beginning act of some strip tease show with
all the leg and breast you kept showing me."
"What?" She pulled back in shock, her
hands pushing at his chest while heat
fanned
her cheeks. "I didn't wear this dress for your
prurient pleasure. It's cool and comfortable."
"I'm sure it is, especially when all you're
wearing under it is a pair of panties. Or are
you going to tell me that I wasn't supposed to
notice that either?" His hands shifted, gripping
her waist while her straining arms maintained a
wedge between them.
"You're disgusting." She was so angry she
couldn't think.
"It makes it easier, doesn't it?" The gleam
in his gray eyes hardened. "Easier than looking
at the facts. You told me to come, knowing
you'd be here alone. The first thing you did
was to slip into 'something more comfortable.""
He put suggestive emphasis on the
phrase. "Then you had a few drinks before I
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

joined you so you could pretend you didn't
know what you were doing."
"That's a lie. You're just twisting things,"
Pilar accused angrily but her head was swimming.
"Maybe I am. And maybe this is
all a calculated
move on your part," he challenged
harshly. "I would have left ten minutes ago
but you wanted me to stay. You were the one
who introduced the subject of sex and made
all the comments about sexual deprivation--
not me. You were choreographing a dance,
but I threw you out of step, didn't I, when I
didn't wait for you to provoke me into making
a pass."
It all sounded so damning that she was hot
all over. It was impossible to look at him.
She
felt weak and sick. When his hands slid onto
her spine, she didn't resist the molding
pressure
that brought her into contact with the
lower half of his body.
"How can you say that?" she protested.
"Because it's true." His voice turned husky.
When she looked up, there was a smoldering
darkness in his eyes. The porch seemed to
spin crazily for a minute, and Pilar wondered
how much she had drunk.
"You probably didn't consciously
plan all of
it. Instinct did a lot of it," he said. "The
instinct that wanted to feel a man's arms
around you again--the need to have physical
contact with another human being. And you
picked me because you knew I had succumbed
to the temptation of you once before."

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"No!" Pilar was insistent. "It's all a
mistake."
"Is it? Then why aren't you fighting me?" he
demanded.
And she realized how passive she was in
his arms, offering him no more than token resistance.
She suddenly began to wonder if
everything he'd said was true. Had she
subconsciously
wanted this? Her stunned and
widened gaze searched the hard, male features
that were only inches from her own. She
stared at his mouth.
There was a tentative movement toward it,
as if she had to discover whether she wanted
to feel the sensation of it on her lips.
A hand
moved up her spine, applying pressure to
bring her closer.
When her dazed senses alerted her to the
downward descent of his mouth, Pilar stiffened.
By then it seemed to be too late. There
was an instant of strangeness and uncertainty,
an absence of familiarity in the pervasive
kiss. But its heat was addictive and Pilar let
it
consume her, reeling under the waves of
warm sensation. She was so empty inside, so
raw with wanting that nothing else seemed to
matter--not who was holding her, or why.
Her lips were ravished, eaten whole, while
her body was warmed and made to live again
by the heated male flesh of his long, muscled
form. The crush of his hands alternately explored
and caressed the shape of her shoulders
and the sensitive curve of her spine,
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

pressing and arching until there was contact
from head to toe.
The more she strained against him, the
more she seemed to receive. Her fingers
spread across the bunching muscles along the
back of his shoulders, living steel that moved
under her touch. The sawing, driving pressure
of his mouth separated her lips and
swallowed the faint moan that came from her
throat. She was plunged into an abyss of
mindless lust, all swirling heat and raging
fire.
Nothing existed but the heady taste of him
filling her mouth and the musky, stimulating
male odor clinging to his skin. She was drunk
with sensation and longing for more. She
couldn't seem to absorb enough of him into
her to ease all the places that ached.
His fingers snarled into her hair as he moistly
dragged his kiss across cheek and jaw to an
ear. Pilar shuddered uncontrollably at the
rush of his warm breath into the sensitive
area that set off a whole chain of excited
vibrations. She could hardly breathe herself;
it was so heavy and labored, disturbed to the
point that the blood was pounding through her
veins.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?"
The
male voice was husky and rough, demanding
an admission while that burning mouth continued
to wreak havoc over her skin.
It was trying to drag her back into reality.
Pilar didn't want that. There was a faint

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
movement of her head in protest, and an
absently impatient frown touched her brow.
"Don't talk," she whispered with aching insistence.
"Don't say anything."
Her fingers made a tactile journey to the
lean angle of his jaw and tried to lift it and
turn it so her lips could find their male counterpart
and occupy them with more intimate
communication. But she met with resistance,
then withdrawal as his head was pulled back.
Her eyelids were heavy, but she dragged them
open, unable to look higher than the tantalizing
outline of his mouth.
"Look at me." It was an insistent order,
pitched low with a graveled edge.
A hand was on her face, managing to touch
and stroke with a kind of unwillingness while
it lifted her chin to elevate her gaze. There
was so much blackness in his eyes that the
gray color was a mere silver ring. Behind the
hardness of their study, desire smoldered
hotly.
"Isn't this what you wanted when you told
me to come here tonight?" he demanded
again. "Admit it, Pilar. You wanted this to
happen."
"No." She had to reject that any of this was
premeditated. It was too damning to do otherwise.
A host of perceptions hit her at once from
the abandoned way she was straining into the
hard contact with his hips, to the way she was
arching to flatten her breasts against the
The BEST WAY To LOSE

muscled solidness of his chest. The embrace was
all so intimate, a prelude to mating. And that
face, ruggedly lean and hollowed, staring
down into hers knew exactly what it signified.
"No!" Her second denial rushed on the
heels of the first, more strident.
With a little push she was out of his arms,
but they had made no attempt to hold
her.
Pilar didn't stop as she ran to the glassed
doors that led into the parlor, briefly feeling
the rush of a cool wind over her hot skin. Then
she was inside and shutting the doors to back
away from them a few steps before turning
into the room. But she wasn't able to shut the
inner doors on all the rawness and fierce ache
coming from her body.
There was the metal click of a door latch,
and Pilar whirled toward the sound. When
Trace stepped into the room, a dark shape
against the waning outside light, her heart
catapulted into her throat. No attempt was
made to cross the room as he faced her, his
tall body tapering leanly from wide shoulders
to narrow hips.
"I was supposed to follow you in here,
wasn't I?" There was a harsh ring to his low
voice.
Her lips parted on a quickly indrawn
breath, but she couldn't find the words to deny
his charge. There was a terrible ringing in her
head that hammered her with the truth. Sexual
desire and passion were feelings she had
forced into dormancy, refusing to air them or

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
acknowledge them. Only the dead couldn't
feel the deire for bodily contact, and she
wasn't dead. She'd simply bottled her
needs
inside until they reached the flashpoint tonight
when she'd been presented with an
opportunity to satisfy them. On some animal
level of her subconscious, she had maneuvered
Trace, herself, everything.
"Yes." The admission came out with a broken
little cry as Pilar averted her face, still
inwardly reeling from the discovery about
herself.
"You knew you could count on me to come
through, didn't you?" His tone remained
harshly cynical and slowly came closer.
"After all, I'm completely unscrupulous--
without any morals. If you tried this with
anyone else, there was always the risk they
might be slow on the uptake and not recognize
the subtle signals you were flashing. It
could have forced you to be blatant. This way
you can always allow yourself the excuse that you'd been
drinking more than you realized
and Trace Santee, the corrupt bastard that he
is, took advantage of you in a vulnerable
moment."
"Stop it." Pilar clenched her hands into fists
and pressed them to her ears, trying to block
out the burrowing words that stripped her
bare.
His circling fingers caught her wrists and
pulled them down. Her arms remained rigidly
bent, straining in mute protest of his action.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
Haunted by the way she had tried to use him
so she wouldn't have to feel any guilt or
remorse, her dark eyes tentatively lifted
their
glance to his face.
There was a relentless quality to the chiseled
bones in it, a lack of expression that
seemed to make her heart beat faster. His
hooded eyes never wavered from their inspection
of her. In the shadows of the house interior,
his hair seemed almost devil-black.
"You wanted to be made love to and you
picked me. Didn't you?" Again he sought her
confirmation.
"Yes." Almost impatiently she pushed it out
with a hissing breath.
His fingers loosened their hold on her
wrists, and there seemed no place for her
hands to go except onto the front of his shirt.
His own hands glided to the sides of her back,
the warmth of them flowing across her ribs.
The vein in her throat began to throb heavily.
"Pilar." The low, raw urging expressed a
reluctant want that she understood.
It broke through her restraint. "Yes." Her
hands went around his corded neck and
pressed at the back of his head to bring his
mouth down onto hers.
His arms gathered her inside their circle
while his lips rolled onto hers in a fevered
rush of moisture and heat. Pilar dug her fingers
into the springing thickness of his hair to
increase the crushing pressure of his driving
kiss. She couldn't breathe, but it didn't

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
matter. Her body strained to mold itself
to the
hard male contours, her flesh absorbing their
exciting imprint.
There was a wild and hungry mating of lips
and tongues, a restlessness in the press of
bodies that couldn't get close enough. It was
the intimacy of a man and a woman that Pilar
needed. There was a feminine fierceness
about the way she responded to him, her lips
traveling over a smoothly shaven cheek and
jaw and tasting the salty perspiration that
beaded on his upper lip.
Her breath came in quick, hot rushes as she
nibbled at the corded muscle standing out so
tautly in his neck. Her fingers tugged at the
buttons of his shirt. A little thrill shot through
when she heard the half-muffled groan that
shuddered him as her fingers crept inside his
shirt and onto his bare flesh. Her hands sensually
explored his chest and the virile mat of
curly hair scattered across sinewed breastbones.
Something pulled at the waistline of her
wraparound dress and its tightness suddenly
loosened when the bow securing it was
untied. The front of the strawberry-pink
dress was pushed open, and Pilar breathed
in sharply at the stabbing pleasure that quivered
through her when the rough texture
of a man's hand glided onto her naked
skin. The devastation wrought on her
senses by his cupping hands was virtually
total.
Her lungs welled with air and expanded her
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
rib cage to push her breasts more fully into
his stimulating hands while his thumbs
rubbed and teased her nipples into hard, erect
hubs. She felt tensely weak, all heady and
taut
with wanting more, but lacking the strength
to do more than savor the raw sensations.
His mouth came back to devour her lips in a
kiss that seemed to rock her all the way to her
toes.
Impatient hands pushed the sleeveless
dress off her shoulders and Pilar lowered her
arms to let it slide to the floor, glad to be
rid of
the hampering garment. His shirt was already
pulled loose from the waistband of his
pants. When she came against him again, she
knew the searing intoxication of flesh touching
flesh.
There was a movement, a turning, a step
when he took all of her weight. Then she was
being lowered, and there were cushions beneath
her and the force of his body bearing
down. His mouth was all over her, nibbling at
her neck and nipping at her shoulders until
her skin danced with raw quivers, then shifting
to nuzzle at her breasts and erotically
suckle at them until the ache in the pit of her
stomach seemed unbearable.
But his hands seemed to know that, caressing
and massaging with wicked deftness.
Pilar writhed and twisted, half crazy with the
sweet torment of his touch. Her fingernails dug
into the muscled flesh of his back, urgent
in their attempt to force the hard weight of
him onto her.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
There was a moment of withdrawal when
he pulled away from her. A tortured sound of
protest came from her throat at the
cessation
of all contact with him.
It took a second for her passion-thick senses
to locate him. He was standing alongside the
sofa where she lay, his hands at the buttoned
closing of his trousers while he stared down at
her. There was something in his eyes that she
didn't understand, almost indecision.
Her hungry glance skimmed the dark hairs
on his bronze chest, traveling down his flatly
muscled stomach. "Trace," she urged him in
a voice that throbbed on an aching note.
A muscle leaped convulsively along his jaw,
and he swung away from the sofa, one step.
striding into another. Stunned, Pilar turned
onto her side and watched as he began to
shove his shirttail inside his pants.
"Trace." This time it was confusion and bewildered
questioning that dominated her
thready voice.
Her dress was scooped off the floor and
tossed sideways to her, landing softly on her
shoulder and sliding down before Pilar could
react and catch it. Unconsciously she
clutched it in front of her, compelled
by some
unbidden instinct to cover her nakedness
even though Trace wasn't looking at her. His
dark head was bent as he buttoned his shirt
with jerky impatience, his body angled away
from her.
"You aren't leaving now?" The shameless
protest was wrenched from her by all the
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strident needs he'd aroused, then failed to
satisfy.
His head half-turned in her direction, giving
her a glimpse of his profile and all the
tautly checked emotions that gave it a hard
look. "I guess you'll just have to face the fact
that I can't be the animal you'd like me to be."
The tersely worded statement was pushed
through clenched teeth.
"No." She choked on the muffled cry as
Trace headed for the porch doors, his stride
lengthening.
Only seconds later, it seemed, his car roared
out of the driveway. Pilar sat huddled on the
sofa with the cotton dress clutched to her,
twice as empty and hurting twice as much.
Sickened and ashamed, she was caught halfway
between frustration and pain as hot tears
rolled down her lashes.
The knot of his tie was loosened and the top
button of his shirt was unfastened. Trace conformed
to the practice of wearing a business
suit and tie to the office in the morning, but
the jacket usually came offwhen he walked in
the door. After lunch the tie was loosened. If it
was late in the day, the tie was off and the
cuffs of his shirt were turned back.
A small staffmeeting was in progress, but it
wasn't going well. Trace was at the core of the
crackling in the air, his ill temper managing
to make all three department heads uncomfortable
in his presence, never sure which of
them would bear the brunt of it next. In other

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
years that bad mood would have been unleashed
in some physical form, but trapped in
an office, it had no outlet.
"What the hell do you mean, Connors, that
you couldn't finish your report because you
didn't get all the numbers back from our
accounting firm?" Trace pushed out of his
chair, despising this endless paperwork yet
aware that it was a necessary evil. "Weren't
they supposed to have that information for
you last week?"
"Yes, but Tom ... Mr. Lowe ... got
sick
and--" The man attempted an explanation.
"I don't give a damn who got sick!"
Trace
flared. "That firm is being paid to do a job for
us. It isn't our problem how they accomplish
it! And if they are so understaffed they can't
do it, maybe it's time we changed accountants."
"I don't think that's necessary." A flustered
Connors protested the rashness of that statement.
"You don't," Trace challenged grimly and
walked to the water pitcher on the credenza to
fill a glass with ice water. "I didn't have
to
make the trip up from New Orleans. There
were some loose ends I could have cleared up
if I had stayed a couple more days instead of
arranging to return here to Natchez last
night
--so we could hold this meeting. And it's only
half a meeting because you don't have your
report ready."
The thing that kept tearing at him was the
knowledge that if he'd stayed in New Orleans
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that extra day, he would have spared himself
last night's agony. It damn near ripped him
apart. Trace bolted down a swallow of ice
water like he was downing a shot of whiskey.
The cold, bracing liquid seemed to have a
similar effect, its iciness shocking his throat.
"I know I'll have the report ready for you by
Wednesday, Trace," Connors offered
hesitantly.
"Wednesday."
Trace pivoted, still too irritated
and on edge to be mollified by that
promise.
A knock preceded the opening of the door to
his private office. The peremptory intrusion
was another irritant to an already growing
list. Trace threw a cold look at
the middle aged
woman opening his door.
"What the hell is it now, Maude? I told
you-was The sight of Pilar standing in the background
behind his secretary cut off the rest of
the complaint he was about to make.
"Mrs. Santee is here. I thought you'd want
to see her." There was an imperious lift of
Maude Hanks' dye-darkened head. She had
ruled the office for too many years to bow to
any higher authority. And in her book,
protocol
dictated that an owner of the company be
admitted at any time, regardless of the interruption
of normal schedules.
"If I'm interrupting a meeting, I can come
back later," Pilar suggested at Trace's
long
hesitation.
A pair of glasses, half shaded with a smoky
blue
color on the top of the lenses, obscured

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
the darkness of her eyes. He could see
them,
yet he couldn't read their expression. Her
shiny onyx hair was loosely swept back from
her face and coiled in a chic bun, not flowing
freely as it had been when she had lain on the
couch, all creamy white skin and silky black
hair, for the feasting of his hungry eyes. And
this dress was a gauzy thing in a deep shade of
turquoise blue that covered her from neck to
wrists, a dark underslip hiding the ripe and
full breasts that had been his to fondle and
kiss.
"No. Come in," he said abruptly and rudely
turned away from the door before other vivid
details came back to him. "We were just
finishing up." The nod of his head was curt
and dismissive to the three men. "You can
leave now."
"Thank you, Maude," Pilar murmured to
the woman who had been her husband's secretary
and passed by her into the office.
She nodded briefly to the men filing past her
to leave, all the while conscious of Trace as he
donned the mustard-colored blazer that had
been hooked over the corner of a chair and
adjusted the tie. Her legs felt weak, and she
still wasn't sure she had the courage to go
through with this.
He seemed so distant, hard and uncaring.
When he walked behind the desk, putting it
between them, she didn't think he could have
been further away from her.
"What is it you wanted to see me about?" He
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took a cigarette from the pack on his desk and
lit it, not looking at her as he asked the
question.
The door was shut behind her, the sound
briefly distracting her. When she glanced
back, Trace was still standing behind the
desk, the smoke from the cigarette throwing
up a screen.
"I came"--she took a step toward his desk
and unsnapped her clutch purse to remove a
small, narrow packet--"because I'm out selling
tickets for a charity dinner to raise money
for--" The falseness of her claim rang
blatantly
in her ears, and Pilar didn't finish the
lie.
"That's not why I'm here," she admitted and
stared at the charity tickets that were her
excuse.
"Oh?" It was an almost disinterested challenge.
"I came to thank you for not--" Somehow
she couldn't put it into words when she looked
at him. All the heat and embarrassment came
rushing back.
His mouth quirked at a mocking angle. "For
not allowing myself to be seduced by my
father's wife?" Trace suggested.
"Yes." Pilar bent her head, breathing
tightly.
"I wanted you to know that I'm grateful
you stopped when you did. It was very---"
"Noble?" Trace interrupted to suggest a
descriptive adjective.
"Yes, noble," she agreed, a little wary as she
eyed him again.
"It wasn't a damned bit noble," he declared,

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
making a scoffing sound in his throat. Trace
walked from behind the desk to sit sideways
on the edge of it. "It was purely selfish."
"Selfish," Pilar murmured, confused by his
answer.
"In the morning I knew you'd hate yourself
--but not nearly as much as you'd hate me,"
Trace explained calmly while he continued to
watch her. "Once I would have taken what
you offered and let the devil handle tomorrow."
"I'm glad you didn't." She breathed a little
easier. "Because you're right. I would have
hated myself this morning. And I doubt if I
could have faced you. As it is, I feel like a
fool."
"It's forgotten." He half turned away from
her to flick the ash from his cigarette into a
ceramic ashtray on his desktop. "We all
get
lonely at times and need to be loved. Sometimes
we aren't careful about whom we
choose. It's part of what makes the world go
around."
"I ... don't know what to say." She was
hesitant, wondering more than a little if he
wasn't making a personal observation about
himself.
"Tell me how much those tickets are for
that charity dinner," he suggested with a dry
gleam.
"You don't have to buy any." Pilar shook her
head, aware that he was merely turning the
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 13.
conversation away from an unpleasant subject.
"I might as well." He reached into the side
pocket of his suit pants and removed some
folded bills, peeling off two of the larger
bills.
"Since I seem to be turning respectable, I
might as well go all the way." When she
reluctantly started to separate several
tickets
from the packet, he shook his head. "Just give
me one ticket. You can consider the rest a
donation."
"You're being too generous, Trace." Her
voice was pitched low. Pilar almost preferred
that he'd say some of the cutting observations
he'd made the night before rather than act
like nothing very important had happened.
"It's mainly a social gathering."
"Are you going?" After they had exchanged
the ticket and the money, he slipped the numbered
ticket into the inside breast pocket of his
jacket.
"I'll put in an appearance. It's
expected."
That came with the position she'd carved for
herself in the community.
"It might be a good place for you to find
yourself a boyfriend," Trace stated and
straightened from the desk. The action hinted
that he had work to do if she was finished.
"Yes, it might." Somehow she wasn't looking
forward to all the uncertainty and awkwardness
that came with dating. She slipped
the money and the rest of her tickets inside

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
her purse and clicked It shut. "Goodbye,
Trace."
"Good-bye." He walked her to the door, giving
her the distinct feeling that it was merely a show of formal
courtesy. When she walked
out of the office, Pilar felt that somehow she'd
been let down.
The skirt of her violet-flowered
chiffon dress
floated softly against her legs as Pilar
descended
the staircase at Dragon Walk. The
metallic clapping of the ornate brass knocker
on the front door seemed to echo through the
big house. Pilar hurried across the cypress
floors in a running walk, her pale lavender
heels clicking swiftly across the waxed
boards.
There was a faint impatience in her expression
for the unknown caller. This afternoon
she had allowed herself to be persuaded to
take tickets at the charity dinner that night,
so she needed to be there early. She was
already running late.
When she opened the heavy front door, she


THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
was prepared to deal quickly with whoever it
was and send them on their way. But she
hadn't anticipated that Trace would be standing
outside. Her startled glance ran over the
dark suit and tie he was wearing and the
damp sheen of his thick black hair.
His mouth quirked in an engaging half
smile. "Hello."
"Hello." She couldn't keep that note of
surprise
out of her voice and gripped the edge of
the open door to conceal the little burst of
agitation.
"I have this ticket for dinner tonight, but
I've never been too keen about attending affairs
like this. You mentioned once that you
weren't exactly welcome without an escort.
I
thought I'd offer my services tonight."
"I ..." Her hesitation was brief as she
came to a quick decision. "All right. Only I
have to leave now. I've volunteered to take
tickets."
"My car's parked right out front."
She bit at the-inside of her lip, belatedly
wondering if she hadn't acted impulsively,
but she wasn't going to back out now. "Just
give me a minute to get my purse and lock the
back door."
It took her less time than that.
Trace waited
on the porch while she locked the front door,
then walked with him to the car parked in the
circle drive. Before shutting the door, he
lifted
the skirt of her dress out of the way.
"Where's Cassie?" Trace asked when he
slipped behind the wheel. "Isn't she home?"
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

"No. She's at the Thorsons' tonight. Old
Mr.
Thorson is in bed with a severe case of
influenza,
and Mrs. Thorson suffers from chronic
asthma. She can barely take care of herself,
let alone look after him. So Cassie went
over
to take care of both of them."
"Thorson." Trace repeated the name
thoughtfully. "I remember him. I used to steal
watermelons out of his patch all the time." He
darted her a twinkling look that was wicked
with devilment. "I don't think he ever knew
that I'd found out he loaded his shotgun
with
watermelon seeds. Every time he fired off that
sawed-off cannon of his, I used to laugh.
Which just made him madder." There was a
faint shake of his head, a smile of warm
recollection in his expression. "Those were
the sweetest watermelons I ever tasted."
"It's a wonder Cassie doesn't have more
gray hairs than she has," Pilar murmured,
shuddering to think what a hellion he must
have been as a boy, always prime for trouble.
"Why do you say Cassie instead of Elliot?"
His glance strayed from the traffic on the road
long enough to wander curiously over her
profile.
"I don't know. I suppose because ...
women worry about such things more than
men." She shrugged, then probed with a question
of her own. "Why were you such a rebel?"
"Now you're making it sound as if I've
suddenly reformed," Trace mocked.
"Not totally," Pilar replied after thinking

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
about the answer for a few seconds. "i
think
you still like to fly in the face of convention.
Sometimes I think you took over the barge
line just to shock everyone."
"That was probably part of it," he conceded
idly. "Why did you stay in Natchez after
Elliot
died? You have no ties here. All your family
is
back in Virginia"
"I thought about it," she admitted while she
glanced out the window at the lush greenery
of trees gilded with silvery Spanish moss.
Natchez was a treasure house of antebellum
homes, with nearly a hundred still standing.
"But I loved the area. And my antique shop
was doing well, and I had managed to establish
a clientele of repeat customers. If I
left,
I'd have to start all over again. What was the
point?"
There was already a scarcity of parking
spaces when they arrived on the grounds of
one of the more imposing plantation homes
located in Natchez. Sandra Kay
Austin
snared them as they entered the house.
"It's about time you arrived," she mildly
chided Pilar for her tardiness. "Loretta is
filling in for you. I see you managed to persuade
Trace to come with you. It's about time
we put this man into circulation." Her eyes
flirted with him, feeling safely bold because of
the wedding ring on her finger. "Now, you
stay clear of all those pretty young things,
Trace Santee, or some daddy is liable
to tear
you apart. This is supposed to be a party."
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

"I'll do my best to remember that, Sandra
Kay," he promised lazily.
"I have half a notion not to let you out of my
sight just to see that you do," the auburnhaired
woman playfully warned him.
"They've set up a little bar in the south parlor
for you men so you can enjoy a drink before
they begin serving from the buffet."
"In that case, I might as well head in that
direction," Trace said and glanced at
Pilar.
"Would you like me to bring you a drink from
the bar? Taking tickets might be thirsty
business."
"No, thank you." Her glance dropped swiftly
from his. It was too fresh in her memory--
the way she'd tried to pretend that alcohol had
lowered her resistance to his sexual advances.
"If I make any mistakes tonight, I don't
want to try to blame it on drinking."
"No drinking on the job has always been a
sound policy," came the bland agreement, but
Pilar knew he'd caught her reference.
"I'll let
you get to work."
As he walked down the great hall that divided
the house down the middle, Sandra Kay
sighed and shook her head. "It's a downright
sin for a man to be so wickedly handsome.
Given half a chance, I swear he'd be out
dueling under the oaks before the night's out,
like they did in the old days." The front door
opened to admit more arriving guests. "You'd
better go relieve Loretta before those daggers
she's throwing at me become real ones."

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
The turnout for the dinner was large, filling
the double parlor rooms with people and spilling
them into the wide, long hallway. Dinner
was served from two giant buffet tables. Unable
to leave her post at the door, Pilar insisted
that Trace go through the line and not wait
for her.
When she was finally relieved, she wasn't
able to find him in the confusion of people.
The Silvertons invited her to join them at
their table, along with several out-of-town
guests they were entertaining. The conversation
at the table was lively and interesting. It
wasn't long before Pilar stopped looking for
Trace and began to enjoy the company of her
dinner companions.
The man sitting beside her had a ready
laugh to go along with his strong and smiling
face. His hair was the color of a dark copper
penny, burnished and gleaming under the
globed light of a massive chandelier. Pilar
hadn't caught his last name when they were
introduced, but his first name was Ben. And
she was aware of the interest in his eyes when
he looked at her.
"Pilar. That's a Spanish name, isn't it?"
he
asked, drawing her into a private conversation
while they lingered at the table over
coffee.
"Yes. My mother liked it." Pilar shrugged,
since her naming had no special significance
beyond that.
"Was that your brother I met earlier
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

tonight? I'm sure his name was Santee. Tall,
with black hair just like yours and a small
scar on his cheek." He described him for her.
"You must mean Trace." The description fit
no one else. Unconsciously she let her
glance
make an idle search of the dinner guests still
gathered in the room, some at tables and
some standing in small groups.
"Yeah, that was his name. I remembered it
was an unusual one, just like yours." He
nodded. "Are you two related?"
"Only by marriage." She noticed the busboys
hovering close by. "I think they'd like to
clear the tables now that we're all finished
eating," she said to prompt those at her table
into leaving.
"Is there a drawing room where we can
repair to?" another of the Silvertons' guests
inquired, mockingly adopting an old-fashioned
phraseology.
"I believe the bar has opened." Frank
Silverton pushed his chair away from the
table and stood to assist his wife.
"You'll be joining us, won't you?" Ben inquired
as he courteously helped Pilar to her
feet.
"I think I should look for my escort. I was
busy at the door taking tickets so Trace
went
through the buffet line earlier," she explained
with casual ease.
"Trace brought you?" Maryann Silverton
looked at her with vague surprise. "How
nice
that you didn't have to come alone."
144
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Well, knowing Trace," her husband inserted,
"he's probably at the bar, so you might as
well walk with us."
But he wasn't in the south parlor, where
most of the dinner guests had gathered to
socialize. Pilar wandered among the scattered
clusters, stopping to chat with this person and
that acquaintance. Someone had always "just
seen Trace" in the next room or talking to
so-and-so in the hall. But she continually
missed catching up with him. Finally she
ended up in the south parlor where she started.
The attractively handsome, copper-haired
Ben was quickly at her side to urge her to
rejoin their group.
"Couldn't you find him?" Frank Silverton's
smile didn't show much surprise, as if
Trace's
disappearance was expected.
"I've lost him somewhere," Pilar admitted.
"I decided I might as well stay in one
place
and let him find me when he's ready to leave."
"We were just going outside onto the veranda
for some fresh air," Maryann stated.
"Hopefully it won't be so noisy and crowded
out there."
The languid night air was scented with the
fragrance of roses climbing and twisting on
the wrought-iron grillwork that enclosed the
galleries. Discreetly spaced lantern lights
provided a soft illumination without hampering
the velvety darkness that had spread
across the sky and turned on the stars. The
chirrup of crickets and locusts serenaded the
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

scattering of guests on the veranda as they
conversed in hushed voices in the quiet of the
night.
Trace stepped outside for a smoke and to
escape the endless talk. Every time he turned
around, it seemed he was being cornered by
someone and obliged to listen to the same
propositions, the same complaints, or the
same gossip.
Pausing in the shadows, he bent his head to
the cupped match flame and let his gaze
wander over the dimly lit veranda. It
stopped
when he noticed Pilar standing against the
backdrop of a fluted white column. The
Silvertons were there as well but she was off
to one side, engaged in a private conversation
with a chestnut-haired man Trace had met
earlier in the evening. It was the same man
she'd sat next to at dinner when he had finally
managed to find her.
The softness of her laughter came to him
across the distance. It unsettled him to see the
way she was smiling at that man, intent on
his every word, it seemed. The man's name
escaped Trace, but he was some attorneyfriend
of Silverton's. The man made a gesture
with the glass in his hand, then headed for the
doors Trace had just exited through, evidently
intending to get another drink. Trace waited a
minute, then strolled toward Pilar.
"Some escort you are," she declared with
mock reproach when he walked up to her.
"You bring me to this party and then you

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
forget me." She was only half teasing,
reminding
herself that she hadn't expected him
to spend every minute by her side.
"I saw you a couple of times and started to
come over, but you didn't appear to be lacking
company." His lazy glance didn't quite hide
the traveling inspection of his eyes before his attention
wandered to the veranda doors of the south parlor. "Have you
been enjoying
yourself?"
"Yes, I have." Which was true, so there
wasn't any reason to pretend otherwise. "I
did
look for you after dinner, but I always seemed
to be one step behind you. Everyone kept
telling me they'd just seen you someplace
else, so I decided you had to be having a
fairly
good time."
"That depends." He pulled on his cigarette
and exhaled the smoke, his mouth quirking
dryly. "So far I've been invited to join
nearly
every civic and business organization in
town."
"Is that good or bad?" Pilar couldn't help
smiling.
"It's respectable," he countered.
She laughed in her throat. "Is that a yes or
a
no?"
"A no," Trace replied. "You can carry a
good thing too far."
"So I've heard." She was amused by his
droll but honest response. There was a warm
feeling, too. After what had happened, she
hadn't expected to feel so relaxed with him. Not
that she was totally relaxed. There was
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

still a kind of8alive" sensitivity to her nerves,
a pleasing tingle of awareness.
"I noticed you were talking to Silverton's
friend when I came outside." Again Trace
took a drag on his cigarette and squinted at
the smoke that curled upward. "Have you
known him long?"
"You mean Ben Grafton?" In the course of a
discussion about occupations and mutual interests,
Pilar had learned his last name. He'd
given her his business card. "I just met him
tonight, but he seems nice ..., and fun to be
with."
"I imagine his wife and two children in
Memphis would agree with you." His glance
ran over her sobering expression. "Or hasn't
he gotten around to mentioning his family
yet?"
"No, he hasn't," she admitted and breathed
in deeply. "It seems I omitted asking a
fairly
important question. Maybe I should have you
fill in my party program," she murmured in
an absent reference to a bygone era when
unattached women had cards, allotting a
dance or portion of the evening to certain
eligible males.
"That might not be a good idea." Trace
looked away, briefly arching an eyebrow.
"My
name might be the only one you'd find written
down. And you wouldn't like that, would
you?" His glance swung back to her, something
intimate and challenging in the dark
gray depths of his eyes.
A sense of rising expectancy seemed to well

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
in her throat, strangling off any reply that she
might have made. It disturbed her ... Trace
disturbed her. And she realized that she had
falsely believed they were conversing on a
platonic plane that didn't exist. They had
been almost lovers, but never friends. Had
she thought they could?
Agitation twisted her stomach into little
knots as she broke free of his lazy, probing
gaze. She looked anywhere but at him, struggling
against the restlessness that charged
her nerves and took the pleasure out of the
evening.
The cigarette butt was buried in the earthen
bed of a large stone urn, positioned by the
towering white column. "How much longer do
you want to stay here?" Trace inquired with
an effortless change of subject and tempo.
"I'm ready to leave whenever you are." The
social evening had lost its charm for her. Now
the time would begin to drag.
"Then why don't we say our good-byes
and
leave?" he suggested.
At her nod of agreement, his hand lightly
fitted itself to the small of her back to guide
her. Even though there was an impersonal
quality to his touch, it was innately
possessive.
She couldn't ignore the sensation of it.
It was a long process to work their way
around to speak to various friends and locate
the members of the committee that had hosted
the dinner. Finally they reached the wide,
dividing hall, and the door was in sight.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

When Trace spied the silver-haired matriarch
holding court in the middle of the hall
under its elaborately carved arch, he muttered
an aside to Pilar. "I suppose we have to
say good night to the old "battleaxe.""
"She's president of the club. We certainly
d." Her voice was equally low, and sharply
reproving for his less than complimentary
description of Catherine Braymore.
There were times when the matron of the
community was overly condescending or patronizing,
never suffering fools gladly, but she
was also highly competent at organizing benefits
and fund raisers such as tonight's dinner
and seeing them through to a successful conclusion.
She was irritating at times, but Pilar
still admired her.
Her smile was slightly fixed in place,
however,
when she approached the buxom woman
in pale lavender. "Good evening, Mrs.
Braymore. The dinner was a success ..., as
usual."
"Why, thank you, my dear." She pressed
Pilar's hand between her ringed fingers. "It
did go well. And I appreciate the help you
gave us." Her attention switched to Trace, her
expression becoming a little distant. "I am
pleased you are finally doing your duty and
escorting your stepmother to these functions,
Trace. It's time you began to show her some
respect after ignoring her for so long and
leaving her to fend for herself."
Pilar felt him stiffen at the censure. Then
150
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
his hand came away from her back, and the
contact was broken. She darted him a sidelong
glance and noticed the coldness of his
smile.
"You are still the same as I remembered
you, Mrs. Braymore. Someday you'll have to
tell me how you do it." It was a lazy, drawling
response, riddled with mockery.
"I was told you had changed, but I see they
were mistaken," she declared with a heavy
sigh that seemed to say he wasn't worth the
trouble he caused.
"How can you say that, Mrs. Braymore?"
Trace chided her dryly. "I've been on my
best
behavior all evening."
"With you it rarely lasts." Yet her expression
seemed indulgent. "Now, run along. And see
that your stepmother arrives home safely."
"You can be sure I'll do that, Mrs.
Braymore." His tone was so cynical that Pilar
shot a worried glance at him. There was a
hard and ominous glitter in his eyes. "As a
matter of fact, I can almost guarantee
it."
The tension fairly crackled around him as
they walked toward the door. Pilar had to
hurry to keep up with his quick, reaching
strides. He held the door open for her with
marked patience, then followed her out. He
seemed caught up in his own thoughts, not
giving her more than perfunctory attention.
He didn't even bother to open the car door for
her, letting her climb in by herself while he
slid behind the wheel and started the motor.
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"You shouldn't have let the things she said
rile you," Pilar finally commented when the
silence became intolerable.
"I've been told that's one of my problems."
The curtness in his voice didn't encourage
conversation.
When they reached the house, Pilar didn't
wait for Trace to get out of the car to open her
door. "Thank you for the ride," she said into
the brooding silence and climbed out of the
passenger side.
Before climbing the fan-shaped steps to the
darkened porch, she opened her purse and
extracted the door key. Her pulse made a
startled leap at the sudden slam of the car
door. With the key in hand, she started up the
steps, aware of the footsteps that followed
her. His shadow loomed beside hers as she
crossed the beard floor to the heavy doors.
"It isn't necessary to walk me to the door,"
she said.
"I insist."
At the door Pilar inserted the key in the lock
and turned it. There was the snap of an unlocking
bolt. She pushed the heavy door partway
open, then turned to face him, blocking
the opening with her body.
"I did enjoy this evening, Trace." It was
a quietly voiced statement that didn't give
the words any special meaning. They were
polite and sincere but no more than that.
"Mrs. Braymore was right, you know." In
the shadows cast by the porch, it was difficult

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
to see his features. "No matter how good my
intentions are, they rarely last."
For a minute she thought his ill humor had
vanished until she felt the pinioning grip of
his hands on her arms that bound them to
her side while they hauled her nearer.
After a split second of shock, she managed
to bring her hands up and push them at his
chest.
"Tell me something, Pilar." He seemed
amused, in a distantly complacent way, by her
look of anger. "What do you suppose the good
people of Natchez would think if they knew I
was going to kiss my "stepmommy" good
night?"
Pilar recoiled from the bitterness in his
voice and the sordid-sounding words, but
there was no eluding the mouth that drove
itself onto hers, forcing her head back until
she thought her neck would snap from the
pressure. Her lips were ground against her
teeth in a kiss that was all anger and brute
force.
Her fingers curled into the lapels of his
jacket as she strained away from him, pushing
with all her strength, but she gained nothing
except to make his bruising fingers dig
more deeply into her flesh. The blood hammered
in her head, pounding with the excruciating
pressure. Blackness was reeling on
the edges of her consciousness from the lack
of air.
Trace broke it off as abruptly as he'd
begun
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 153
the kiss. For an instant she sagged in the
support of his hands and tried to gather in air
for her starved lungs. Then her fingers gingerly
touched bloodless lips. Tears sprang
in her eyes, making them sparkle with
wet brilliance when she finally looked at
him.
"Why, Trace?" Her choked voice was barely
louder than a breath. "Why do you have to
destroy everything? Why do you have to hurt
people?"
Deep lines of regret were carved into his
rugged features. The hand that touched her
cheek was incredibly gentle. Slowly he bent
his head and pressed his mouth onto her
forehead. "I'm sorry." He mouthed the words
against her skin.
This controlled gesture of affection reminded
Pilar of a grown son kissing his mother.
The anger that flared was nothing like the
wounded hurt she'd felt before. She shoved
away from him.
"Stop it," she ordered, incensed by his action.
"I'm not your mother ..., or your stepmother!
And I won't be treated like one!"
There was an instant of silence. Then Trace
tilted his head back, his throat a patch of
lighter gold in the porch shadows, and
laughed with very little humor in the sound.
"My God, that's rich, Pilar," he declared,
still chuckling harshly. "I could never treat
you like a mother. That's been my problem all
along."

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She was left standing on the porch as
his long frame glided down the steps to
the car. There were a great many things
she saw more clearly. Yet they all seemed
to tangle her emotions into a confused
knot.
A half-hearted attempt had been
made to
clean the serving tray of solid silver, but the
tarnish was still embedded in the intricate
design on its flat surface. Inch by inch,
Pilar
rubbed the silver cleaner into the tray and
watched the intricacy of the pineapple motif
unfold. The pineapple had been a popular
symbol of hospitality in the Old South,
carved
into furniture and silver and painted on
china.
"I can't believe they auctioned this service
as silver-plated."" She murmured her good
fortune at snaring such a bargain. "Of course,
there were so many items at that estate sale,
and no family to know the worth of what was
being sold. But you'd think they would have

156 THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
had someone appraise things before they
started selling them."
"That tray looked so ugly when you brought
it in, I thought you'd made some kind of
mistake," Cassie declared, pausing
to look
over Pilar's shoulder at the progress she was
making. "It's going to be a beautiful piece."
"I have half a notion to keep it." Pilar
straightened and flexed her fingers, cramped
from all the rubbing. "But the antique business
is bung and selling. You don't make any
money to pay the overhead by collecting."
"I'm sure that's true." Cassie slipped a
coffee
cup off the mug tree on the counter, then
reached for the second. "Would you like a cup
of coffee?"
"I'd love one." Pilar wiped her blackened
fingers on a rag and leaned back in the wooden
straight-backed chair to take a break. "It's
a warm night, isn't it?" She lifted the
weight
of her hair off her neck and let the blowing air
from the window fan cool her skin.
"It's been hotter, but the thick walls of this
house keep out most of the heat," Cassie
commented and brought the full coffee cups
to the kitchen table. "In the heat of the summer
Trace always used to beg to sleep
outside
on the porch. He swore he didn't care if
the
bugs carried him away in the night. He
claimed it was too hot in his room, but it was
just an excuse to go running and tearing
around all night long. He thought if he was
sleeping on the porch, no one would hear him
slip off." A smile pushed dimples into her
cheeks. "And most of the time no one did.
That boy," she declared with a shake of her
head. "The things he didn't do."
"Why was he such a rebel?" It was a question
she'd put to Trace, and he'd managed to
change the subject before she had an answer.
"I don't think you can look back and lay your
finger on any one thing," Cassie replied
thoughtfully. "Being an only child put a lot of
expectations on him that had to put a strain
on him. And his mother dying when he was in
those awkward years didn't help. I think for a
long time he was angry with her for passing
on and leaving him alone. 'Course, Elliot said
that Trace got into so much trouble just to
draw attention to himself. And I suppose
there's some truth in that, too."
"I often wondered whether he resented my
marriage to Elliot." Pilar offered it as an
idle
comment, but she watched the black woman
closely for a reaction.
"Well, I couldn't say about that." Cassie
took a sip of her coffee. "But I don't
believe he
objected to the idea of his father getting married
again. After Trace turned about sixteen,
he went his way and Elliot went the other. His
mother seemed to be the link that held them
together. When she was gone, they didn't
have much in common."
"Does he take after his mother?"
"He has her coloring and strong features.
She was a handsome woman and ..., yes, a

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE,
little on the unconventional side. I didn't
know her well until the disease had progressed
to the point where she needed constant
care, but"---Cassie paused, frowning
absently--"I do remember her telling
me
some stories about their early years of marriage,
and how embarrassed Elliot would get
over some of the improper things she said in
public. It could be that she was just as much
of a rebel at heart as Trace is, but being a
woman--and in those times--she kept it all
inside." She started chuckling. "I could just
picture her b her brassiere in the street.
She would have done that, to the mortification
of all the good ladies of Natchez."
"She sounds like quite a lady." Pilar had
often wondered about Elliot's first wife, but
he hadn't wanted to talk about her.
She had been reluctant to ask Cassie about
her since she didn't know the woman well.
Later her curiosity had faded, until now when
she wanted to find out more about Trace's
mother. How strange, she thought to herself,
she was thinking of the woman as Trace's
mother instead of Elliot's first wife.
"She was. There was always a bit of jealousy
between Trace and Elliot over her. There
used to be quite a competition between them.
'Course it all changed when she died.
They stopped competing with each other and started
competing against each other. And that's
when all the trouble started." Cassie studied
her with a critical eye. "You look tired. Why
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

don't you leave that tray until tomorrow and
finish it then?"
"I can't." Pilar picked up the rag and began
to rub again. "There's a sale tomorrow afternoon
outside of Port Gibson I want
to attend."
"You've been going constantly:"
"Look who's talking." Pilar chided the
woman's own full schedule. "They always
seem to hold more auctions in the summer.
The weather's better and they draw more
people, I guess. It's a good thing I have competent
help in the shop so I can catch some of
these weekday sales without having to close the
store."
It was midmorning when Pilar stopped at
the antique shop, simply named the Antique
Corner , for a last-minute check with Florence
Barslow before leaving town. There had been
one inquiry for a particular medicine bottle,
which Florence had been able to refer to a
dealer who specialized in antique bottles.
"I cleaned this up last night." Pilar
unwrapped
the tissue protecting the silver tray. "You
might want to put some complementing
pieces with it and arrange it on that banquet
table if you have free time today."
"I will." The older woman was skilled at
displaying pieces to their best advantage.
"Don't forget to keep an eye out for a chair to
match Mrs. Aulderson's dining room table
set."
"I won't." The long strap of her purse was
16o
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
pushed higher onto her shoulder as she gathered
up her leather briefcase-pouch containing
her notes, papers, and a list of items
clients had indicated an interest in purchasing.
"See you tomorrow, and wish me luck."
The bell above the door tinkled as she
walked out into the street. Her glance ran
absently to the man standing in front of her
shop window. Pilar halted with a bit of a jolt
when she recognized Trace. His jacket was
hanging over his shoulder and a hand was
thrust nonchalantly in a pocket.
"Hello." Trace spoke first and glanced at the
window display. "The business looks
prosperous."
"It is," she assured him. "Go inside and
take
a look around. We welcome browsers."
"I've seen it before." A slow smile touched
the corners of his mouth at the dubious look
on her face. "You were away somewhere."
"Oh." Florence probably hadn't thought it
was important to mention. "Well, I'm off again
today." She smiled quickly at him and
started for the compact car parked at the curb.
"Where are you going?" Trace angled away
from the window to follow her.
"An auction north of town," she explained
and walked around the car to the driver's side.
After opening the door, she tossed her purse
and leather pouch onto the opposite seat.
"Mind if I come along?"
Pilar straightened, not sure that she could
possibly have heard him correctly. She stared
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

at him across the roof of the car. His steady
gaze didn't waver, the faint question staying
in his expression.
"I'll be gone for the rest of the day," she
pointed out to him, faltering in vague confusion.
"You ... you have to be at the office."
"Haven't you ever heard of playing hookey?"
Trace chided.
"But you're in charge." His suggestion
sounded so irresponsible that Pilar was dumbfounded,
doubting that he was serious and
wondering if he was. "You can't just walk
away."
"Can't I?" He opened the passenger door
and threw his jacket into the back seat. "If the
boss can't take a day off when he wants it,
who can? Besides, I'll go stir-crazy if I have
to
sit behind that desk for the rest of the morning
and afternoon." --
"You're welcome to come along." Since he
had already invited himself, her agreement to
the arrangement seemed almost superfluous.
Pilar crawled behind the wheel and fished her
purse and case out of his seat so he could get
in. "But don't blame me if you get bored."
"Boredom would be a pleasant change of
pace," he declared dryly and folded his long
length into the compact quarters.
"Do you want me to drive by the office so you
can let them know you won't be back?" The
motor rumbled when she turned the ignition
key, then hummed steadily.
"No."

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Trace--" Pilar began.
"Are you trying to be my conscience?" He
interrupted with a half-amused look. "All
right," he conceded partially. "I'll call when
we reach this place we're going. Believe me,
they'll be relieved to have me off their backs
for the rest of the day."
"I thought things were going smoothly."
She glanced at him as Trace leaned back in
the seat and made use of the elevated headrest.
Strain and tension had left tracks in his
bronzed features, creasing its leanness.
"With the business they are." His eyes were
closed. "It's just everything else that's lousy."
There was a small pause. "I don't mean to
destroy things--or to hurt anyone."
Those were the words she had used last
week when he'd kissed her with such cruelty.
Her fingers nervously clenched at the steering
wheel, flexing and tightening their grip on it.
With an effort Pilar kept her gaze fixed on
the
road, struggling with all the raw emotions
that churned inside her.
"Pilar."
"Yes." All her attention stayed on the
traffic.
"I had no right to take my frustration out on
you. So you have my apology."
Under the circumstances she felt obligated
to reciprocate as magnanimously as he had.
"It's forgotten."
She turned onto the parkway out of Natchez
and headed north. Not once did Trace ask
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 163
their destination as they traveled along the
scenic highway. At nearly every bend in the
picturesque, tree-lined road, there was a
historic
marker. They passed Emerald Mound,
an ancient temple mound built hundreds of
years ago by some unknown tribe of Indians.
Once Trace commented, "My mother
named me after the Natchez Trace. There
was a time when I believed that this long trail
had put the restless wanderlust in me."
Cars of spectators and buyers were already
arriving at the auction when Pilar located the
turnoffto the old, rambling house. She parked
the car where it would have afternoon shade
on it, then gathered her things from the rear
seat.
"When does it start?" Trace stepped out and
stretched his cramped back and shoulders.
"Not for another hour and a half," she
answered. "But I like to come early and look
over the items before they're put on the block.
I told you," she reminded him, her lips
slanting
in a faint smile, "you might get bored."
"We'll see." He didn't appear
concerned and
trailed after her when she went to the registration
table to sign up and receive her number.
Most of the larger items were sitting in the
side lawn. Pilar took her time wandering
through their maze, stopping for a closer look
at a particular item or to examine the
manufacturer's
mark. Several times she paused to
poke through boxes of dishes and

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
knickknacks. All along the way she jotted
down
notes.
"What are you writing?" Trace attempted to
read her scribbling, but it was her own indecipherable
brand of shorthand.
"There was some Depression glass in that
one box. I was just making a note of it. Of
course, one of the larger bowls had a chip in
"That sounds like sour grapes."
"I guess it is," she laughed briefly. "I
can
always console myself with the knowledge
that there was a chip in it if someone else gets
it besides me. But it's little things like that
which alter the value of a piece."
"Yes, I've noticed how thorough you are,
grubbing through those boxes like a packrat,"
he observed and let his gaze slide down to the
grass stains on the knees of her denim jeans.
"I also understand why you're wearing jeans
and a cotton shirt."
"If I want to look at something, I don't
want
to worry about getting my clothes dirty. This
might not be fashionable," she admitted,
glancing down at the slim-fitting jeans, "but
it sure saves on the cleaning bill." As her
glance came up, she happened to look over his
shoulder and spied a tall chifforobe. "Look at
that," she breathed quickly. "It looks like a
mate to that four-poster bed Mrs. Kenyon
owns over in Hattiesburg."
Eager to confirm it, she fumbled with her
notepad and pencil while she tried to open the
pouch for the list. Finally she shoved part of it
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
165
into Trace's hands to rummage for the customer
list.
"Is it?" he asked.
"Let's go take a look at it," she said and
chewed thoughtfully at her lip.
"It appears someone else is interested in it,
too." Trace drew her attention to the couple
who were standing back to study it and talking
between themselves.
"Yes." Pilar took no notice of them as she
walked over to the chifforobe, opening its
drawers and doors and checking on various
details. Then she stepped back to stand next
to Trace.
"It looks to be in pretty good shape," he
commented.
"It's too bad the drawer pulls and handles
don't match. They aren't the original ones
anyway so I guess it doesn't matter," she
declared. "The doors are warped, too. Did you
notice the way they nailed a board on the back
to brace that rear leg?"
"No, I didn't notice that." Trace eyed
her
with the beginnings of a gleam.
"It's a beautiful piece of furniture."
Her
deep sigh was heavy with regret as Pilar ran
an absently stroking hand over the wood's
smooth patina. "It's a shame anyone let it
get
in this condition."
All her comments were taken in by the
eavesdropping couple who had been initially
admiring the chifforobe, and the avid excitement
that had been in their expressions
began to fade. They exchanged a look, and the

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
man shrugged faintly in apparent dismissal.
Together they moved with reluctance onto the
next item. his
"You're a calculating woman." Trace
chuckled
in his throat. "Those are just minor things,
right?"
One shoulder lifted in an expressive shrug
as Pilar made some quick notes on her ringed were'
tablet. "They are obviously amateur
collectors.
I would never have been able to fool a
dealer. Maybe this way, the price will stay
reasonable. Private buyers, especially the
ones who aren't knowledgeable, usually drive
the price up and pay more for something than
it's worth." Finished, she looked up and met
his amused study of her.
"So you conned them." He murmured the
accusation without any criticism.
The small, rueful smile that touched the
corners of her lips was only faintly
apologetic.
"Maybe I saved them some money," Pilar
suggested. "All's fair in the antique
business."
"So I'm learning."
After checking the description of the next
item on the sales list, Pilar wandered over to
examine it. On the surface she gave her
attention
to her work, but Trace's presence at her
side gave a little edge of excitement to the
afternoon. She knew when he was watching
her or standing close to read her notes. All her
senses seemed finely tuned to him.
Before the auction started, Trace left her to
locate a telephone and called his office.
Pilar
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

retreated to the shade of a tree to sit on the
grass and used the trunk for a backrest while
she refined her notes, the pad balanced on her
bent knees.
When Trace rejoined her, the auctioneer
had already begun his rhythmic spiel to exhort
bids from the large crowd on the first
item, but Pilar was still sitting under the tree.
He crouched down, rocking onto his heels,
and idly plucked a blade of grass to chew on.
His arrival briefly distracted her from the
last-minute checklist she was making. In
case he was wondering, she explained absently,
"The first items are almost always small,
unimportant stuff--to warm up the crowd and
allow time for all the latecomers to arrive.
They save the best until last to keep as many
people as long as they can." Pilar tucked the
papers she wouldn't be needing into the leather
pouch and rolled to her feet with an
assisting
pull from Trace. "I warned you we'd be all
afternoon," she reminded him again.
"I'm not complaining." There was a disturbing
darkness in the gray of his eyes as he
looked down at her.
The rhythm of her pulse became slightly
erratic. Making an effort to steady it, she
moved away from him and led the way into
the semicircle of bidders until she found a
space that gave her a good vantage point of
the proceedings.
A hot wind kept the air circulating and
prevented the afternoon heat from becoming
oppressive and stifling. Several times Pilar

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
sent a glance over her shoulder at Trace, who
had taken a position slightly behind her, just
to see if he was still there. But as the afternoon
wore on and the items she was most
interested in came up for bid, her concentration
centered more and more on the auctioneer
and her various competitors for an item.
There were a few familiar faces she
recognized
in the crowd, other dealers like herself.
Although she bid on many items, she was
successful on less than a handful. When the
bidding went higher than she thought the
piece was worth, Pilar dropped out of it.
Happily
the chifforobe wasn't among the items
she lost.
The satisfaction that came from knowing it
had been a successful day more than made up
for the tension that came from all the intense
bidding. Details had to be handled before she
could savor her success. The items had to be
paid for, bills of sale obtained, and arrangements
made to transport them to her store.
When the last transaction had been completed,
she was finally able to turn to Trace
and announce, "I'm all done."
There was a radiance to her face, her dark
eyes shining with that inner glow of satisfaction.
She was oblivious to the heat that had
her cotton blouse sticking to her damp skin
and profiling the roundly jutting contours of
her breasts.
The running wind had made a black tangle
of her shoulder-length hair, tousling its
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

curling thickness in attractive disarray. But it
was more than the allure of her looks or body
that made it so difficult for Trace to take his
eyes off her. It was her sparkle and vitality,
the inner flame that pulled him.
Taking a grip on his senses, Trace forced a
tight smile onto his mouth. "Do you think we
can make it to the car without being run over
in this traffic jam?" He made a light
reference
to the confusion of vehicles all trying to leave at
once.
"We can try," she said with an exuberant
lilt in her voice.
Automatically Trace took her hand
to negotiate
the moving maze of cars turning and
reversing and trying to meld into an exit line.
There was a lightness about the way she
moved, a bounce and a glide that seemed
filled with a zesty lust for life.
"Want me to drive?" Trace asked when they
finally reached her compact auto, parked in
the long shadow of an oak.
"Sure." Pilar slipped her hand from his
grasp and dug out the car keys from the
bottom of her purse. They jangled as she
dropped them in his outstretched palm and
then split away from him to walk to the passenger
side.
After sitting all afternoon in the summer
heat, the car's interior was stuffy and suffocatingly
close. Hurriedly pilar rolled the window
down to let out some of the hot, stale air
and allow some circulation.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
When Trace started the engine, she adjusted
the vent openings so the full force of the
blowing air was directed at her. With both
hands she lifted the weight of her hair off her
neck, then shook it loose. All the while the
small smile of satisfaction continued to soften
the curve of her lips.
"You're looking very pleased with yourself,"
Trace observed while he waited for
an opening
in the stream of cars.
"I am," she said with a contented and
happy sigh. Her dark eyes were bright with
the same feelings when she looked at him. "It
was a good day. I suppose you're glad it's
over."
"Sorry to disappoint you, but I enjoyed myself."
A car slowed and made a place for him
in the exiting line of vehicles.
"Really?" She was faintly skeptical that he
was sincere.
"Especially
"Yes, really." Trace smiled.
watching the way you wheeled and bluffed
and tried to maneuver the bidding. You're
good at it."
Pilar turned her face to the rush of wind
that blew in through the open window. Almost
absently she remembered, "It would
have driven Elliot up a wall to spend an
entire
afternoon attending an auction."
Why?
"Oh ... he wanted me to buy everything
I
bid on, regardless of how high it went." The
tone of a dismissing shrug was in her voice as
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

she rested an elbow on the sill and combed
fingers through her hair in an absent fashion.
"It used to drive him crazy when someone
topped my bid and I wouldn't say more."
"He liked to win," Trace agreed blandly.
"Yes, but sometimes when you win, you
lose," Pilar stated.
"I've been in a few no-win situations, so I
know what you're talking about." Practically
all of the traffic was taking the road that lead
to the main highway, but Trace turned in the
opposite direction. "Sometimes when there's
no way to win, you have to decide the best way
to lose."
"Where are you going?" pilar realized he'd
turned the wrong way.
"I thought we'd beat the traffic and use one
of the back roads." He looked around the
countryside as if seeking a familiar landmark.
"It's been a while since I was here,
but
I think this road takes us past the Windsor
ruins."
His remark prompted her to make a sweep
of the surrounding landscape. A couple of
miles farther down the road, they came upon
the remains of the once magnificent mansion
and Trace slowed the car, finally braking to a
stop.
A collection of giant, Corinthian
columns,
towering four stories into the air, stood forlornly
in an empty field. They were left behind
to mark the site where the antebellum house
had once stood. Like silent sentinels they

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
stood, twenty-two of the original twenty-nine
massive pillars that had once fronted the
mansion on four sides.
Underbrush and trees had grown up around
them as the land struggled to reclaim what
belonged to it. The long, golden rays of a
setting sun aged them with a yellow light and
stretched their shadows over the ground.
Time and the elements had chipped and
peeled at the architectural moldings that
adorned the lofty stone columns.
"It's sadly beautiful, isn't it?" Pilar
murmured
as she gazed at the imposing yet desolate
ruins.
"Shall we go have a closer look?" Trace
made the suggestion as he switched off the
motor and climbed out of the car.
Pilar was slower to follow his lead, stepping
out of the passenger side and hesitating by the
door. "It's all fenced. I don't think
whoever
owns it now wants people poking around
there."
"We'll live dangerously and trespass."
He
took her firmly by the hand and half pulled
her along with him into the tall grass with his
customary disregard for rules. "I'll pay the
fine if we're caught."
"You're impossible." But she laughed when
she said it, caught up in the excitement of
actually walking among the massive
columns.
The long tangle of grass made walking
difficult,
especially when she had trouble watching
where she was going. Her glance kept
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 17
looking up and up at the columns, which
seemed to grow bigger and higher the closer
they came. Trace climbed partway up the
surrounding fence and vaulted the rest of the
way, then waited to lift her to the ground
when she topped the fence.
The grip of his hands on her waist was firm
and strong, effortlessly lowering her to the
solidness of the ground. Long after he'd taken
them away, Pilar could feel the warm imprint
of them. That disturbed edge to her senses
was creeping back again.
Together they waded through the underbrush
to the square base of the nearest column. Pilar
had to crane her neck way back in
order to see the ornate carvings at the top,
forty-five feet in the air. A hot wind
rustled
through the ruins, seeming a moaning whisper
from the past. There was an eerie splendor
to the place that awed and hushed. Pieces
of grillwork to an upper-floor balcony were
still in place, connecting several of the columns
on one side.
"It was destroyed by fire, wasn't it?" It had
been awhile since she'd heard the story of the
Windsor mansion, so her memory wasn't clear
on how it had happened. Pilar noticed traces
of charring in the rubble as they strolled in
the looming shadows.
"Yes." His gaze seemed to narrow in
recollection
of the tale, and she paused expectantly
to listen to it again. "During the Civil War,
General Grant refused to burn it, so it
survived
the great conflict to suffer a more inglorious

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
fate. At a party, somewhere around
1890 I believe, a guest tossed a
smoldering
butt of one of those new tailored cigarettes
into a pile of wood shavings left behind
by
carpenters hired to do some remodeling. It
burned to the ground in less than an hour."
The wind whipped at her hair, and Pilar
shook the strands out of her face. Either her
imagination was very vivid or the smell of
smoke actually still lingered among the ruins.
She leaned backward to rest against the solid
base of a tall Corinthian column. Its
surface
still held the heat of the sun.
Her glance strayed to Trace and found him
watching her. As if to conceal it, he shifted his
position slightly and looked around at the
encircling ruins. Absently he reached into his
shirt pocket for a cigarette.
"Don't smoke." Pilar straightened from the
column and laid a hand on his arm to halt his
action. "It seems wrong."
Slowly he took his hand away from his
pocket and turned to face her, his gaze


THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
burrowing into her with some fierce kind of
need.
Pilar drew back from it, not frightened, but
hesitant, until she was again leaning against
the sun-heated column. Trace followed her,
leaning forward to brace a hand on the chiseled
base by her head.
"What about us, Pilar?" His fingertips
touched the underside of her jaw, lightly
stroking it. "Does it seem wrong to you?"
She breathed in and couldn't breathe out,
the tight little pain in her throat throttling off
her air. She could only look at him, mute and
hurting, without being sure of the cause.
Tremors of longing shook her as she stared at
the blunt ridges and hollows of his deeply
tanned face. Dark lashes hooded the velvet
intensity of his eyes, and the careless wind
had trailed strands of black hair onto his
forehead.
"I have to know." There was a huskiness in
his voice as he relaxed the straightness of his
arm and eased himself closer to her. His
caressing fingers glided to the curve of her
neck while his warm breath flowed over her
sensitive facial skin. "I've
wanted you for a
long time, Pilar ... from the day I met you at
the wedding. I went away but the memory of
you went with me."
His fingers were behind her neck and in her
hair. She felt weak and boneless, incapable of
movement. The strong, hard feel of his body
leaned onto her, warming her flesh with its heat.
Her long lashes fluttered downward as
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his mouth brushed her temple and stayed
there, a hairsbreadth away, making her conscious
of the movement of his lips when he
spoke.
"I daydreamed about you--and night
dreamed, too." The muffled ache in his low
voice throbbed through her. "You'll never
know how many times I've made love to yeu
in my mind. I tried to stay away, but it
didn't
seem to matter how many times I told myself
that you couldn't belong to me, that it wasn't
right to want you. I couldn't stop." He nuzzled
her cheek and the corner of an eye,
unleashing
little shivers to dance over her skin. "Tell
me to go away and never come near you
again. Tell me it's wrong. But for God's
sake,
tell me something, Pilar."
The groan in his voice quaked through her
and ignited an ache that made thinking impossible.
It was all turmoil inside as her senses
took over, heightening her awareness of the
hard, muscular thighs tautly pressed to her
hips and legs.
There was something in his voice that
seemed to be urging her to jump from some
high place and promising he'd catch her. But
the fear was that he wouldn't catch her and
she'd just keep falling. Yet the insistence of
his body was there, trying to make her decide
to take that leap.
"I'm trying," was all she could moan.
Her inability to give him an answer, in
itself, was an answer. The torment of having

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
his mouth so close and not having his kisses
finally ended as he covered her lips with a
muffled sound, rent by an agony of longing.
The rhythmic, rocking pressure of his mouth
prized her lips apart so he could lick at their
sensitive insides and tease the quivering tautness
of her tongue.
Her flesh and bones seemed to turn into
molten wax, all heated and pliant, fitting
themselves to the impression of his hard,
male shape. Everything was spinning; up and
down became as irrelevant as right and
wrong. This time Pilar couldn't pretend that
alcohol had removed all her inhibitions to
permit her to respond to a man's advances.
She was abandoning herself to her own desires
and wants, arousing and being aroused.
His long body pinned her to the stone pedestal
as Trace flattened himself against her, as
if to keep them from being whirled into some
black space. The wildness was growing, reckless
urges leading her to the edge. Pilar teetered,
wanting to let go, yet not trusting her
judgment.
With a twist of her head, she broke free of
his kiss and pressed her forehead to his
shoulder.
Her heart was pounding in her throat,
and the hands that had been embracing him
became taut little fists of mute resistance.
"Please, let me stop" She was half-sobbing
the demand.
There was an instant of rigidity, a silent
rebellion by Trace that any of the onus should
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

be placed on him. Yet something in her air of
vulnerability aroused the male instinct
to protect.
Relief shuddered rawly through her when
he eased the physical pressure of his body,
albeit with obvious reluctance. His arms
gathered her away from the pedestal and held
her with taut gentleness. His hand trembled
slightly as it stroked her hair.
For long seconds she let him hold her while
she cried silently and inwardly. Through his
shirt she could feel the heat of his skin and
the heavy thudding of his heart. The smell of
him was hot and heady, like a rich wine that
had sat in the sun.
"I don't know how much longer I can go on
like this, Pilar." His mouth moved against the
silken texture of her ebony hair. "Wanting
you
and not having you."
The comfort of his arms suddenly became a
torment. With a jerkiness that seemed at odds
with her natural grace, Pilar turned out of
them and took a quick step away. Feeling
oddly cold without the heat of his body to
warm her, she clutched at her arms and
hugged them tightly. The hot summer wind
whipped at her, lashing long strands of hair to
sting her face. Her eyes smarted with tears
but she didn't cry.
There was a faint sound behind her. She
sucked in her breath at the light touch of his
hands on her shoulders. Tactile and restless,
they traveled down her arms and slipped onto

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
the front of her taut stomach. The outline of
his body began to make its impression down
the length of her spine and her tensed bottom.
"I don't know which is worse,
Pilar." He
rubbed his chin and jaw against her hair.
"Being away from you or being near you. Both
of them are hell."
"Don't say any more," she protested on a
taut whisper. "Don't make it impossible for
me to--" Her mind seemed to go blank, unable
to find the words to finish the sentence as
his hands slid under her crossed arms to cup
the underswell of her breasts.
"To what? To be with me?" There was a
roughness to his low voice, a faint note of
derision that she hadn't realized it was already
impossible.
Her fingers pulled at his wrists to tug his
hands from their evocative possession of her
breasts. "Don't." She moved out of his
destroying
hold and swung around to eye him
warily while she ached inside. "You touch me
and it's all confusion."
"Is that bad?" There was something hungry
and needing about the way he looked at her
and it nearly shoved her back into his arms.
All that want was on a chain and the links
were stretching. Yet Pilar couldn't answer
with any certainty in her heart. Between
them lay the long shadow of a towering column to,
a symbol of something from the past
that was over and dead.
An anger seemed to wash through him,
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transposing that stillness into a restless energy
that pushed him into movement and directed
his reaching strides away from her.
"You don't have to say anything," he muttered
testily. "It's plain what you think of me, and
God knows I never claimed my morals were
above reproach." In two more strides he was
at the fence. The wires groaned as he made a
quick climb to the top and vaulted to the
opposite side, then turned to impatiently
eye
her. "Come on. Let's get back to the car."
Some invisible force seemed to draw her
slowly to the fence where he waited. Pilar
searched the bronzed tautness of his face,
aware of the glittering reluctance of his gray
eyes to meet her look. Her fingers
curled onto
the barbed wire, but she made no effort to
climb it.
"You're wrong, Trace," she said quietly.
"About what?" he challenged in a short,
stiff voice.
"My opinion of you," she replied. There was
a slow movement of her head that swayed it
from side to side. "Whatever I may have
thought about you before, it's changed. Some
times I wonder if you don't deliberately
act
tough and uncaring so others don't discover
how strong and sensitive you are."
"Don't go making romantic images of me in
your mind," Trace warned tersely. "I'm not a
dashing hero. You're mixing me up with my
father."
"Am I?" Pilar came back with a calm,

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
steady response. "Earlier ... you stopped.
You didn't want to--you didn't have to--but
you did."
He stepped closer to the barrier of barbed
wire that separated them. It would have been
a simple matter to reach through and touch
him, but the gray smolder in his eyes kept her
motionless.
"You waited until there was a fence between
us before you told me that. You know
why, don't you? Because you don't trust me
enough to wait until you had climbed over it."
There was a sharp bite to his tone. "Before you
implant some noble interpretation in your
mind about the reason I stopped, I'll explain.
It's simple, really. Rape wasn't what I
had in
mind. I was thinking more along the lines of
spending a solid week in bed with you. It'd
take at least that long to take the ache out of
my system, and even then, it wouldn't be
enough." Pilar blanched slightly, unnerved
by his candor. His mouth twisted into a cold
smile at her reaction. "That's more in keeping
with my crass character, isn't it? It rather
wrecks the genteel image you tried to give
me, doesn't it?"
"Not in the way you think." But it was a
subdued response as she stepped onto
the
bottom wire to crawl over the fence.
Trace didn't help her this time, leaving her
to manage on her own. But he waited,
impatience
seeming to ripple under the surface,
his silence like an angry riptide. When her
feet touched the ground on the other side,
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 183
Pilar turned to face him, raising her chin
slightly.
"Someday maybe you can explain to me
why you feel you have to deny that streak of
decency," she stated and started through the
tall grass toward the car.
In a stride, Trace was walking abreast of her
and the impersonal touch of his hand was on
her back, lightly steering her across the field.
His chin was thrust forward at a hard, decisive
angle while a grim silence ruled his
expression. When they reached the car, he
opened the door for her and held it. The steely
gleam in his eye bothered her, and he hesitated
at climbing in.
"All right, Pilar," he said in a kind
of challenge.
"If that's what it takes, we'll do it your
way."
"What do you mean?" She eyed him, leery of
his mood and his statement.
"I got your signals crossed and thought you
wanted to be rushed into an affair. I forgot
that the first time you only had in mind a
one-night stand."
"Did you have to bring that up?" She resented
his reference to that disastrous night when
she had secretly wanted to be seduced. "So
much for your claim that it was forgotten,"
she declared bitterly and quickly slid into the
passenger seat.
The door was pushed shut. Her darting gaze
watched Trace walk around the hood of the
car to the driver's side. He climbed in and
angled his long body in the seat to face her, an

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
arm resting on the top curve of the steering
wheel.
"Be honest with yourself for once, Pilar," he
insisted curtly. "You haven't forgotten
it anymore
than I have. It's colored every meeting
we've had since it happened. After reaching
that physical level, it's pretty damned hard
to
back off to innocent hand-holding."
"Trace--" pilar struggled for some kind of
denial while she stared straight ahead.
His thumb and forefinger caught her chin
and turned it so she had to look at him. Within
the deep intensity of his gaze, there was a
gentleness that caught her.
"All right." The phrase of concession
seemed to be forced from him. "You want to
be courted," he stated. The line of his mouth
was straight with the fierce check he had on
his emotions. "I'll try."
There was a silent acknowledgment within
her that Trace was right. She wanted to be
courted, but not for the reason he probably
suspected. There was no doubt in her mind
that a strong sexual attraction existed, but
she needed time to judge for herself whether
it was right to let it develop into anything
more.
His thumb slowly rubbed itself across her
mouth, then followed the curved outline of
her lips while his gaze tracked its movements
with a disturbing interest.
"There's a brutal irony in this, Pilar," he
murmured. "I refused to compete with my
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

father when he was alive. Now I'm in a
position where I have to compete with his
ghost."
"No." The denial rushed from her, bringing
a quick frown to her forehead.
His mouth twisted a little. "The hell it isn't
so. He's haunting us, in one way or another."
With her chin still resting on the crook of his
finger, Trace leaned forward and took a kiss
from her lips, as if making sure it was his
image in her mind. Then he asked, "Will you
have dinner with me tonight?"
"Yes." After the tantalizing warmth of his
kiss, her acceptance came as easy as breathing.
"Good."
He pulled back and squared around
to start the car. "Where would you like to go?
You name the place."
"There's a wayside restaurant on the highway
not far from here. I've stopped there
before. The food was always good. I'm not
really dressed for anything else," she said in a
subconscious defense of her choice.
"That's no problem." Trace gave her a
considering
look as the car started forward. "We
can always stop by Dragon Walk so you can
change clothes before we go out to eat."
Pilar had an answer ready for that. "I'd
rather stop somewhere on the way home. It's
been a long time since breakfast. By the time
we drove all the way back and I changed
clothes, it would be late."
"Whatever you say," he returned smoothly.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
At the restaurant Pilar caught a glimpse
of
her reflection in the glass panes of the window
front as they entered. After nearly all day
exposed to the summer elements, she was a
disheveled mess. Before they were seated at
a
table, she excused herself to go to the ladies"
room and make the necessary repairs to her
appearance with the odd bits of makeup in her
purse.
When she rejoined Trace, her lips were shining with a
fresh application of gloss,
there was a dusting of blush on her cheekbones,
and her dark hair was brushed until it
glistened with blue-black lights. He was seated
at a small table in a quiet corner of the
restaurant. His gaze moved appreciatively
over her, warming her in a way that was
vaguely exciting.
"That was worth the wait," he murmured.
"Flattery won't get you anywhere." But
there was a slightly pleased smile on her face
as she picked up the menu that had been left
at her place setting.
"I've tried nearly everything else. It was
worth a chance." There was a dancing gleam
in his glance, wicked and lively.
She pretended to study the menu. "What are you
going to order?"
"I'm afraid what I want they
don't have on the menu." It was in the suggestive tone
of his voice that what he wanted was her.
Her gaze stayed glued to the menu print,
but there was an odd little leaping of her
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 187
pulse. "You're not making this easy, Trace."
It
was a low, taut murmur of protest.
"I don't want to make it easy," he
replied.
The table between them was small and narrow.
It was unavoidable that their knees and
legs would touch and Trace took full
advantage
of even this inadvertent contact. "I want
to make it hard, so this farce can't continue
for long."
"And what makes you so certain it won't
become a tragedy?" Pilar challenged.
His expression became serious. "I'm not.
And neither are you. That's why you want to
turn the pages so slowly."
"And you don't." She couldn't help searching
his face.
A reckless smile played with the corners
of
his mouth as he took her hand and wrapped it
in the largeness of his. "No, I don't. I
want to
jump ahead and read the end."
There was a marveling shake of her head, a
gesture tinged with a certain wryness. "I
swear, Trace Santee, you love taking wild
risks."
"I like knowing where I stand. I can take a
"no." It's the maybes that are killing me."
His
thumb was absently rubbing circles in the
center of her sensitive palm. It made her
feel
all raw inside. "There's only so long you can
postpone a thing."
"I know." There was a breathiness to her
voice and a lack of will to draw her hand
away.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"How much longer do you think I'm going to
have to be content with just holding your
hand, Pilar?" he questioned huskily.
"Some relationships never progress out of
that stage." She deliberately withheld any
commitment to the future. It wasn't wise.
There was too much chance that the whole
thing would blow up in her face tomorrow.
"I won't buy that." His gaze traveled with
familiar intimacy over the front of her
blouse,
the material lifting with the quick rise and
fall of her breasts. "It isn't your hand you
want
me to hold."
His remark only increased the inner agitation
she was trying to conceal. "I wish you
would stop making love to me with words,"
she protested.
"I prefer the alternative to that myself." His
smile was slow. "But this is the closest you've
come to admitting that you do, too."
"Don't put words in my mouth."
The overhead light was suddenly blocked
from their table. Pilar looked up, so oblivious
to her surroundings that she hadn't noticed
the man who had approached. The minute
she recognized him, instinct pulled her
hand
away from Trace's.
"I hope I'm not intruding." The action
didn't go unnoticed by Payne Forrestown, the
corporate attorney for the Santee Line.
There
was a knowing light in his eyes as his glance
went from one to the other. "I noticed you
sitting here and thought I'd say hello."
"That was thoughtful of you, Payne." Trace
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

leaned back in his chair, aloofly studying the
man. "I'd invite you to join us, but there's only
room for two at our table." The message was
clear that he wanted to keep it that way.
"That's quite all right. I have to be on my
way," the lawyer assured him. "I had to spend
the day in Jackson, so I need to get home.
I
only stopped in for coffee. It's quite a
coincidence
seeing the two of you in such an out-of-the-way
place."
"It would seem so, yes," pilar
agreed, smiling
a little too widely.
The waitress paused at their table. "Are you
all ready to order dinner?"
"Yes, I think we are," Trace stated.
"I won't keep you," the attorney insisted
and began to withdraw. be talking to you
the latter part of this week, Trace."
Those few awkward moments after his departure
were covered by the business of giving
their meal order to the waitress. A silence
reigned for several long minutes after that.
Trace was leaning sideways in his chair, rubbing
the back of his knuckles across his
mouth in a thoughtful attitude. He barely
looked at her at all. Finally his hand came
down and he idly began to turn a knife over
[were'
and over on the table, watching it. The air
seemed heavy with unsettled currents.
"Would you like to explain again why you
didn't want to go home and change clothes?"
he challenged quietly.
"What?" She was confused as to the purpose
of his question.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Or maybe you'd like to explain why you
wanted to eat here?" Trace suggested.
"It was close by. What is all this
crossexamination?"
Pilar attempted to laugh off
the gravity in his look.
"Are you sure you didn't pick this restaurant
because it was out of the way and there was
very little chance we'd be seen together by
anyone we knew?" He made his meaning
clearer, the hard angle of his jaw standing
out.
"Possibly," she admitted, lowering her gaze
to the tabletop.
"You were afraid people would start talking
about us." It was close to an accusation.
"Does the idea bother you?"
"Let's just say that I'd rather they didn't
talk until there was something to talk about,"
Pilar replied defensively.
"Do you think there isn't already?" Trace
seemed to mock her, and she flashed him an
angry look. "Oh, Pilar." He
shook his head in
a kind of wry exasperation. "Do you think
they haven't been talking before? Do you
think no one has noticed the way I look at
you, the way I have been looking at you for
God knows how long? Don't you think they've
guessed that I'd bed you the first chance I
got?"
"But you didn't," she reminded him and
ignored all the rest.
"Now who's bringing it up?" he countered
roughly. "I had a feeling that night that I'd
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 191
lose either way I went. Maybe I should have
made love to you and let you hate me afterward.
At least then it would have all been over
and I wouldn't still be here, going through this
hell."
"If you don't like it, you can always leave."
Despite the shortness of her answer, she was
holding her breath.
"I'm not ready to trade the hell I know for
the hell I don't know," Trace replied and
released a long breath. "Any hope you might
have had about keeping this secret just went
down the drain, you realize that? Men can be
worse gossips than women. Payne is going
to
be sure that we've snuck out here because we
have something to hide."
"I don't know why you're so upset about it,"
she said stiffly. "Other people's opinions have
never mattered to you."
"That's true. I don't care what people say
or think about me, but I can't be sure you
won't let their talk influence you," was his
response.
"I can make up my own mind." Pilar resented
his implication. If she was so easily swayed
by public opinion, she would never have married
Elliot, a man over twice her own age, but
she chose not to mention that to Trace.
"Well, you're damned slow about it," he
muttered.
"That's your opinion."
"Pilar." An amused patience ran thickly
through his voice, at odds with his previous

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
curtness. "Don't you know why I'm
suddenly
in such a lousy mood? You aren't like me. The
kind of talk that's likely to go around will
probably hurt you, and there's nothing I can
do to stop it."
"There's nothing either of us can do." But
her resentment faded at his explanation. It
was frustration he was voicing.
The waitress came with their salads, and
there wasn't as much need for conversation
to fill the silences. They talked infrequently
through the meal and during the drive
over the final miles to Natchez. Trace
pulled
the car up to the curb in front of an apartment
building and switched off the motor.
"Is this where you live?" Pilar knew she
was asking the obvious but it seemed necessary
to hold at bay the sense of intimacy that
accompanied the cessation of movement and
the silence of the engine.
"I don't need much more than a place to
sleep." Trace shrugged and half turned in the
seat to rest his arm along the back near
her head. "I don't suppose you'd
come in for coffee."
"No."
"Pilar,
I'm not a boy. I can't be satisfied
with holding hands all night long." It was
offered as an excuse as he cupped his hand to
the back of her head and held it steady while
he kissed her with slow, languid passion.
"Neither of us is used to being satisfied with
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 193
just that." He breathed the words into her
mouth.
His hand stroked her face, making restless
forays into her hair but avoiding any contact
with her body. The ache was so quick to
surface that Pilar felt wretched. It was such a
crazy, mixed-up situation she'd made for
herself--wanting him and not wanting to
want him.
As he kissed her again, headlight beams
raked the car and another vehicle pulled into
the space in front of them. Trace drew
reluctantly
away from her and watched the couple
climb out of the parked car to advance toward
the apartment building. He waited until they
were inside before he reached for the car
door.
"I'll call you," he said.
Pilar nodded an acknowledgment, fully
aware that his discretion was for her benefit.
When he climbed out of the car, she slid into
the driver's seat. It still held the warmth of his
body. She watched his familiar long shape
disappear into the building before she drove
away.
There was a light on in the kitchen when
she reached Dragon Walk. Instinct had made
all the turns onto the roads that led home.
Pila remembered none of them.
"There you are," Cassie declared with a
concerned sigh when Pilar walked through
the back door. "I was just thinking about
calling Digger to see if you'd had car problems
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
or something. That auction surely didn't run
this late."
"No. I stopped to eat on the way home.
I--I'd better call Florence"--she changed
what she was going to say--"and warn her to
expect a delivery in the morning. I think
I'll
sleep in for a change."
Too much sleep had left her feeling drugged
and dopey. The minute Pilar reached the
kitchen, she walked straight for the coffeepot
and poured herself a cup, hoping its caffeine
would chase the dullness from her senses.
"Good morning to you, too." There was a
snipping edge to Cassie's greeting as she stood
at the sink, washing out one of her blouses by
hand.
"Oh, good morning, Cassie. I'm sorry"
Pilar apologized for not speaking and sagged
into a kitchen chair. "I can't remember the
last time I slept until noon. Now I wish
I'd
had you wake me up by, at least, ten. I
feel
awful."
There was no sympathy forthcoming from
Cassie. She stood at the sink, shoulders
rigidly

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
squared as she beat vigorously at
delicate Mouse matefiM.
"y "t you menon to me that you
were with Trace last night? ernn,
for at matter." S splease was
every we as Cassie reused to round.
"It isn't rit that I'm the last one
whom to know."
"at?" Pfl froed d mentMly ed
to shoe off s slowness of her brnction.
"I don't understand why you felt you
couldn't tell me." Cassie cy d her
h "It isn't as if I'd have told
anyone else. At Mast I wo't have felt
flish, stg the my toe my
mou, able to say a we cause I 't
ow what ey were t aut when
ose people cMled me s mo."
"o ced?" e hot Hqd bm her
tat when ed to sip her coffee.
"Oh, just e locMore busFes who coul't
sist cMg to see what I t let sp. ey
were for a sapent s e,
cau I 't know what ey we
about." She squeezed e suds out of the
blouse a veece.
"I wasn't g to de it, Csie."
defended her pvious t's silence on the
subject. "I just 't feel e t aut it
last that. I dn't reMize you'd d out before
I had a chce to mention it."
SHALL-GHFLY molled by e elaon,
Cassie le her blouse to so some cle
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 197
rinse water and poured herself a cup of coffee
to join Pilar at the table. "If you knew these
people, you'd know they could hardly wait for
the chance to call and rub my nose in it.
What's the point of gossip if it doesn't
make
someone uncomfortable? That's their reason
"If they want to make a big deal out of the
afternoon and evening I spent with Trace,
there's nothing I can do about it." She folded
her hands around the coffee cup and absently
studied its mirror-smooth surface.
"They aren't the only ones who are making
a big deal out of it." Cassie let her comment
lie there without elaboration, knowing full
well that she had Pilar's interest.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean Trace called the shop this morning,
and became worried when he was told you
weren't coming in. That's why he called here,
to find out if something was wrong with you. I
had a difficult time convincing him that you
were merely sleeping late."
"Oh."
"Oh," Cassie repeated the noncommittal
sound. "Is that all you have to say?"
Pilar lifted her gaze to the coffee-skinned
woman, who was more like a roommate than
anything else. They had shared so many
happy things and sad things, confidences and
confessions, yet in this one thing, she had
never sought Cassie's counsel.
"You don't seem surprised by what people
are suggesting," Pilar realized.
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"Why should I be?" the woman reasoned
with her usual calmness, which stood her in
such good stead as a nurse. "I've known for a
long time what kept Trace away from this
house. And I hurt for him."
"You mean ..., you knew?"
"It wasn't what he wanted to feel. I could
see him struggling inside with it sometimes."
There was a slow sigh from her. "People can't
always pick and choose who they want to love.
It just happens to them." She studied Pilar for
a short second. "And you ..., well, I would
have been more worried about you if you
hadn't found him attractive. You're a woman
coming into the prime of her years, when your
needs are stronger, and ..., you're alone. I
know what that can be like. I went through it
myself when my husband died."
"Afterward, did you meet someone like
Trace?" Pilar wondered.
"Like Trace?" Cassie laughed shortly.
"Now, I don't know what you mean by that. I
guess I'd have to know how you feel about
Trace before I could tell you."
"That's just it, Cassie." Pilar sighed and
stared into her coffee, as if trying to see
through its blackness. "I'm not sure how I feel
toward him. It's hard to compare it with anything.
It isn't at all like the love I felt for
Elliot. There was so much happiness and
tenderness with him ..., so much laughter
and affection. With Trace, everything is so
heated and intense. One minute it can be all
friendly and natural, and the next there's a
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flashpoint and I get turned inside out." After
hearing the words, Pilar smiled in faint wryness
at herself. "The only time I can ever
remember feeling anything close to this happened
when I was fifteen and I had this wild
crush on a local football star. One smile
from
him and I could float on a cloud for a week,
and be equally devastated if he failed
to acknowledge
me when we passed in the school
halls." She looked at her friend. "What do you
think?"
"Well, I think ..." Cassie paused to stand
up and walk back to the sink to finish rinsing
her blouse. "... some things in your life have
happened backward."
"What do you mean?" Pilar found that to be
a curious statement. She straightened from
the chair and wandered to the sink.
"Usually when you're young, you find a
passionate kind of love that follows no
particular
rhyme or reason. Then when you get
older, you want something warm and loving.
You skipped the first and went straight to the
second when you married Elliot," she
explained.
"So you see, there wasn't anyone like
Trace for me, because my Oggie was Trace."
"I see." Pilar sipped slowly at her
coffee to
give herself time to think. "Passion usually
burns itself out, though." She spoke aloud the
doubts that assailed her. "When it's dead,
there usually isn't anything left."
"Passion eventually burns itself up," Cassie
agreed. "But passionate love is another thing
entirely. Some of us are lucky enough to find

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
it, others find an equally satisfying
substitute,
and the rest make do. Passionate love means
passionate caring. He's got to mean
something
more than just a man you want to sleep
in your bed. How do you describe an emotion
that doesn't need words?" She shook her
head, unable to come up with a way. "Desire
is a part of it, but it only makes the caring
richer."
"Everything is so tangled up inside me that
I don't know anything, Cassie. I like him.
I'm
even beginning to understand him." She
laughed softly at that. "But ... I question
whether the desire can last. I don't trust my
own emotions."
"For your own sake, you need to decide,"
Cassie advised. "Sometimes making no decision
is worse than making the wrong one."
"I love it when you give me one of those
adages of yours," Pilar chided affectionately.
"They sound so wise and they're so impossible
to carry out." She finished her coffee and set
the empty cup on the drainboard. "I'd better
get to the shop before Florence decides that
I'm not coming in at all today."
Pilar was in the rear storeroom of the
antique
shop, checking over the items she'd
purchased the day before at the auction and
making sure none had been damaged in
transport. Florence Barslow was on her way
out the rear door to take her noon break, a
little late in the day. The bell above the shop
door jangled the entrance of a customer.
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"Would you want me to wait on them while
you finish up?" Florence volunteered.
"No, I'll get it. You run along." Pilar
set her
notes aside and stepped over the pile of discarded
newspaper and tissue-packing to cross
the storeroom to the retail section of the shop.
When Trace saw her, he paused in mid
stride, then came to the counter. "So you
finally made it to work. I missed you at the
house. I called a few minutes ago and
Cassie
said you'd left to come here."
"Was there something urgent?" There was a
quicksilver racing along her nerve ends.
"Foolish question," he mocked dryly.
"Where you're concerned, my needs are always
urgent."
Deciding it was better if she didn't reply
to
that, she chose to comment on something
else. "Are you playing hookey again today?"
She noticed the way the blue-gray suit fit
him,
comfortably molding the tapering width of his
body.
"No. I just came by for two reasons," he
said.
"And they are?" she prompted.
"I wondered if you were still planning to go
to New Orleans next week." The counter was
between them. Trace picked up a glass
paperweight
and leaned a hip against the counter
while he examined the blown crystal glass.
"Yes, I am."
"I believe I mentioned to you that our new
towboat was due to come out of the boatyards
about that same time." He set the
202
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
paperweight onto the counter again. "The date
happens to coincide with your trip. It seemed
appropriate to me that you should be on hand
to christen the newest member of the Santee
river fleet when it's launched for the first
time."
"Do you mean ..., with champagne?" The
idea intrigued her.
"How's your swinging atl?" Trace inquired.
"You have to hit that champagne bottle
across the bow in just the right spot to
break it."
"It should be fun." She warmed to the plan.
"Come on." He caught her hand and pulled
her around the counter. Before she could
guess his intentions, he had her standing with
her back to him and his arms were guiding
her into a swinging position. "We'll practice a
few times." But he was nuzzling her hair,
working his way through its silken mass to
her ear.
"Trace, don't." His breath stirred little
shivers
to race over her skin. She brought her
arms down, but his hands followed them and
folded her arms across her middle to draw her
backward into his long length. "There are
people outside. They can see us through the
window."
"So? Let them." But he made no attempt
to
check her escape when she moved shakily out
of his arms.
"This is a place of business," she retorted
impatiently. "How would you like it if I
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

walked into your office while you were working
and proceeded to crawl onto your lap?"
The instant she saw the wicked gleam in his
eyes, Pilar immediately retracted her question.
"Don't bother to answer that."
"So we're in public, hmm? And it's back
to
hand holding." He reached for her hand and
carried it to his mouth, where he kissed her
fingertips with consummate ease. She
snatched her hand away before she began to
enjoy the sensation too much.
"Is this why you came here? Just to mock
me?" As she turned away she laughed in
irony. "And to think that just this morning I
was saying to Cassie that I thought I was
beginning to understand you."
"Did you? What else did you tell her about
me?" he asked.
"It's none of your business." She tried not to
let that huskily seductive pitch of his voice
insinuate itself into her confidence.
"If I was the subject being discussed, whose
business would it be if it isn't mine?" Trace
chided her mockingly. "Maybe I'll have to
stop by the house and talk to Cassie. It's
pretty
hard for her to keep anything from me."
"There's nothing she can tell you that you
don't already know." Pilar didn't doubt that
he had the wiles to maneuver Cassie into
disclosing their conversation without realizing
she had.
"Which is?" He was doing it to her.
'at everything is a tangled mess."

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"We'll never straighten it out if we don't
spend time together," he responded seriously.
"I'm well aware of your idea of time together."
"Are you?" he countered. "My idea is that
we go to New Orleans together, get away by
ourselves where the wrong noses won't keep
sticking themselves into our business and you
won't have to worry about who's watching."
"Alone? With you? No." That was asking for
trouble.
"I guessed you'd say that, so I have an
alternative," Trace replied. "The new
towboat
will go out on a shakedown cruise after it's
launched. We can ride on it as far as
Natchez,
which is somewhere around a two-day trip,
depending on the conditions. Have you ever
been on the river?"
"Only in pleasure craft," she admitted.
"Then you'll have a chance to learn firsthand
what the business is all about. As part
owner of the company, it's something you
should know." The rough contours of his lean
features showed a dry pleasure at how
nicely
the reason dovetailed into his plans for spending
time together. "We'll drive up on Monday.
There's no need for you to take your car or it
will wind up stranded in New Orleans."
"But I'll need transportation once I'm there
so I can make my calls on the various
antique
shops." That was the only inconvenience
Pilar foresaw.
"We'll arrange for you to have the loan of
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 205
someone's car." Trace solved it without hesitation
and moved toward her. "That's all settled.
Now what about the weekend?"
"I'll be attending auctions both days," Pilar
explained as he reached up to smooth the
collar of her blouse.
Lightly curling his fingers under the lapels,
he followed them down to the first button,
nestled at the top of her cleavage. Her flesh
tingled in vague excitement where the backs
of his hands brushed the curves of her
breasts.
"That takes care of the days," he
murmured.
"What about the nights?"
Struggling to keep her composure from
being affected by his disturbing touch, Pilar
attempted to hold the gaze of his velvety gray
eyes. "I think we need a cooling-off
period."
"Cooling off." He chuckled softly in his
throat and edged closer to add the persuasions
of his body to the faint caress of his hands. "I
haven't even gotten warmed up yet."
"All right, maybe you don't, but I need time
to sort things out," she insisted, rawly conscious
of the slight pressure of his thighs
against hers. "Sometimes I don't even like
you." Mostly because he knew just how to get
to her and upset the comfortable balance of
her life.
"You don't like me?" He ran a finger down
the pulsing vein in her neck. "Or is it that you
don't like what I do to you?"
"I don't trust it," she answered truthfully.
"There has to be more than just this,
otherwise---"
was we a few
es and get it out of our system," Trace
seed s suggestion. "It's not a bad idea
and it just might answer some for you."
"I not nve." She was patient
m, mostly because e suggeson was so
ded temp gess of her abfli to
sss s raone. "Have sex a m
is no way to judge how much you le .
d ffyou don't d, rd le to d that out
before I get d this more."
"Somees it's hd to sepate e o,"
he mm-ied we s restless hds idy
cess her face, neck, d sho.e
consy d her that it wo't e
much pvocon on her p to s
closeness to embrace.
e clapr rattled against e sides of e
11 to sign e ope of e shop dr.
Sidestepp qckly, Pfl s out fm
bed ace et e co customer.
It w her o scomfo d shakey bs
at put e color her cheeks.
"Oh, hello, ." Except for a ftl cud- ous
ce, Sybil derson bly tk y
notice oface when she entered e shop.
"Is
Florence he? She cled me s mo to
say you had come acss unusuy shaped
bowl at ght be a ce adon to my
collection of Depression
"Florence is out to lunch but I ow e
piece she mes," ass her. "It's sl
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 207
in the storeroom. We haven't brought it out
yet. If you'll wait here, I'll get it for
you."
"Of course."
Trace's voice checked her movement to the
rear of the shop. "It's time I was getting back
to the office. We'll get an early start
Monday
morning, probably around six. And be sure to
pack some everyday clothes for the trip back.
You might want to bring a light jacket.
Sometimes
it gets cool on the river at night."
"I ... I will." She nodded, aware of the
woman's sharpening curiosity. The bell jangled
behind Trace as he walked out of the shop
onto the street.
"Evidently you and Trace are planning a
trip somewhere," Sybil Anderson concluded,
barely containing her desire to know all the
details.
"Yes. We're going to New Orleans on
Monday."
Pilar tried to sound very matter-of-fact
about it. "The Santee Line is launching a new
boat on Tuesday. Trace thought I might
enjoy
making its inaugural trip upstream. It should
be an interesting experience."
"Yes ... I guess it would." She sounded
disappointed.
The early-morning sunlight had dispelled
the white mists that had been drifting close to
the ground under the moss-draped oaks. The
softness of that early light was gentle on
everything it touched, toning down harsh colors
and rounding rough edges. Pilar followed
Trace out of the rear door of Dragon Walk,
her

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
weekender bag in his hand. Cassie
paused in
the doorway.
"Now, you drive carefully," she admonished.
"Now,
Cassie, whenever have I ever taken
chances?" Trace mockingly chided her words
of caution.
"Everytime you do anything," she retorted.
Trace merely laughed and continued toward
'the car, parked in the rear driveway. Pilar had
barely glanced at it. But as they approached it
she happened to notice someone sitting in the
rear seat.
"You never mentioned that someone would
be riding with us," she murmured in a low
voice so her comment wouldn't carry through
the open car window.
"Didn't I?" He unlocked the trunk and
stowed her suitcase inside. "Mike's coming to
handle all the paperwork and drive my car
back. I thought you'd be pleased to have a
chaperon on the long drive to New Orleans."
He was mocking her. "You made it very definite
that you didn't want to be alone with me."
"I don't mind a bit." Pilar
shrugged despite
the niggling sense of disappointment. "It was
just a surprise, that's all."
Although Trace installed her in the front
passenger seat next to him, she took very little
part in the conversation that went on, letting
the business talk swirl around her. Most of the
time she looked out the window to avoid staring
at Trace.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 209
The warm and humid summer climate of
the South made everything lush and green.
Here and there along the highway there were
glimpses of old homes, examples of the
gracious
architecture that had grown out of more
languorous times. There were signs of poverty,
too, but the benign surroundings seemed to
remove some of the grimness that was usually
associated with it in other parts of the
country.
"Are we boring you, Pilar?" Trace inquired
when it had been a long time since she had
contributed anything to the conversation.
"No." She turned and experienced the
warm caress of his gaze traveling over her. "I
was just enjoying the scenery."
"It can be very stimulating at times." His
mouth twitched in a half smile, and his look
turned her into the subject of his comment
instead of the countryside they were passing.
She breathed in deeply, unable to respond
with Mike listening from his rear seat post,
and turned to gaze out the window again. Yet
there was an awareness of the warm pleasure
that licked along her nerve ends at the subtle
and suggestive compliment.
When they reached New Orleans, Trace
drove straight to the hotel in the French Quarter
where they'd be spending the night. "As
Mike could tell you," he said as the doorman
approached to assist them from the car and
see to their luggage, "normally when we
come to the city on business, our

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
accommodations aren't this lavish. Since you're with
us,
and this trip is something of an occasion, it
seemed the perfect excuse to treat
ourselves
to some luxury."
"It wasn't necessary on my account." She
didn't want him to think she expected any
special treatment.
"Don't say that," Mike Barnes protested in
mock seriousness. "Ever since Trace mentioned
you were coming to attend the launching,
I've done my best to convince him it
wouldn't be right for a lady to stay in that
fleabag hotel near the tednal office."
"It isn't that bad," Trace countered and
stepped out of the car so the parking valet
could put it in the hotel garage.
"Maybe not, but this is better," Mike
announced,
running an appreciative eye over
the impressive hotel entrance.
"In that case, Mike, this is exactly where I
wanted to stay." Pilar smiled, supporting his
case.
As the driver slid behind the wheel, Trace
slipped him a tip. "We'll be needing the car in
about an hour. Mrs. Santee will be picking it
up." He indicated pilar with a nod of
his head,
then joined her on the front walk. "You can
use my car to make your calls. Fitzroy is
picking up Mike and me and driving us to our
local office."
His guiding hand was spread along the back
of her waist as Trace escorted her inside the
hotel. Warmth radiated from the contact, a
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

hint of possession in the gesture that was
oddly pleasing to Pilar. The passing glances
they attracted gave her a feeling of pride at
being with him. As well dressed as any man
in the lobby, Trace had rough, manly airs
about him; he was lean and raw, experienced
in the ways of menmand women--and possessed
with a keen intelligence that revealed
itself in the alertness of his unusual gray eyes.
It was slightly funny that she had to see him
outside normal surroundings before she noticed
any of that.
At the reception desk, Pilar stepped to one
side while Trace checked on their reservations.
The clerk punched the information into
the computer and waited for the readout on
the screen.
"Mr. Santee," he confirmed, then glanced
at Pilar. "And you are Mrs. Santee?"
"Yes." She nodded.
"And another gentleman by the name of Mr.
Barnes," the clerk added. "Is that all in your
party, Mr. Santee?" he inquired and pushed
the sequence of characters to print out a
computerized form.
"That's correct."
"Just sign here, Mr. Santee." The clerk
indicated the signature blank on the form,
handed him a pen, then tore off a perforated
end after Trace had signed it and gave it to
him. "Just give this to the bellboy. He'll get
your key and take you and your wife to your
room"

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
There was a slight pause during which
Trace slid an amused look at Pilar.
"You
have Mrs. Santee and myself in the same
room."
A vaguely bewildered expression crossed
the clerk's face. "Yes, sir."
"It's not that I have any objections to the
arrangements." A smile kept playing with the
corners of his mouth, and Pilar shared his
secret amusement even though her senses
were tingling with the possibility of sharing a
room with him. "But I believe when the reservations
were made, a separate room was requested
for Mrs. Santee. You see, she isn't my
wife, although I don't deny the idea does
have some appeal."
The young clerk became slightly flustered.
"I beg your pardon," he apologized
anxiously
and quickly punched up the computer readout
again. "You're right. It was my mistake. Another
room has been assigned to Mrs. Santee."
As soon as that mix-up was straightened
out, Trace handed her the separate slip to give
to the bellboy. "More's the pity," he
murmured
in a low voice.
"I was sure that was what you were thinking,"
she replied in an equally Soft tone.
After Mike had registered, the bellboy with
their luggage passed out their respective keys
and rode with them on the elevator to their
assigned floor. Pilar was shown to her room
first.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 213
Left alone when the others were taken to
their quarters, she took a few minutes to
unpack some things she didn't want wrinkled.
As she finished, there was a knock at
her door.
"Who is it?"
"Trace."
After slipping the chain free of its catch,
Pilar opened the door and Trace stepped
inside.
"Mike and I are meeting Fitzroy downstairs
in the lobby, so I won't see you until
tonight."
"What time will we be having dinner?" She
had a strange feeling all this talk was
superfluous.
"Eight, I suppose. The manager of this
office
will be joining us." His mouth crooked at
a rueful angle. "I told you it would all be very
proper, didn't I?"
"You did."
His hand reached out and pushed the door
closed behind him before he took a step toward
her and gathered her up into the tight
circle he made with his arms and his body.
She had already lifted her head to meet his
oncoming mouth. It rolled onto her lips, all
raw and hungry. It seemed to consume her
with a surging rush of fierce need that soon
ignited an answering ache.
But Trace pulled away before she was satisfied
and buried his face in the side of her
hair near an ear. He was breathing hard,
the hot rush of moist air igniting her skin
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
and eng evered cls over her nerve
ends.
"I needed a," he muered ckly.
so close to you at way e c, I
out I'd go as mad as Ttus. I wonder
how much it wod cost me b e clerk
to v me a key to yo m I cod
slip he e de of e t--"
"ac" She was caut hway een
excitement d epidafion.
"Don't worry. I won't." e w pagent
edge in s voice as s hds tightened
on her shode to set her away m . "If
I out I had a e chce hell of
accomplisg someg, I'd do R. It's r
ded sure, I'm not lg fo to lk-g at you 1
eve, not evne else
at o table."
Wi a new pecve on e conl he
was exercis over s wts d e s R
was put on , Pfl felt eHcable
need to test s newly scoved wer she
had over .
"It could be worse," she wed ft
mocky. "You cod he d I cod
Natchez."
"Some consolation," he mked. "At let
tomow I'H have you to myse on at
at."
"sn't e at have a cw?" She playy
ted her head to the side, h ta
"Yes, but they'll be busy. And if they're not,
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

I'll see to it that something is found for them
to do," "Prace retorted. "Not that it matters.
They're rivermen. They aren't going to talk
about the private affairs of one of their own."
He planted a had kiss on her lips. "I'd
better
g. Mike's waiting."
The sun made a bright glare on the muddy
Mississippi water when they arrived at
dockside
the next morning. More than a dozen
people were already on hand for the launching
of the new towboat, fully equipped with all
the latest navigation and communications devices.
There was a chorus of greetings as they
approached the group. It was a few minutes
before the glad-handing was over and Trace
took the opportunity to introduce the men
to Pilar.
"I think you know Sam, Frank, and Adam
from our New Orleans terminal." The three
men nodded to Pilar when Trace pointed them
out to her. "And this man"--he slapped the
shoulder of a slight-built man, about
Trace's
age, wearing a white shirt, a navy blue
waist

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 217
jacket, and a captain's hat--"is Dan
Morgan.
He'll be piloting the Santee Lady when she
puts out."
"How do you do," Pilar greeted him as he
briefly lifted his hat to her.
"What Trace failed to tell you," Morgan
said, "is that I was second pilot under him for
a long time. We plied these waters many a
time together. It'll be like old times to have
him back on board when we make this trial
run." Then, as if remembering his manners,
he added, "It'll be a pleasure to have you with us,
too."
"Thank you. I'm looking forward to it." It
had the sound of an adventure about it, something
totally new and out of the ordinary. An
earlier remark by Trace had caught her interest,
and she went back to it before he could
complete the introductions. "What did
you say
the name of the boat is going to be?"
"The Santee Lady." Behind the lazy look he
gave her, there was something warm and
suggestive. "It seemed fitting to name her
after one of the owners of the company." He
held her gaze for an instant longer, then made
an obvious effort to break away from it. "This
is Pete Turner, the engineer. And the deckhands
for this trip--" Four men were standing
in a loose row and he went down them, pointing
them out as he gave her their names. "Joe
Allen, Billy Bob Davis, Rick
Connors, and
Tucker Smith. And last but not least, the most
important member of the crew, Woody Evers,
the cook."

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Hello." She addressed her response to all
of them.
Evers removed the cigar from his mouth
long enough to say, "Pleased to meet you,"
then clamped it between his lips again.
"Evers" reputation as a cook is known
up
and down the river," Trace explained with a
sly smile. "Most people don't know why his
food always tastes so different. But his secret
ingredient is that cigar that's always hanging
out of his mouth. The smoke flavors everything
he fixes."
The cigar was obviously an in house joke,
since the others laughed heartily at Trace's
jibing remarks and gave the cook a rough
time about it. The interplay permitted Pilar a
glimpse of the rough-and-tumble life Trace
had once led.
Before the round of introductions was completed,
she had met representatives from the
boat builder as well as two officers from the
Coast Guard. A lot of general conversations
went back and forth, some idle bantering and
speculation about the new towboat.
"Shall we get on with the ceremony?" Trace
suggested and half turned. "Mike? You
brought along the requisite bottle of
champagne,
didn't you?"
"Got it right here." He produced the
bottle
with a ribboned bow around its neck and
handed it to Pilar.
"Come on." Trace led her to the freshly
painted bow of the towboat where it sat on a
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

ramp to the water. "Do you see this area right
here?" He showed her a section of the angled
edge of the bow. "Take the bottle in both
hands and swing it just as hard as you can
and aim it for this spot. Okay?"
"Okay." She nodded.
"Everybody stand back," Trace advised as
he moved away from her. "I don't know what
she's going to hit. If she had her choice, it'd
probably be me."
There was a certain awkwardness to the
moment as Pilar gripped the neck of the bottle
as if it were a baseball bat and kept her eye
on
the spot Trace had indicated.
"Remember those newsreels they used to
show?" Evers was saying in the background.
"I remember seeing one this one time where
some woman kept trying to bust a bottle of
champagne over the bow of this brand new
Navy ship. She never did do it."
"Thanks for the encouragement," Pilar inserted
dryly.
She drew the bottle back, then took aim and
swung as hard as she could. She felt the jolt of
the bottle hitting the bow and flinched in
anticipation of the splintering crash that followed
and the spray of champagne. There was
a burst of cheers--comm from surprise than
anything else, she suspected. She stepped
away from the bow, shaking the wetness of
champagne from her hands while she continued
to hold the ribboned neck of the bottle.
"You did it!" Trace's arm hugged her by the

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
shoulders while his broad, laughing smile
beamed at her with pride. "The first time, too."
Someone was already picking up the larger,
broken chunks of glass as Trace led her
back
to join the others at the top of the ramp.
"Didn't you think I could?" she
challenged
him and offered him the broken bottle neck as
proof.
"I'm beginning to think you can do everything
except make up your mind," he declared,
but in a low voice, meant for her
hearing alone.
A second later, Pilar was caught up in the
rush of voices congratulating her. Someone
popped the cork of a chilled bottle of
champagne
and paper cups of it were passed
around for the toasting as the lines securing
and steadying the towboat eased it gently into
the water.
An hour later the Coast Guard had completed
its final inspection of the craft and the
towboat was chugging out of the boatyard
area. The New Orleans harbor was busy,
tugs
and towboats moving steadily up-and downstream,
freighters and cargo ships tied up to
wharfs.
Beyond the high levees that kept the Mississippi
River within its banks was the city of
New Orleans, its streets below the river's
waterline. Leaning forward, Pilar rested her
forearms on the deck railing outside the
pilothouse,
feeling a part of all this subtle excitement.
"Wait until you see how she handles,
Trace," Dan Morgan said from inside the
house. "She likes a lover's touch. No rough
stuff for this lady."
"Is that right?" The idle response came
from a point very close to her. Pilar glanced
over her shoulder to discover that Trace was
studying her intently. "Is that where I made
my mistake with you?" he murmured to her.
She looked to the front again, her side vision
noting his approach to stand beside her at the
railing. "You like saying things that are slightly
unnerving to me, don't you?" she accused,
conscious of how erratic her pulse had become
at his suggestive comment.
"Not nearly as much as I like doing things
that slightly unnerve you," he replied.
"You're doing it again," Pilar said.
"All right then, no more words," he said.
"Why don't I take you below and show you
which cabin will be yours? You'd probably like
to change clothes."
"Yes, I would," she agreed, having already
discovered that her leather-soled shoes were
not the best choice.
When she stepped over the raised threshold
into the cabin, Pilar discovered that it was
larger than she had guessed it would be.
Everything was brand-new and gleaming. It
was all so compact and efficient, yet so much
roomier than she had expected.
"This is nice," she said to Trace with a
degree of surprise when he followed her into
the cabin.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"It's the captain's quarters. Morgan
willingly
gave it up one night for you," he said as he
wandered into the cabin, idly looking around.
"It's a home away from home. Or in some
instances, this is home and the house on land
is the second home. This is where they live
and they vacation somewhere else."
"Was a place like this home for you?"
Pilar
heard the undertones of nostalgia in his voice
and wondered about this side of his life. She
halted by the bunk and sat down.
"Yes." He wandered over and sat down next
to her. "It should be comfortable."
Pilar stood up and moved away from the
bed before the thoughts that were in his mind
became actions. "I'm sure it will be very
comfortable."
Turning his body, he stretched out on the
bed and cradled his hands under his head.
"This bed is going to be the envy of every
riverman up and down the way. Morgan's
lucky."
"Why?" Although she sensed she was walking
into something, she had to ask.
"Because you're going to sleep in this bed
tonight. A man's imagination can keep that
dream alive every time he crawls into this
bunk and thinks of you in it."
"Did you ever have a woman aboard?" She
supposed it was natural curiosity that prompted
her to inquire about his previous affairs.
Not for a minute did she believe there
hadn't
been any before her.
"I've entertained women in my cabin
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 223
before," he admitted. "But I don't want
to talk
about them. I want to talk about you."
"And I want to change clothes." Pilar
reminded
him of the reason he had ostensibly
shown her the location of the cabin. She
wasn't ready for the discussion to become
personal.
"Go ahead and change." He settled more
comfortably into the bunk.
"Trace, I'm not going to stand here and strip
for your benefit," she advised him with a
small laugh.
"Come here a minute," he urged and sat up
on one elbow.
Hesitantly Pilar moved to the edge of the
bunk. "What do you want?"
"Y." He caught her hand and pulled her
onto the mattress, turning her with his hands
to lay her down beside him. "All this talk
and
where's it getting us? Not where either of us
want to be, which is right here."
His hand glided across her stomach and
covered a round breast. There was no sound
she could utter, nothing she could say as he
lowered himself toward her. His kiss was long
and slow, plunging deep to curl her toes with
sensation. He hooked a leg between hers as
his body became pleasantly heavy on her.
Every inch of her face was covered by his
seeking mouth, down her lips to the hollow at
her throat.
"It's no good, Pilar." It was a thickly
murmured
comment, half muffled by her skin. "I
love you too much. I've got to know."

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Don't ask me now," she protested on an
aching whisper. "I'd say anything just because
I love what you're doing to me. It isn't
fair to tell you that." With
a groan he turned his head aside.
"When will it be fair?" he demanded.
His hands ceased their stroking arousal,
and some of her sanity seemed to return. She
twisted from beneath him and swung out of
the bunk. Her blouse was half unbuttoned and
she was still quaking inside.
"I'm sorry, Trace, but I don't know,"
she
insisted and felt that awful twist of agony
when she heard him angrily rise from the bed.
"I don't know how much more of this I can
take," he muttered.
"Neither do I," Pilar retorted. "And I wish
you'd stop making me feel like some cheap
tease who gets her kicks out of doing this to a
man."
"You'd better change." He breathed out
heavily, as if trying to release some of that
taut emotion. "I'll see you topside."
It was several minutes after Trace had left
the cabin before Pilar even bothered to open
her suitcase to take out the jeans and sleeveless
white blouse she'd brought along. When
she had changed her clothes, she sat on a
chair to tie on a pair of rubber-soled deck
shoes.
There was suddenly a hard jolt as if they'd
run into something. Alarmed, she quickly finished
tying her shoes and hurried to the door.
Vaguely she remembered the pitches
of the eine, but she had merely assumed
they were testing something.
She practically flew tugh the companionway d
up e la.e to e pfloou,
where ace had sd he was go. She
stopd the on day, clutc the
sides, sy out of breath.
"at hapned?" She was p as she
ld past e o men the pilothouse at
obscd ew of a whir.
"Nog." ace append cm d corn
pletel . "y?"
"I out... "t we run to me?"
She ducked her head back ouide to
walk to the will.
"No," he ped.
"Well, we d bump the a bit. May
at's what she felt," D Morg suggested.
"Oh." Feeling a little sheepish, Pfl backed
out of e pfloouse d stuck her hds
e p ckets of her jes she wouldered
f.
If she had ten e time to lk, she M she wod
have seen ere wn't
uble. m her M vmge t, she
could s the decds worki low.
seemed to s a set of bges,
fled abast, to e towat. Pfl , a
tde cos. en she he ace step
onto e dk d her, she ed.
"at ey do?" she ked.
He ce to e r beside her d I
THE Best WAY TO LOSE
down expectantly, then slid her a puzzled
glance. "What do you mean? They're making
the barges fast."
"But" She shrugged. "I thought this was
going to be a trial run just to test it out. You're
going to push barges, too?"
"Only four. We aren't taking a full
complement.
We want enough to put some strain on
the engines and check how they function," he
explained with an indulgent look, then turned
back to watch the working men. His expression
sobered slightly. "From the looks of that
river, it's going to do some testing of its own."
Earlier Pilar had been more interested in
what was going on around her than the
muddy water rolling around the boat. But his
comment drew her attention to the foamy
brown water, churning and boiling below her.
It was swollen, with odd bits of debris and
broken branches tossed and sucked under by
its angry current.
"It's high, isn't it?" she realized.
"They've been having a lot of heavy rains
up north," he stated. "The runoff has
swollen
the Mississippi, which makes for turbulent
water and stronger, fast-running currents.
The gal's gonna be tested going upstream
against this," Trace concluded, referring to
the boat.
"Do you think she'll make it?"
Trace looked at her. "I'm betting on it."
Everything with him seemed to have a double
meaning.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 227
"I think Cassie's right--you like taking
chances," she replied and lowered her gaze
to
the swollen river.
"The Mississippi is an amazing thing when
you think about it," he said, changing the
subject.
"Why is that?"
"It drains nearly half the total area of the
United States. The Indians named it right
when they called it the Father of Waters," he
said idly. "That water down there--some of it
probably dripped off a house in
Pennsylvania
and flowed into the Ohio, or it came from
Wyoming and Montana down the Yellowstone
and into the Mississippi by way of the Missouri.
The muddy Missouri--too thick to drink
and too thin to plow. The Tennessee drains
into it, reaching all the way back to North
Carolina, and the Platte from Colorado. Not
to mention all that Texas rain that dumps into
the Mississippi where the Red River flows into
it above Baton Rouge. And that's just the big
rivers. That doesn't count all the smaller
tributaries
and streams."
"It almost sounds like a geography lesson."
She laughed.
"I guess it does," he agreed with a slow
smile, then pushed away from the rail. "I
think I'll go check to see how much longer
we'll be here. You're free to wander around
any place."
For the time being, Pilar stayed at her vantage
point to observe the proceedings and left

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
the exploring for another time. She listened to
the orders shouted and the acknowledgments
made in answering yells.
It didn't seem to take long, and the towboat
was maneuvering into the channel, pushing
the heavily loaded barges ahead of it. The
deck vibrated with the hard throb of the
engines. Atop the pilothouse the radar disc
began to make its slow, never-ending circle.
A scorching sun was high overhead, sending
Pilar in search of the shady side to escape
its direct heat. As they chugged steadily
upstream,
the signs of the city gradually faded
from view and pilar saw levee banks and the
cotton, cane, and rice fields beyond.
"Hey, Pilar!" a voice shouted to her. She
looked over the railing to see Trace standing
on the lower deck, his hand cupped to his
mouth. "Lunch's ready! Are you hungry?"
"Yes." She nodded emphatically to be sure
he understood and hurried down the ladder to
join him.
The meal was served in a common room off
the galley. Between meals it was a gathering
place to play cards or watch television or
talk.
At this mealtime it was filled with hungry
men and one woman, Pilar.
After Trace's comment about the cook's flavoring
his dishes with cigar smoke, he took a
lot of ribbing from the crew. It was a hearty
meal, the simple meat, potato, and vegetable
kind with a fruit pie for dessert.
When she was finished, Pilar carried her
dirty dishes into the galley like all the others
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

had. Evers was grumbling sourly under his
breath at the sink, the cigar wigwagging from
his mouth.
"Don't pay any attention to them, Mr.
Evers," Pilar said quietly as she set her
dishes
with the rest. "The food was very good and
none of it tasted of cigar." But she suspected it
wouldn't be long before the galley stank with
its smoke.
"They gotta have somethin" to complain
about, ma'am. If it ain't me and my cookin',
it'll be somethin' else." He shrugged his disinterest
in their jibes at him, but the cigar
settled into one place in his mouth, proving to
Pilar that her compliment had slightly mollified
his ego.
When she returned to the common room,
Trace was standing. He stretched taller, his
flexing shoulders pulling the shirt tautly
across his chest as he rubbed a hand absently
across his stomach. He smiled faintly at her.
"Ready to go for a walk?"
"After that meal I need it," she agreed and
moved in front of him to step through the
doorway first.
"Well, what do you think of it so far?" He
wrapped an arm around her waist, keeping
her close despite the sultry blast of
outside
heat.
"Everything's so new to me. I feel like a
child, always wanting to ask "What's that?"'"
She laughed.
"Such as?" Trace wanted to know.
"Such as ..." Pausing, pilar looked around

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
and spied one of the deckhands heading for
the steps by the tall bumpers that led down to
the barges. "What's he doing?"
"I imagine he's going to check the cables
and make sure they're all right. They tend to
work loose, especially in turbulent currents
like this." The response was barely given before
a black look spread across his features.
Pilar suddenly felt herself being shoved aside
as Trace pushed by her. "Stay here," he ordered
and appeared to forget her instantly.
"Tuckerl" he shouted to the deckhand.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
The man stopped and looked at him blankly,
a half-smoked cigarette drooping from one
side of his mouth. In two strides Trace was
there and snatching the cigarette from his
mouth to throw it into the river.
"Dammit all, Tucker! You know better!" he
snapped. "Have you forgotten we're carrying
sulfur in the holds of those barges? It's
carelessness
that gets people killed."
"Sorry, I ... forgot." The man went almost
white.
"See that you don't forget again," Trace
ordered. "And when you've checked those
lines, make sure "No Smoking" signs
get posted."
There was still a dark scowl on his face
when he returned to Pilar. She didn't have to
ask what that was all about, since it was
impossible not to overhear.
"The barges are loaded with sulfur? Is that
explosive?" she asked curiously.
His e w before d s sns w
bflefer. "It' what ey use on match he."
No er elaon was quite. "Come
on." at spleas led his es
despite s attempt m push it aside.
"I'll show
you und e Ly."
"I ht." pfemd a ded to to
elo on her o.
He tk her u the cw's qm,
then low to e eine m, whe e
w b of the ees was so loud at
he had to shout W me se he. See
s was a shako p, a lot of chec
we be made of the systems. aee tk e to spe e
eeer esco
- Pfl out of e more.
m e ee m ey went topside to
e pfloouse. A beze, at least, mov e
d even thou e sun kept it
d hot. ace lieved Morg at e wheel,
en eled 1 e sopsficat
ment m her. en ey ce to a
setch of ver, he let her steer, me
scons d occasionMore sistce.
en he ce up bed her d b4
on h neck, Pfl wasn't sflsed. Sner or
later she had ected to te advtage
of the fact at she had hds on
wheel.
"Pay attenon to whe u're go," he
wed when she to tst away from
more. "You have m stay de e chel
mrs ess you wt to us ad."
"Isn't ere some law against

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
with the pilot?" She protested and tried to
shrug a shoulder into her neck to stop that
exciting nibbling of her skin.
"Probably," he agreed and lifted his head,
but he continued to stand directly behind her,
his hands rubbing her with disturbing interest.
Now that he had stopped that sensual nibbling,
Pilar leaned back against him, contentment
sighing through her at the hard, solid
warmth of his body, whipped lean and rugged.
"I can't remember the last time I enjoyed
myself so much," she declared.
"Then don't try," Trace replied.
It was an idyllic afternoon she spent with
him. Sometimes it was fun and playful; other
times it was simply quiet and
companionable,
talking about little things or events in their
respective lives or watching the wildlife
along
the banks.
Sundown brought a lowering of temperature,
aided by the water-cooled breeze coming
off the river. Trace's arm was draped around
her shoulders as they took a late-night stroll,
leaving behind the lighted decks of the towboat
to venture onto the shadowed barges.
The vibrating throb of the powerful engines
ceased to dominate the night and faded into
the background, the breeze blowing the sound
away from them.
When they reached the bow of the lead
barge on the port side, they paused to look out
into the black silhouettes of the night and
listen to the rush of water against the sides. It
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

was like being totally alone, only the two of
them in the world. The slight pressure of his
arm urged her downward as Trace lowered
himself onto the barge deck and leaned
against an idle ratchet. Pilar readily joined
him, nestling herself in the crook of his arm
and resting her head against his shoulder.
A fat, lopsided moon grinned down from a
night sky jam-packed with stars. The midnight
blackness was virtually littered with
the tinsel-bright glitter of them. There was a
magic about the night that vaguely dazzled
her.
"I've never seen so many stars," she murmured.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he agreed.
Turning her head against his shoulder,
Pilar gazed up at him. "You miss this, don't
you?" She noticed the ease in his features.
Here there were no walls and no desks to
confine him, no expensive silk tie around his
neck or tailored suit jacket constricting his
shoulders. He had on a pair of worn jeans and
a dark windbreaker over a plain cotton shirt,
unbuttoned at the throat, and that slightly
battered captain's hat was on his head. That
had been his attire since they'd come aboard.
"Yes," Trace admitted. "I'm not sure
I make
a good corporate executive, but I
enjoy the
challenge of running things even if I can't
stand all the paperwork and meetings. Whenever
I get the urge to chuck it all, I spend a
couple of days on the river and come back."
One corner of his mouth lifted in the

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
suggestion of a smile as his lazy glance roamed
her
upturned face. "A couple of times I've
been
tempted to buy myself a boat and run the
company from it."
"Would that make you happy?" she wondered,
because there was a lurking quality of
sadness about him despite the occasional bravado.
"Pilar."
He breathed heavily with patient
exasperation. "How many times do I have to
tell you--you would make me happy."
This sudden turn of the conversation,
where she became the subject matter, made
her uneasy. It was that subtle pressuring
again, trying to force a decision from her.
She
lowered her chin to break away from his gaze
and looked at the swallowing blackness of the
river.
"Maybe I haven't been patient, but you've
lived inside me a long time. It's already to the
point where there's no getting over you." His
warm lips nuzzled her temple, the need in his
voice closing her eyes and shutting off her
breath. "After waiting so long, I thought I
could wait another day, another week or
month, if that's what it would take. But it isn't
working out that way. I can't hold you and
kiss you without wanting all of you. I want to
read the end of the book, Pilar, and find out if
they lived happily ever after."
"Trace, you're asking the impossible," she
protested achingly.
"Am I?" He cupped her cheek in his hand
and turned her face up. "All I know is the
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 23.5 longer
I have to wait, the worse the odds get.
As corny as it sounds, Natchez isn't big
enough for the both of us. If you haven't
decided yet, then your answer is going
to be
no. If that's the way it's going to be, then
you've seen the last of me. If it's over with us,
the best thing is to end it all--move the company,
lock, stock, and barrel, to another port
and never come near you again." He watched
her lips, the strain showing as he resisted
their closeness. "We should reach Natchez
tomorrow afternoon. If you can't give me your
answer by then, it's all over."
"That's not fair." She protested the placing
of a deadline.
"This isn't fair," Trace countered and released
her, taking his arm from around her
shoulders and rolling to his feet.
Pilar was too stunned by his unexpected
desertion so soon after his ultimatum that she
couldn't react. He stood for an instant,
looking
down at her. All expression seemed wiped
from his features, yet there was something
poignant and lonely about him.
"Think on it, Pilar," he said and moved
away to leave her sitting alone on the barge.
Her fingers curled tightly around the
railing
as she felt the glare of the afternoon sun
striking her face. Pilar felt trapped by the
loud
drone of the engines, steadily pushing them
upstream. She wanted them to slow down or
stop, anything to postpone their arrival in
Natchez and give her more time. Her nerves
screamed with the tension of knowing that
she had a little over an hour at best.
Trace emerged from the pilothouse, his
glance running over her before he approached.
Pilar turned her face into the
breeze, making a show of shaking aside black
strands of hair from her cheek. Her body was
rigid with the strain of these last hours.
"Want a cold drink? I'm going below to get
something for Dan and me." In all their
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 237
conversation since last night, Trace had skirted
the issue between them.
"No." Her answer was stiff and to the point,
mostly because she couldn't keep up the casual
pretense anymore. The situation was too
serious for idle chatter.
After hesitating an instant longer, Trace
headed for the ladder, and she listened to the
easy run of his footsteps as he descended it.
She blinked at the tears that smarted in her
eyes, aware that she was feeling sorry for
herself because she didn't know what to do.
When Dan Morgan suddenly stepped out of
the pilothouse, she avoided looking at him so
he wouldn't see the distress in her expression.
But he paid no attention to her, hurrying by to
the forward railing.
"Hey, Trace!" There was an urgency in his
shout. "We've got trouble! Three runaway
barges are coming downstream. It just came
over the radio!"
Hard on the heels of his call of alarm came
the clanging noise of Trace racing up the
ladder. Pilar turned from the railing, not fully
understanding what kind of trouble this represented
but silently hoping that it would
bring about some kind of delay. Morgan
hovered by the steps until Trace appeared.
Together they walked swiftly toward the pilothouse
while Morgan gave him the details of
the situation.
"A towboat lost power upstream and hit the
highway bridge at Natchez. He was pushing
all empty oil barges. Three of them broke

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
loose," Morgan explained as they went inside
and Pilar followed to listen. There was a
tenseness in Morgan's glance when he
paused. "Trace, one of those barges has a
fire
in the hold."
Swearing under his breath, Trace moved to
look at the river charts. "When did it
happen?"
"Ten, fifteen minutes at the most."
"Damn," Trace muttered, pausing only a
second in his study of the charts. "Alert the
crew. Have them start looking for the smoke.
In this current, and empty besides, those
barges will be on top of us before we know it.
We're going to have to get out of the channel."
He glanced out the window, checking their
present position.
"You know this river better than I do,"
Morgan conceded after he'd warned the
crew
of the impending trouble via the loudspeaker
intercom aboard. "You just tell me where you
want her to go and I'll take her there."
"Start turning starboard," Trace advised
and stepped to the door. "With the river this
high, we should be able to hug that section of
bank coming up and still have water under
us."
"And if you're wrong?" Pilar murmured.
He threw her a short glance. "Then we're in
a lot more trouble."
Everything seemed to be happening on the
other side of the boat, so Pilar shifted to the
starboard deck. All the crew, everyone,
seemed to be holding their breath as the towboat
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
and its barges eased toward the bank
under Trace's directions. The rolling water
was the color of pale milk chocolate, thick and
churning next to the bank. They drew close
enough for Pilar to make out the striated bark
on the trees growing at the river's edge.
"Power down and hold her in place against
the current," Trace ordered, and
Pilar felt the
changing pitch of the engines as Morgan signaled
the change in speed to the engine room.
A voice squawked over the walkie-talkie.
"I
can see the smoke." It was Tucker Smith,
from his position at the bow of one of the lead
barges.
Her gaze flashed to the front where gray
black smoke was billowing against the flat
horizon. But the barges themselves were not
in sight, hidden by the far bend in the river.
"Anything yet?" Trace snapped the question
at Morgan.
"Won't be able to get a fix on them until they
come around that point," he answered, watching
the radar screen intently.
"Come on, Pilar." The rough grip of his
hand clasped her high on the arm and aimed
her toward the ladder. "I want you on the
lower deck." He followed her down, as if to
insure that she went.
"Here they come." One of the deckhands
passed Trace a pair of binoculars, which he
trained on dark shapes belching black
smoke.
From the top deck Morgan shouted,
"Trace, I see them." He raised his voice
to answer,

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
then made a sweep of the intervening stretch
of river with his glasses.
The tension in the air was almost electrical.
Pilar's skin seemed to tingle with it as she
watched the plume of dark smoke. Everyone
seemed poised and motionless, straining to see,
"The current's going to swing them right
into us."
"Jeezus. If that fire sets off this sulfur,
this
whole thing will explode. There won't be anything
left of us to find."
The predictions followed one on top of the other,
shocking Pilar into an awareness of the
full extent of their danger. She looked at
Trace, her mouth open with nothing coming
out.
"Tie off those barges to the trees!" He was
rifling out orders while everyone else was
standing around in a numbed trance. "And
get ready to cut the boat loose from them.
Move!" The crew scattered, scrambling onto
the barges, half of them jumping onto the
bank to catch the lines thrown by the others.
"Evers!" He motioned impatiently for the
cook to join them.
"If you've got in mind what I think--" the
cook began.
"If I'm going to lose it all, I'm not going
to
stay here like a sitting duck and wait for it.
With those barges tied up front, there was no
way we could have outmaneuvered those runaways
in the channel. At least now we've got
a chance."
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

but--"
"Don't worry. God takes care of food and
losers." It was only Trace's surface
attention
the cook had; all the rest was trained on the
activity of the crew and the distant runaway
barges. It gave his remarks an offhand
quality.
The same impersonal touch was present
when he took Pilar by the arm and pushed her
into Evers' keeping. "Take pilar and get her
out of here. And don't stay on the barges. Get
her up on the levee."
It took her a second to realize that Trace
was putting her off the boat. "No! I don't--
was
Trace angrily cut across her words. "I
don't
have time to argue with you!" His glance
slashed to the cook as he ordered curtly, "Get
her off."
Her arms were pinioned by the cook's
hands, preventing her from going after Trace
when he strode away to another section of the
deck to hurry up the crew. Pilar resisted
Evers' attempt to draw her toward the barges.
"I'm staying here," she insisted.
"You'd just be in the way, ma'am," he said
through his cigar. "And they're gonna have
their hands full just doin' their jobs."
"But if you stayed--"
"Hell, I'm a cook. I ain't no
hero. They can
risk their damn fool necks if they want, but
not me." He forcibly guided her toward the
access steps to the barges.
Reluctantly Pilar allowed herself to be driven
along while she kept looking back at
Trace,
but he seemed to have put her from his mind

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
already. At the steps, Evers paused next to the
large "No Smoking" sign and removed the
cigar from his mouth.
He speared it over the side into the water,
muttering, "Damn waste." Then he was leading
Pilar onto the barges to the starboard side
where the barges were being moored to the
trees on the bank. Evers made the leap from
the barge to the eroded edge of the bank and
turned to urge her. "Come on!"
pilar hesitated, then made the jump across
the fast-running water. The bank started to
crumble under her feet, but the cook had her
by the hands and pulled her onto solid footing.
The bow line was the last to be secured, and
Pilar turned to watch the forward deckhand
sprinting across the barges to the stern. She
wanted to stay there and watch what they
were going to do, but Evers was tugging at her
to follow him.
There was a last glimpse of Trace standing
on the top deck by the pilothouse. He seemed
to be looking at her, but Pilar couldn't be sure
as she was pulled after Evers. The cook broke
a path through the scrubby undergrowth
along the tree-lined riverbank to the grassy
slope of the high levee. Its steep angle forced
them to slow their pace to climb to the top,
slipping and grabbing at the long grass stems
to pull them up.
When they reached the top, they startled
half a dozen cows, peacefully grazing on the
opposite slope. Slightly out of breath from the
climb, Pilar turned to look back at the
river.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 243
Separated from the barges, the towboat had
reversed clear of them. It made a pivoting
swing and headed upstream, angling for the
channel. Full power was given to the
engines.
Without the weight of the barges to slow it
down, the towboat seemed to race across the
water.
"Look at that baby move out," Evers
murmured.
"What are they going to do?" Apprehension
shivered through her as she glanced from the
towboat to the smoking barges, steadily
approaching.
"They're gonna try to get a line on them
runaways and push them out of the channel
and run "em aground," he explained, then
half muttered to himself, "It's a shame. That
boat's so new, it hasn't even got its first
paint
scratch."
His explanation sounded so matter-of-fact,
yet his aside hinted that it wasn't going to be
that simple. Her tension grew.
"Is it dangerous?"
"I hope to shout." Evers half laughed the
response. "Those barges are running wild in
that current. They got a head of steam built
up that can sink anything that gets in their
way. And the way that current's tossin" them
and spinnin' them about, there's no tellin'
which way they're goin' next. Those barges
could turn that towboat over like it was a
paper cup."
"My God," she breathed, her blood suddenly
running cold.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"That's not saying it can't be done," he
added quickly, as if realizing he had alarmed
her.
"But why ..., why is he doing it?" Fear for
him prompted her to make the half-angry
demand.
"Well, I guess he figures somebody has
to,
and he's on the scene." The cook shrugged.
"His choices weren't all that great. Either
way, he stood to lose something--the new towboat
and the sulfur barges in a big boom if
those runaways hit it ... or badly damaging
the towboat if he tried to corral those barges.
I
don't think Trace figures on it
going to the
bottom."
The height of the flat-topped levee gave her
a panoramic view of the action on the river.
Her gaze was riveted to the shiny white towboat,
racing on an intercepting course toward
the trio of barges tumbling along in the current,
the black smoke rolling from one of
them, half obscuring the rest. The strain of
waiting had her muscles knotted in tight
coils
as the two came closer and closer. Confusion
burst through her when she suddenly noticed
that the towboat was passing the barges.
"Aren't they going to try to stop them?"
Even as she asked the question, Pilar was
frantically hoping that Trace had changed his
mind.
"You don't get in front of a charging bull.
You circle around behind and grab its tail,"
Evers advised her.
For a long span of minutes, she lost sight of
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE 245
the towboat in the dense smoke from
the hold of the outside barge. en it
emerg
d apmd m take m on the ne bge.
1 the we e cunt was sweep em
dosem towed e mred su bges.
"He's sta cle of the one at's on ,
d pick' the one fest away m it." He
el e asons bend the choice we he smed to see
every meuver. "k!"
Evers excitey abbed her . "He's
stead eml"
It tk a second for to ze what he
me en she nofic at e lse bges
were no loer coess. ey we ste
comfly push crosscnt. ey wod
s the sr bges.
"k[ ey' get' a le on it now." He
w her attenon to e fi of a m on
e away bge, worki m sec a e
on e side.
At ts t e vessels were nely level
e sifion on the levee. It w
happe t fnt of her. e of e
crew was still on the still side,
ady to w a le to e decked on e
bge.
Suddey the bulent, edd cnt
caut e ply secud bges d
s em d, sl e ne
bge broadside to e towa Hez he
went to her at as Pfl watch e at
shudder m e violent force of e that.
"Jeezus, he went oyez e side," the ck
breathed out. en P lked, eze was no

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
one standing on the starboard point of the
bow. Two men were racing to the place where
he'd been. Suddenl' there was a head bobbing
to the surface in the brown water. "He kept a
hold of the line." Relief sighed through his
voice as the two men on deck began to drag
the third in.
"Who is it? Can you tell?" Anxiety caught
her in its grip.
"It's Tucker, I think." Evers made a
cautious
identification of the dripping man being
hauled onto the deck.
The whirling river kept turning them,
screening the towboat from her sight behind
the thick smoke. Pilar was half sick with fear.
Trace was on that tug. If she lost him ...
A
moan came from her throat. With a clarity
she wished she had possessed an hour ago,
she realized how deeply she loved him. Her
teeth came shut on the rising cry of protest
that it had taken her so long to see it.
Beside her Evers was anxiously patting his
shirt pockets. "Damn, but I wish I had a
cigar.
What a time to not have any."
Half blinded by tears, she could barely
make out the white-painted towboat. After
that broadside smash, it was back under
power. It made another swing at the barge to
secure the starboard line as the swollen river
swiftly carried it downstream. The wind blew
the hot, choking smoke toward the levee.
"With the heat from that fire, it must be like
a furnace down there," Evers declared with a
small shake of his head. "I've seen fires
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

burn so hot, they just curl a man's
hairs--like
singeing pin feathers off a chicken."
It was a detail that merely added to her
mounting concern for Trace's safety--and the
safety of everyone on board. Her whole system
seemed to be working overtime--her heart,
her lungs, her nerves, her senses. All were
functioning at top speed. Only the time was
going slow.
"It looks like they got it secured," the cook
observed cautiously. His angle of sight was
not the best. "They seem to have it under
control, leastwise."
It had all been unfolding in front of her for
so long that Pilar had forgotten the twisting
turn the Mississippi made a half mile
downstream.
As the distance increased, it gradually
dawned on her that she was going to lose
sight of them.
"Hey! Where are you goin'?" Evers reached
out to check her when she started to brush
past him to hurry along the levee after the
disappearing vessels.
"We aren't going to be able to see what's
happening when they go around that bend,"
she explained quickly, unconsciously pulling
against his restraining grip.
"Do you have any idea how far that is or
how long it would take you to cover it afoot?"
he challenged with tolerance. "By the time
you got there, they'd probably be another mile
downstream."
She wanted to argue against his
claim, but she knew it was hopeless to think

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
she could run fast enough to catch up with
them.
"Besides--" Evers put the clincher on his
argument. "They'll likely drive the barges
aground on the opposite bank, well clear of
the channel. The river's so wide at that point,
you wouldn't he able to see anythin anyway."
There was an understanding look in his eyes.
"We're better off waitin' here till they come
back."
Reluctantly Pilar was forced to agree with
his opinion. He had a better grasp of the
situation than she did, and more knowledge
about what was likely to happen. She was
reacting strictly on an emotional level.
But the waiting was agony. She kept watching
the smoke in the sky, tracking their probable
location on the river by it. It kept getting
farther and farther away. It seemed an agony
of time before it appeared stationary. The fast
chopping noise of a helicopter's rotary
blades
gradually grew louder. Pilar finally spotted
it,
flying above the river. A few minutes later
firebeats rounded the far bend.
"Help's on its way." Evers acknowledged
their imminent arrival on the scene. "They'll
be heading back soon. We might as well make
our way down to the barges and wait for "em
there."
She followed behind the cook as he edged
his way down the steep slope of the levee to
the trees and underbrush on the bank. He
crashed his way through it, then waited for
her.
THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
249
"Can you make it?"
The high water had undermined the bank,
making the footing less solid for the return
jump, but Pilar nodded. She took a short,
running start and landed hard on her feet atop
the barge. The cook joined her right afterward.
Shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun
off the water, she anxiously watched for the
towboat to come around the river bend. It
seemed the longest wait she had ever made in
her life. She was about to decide something
was wrong when she finally saw it.
"There it is!" she choked on a sob of relief
as
she eagerly pointed it out to the cook.
The Santee Lady showed the scars of her
battle to bring the runaway barges under control.
Her hull was scraped and scratched, and
her white paint was grimy with the soot and
smoke from the fire. In places it even appeared
scorched by the fierce heat.
An exhausted crew lounged on her decks,
rousing themselves with an effort when the
battered towboat approached the moored
barges. Pilar waited impatiently
while it was
maneuvered into position, searching the
decks for a glimpse of Trace to verify to her
own satisfaction that he was unharmed.
"Hey, Evers! You missed all the fun!" The
deckhand Billy Bob Davis hopped onto the
barge to tie off the port line.
"Yeah, well, I had a grandstand seat," the
cook countered the jibing taunt. "Who went in
the drink?"

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
"Tucker."
"Thought so." Evers kept a hand on Pilar's
arm, making her wait until the towboat made
its swing to the starboard to make itself fast to
the barges.
The minute they scrambled onto the boat's
deck, they were practically enveloped by the
crew, eager to recount their heroics. Pilar
kept looking for Trace, finally catching sight
of him as he made his way down the ladder to
her level.
"I thought I was a goner," Tucker was saying.
"I could feel that undertow pulling me
down. And, man, I had a grip on that rope--
was
"Yeah, he did," Joe Allen interrupted with a
laugh. "Even after we got him back aboard,
he didn't wanna let go of it."
"It was like an inferno close to that fire ..."
Pilar ceased to listen as Trace approached
the group. She was content just to look at him,
making sure he had all his fingers and toes.
Like the rest of the crew, he was smoke grimed.
On his shirt were damp patches and
the drying stains of perspiration from the
excessive heat. The hairs on his arms were
singed, but he appeared otherwise unharmed.
A broad, reckless smile was on his face, and
his gray eyes were aglitter with the aftermath
of adventure. In a way he had enjoyed it, she
realized. He could have gotten himself killed,
but he had enjoyed it, while she had been
crazy with worry.
A lump came to her throat. It was impossible
to be angry with him. It was too crazy and
she was too happy just knowing he was all
right. Tears welled in her eyes, making them
black and brilliant. His smiling
glance finally
strayed to her. There was nothing in his expression
to suggest that it had ever occurred
to him that she had been worried for his
safety. It changed to a puzzled little
halfsmile
when he noticed the tears in her eyes.
"Hey. What's this?" He bent his head
slightly
to peer at her, teasing and curious.
"You crazy fool," she declared in a voice
thickened with emotion.
Some inner force impelled her into his
arms. She hugged him tightly and buried her
face in his shirt, mindless of its rank smell of
smoke and sweat. Just to hear the sound of his
heartbeat and to feel the solid strength of his
body was a kind of bliss.
Her sudden action had taken him by surprise.
It was a beat later before his arms
circled to hold her and he bent his head, still
vaguely startled by her emotional reaction.
She felt the warmth of his breath stirring her
hair and closed her eyes at the sweetness of
the sensation. It squeezed a tear from her
lashes and sent it trickling down her cheek.
"You're going to get all dirty," he advised
her huskily. As the roughness of his hand
cupped her cheek, he felt the wetness of that
tear and tilted her head back so that he could
examine her face. "Hey, what's wrong?"
For a second all she could do was look at

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE
him, knowing at last how much he meant to
her. "I'd have died if I lost you, Trace."
It was
a choked whisper, vibrant with feeling.
His gray eyes suddenly darkened, alive and
searching with an intense longing in them
that tore at her heart. She finally came to
appreciate some of the torment he'd endured
over her after the agonizing hours she'd spent
that afternoon.
"You don't have to wait until we get to
Natchez, Trace," she told him softly.
"I love
you and that's all that matters."
The touch of his lips was wonderfully tentative.
For a minute his arms held her as if
he'd
been given something precious beyond worth
and he was afraid of breaking it. But she
kissed him back with fierce ardor to show him
that the love she felt for him was strong
enough to take anything. His mouth hardened
in its possession of hers as his molding hands
shaped her to his length.
Slowly and discreetly the crew wandered
away from them and pretended they didn't
notice a thing. But here and there a small
pleased smile showed at the picture the captain
and his lady made together.
Janet Dailey
America's Bestselling
Romance Novelist
Why is Janet Dailey so astonishingly
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romance is
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THE GREAT ALONE
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Join the adventure as Janet Dailey brings
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THE GLORY GAME is set against the
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