Fever - Softcover

Sutcliffe has worked as consultant head writer for the daytime dramas Another World and As the World Turns, and even played herself on the former. When not writing, she enjoys spending time with her children, as well as with her Arabian horses, pygmy goats, and house rabbit. She is married to an English-born geologist, and invites readers to visit www.romancejournal.com/Sutcliffe.

Chapter One

BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA

Boris Wilcox, glaring through the strands of his limp snow-white hair, teeth bared and blood streaming from his broken nose, slammed his fist against Chantz's jaw a third time. His frustration mounted as the gathered crowd, bathed in beer and sweat and obviously in Chantz's corner, whooped like maddened savages and roared their encouragement. They punched the air with their fists, slapped their hats against their thighs. The ear-splitting racket caused the horses in the livery stalls to spook and roll their eyes.

Chantz stood his ground, legs braced apart, boots planted in the livery sawdust as he flashed Boris a smile that was as intimidating as it was arrogant.

Boris swept the back of his hand over his mouth, smearing blood and drool across his chin that was already swollen and purple as a new turnip. "Boudreaux, I'll knock yer teeth through the back of yer head before I'm done. See if I don't."

"So you say, Wilcox." Chantz laughed and blinked sweat from his eyes as Boris stumbled over his own feet and staggered as he attempted to straighten. "I'm just amazed you've managed to win as many fights as you have, considering you punch like a girl."

The crowd hooted again, scaring a three-legged tabby from under a moldering pile of damp hay.

"My money's on Chantz," someone shouted, followed by a scurry of men placing their final bets on the outcome of the match.

His heavy brows drawing together, Boris raised his fists. His six-foot-two-inch body shook to his muddy boots. Chantz knew well enough that Wilcox had a lot riding on the fight -- he'd wagered a good portion of his employer's supply money on his winning -- normally not a bad risk. However, Chantz suspected that Boris was going to have some explaining to do when he returned to his employer with nothing to show for his money but a busted nose and a few missing teeth.

"Big talk, Boudreaux. Especially from one stupid enough to think Fred Buley is gonna approve of his daughter bein' courted by a fatherless white-trash boy who ain't got a pot to piss in."

The jeers and hoots dwindled. The men surrounding Chantz and his opponent pressed close, eyes fixed on Chantz's face that began to heat. Suddenly the swirling cloud of sawdust closed off his throat and burned his eyes. He felt the others' gazes fixed on his face, their anticipation crackling like air before a lightning strike.

Boris grunted a laugh and spat blood on the ground. "Looks like I hit a nerve." He wagged his busted fists at Chantz. "What's wrong, Boudreaux? Surely you don't believe you really stood a chance with Phyllis Buley."

He threw back his head and brayed with laughter, then focused his small round eyes again on Chantz. "We all seen how you mooned about like a blue-tick hound ever'time you seen her ride by in her daddy's carriage. You didn't really think she was serious when she batted those long lashes at you, did you? Why, she's just toyin' with you, boy -- havin' fun. Heard this mornin' Horace Carrington declared himself. They's gonna be married come September."

Hooking his fists up toward his chin, Boris grinned. "Face it, Chantz. You just ain't got a lot to offer. That prize cock between yer legs might be good enough for mud daubers like your mama, but it ain't ever gonna buy you a smidgen of class."

Boris lunged and swung.

Chantz stepped aside, drove his fist into Boris's ribs, lifting the reigning boxing champ off his feet and sending him stumbling through the cautiously silent spectators who parted like the Red Sea out of his way. Chantz hit him again, felt the man's ribs snap like old pinewood -- again -- driving his knuckles into the soft underside of Boris's jaw -- again -- drilling the man's shattered nose like a battering ram.

Boris hit the ground with a groan, his head resting in a pile of fresh horse manure that steamed around his ears.

Anger a red haze, Chantz went for him again only to be suddenly hauled back on his heels, hands clutching his arms and braced against his shirtless, sweating chest as several men dropped to their knees and slapped Boris's smashed face in an attempt to revive him.

"Is he dead?" a voice, high pitched with excitement, shouted.

"If he ain't, he aught t'be," came the solemn response.

Someone flung water from a tin pail over Boris's face. He sputtered, thrashed like a man drowning before gagging and gasping and clutching at his nose with a howl of pain. He blinked glassy, swollen eyes at Chantz as he struggled to sit up.

Chantz pointed one finger at him and said through his teeth, "You ever call my mama a mud dauber again, Wilcox, and I'll kill you. That's a promise."

Bud Bovier, owner of the Bovier Livery and promoter of the weekly boxing matches, slapped a wad of money into Chantz's hand and shoved him toward the door. "You best git while the gittin's good, Chantz. I ain't havin' nobody killed in my livery, no sir."

Grabbing Chantz's shirt from the ground, Bud tossed it at him. "Go take out your anger someplace else. Buy you a bottle of whiskey and one of Meesha's girls."

Lowering his voice, his heavy brow furrowing with concern, Bud added with a touch of sympathy, "Take no mind to him, buck. Half the time Boris ain't got the good sense God gave a mud bug." He forced a smile. "Get on now. Ain't none of us here care to see you hang over a bastard like Boris. He ain't worth the horse dung in his ears right now."

Outside the livery, his jaw suddenly throbbing like hell and the coppery taste of blood in his mouth turning his stomach, Chantz plunged his head and shoulders into a trough, hoping the cool water would assuage his fury before he kicked in the livery door and tore into Boris again with something more life threatening than his fists.

He wasn't certain what made him madder. Boris's insult to Chantz's mother and his heritage, or the news that Phyllis Buley -- the woman whose legs he'd crawled between the previous night and every time she came scratching at his door -- the woman who vowed she adored him and couldn't live without him, was about to marry someone else. Not simply someone else. Son of a bitch Horace Carrington.

He kicked the trough, then the hitching post, causing a sorrel mule to turn its long sad face toward him and flick its ears.

Son of a bitch Horace Carrington.

Speak of the devil...

Lights from La Madeleine spilled out the double glass doors and the broad window, illuminating the highly polished brass fittings on Carrington's rig whereon Nathan, a Negro driver in red livery, sat, cap pulled low over his eyes as he napped in the heat.

La Madeleine supplied the only upscale eating establishment in town -- the finest food outside of New Orleans. Or so Chantz had heard. Not that he would know personally. Even if he had the money to waste on French cuisine served on bone-china plates, the proprietor, Nelson Barlow, required his customers to "dress accordingly" inside his establishment -- and Chantz didn't own a suit. Hell, he was doing good to manage a decent pair of boots every few years. In fact, he suspected that folks paid more for a room for one night at Barlow's La Madeleine than Chantz did for a month's worth of sorry beans and the weevil-infested cornmeal Charlie Johnson of Johnson's Mercantile sold to his less esteemed customers.

His hand crushing the prize money in his pocket, Chantz considered waving it under Johnson's nose and demanding clean cornmeal for a change.

To hell with it. Money was just too damn precious, and besides, he didn't mind a few weevils in his corn pone. As his mother always said, "We need all the meat we can get. Besides, the damn bugs add a bit a flavor to the bread."

He put on his shirt, blotted sweat and water from his face with his shirtsleeve, ran his fingers through his hair in an attempt to tame it back from h