Kane

by Jennifer Blake

  Kane turned his face into the wind created by the boat’s swift flight and inhaled long and deep. He hated the idea that the love they had made might have left her cold while he still burned with the aftermath. While he wrestled with the need to do it again.

  She had used his emotions against him, and he had let her. How had that happened when he had been all set to use hers to get at the truth? He had no idea. She had made him lose sight of his goal, and he didn’t like it. Even less did he like realizing she made him feel guilty, as if he’d taken advantage of her. She baffled him, and he liked that least of all.

  Still, it had been an experience he wouldn’t have missed, no matter the cost. The feel of her in his arms had been so right. Perfect, in fact. He could spend hours discovering the many faces of her, and all the tender, delicate places he had not yet touched. He’d like to devote days to teaching her all the things she needed to know about making love while reveling in the shape and taste and hot, satin depths of her.

  It wasn’t over by any means. If she thought once was enough to put him off her trail, she’d soon discover her mistake. No, he and Regina Dalton had seduced each other. Fine. Now they’d see who wound up on top.

  He’d also find out who had made off with his boat, setting up the whole infernal sequence of events. It was vaguely possible that it was an accident, that someone had noticed them entering the blind and decided it would be funny to strand him with the new lady in town. But he didn’t think it happened that way, any more than he thought Luke was to blame.

  He probably should have been more careful about throwing accusations at his cousin. Still, the lake and back swamp were Luke’s bailiwicks, and he was more than capable of creating a problem to make a point. He’d shown a certain protective interest in Regina, as well, and might have decided his cousin needed a lesson in the dangers of browbeating women if he’d overheard any portion of the exchange between him and Regina. And Luke could also have figured out that Kane had a less than noble reason for getting rid of him so he could be alone with Regina.

  Second thoughts convinced Kane to abandon that notion. Any reaction from Luke to the confrontation between him and Regina taking place during the boat theft would’ve been expressed with considerably more force. He’d have been far more likely to hand out a swift punch in the nose than let matters continue by removing their transportation.

  That left Dudley Slater. Kane was disgusted to think of the little creep following him and Regina, but it could have been done by making use of one of the other boats from The Haven’s dock. What his motives might be was the main problem with that idea. Assuming he was on Berry’s payroll, it was hard to see what kind of trouble stranding him and Regina together was supposed to accomplish.

  Or was it? It might make sense if Slater was in Regina’s confidence, if he knew she would welcome the isolation. Kane gave a grim shake of his head as that thought struck him. Was it really possible, or was he headed off the deep end on this thing?

  Time would tell, and a good thing, too, since he wasn’t thinking too clearly himself. He needed to back off and regroup while he worked things out. It wouldn’t surprise him to know Regina felt the same way. The best thing he could do would be to see her back to the motel. They could both sleep on it. In separate beds.

  It was the right decision; he knew it. Why, then, did it feel so wrong?

  The following morning, Kane met Melville in Baton Rouge. They came together on the steps of the courthouse where the preliminary maneuvering for the case was being played out in district court. Louisiana law required the case be heard in a higher court because it involved compensation and damages in excess of twenty thousand dollars. A local venue would have been more convenient for Pops and the witnesses who would be called from Turn-Coupe, but made little difference to Kane. Trying cases before a district judge was business as usual.

  He had driven straight to the state capital from home since he was running late. Unable to sleep the night before for thinking of the way Regina had been and how she had looked lying on the floor of the duck blind, he got up at 2:00 a.m. to check on Pops, then worked for a couple of hours. When he felt sleepy, he fell back in bed for a quick catnap, but his hospital vigil and the long hours he’d put in during the past few weeks had caught up. He hadn’t roused again until half past seven, and the district courthouse was a good hour from Turn-Coupe.

  “How’s your granddad?” Melville asked as the two of them mounted the wide steps of the courthouse building, their footsteps grating on the worn surfaces that were hollowed in spots by countless other steps.

  “Grouchy,” Kane answered. “Ready to go home and sleep in his own bed.”

  “Giving your aunt a hard time, is he?”

  “So she says, though she gets a kick out of having someone to talk to besides me.” The smile curving Kane’s mouth faded as he noticed the thin, scraggly-looking man leaning against one of the portico columns with a cigarette in his hand. Tipping his head in that direction, he went on, “Looks like the buzzards are circling.”

  Melville gave a nod. “Can’t keep them away, though I don’t know what that one expects to gain. I’ve seen him here, there, and everywhere around Turn-Coupe in the past day or two.”

  “He bothers me. I just don’t like it.”

  “I expect he’s no worse than the rest. You want a problem to worry about, I’ve got a real one for you.” Without breaking stride, he flipped open the top of his soft-sided briefcase and extracted a file folder, which he handed over.

  “What’s this?”

  “Dossier on the lady who’s been hanging around your granddad.”

  Kane felt his heart clench in his chest. He met Melville’s dark brown gaze for a long moment. Since they were close enough to Slater to be overheard, he chose his words carefully. “You put a chaser on that problem?”

  “Seemed like a good idea.”

  It was. One he should have thought of himself, Kane realized. No doubt he would have if he’d been tending to business instead of getting involved up to his neck. Or if he hadn’t been so determined to handle Regina his own way.

  Voice tight, he asked, “And?”

  “Read it for yourself.”

  He would. He’d have to, though from Melville’s attitude, he could tell he wasn’t going to be happy with the results. The look he gave Slater, as he passed the scrawny reporter, was murderous, easily twice as hostile as it might have been a minute earlier.

  Catching the tail end of it, Melville frowned. As he got the heavy entrance door, then followed Kane inside, he said, “You didn’t want me to check out the lady?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’m just not wild about having to investigate every person who comes within spitting distance of this case.”

  “That scruples talking, or you got something going there?”

  Kane checked himself. “What gave you that idea?”

  “You’ve been seen coming and going a lot at the motel. Word gets around. You were with her at Luke’s bash, then out at The Haven yesterday. It adds up.”

  “My own brand of investigation.” He spoke over his shoulder as he walked on.

  Melville caught up with him in a few steps. “So did you get anything?”

  “Nothing informative.” That wasn’t the truth, but it was all Kane felt like saying. He just didn’t want to talk about it. Any of it. Melville got the message, apparently, for he said no more.

  It was after court recessed for lunch that Kane forced himself to open the folder. The facts were worse than he’d suspected. Regina Dalton resided at the same address as Gervis Berry. They claimed to be related, but there was no actual blood tie. That added up to only one thing.

  Staring at that damning data, Kane was engulfed in sick rage. How could she and Berry suppose they wouldn’t be found out? They must think they were dealing with backward good old boys who had grits in their heads as well as in their voices. Berry, sitting in his New York office, was bad enough, but Regina was on the spot. She should have known
better.

  He’d like to get his hands on her. He’d have the truth out of her one way or another. For two cents, he’d turn the legal maneuvering over to Melville right now while he went to have it out with darling Regina.

  No, that would be too easy, too final. He’d much rather catch her in her lies and deceit and throw them back in her beautiful face. There were other, more personal, ways to make her regret what she was doing and he knew every one.

  So would she before he was through. So would she.

  The interminable court proceedings ground their way through the afternoon. When they were finally over, Kane and Melville drove back to the Turn-Coupe office to discuss the developments. It was late when Kane finally called it a day and headed out for The Haven. As he passed the funeral home, he noticed the car his aunt usually drove parked near the side entrance.

  Aunt Vivian might be attending to some chore for his grandfather, but he didn’t want to bet on it. What was far more likely was that Pops had sprung himself from confinement as an invalid and borrowed transportation to come to town. With a soft curse, Kane hit the brake and wheeled into a parking space.

  The first thing he heard as he walked into the reception area was a slow, familiar drawl holding forth somewhere in the back. He lifted an inquiring brow at the receptionist on duty.

  Miss Renfrew, a termagant who wore her gray hair in the same bun she’d sported for decades and knew more about the business than anyone except Mr. Lewis himself, gave a grim nod. “You’re hearing right. Himself is in the back. I told him he ought to be home in bed, but he said he was tired of being mollycoddled.”

  As she finished speaking, Kane heard a different, more feminine voice issuing from the back in counterpoint to Pops’s deep tones. “He brought Miss Elise with him?”

  Miss Renfrew shook her head. “The young woman who came about the jewelry. Apparently, he had an appointment with her. They’re back in the casket room if you want to join them.”

  It sounded like an excellent idea.

  Kane could hear them laughing before he reached them, an easy sound of shared rapport that set his teeth on edge. The pair was standing among the caskets that sat along the walls with the lids open like so many giant bassinets lined with pink and blue, cream and white. They turned as he entered. The smile that lit up Regina’s face would have been enough to tie his insides in knots if he hadn’t been positive it was an act.

  To play it cool went against the grain, but seemed best for the moment. He didn’t want Pops upset, nor did he want him taking sides.

  Returning Regina’s smile, he walked up between them and put his arm around both, though taking care not to bump his grandfather’s cast. With a mock stern look at the older man, he asked, “What are you doing out and about?”

  “Man’s got to do what a man’s got to do,” Pops answered with a glinting smile in Regina’s direction, which suggested supreme ease between them.

  It was all Kane could do to keep from grinding his teeth. “At least you have pleasant company.”

  “Don’t I though? I was showing her around the joint, and she was telling me about your adventure yesterday evening.”

  Kane met Regina’s soft hazel gaze, his own a bit jaundiced as he realized how effectively she had raised his grandfather’s spirits. “She doesn’t look any the worse for wear.”

  “I’m fine,” she answered for herself.

  He’d just bet she was. “Not too many mosquito bites?”

  “Nothing to speak of,” she said with a twitch of her lips. Watching that movement distracted him for a second, doing odd things to his insides.

  “I was just telling her she ought to come out to The Haven for dinner,” Pops said. “When I left, Vivian had her Southern Living Cookbook out and was doing interesting things to a roast the size of a football. Elise is coming over, but it might help save us from the leftovers if Regina joined us, too.”

  “I’ve been trying to convince him that your aunt might not want a stranger dropping in on her again,” she explained, her hazel gaze soft with doubt.

  “I’m sure it’ll be no problem,” Kane said. The agreement was perfunctory. He much preferred a more private setting when he saw Regina again.

  “That it won’t,” Pops agreed. “Vivian likes feeding people.”

  “And does a wonderful job,” Regina said, “but I don’t know.”

  Taking advantage of her hesitation, Kane inserted smoothly, “On the other hand, I think something was said about a pizza party tonight, wasn’t there?”

  She met his gaze, her own questioning. He made his expression as warmly significant as he could manage under the circumstances. Color rose at once under her pale skin, and he watched its spread with both satisfaction and a strange, aching regret.

  Before she could answer, one of the men who worked with his grandfather stuck his head into the room. “Phone, Mr. Crompton.”

  “Be right there,” Pops called over his shoulder. To Kane, he said, “You’ll take care of Miss Regina while I’m gone, won’t you?”

  “I’d like nothing better,” he answered, and meant every word.

  He waited until the two men were gone, their footsteps retreating toward the front of the funeral home. Then he reached for Regina, swinging her into his arms and clamping her close against him. When she turned her startled gaze up to his, he swooped down and pressed his lips to hers.

  He had meant it to be a hard, fast reminder of what had happened between them the night before. It was that, but also a refresher course, a spiraling clamor of the senses that threatened to get out of control. She was so soft and sweet and cooperative that it was perilously easy to forget what he was doing and think only of what he’d like to do. Now. In this room or anywhere else that might be handy.

  He raised his head, loosened his hold. Her lips were moist and pink, the pupils of her eyes dark and open. With her hands resting on his chest, over his heart that slammed against his breastbone, she said, “Is something wrong?”

  The urge to tell her exactly what was bothering him and ask for some explanation he could believe was so strong it burned like acid in his brain. The only thing that prevented him was the certain knowledge that she would concoct some tale to throw him off the track. He didn’t want to hear it, couldn’t stand that just now.

  Reaching for a careless smile, he said, “Should there be?”

  “You just seem—different.”

  “I’ve spent all day in court wrestling with the hydra-headed monster otherwise known as the Berry Association legal team.”

  “Hydra-headed?”

  “Cut off one objection or exception and it sprouts twice as many just like it.”

  Her smile of commiseration came right on cue. Rubbing a fingertip up and down the silk of his tie, she said, “They have you outnumbered, is that it?”

  “About four to one. There must be at least eight of them, all wearing the same Brooks Brothers suit and wing tips. I think they’re clones.”

  “I didn’t realize you were already involved in court with the case.”

  “Didn’t Pops tell you? It’s advance stuff, mostly tap dancing around each other to figure out how the script is going to shape up and who’ll get to play the lead. It’ll be a few more days before the show gets on the road.”

  “I see,” she said, actually sounding relieved.

  “So which is it going to be? Aunt Vivian’s home cooking, or pizza for two delivered to the motel?” The last word was husky and slightly suggestive whether he wanted it to sound that way or not.

  “Whatever you prefer.” She shielded her eyes with a downward sweep of her lashes, but he still caught the soft, gray-green promise behind the gold-tipped fans.

  It was unfair, but he was the one who felt the charge of her reply, felt it squarely in an uncomfortable part of his anatomy. “I’ll see you around 7:30, then,” he said, and let her go before things got away from him. Before he succumbed to a wild urge to put her in one of the caskets surrounding them and take
up where they’d left off the day they met.

  That same need, made up of equal parts of anger, sexual hunger and beguilement, still simmered inside him when he reached the motel two hours later. He’d shaved, showered and changed to remove the traces of a strenuous day and in anticipation of an evening ending in bed. If he was right about Regina, there was little chance it would turn out otherwise.

  Still, it felt cold-blooded and overly cynical, going about things this way. Using the kind of fireworks that ignited between them to gain the upper hand was far from his idea of a perfect relationship. It was possible he had more romantic illusions left than he thought.

  When Regina opened the door to his knock, he inhaled the heady smells of oregano and basil, hot tomato and mozzarella cheese and yeasty bread, and also an elusive perfume redolent of gardenias. The pizza, he saw, was laid out on the table under the room’s single window.

  Regina had already ordered and paid for everything, which didn’t sit well with him at all. Other people might think it was fine, but in his part of the world there was an unwritten law that said a man paid for the food, especially when a couple was on intimate terms. Not that there was a quid pro quo involved; it was simply the natural order of things, like any male animal providing food for his mate. Any other arrangement made him extremely uncomfortable. If that made him a chauvinist, then so be it.

  Kane walked into the room, put down the ceramic dish holding the dessert provided by his aunt, then took out his wallet and began to count money onto the console table that held the TV. He dropped enough bills for a large pizza with all the trimmings and the fat tip it had probably taken for the special delivery.

  “What are you doing?” Regina inquired in tight distress from where she stood with her hand still on the doorknob.

  “Paying you for—” he began.

  “Out!” she said, swinging the door wide again. “Get out.”

  He was genuinely puzzled for a split second, then he saw the look on her face. “Now wait a minute!”