Cursed: Decorah Security Book #21

by Rebecca York

  Tires spun on gravel as the truck in back of her made a U-turn and sped away, leaving her alone on the shoulder of the road—staring into the golden eyes of the jaguar.

  Details assaulted her. The animal looked to be about two hundred pounds of spotted, muscular body, with huge paws and a black-tipped muzzle.

  Once Andre Gascon had mentioned the jaguar myth, she’d researched the animals, because she was always thorough in her preparations for an assignment

  She knew that the cats were most common in Central America. But they also inhabited the southern United States. Still, no matter where they lived, they were seldom seen during the day—or at all.

  As she stood facing the cat, all the stories she’d read about local residents mauled in the bayou and left for dead came bubbling to the surface of her brain.

  With a start, she realized that the gun was still dangling beside her leg like a cold blob of iron. She raised the weapon now, taking it in a two-handed grip as she faced the animal.

  One thing she knew, if the cat was responsible for the deaths in the bayou, she wasn’t going to be his next victim.

  She thought that with one part of her mind. With another part, she decided that the animal looked too regal to be a man-killer. She didn’t know how she came to that conclusion. She only knew that laying the blame for the bayou killings on the shoulders of this beast felt wrong.

  Drops of rain began to trickle onto her head and shoulders as she stood on the shoulder of the road, still as a statue, facing the jaguar. For several moments, it continued to regard her with that unnerving intelligence. She didn’t know what she would have done if it had come any closer. Maybe fired a warning shot into the air.

  But she didn’t have to put her nerves to the test because the animal took a step back, then another, moving slowly as though it knew that spooking a woman with an automatic pistol was a bad idea.

  When the jaguar had backed away several paces, it turned and flipped its tail at her like an annoyed house cat. Then, with a mighty leap, it took off, before racing away into the darkness under the trees, lost to her sight in seconds.

  She blinked and breathed out a sigh, wondering if the whole incident had been a fantasy. Then she reminded herself that she hadn’t been the only one to see the cat. The men in the baseball caps had taken off like frightened weasels.

  Lowering the gun, she looked up and down the narrow blacktop ribbon. The cat had come to her rescue—like he’d known she was in trouble. But she had another problem. The whole time she’d been on this road, she hadn’t seen another vehicle—except the truck that had been following her.

  Earlier, there had been no point in calling 911. By the time help arrived, the men would have done whatever they’d planned.

  Now the situation was different. Climbing back into the car, she set the gun on the passenger seat and pulled her cell phone from her purse. But when she tried to make a call, she couldn’t get a connection. Either this part of Louisiana was too isolated, or the storm was interfering.

  As if to bolster that theory, a bolt of lightning flashed in the clouds in front of her. Several seconds later, thunder rumbled.

  So now what? The car’s brakes were weak. If she had another choice, she wouldn’t drive. But staying here was dangerous, since the guys in the truck could come back after they figured the big cat was gone.

  Hopefully, she could make it to Belle Vista—then arrange to have the car towed to another gas station. Or maybe even to another town.

  ###

  Andre Gascon came running through the rain from the field behind his house. Still moving fast, he made a dash for his car, dove behind the wheel and started the engine at the same time he stomped on the accelerator, then skidded down the driveway.

  Morgan Kirkland should be here by now. Janet had heard from a friend in town that Morgan had stopped in St. Germaine for gas. Probably she’d let on where she was going, which was a big mistake. Because he wouldn’t put it past Bubba Arnette or one of his buddies to do something to her car.

  Andre clenched his fists and cursed. He’d asked her to drive straight through from New Orleans. But he hadn’t insisted, because he hadn’t wanted to creep her out before she even got here.

  If anyone had asked him how he knew she was in trouble now, he would have put it down to intuition.

  But that was a lie. He knew.

  And in truth, he’d been waiting for something bad to happen since this morning.

  The sky looked like the inside of a coal mine. It wasn’t because night was coming. He still had time before sunset. The darkness came from the storm clouds hanging heavy over the bayou.

  A few drops hit the windshield, like fingers tapping against the glass, a ghostly presence begging admittance.

  His stomach had long ago tied itself in knots.

  He’d snapped awake at seven in the morning, after an almost sleepless night, prepared to hear a phone call telling him that she’d changed her mind and was taking an assignment at the South Pole instead. But she hadn’t made the call.

  Relief had been like a cool breeze blowing on his feverish skin. Still, he’d kept picking up the phone and putting it down. Finally, he’d checked in with her office on the pretext that he wanted to make sure of her arrival schedule. In truth, her itinerary had been engraved on his memory since she’d e-mailed it to him.

  Her plane had landed three hours ago. She should have been here by now. Instead, he pictured her sitting in her car in the middle of the flash flood area.

  The image turned him cold all over as he sped down the plantation road and onto the highway, his hands gripping the wheel so hard the knuckles turned white.

  ###

  Morgan knew she was in trouble. The rain had picked up, restricting her vision. But when she opened the car door a crack, she could see that the sides of the ditch were even slicker than before. Her lips set in a grim line, she tried to back up, then rock the car forward, and onto the road. After several repetitions, all she succeeded in doing was making the tires sink farther into the mud.

  “Damn!” It was raining harder now. She could huddle inside the car and keep dry. But the longer the vehicle stayed in the ditch, the less likely she was to get it out. Maybe she could put something under the wheels. Like what?

  Rolling down the side window, she spotted a big patch of spiky ferns. They were worth a try.

  Her face a study in resignation, she scrambled out again, this time slipping in the mud and almost dropping her gun.

  Tucking it in the waistband of her skirt, she walked down the road toward the ferns, raindrops pounding her now.

  She’d gotten a dozen yards from the car when she heard a roaring noise. Not the jaguar. Something much louder and more ominous. The sound was nothing like an animal would make. Instead she knew she was listening to an elemental force of nature bearing down on her.

  Her head jerked up, and she looked in all directions. She couldn’t see the danger. Not yet. But she turned and started running back to the relative safety of the vehicle.

  She had taken only a few steps when a wall of something plowed through the trees on the other side of the road.

  It was a dark wave of water, sweeping away everything in its path, catching Morgan in its cold embrace.

  With the force of a tornado, it lifted her feet off the ground. A scream tore from her throat as the current spun her around like a plastic doll and flung her into the bayou.

  She screamed again as the water carried her farther from the road. She was a good swimmer, but it was impossible to do more than keep her head above the surface.

  Things whipped passed her. A black snake. A plastic milk jug. A clump of vegetation. Her jacket, shoes and skirt were torn from her body as though someone had rudely yanked them away.

  When she felt her shoulder hit something, her arms shot up and clamped on. It was a young tree, bowing under the force of the water.

  Desperately, she clung to the trunk, even as the water tried to tear her away and send
her to join the clothing that had disappeared downstream.

  Rain pelted her head. The sound of the roiling water rang in her ears. She was scared. And that was a strange novelty.

  For the past two years—since Trevor had died in an ambush in Afghanistan—she’d been afraid of nothing and no one. She’d walked into dangerous situations like someone else walking into a bedroom. She’d disarmed men twice her size. She’d chased a fugitive across the roofs of Baltimore townhouses—jumping a five-foot gap three stories above the ground.

  She’d thought she didn’t care what happened to her. Yet now she fought the deluge that tried to sweep her away, inching into a better position so that the tree trunk partially shielded her from the worst of the current. As she clasped the slippery bark, she knew that something within herself had changed. She didn’t want to die.

  Not here. Not like this.

  ###

  Andre screeched his SUV to a halt, taking in the scene in a split second. A torrent of water poured across the road, and Morgan’s car was stuck in a ditch on the other side. Unless she was below the dashboard for some reason, she wasn’t in the car.

  Merde!

  Fear was a vise, squeezing the breath out of his lungs. He wanted to rage in agony and anger. Instead, he cupped his hands around his mouth and called her name as he scanned the bayou and the water. “Morgan!”

  When he spotted a splash of persimmon color out in the water, his heart lurched inside his chest. The blob of color resolved itself into fabric. Her blouse, half open. As the frightening picture came into focus, he saw the graceful column of her neck and her short blond hair. She was in profile to him, with her arms clinging desperately to a slender tree trunk, as the water tore at her.

  “Morgan, hang on,” he called. “I’m coming. Just hang on.”

  If she heard him, she didn’t answer above the roar of the water.

  He focused on keeping his mind working rationally as he ran back to his vehicle and grabbed the rope that was part of his emergency kit. First, he thought that he could throw it to her. Then he canceled that idea. She might be partially sheltered by the tree trunk but turning it loose to grab the lifeline would be too dangerous.

  Instead he tied one end of the rope to a nearby tree. After testing it, he tied the other end around his waist and waded into the water. Immediately, the current gave a vicious tug on his body, trying to drag him away. But he gritted his teeth and kept his footing.

  “Hang on,” he called again as he struggled toward Morgan.

  ###

  Over the sound of the raging elements, Morgan thought she heard someone calling to her.

  That could only be someone who knew her name. Someone who had been expecting her.

  Hoping against hope, she called out, “Mr. Gascon?”

  “Yes,” he answered, his deep voice carrying above the roar of the water.

  “Thank God.”

  “I’m coming.”

  He was closer now, in the water, but she dared not twist herself around to look at him.

  “I think under the circumstances, you can call me Andre.” He said it with a wry note in his voice between puffs of breath.

  He must be strong. Strong enough to waste his breath on talking.

  “You’re doing great. Fantastic. I’m almost there.”

  She clung to the sound of his words, and he kept talking to her, his voice steady and reassuring over the raging water as he told her that everything was going to be all right. In just a few more moments he would pull her to safety.

  Centuries passed before she felt a hard-male body press against her back, cupping itself protectively around.

  She let out a deep sigh of relief when his form blocked the worst of the raging water.

  He held her tightly, his cheek against the top of her head, as though his relief at making contact was as great as hers.

  “Thank the Lord,” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll get you to shore. But don’t let go yet,” he cautioned.

  He moved behind her, doing something she couldn’t see, and a rope slipped over her head and shoulders.

  “Loosen one hand,” he ordered as he held her in place.

  She released her death grip on the tree, feeling the tug of the water. But he shielded her as he worked the rope farther down her body.

  “Good. That’s good. Now turn around. Then I’ll turn—so we’re facing back toward the shore.”

  The water buffeted them as he rotated her in his arms, clasping her to himself like a lover—as though she were precious to him.

  He was too close for her to see him well[RG1]. But she had studied his picture and knew he was a striking man. His amazing green eyes were deep set. His gaze intense. His chin was strong. His lips finely shaped. But he hadn’t bothered to smile for the camera. She imagined that a smile would completely transform him.

  Now she could tell that his frame was tall and strong as he wrapped her close, and she couldn’t get the notion out of her head that they had held each other many times before, his body as familiar as her own.

  Nonsense. She had never met him in person until a few moments ago. But she had come to know him through their correspondence.

  She let her head sag to his broad shoulder, clinging to him for long moments before he cleared his throat. “Let’s go.”

  “Yes,” she managed as she came back to her senses. They were still in danger, and she was going all dreamy on him.

  As promised, he turned away from her.

  “Circle my waist,” he said gruffly.

  She did as he asked, wrapping her arms around him. When she realized her grip was too low, and her hands were pressed over the fly of his slacks, she jerked, then quickly moved her grasp a couple of inches higher.

  A fresh surge of water tore at her, trying to break her grip on his waist. It almost did, and she was glad that the rope bound them together.

  Her teeth were gritted as they inched toward blacktop. He was using the rope, pulling them along hand over hand. And she hoped he’d tied the other end to something solid.

  He didn’t spare the breath to talk now. It was all he could do to keep them moving toward shore.

  Something large slammed past them, and she gasped from the impact.

  “Are you all right?” he asked urgently.

  “Yes.”

  Redoubling his efforts, he hauled them the last few yards through the water and out of the deluge.

  Breathless, they both sprawled on dry land, panting.

  For long moments, all she could do was lie still with her eyes closed, grateful to be on a solid surface again.

  When she realized that the solid surface was Andre Gascon’s body, she tensed, then tried to push herself away. She managed to put a few inches of space between them before the rope pulled her back, and she flopped onto his chest again.

  “Go ahead, use me for a trampoline,” he said.

  She was icy cold from the water, but she had to laugh.

  The comment was so typical of the dry humor that she’d enjoyed in his e-mails. He’d struck her as a man who used humor to defuse a tense situation. Apparently, he was still doing it.

  Large hands moved over her back and shoulders, untangling her from the rope, then lifted her up and onto her feet. She blinked into the intense green eyes she remembered from the picture.

  His dark hair was plastered to his head, his tee shirt to his chest. When she wavered on her feet, he scooped her up and strode away from the water. She anchored her hands on his muscular shoulders as he carried her to an SUV parked on the shoulder, well out of the reach of the flood that surged across the road.

  Even though he’d been in the water, a pungent aroma clung to him—as though he wore some kind of strong aftershave that she couldn’t identify. It was a natural fragrance that drew her as the man had drawn her.

  Setting her in the passenger seat, he worked the lever to push the seat back so that she could stretch out her legs.

 
She threw her head back, and her eyes closed, contemplating her narrow escape.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice gritty.

  “I . . . think . . . so,” she answered between panting breaths. Opening her eyes, she stared into his face, taking in the stark lines. “But I wouldn’t have been, if you hadn’t come along. Thank you,” she murmured.

  “I’m glad I got here in time,” he answered, the words carrying a depth of feeling that overwhelmed her.

  Perhaps she was struggling to put some distance between them when she said, “This isn’t a very auspicious way for you to meet your private detective.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he clipped out.

  He looked across the water toward her rental car. “How did you end up in a ditch?”

  She huffed out a breath. “My brakes failed. I couldn’t keep the car on the road. Of course, that was after two men from town started following me, and I speeded up to get away.”

  He swore under his breath. “What men?”

  “Two guys from the gas station where I stopped to fill my tank. When I told them I was coming here, I caused a little bit of a stir.”

  “You should have kept that information to yourself,” he muttered.

  “I was gauging their reaction,” she countered.

  “Well you have it. They ran you off the road. They’re getting bolder,” he said, his tone turning rough with anger.

  “We’ll deal with that later. How did you know . . . to come looking for me?”

  “You were later than I expected,” he answered. “I thought I’d better see if you were in trouble.”

  “From . . . what?” she asked, struggling to keep her teeth from chattering.

  “The rain. We’ve had some flash floods like this. I wasn’t thinking anyone would follow you from town.”

  “They didn’t stay around.”

  “Why not?”

  “A jaguar scared them off,” she said, suddenly wanting his reaction to that statement.

  His expression turned fierce. “As I told you in my correspondence, someone in town is playing jaguar.”

  “That may be true. But I saw a . . . a real one,” she answered, losing the battle to keep her teeth from clanking together.