by Linda Conrad
Until…Chase soberly turned over his cards and Kate felt her stomach jump and begin doing backflips.
“Four kings?” she groaned in amazement. Stunned by his outrageous good fortune, Kate sat there immobile and stared at the cards.
Reality hit her all too suddenly when she felt Chase reach over to lightly finger one of her dress’s straps. Shocked by the warm, erotic sensation of his hands on her bare skin, Kate gasped and drew away. Then she cursed herself as an idiot. Draw away? When this was what she wanted, after all?
“I won that dress fair and square,” Chase said in a ragged whisper. “But I would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to do. You can trust me not to hurt you.”
“Oh, Chase,” she mumbled past an unexpected lump in her throat. “Those are the very first words you ever said to me. Do you remember?”
She glanced over at him just as a drape of moonlight fell across his face, revealing hard features and a tense jawline. “That was in another lifetime, Kate. Things have changed.”
Not for her they hadn’t. “I remember being ten years old like it was yesterday.” The memory burned into her soul. “My mother had just…run away… And when we discovered she’d meant to go for good, my father simply shrugged and said ‘good riddance to bad trash.’ I never forgave him for that…never.”
“You were a pretty tough cookie back then,” Chase agreed. “You got it into your head to leave town, too.”
Chase’s voice began to mellow as he moved back into the shadows out of her sight. “I remember the scrawny dark-haired kid with the chip on her shoulder who wandered way out to the wrong side of town and then got lost. You were all full of fight and ready to conquer the world.”
“I wasn’t lost,” she said with a smile of memory. “Just spitting mad. But you and your father wiped my nose, filled my stomach and gently convinced me to go on back home. It was one of the kindest things anyone ever did for me.” And she had fallen desperately, madly, irrevocably in love with Chase from that first moment.
“Did your mother ever contact you again? Do you know where she is now?” The husky voice coming out of the darkness carried a note of concern. “You could hire private detectives to look for her. That’s how my grandmother Steele’s lawyers found me.”
“No. It doesn’t matter anymore.” Her heart twinged as she realized he truly cared about her welfare even after everything that had happened in the past.
But then the sound of his voice turned cold. “You quit fighting years ago, didn’t you?” he asked with a sneer.
She knew he was referring to that last night. That last horrible night when her whole world had collapsed. But she didn’t want to talk about it. Not now.
This was no night for recriminations and revelations. Tonight she wanted to feel his hands on her body, his tongue tasting, stirring—at long, long last.
“My mother’s whereabouts don’t matter,” she told him as she raised her chin. “If she wanted me—wanted to see me—she would’ve done it by now. I’ve grown up and don’t need a mother anymore.”
A tense moment of silence worried Kate and made her notice a drop of sweat that had formed at her temple. What was he thinking?
“Is that what you imagined of me all this time, Kate? That if I’d wanted to see you, I would’ve contacted you? It didn’t occur to you to try to find me first?”
She shook her head sadly. “I was positive that you wouldn’t want to see me…that you hated me. I…I don’t blame you for it, but I couldn’t…” Her words trailed off and she let her chin drop again as she battled the tears.
This wasn’t what she wanted to happen this evening. Couldn’t they just take comfort from each other and forget the past for one night?
“I didn’t…I don’t…hate you, chère.” For the moment Chase’s voice was filled with painful emotion.
Wanting badly to put the past behind them forever, Kate almost blurted out the truth of what had really happened that last night. Then she thought better of it as she realized such a confession would mean the end of her time with him. If Chase didn’t hate her now, he surely would when he heard it all. And she was becoming desperate for a few more hours…a few more days…with the only man she would ever love.
So because she loved him, because she couldn’t bear to hear this strong man’s indecision on her account, and because she would never welsh on a bet, Kate decided to pay up.
Slowly she got to her feet and pushed the spaghetti straps down her shoulders. Reaching behind her, she began to lower the back zipper, but found that her hands were shaking too violently to get the job done.
Suddenly clumsy, Kate felt the sting of embarrassment rising up her chest and flaming her cheeks. She had on the sexiest underwear she owned—in black lace—as she had expected and hoped—that Chase would undress her sometime tonight. He’d said he wanted her as a mistress, hadn’t he?
But she’d never expected to have to do a striptease for the man. It made her feel naughty…scandalous. And that was so far from her ordinary existence that she was left floundering and brainless.
She heard something rustling in the dark shadows surrounding her and felt a whisper of air against her skin.
“Need help, chère?” Chase’s rough, masculine voice came from close behind her instead of from the other direction, raising the hair on her arms and sending a chill down her spine.
Kate wanted to spin around and face him. Seeing Chase’s eyes as she took off the dress became suddenly terribly important. But his strong hands took her by the shoulders and kept her facing the other way.
“Stay still,” he ordered softly. “I’ll take care of the zipper. But you need to hold your hair out of the way.”
He took his hands off her shoulders but remained close enough that his breath blew warmth across her chilled skin. How could she be both cold and too hot at the same time?
Wishing this part of the evening would hurry up and be over so Chase would finally take her to bed, Kate did as he requested. With jerky movements, she managed to lift her hair and hold it off her neck.
“Sweet,” he murmured in her ear. His voice ran along her nerve endings, stirring her senses and arousing her desire.
The soft music of the zipper being lowered sounded for all the world like summer insects buzzing far off in the deep swamp. She felt light-headed and achy as the satin material of the black dress whispered against her skin, slid past her hips and pooled on the floor.
She stood perfectly still, naked save for her strapless bra and bikini panties, and prayed for Chase to touch her. His breathing was loud enough and ragged enough from behind her to let her know he was there and watching her. She felt his gaze, roaming over her, making the heat spike through her body.
Her own breathing became labored and shallow, echoing in her ears, while the sensation of being touched with just his eyes made her wet and ready for him. But he did not put his hands on her again.
She eased around, ready to make the first move toward kissing him if necessary. But Chase was not behind her. Only twitching shadows of firelight filled the space with empty echoes.
“Chase?”
“Game’s over.” His raspy voice came from the darkened doorway at the other side of the room. “You won. Shelby and the baby can stay.”
“But, Chase…” She turned to see his silhouette.
“There’s room enough in this old plantation house for everyone. I’ll be moving in tomorrow.”
“Into my bedroom?” She held her breath, waiting for an answer.
“We’ll see,” he said roughly. “I may not wish to sleep with old ghosts.”
“What about tonight, Chase?”
“Go to bed. I’ve grown tired of the game. Good evening, Kate.”
Through the low light dancing from the candles and fireplace, she watched as he turned his back and left the room. Choking back a sob, Kate sank to the floor and wrapped her arms around her waist.
He hadn’t been turned on by her as she had been
for him. Oh, Lord. Living in the same house but not sleeping with him was going to be a much worse punishment than being thrown out of her own home would’ve been. He couldn’t have found a more perfect way to take revenge.
And the thing was…nothing that he’d done or could ever do would make her love die. She was doomed to a lifetime of misery, wishing for things to be different.
Chase eased onto a bar stool at the smoky roadhouse tavern, leaned his elbows on the broad mahogany bar and ordered a bottle of bourbon. It was almost closing time, but he figured the bottle could easily go with him when they kicked him out. He imagined they would have to call a cab for him—because he fully intended to get rip-roaring drunk before they closed the doors.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to close his mind to the picture of Kate standing there in front of the fireplace in nothing but two pieces of black lace. Her scent was still in his nostrils. The heat from her back still burned his knuckles.
He wasn’t sure he would be able to stick with his plan and stay here in Bayou City while he made a decision on the mill. Every time he looked at Kate he wanted to taste her.
Even from the distance of ten years he remembered the flavor of the tender skin at the back of her neck. Remembered the spun honey of her dusky nipples, puckering under the ministrations of his tongue. And tasted in his mind the sweetness of the silky flesh covering the pulse beat right above her breasts.
Oh, God. He poured himself a shot and slugged it back. The fiery liquid burned all the way down as he perversely savored the pain roaring in his gut. He deserved to ignite in hell.
He couldn’t get her out of his mind. So many nights since he’d last seen her ten years ago had been spent dreaming of those dark eyes, sparkling in the glow of moonlight as she reached out for him.
Now he would never be rid of the picture of her standing there before him tonight, half-naked, shivering and hanging her head as she removed her dress. Even in the flickering light, he had clearly seen her distress. And he damned himself for it.
Pushing her too far had been his objective. Making her squirm the way he had years ago had been the goal. But he hadn’t counted on seeing the grown-up Kate, looking so erotic and earthy and so made for sex—flaming under the blush of embarrassment.
It had thrown him. Made him think.
He’d ached for the pleasure of her body. Her long legs had seemed to go on forever, her porcelain skin just begged to be stroked. But he would not take her…or anyone, against their free will.
Swearing under his breath, Chase tried to examine the emotion that had overcome his desire for revenge and that had even managed to push aside his lusty urges. The emotion that had shocked him…driving him right out of the house and into this bar.
Need. Pure gut-wrenching need—to protect her. To hold her and keep her safe in a dangerous world.
What a fool he’d been to think he could tease Kate, bring her to desperation and then casually take her. There had never been anything casual about the way he felt about Kate. And now he knew there never would be.
Chase reached for the bottle, poured another shot and downed the bourbon without ever tasting a thing past his own desolation.
“Trying to outdrink your old man, Severin?”
Looking up and focusing on the ancient bartender for the first time, Chase plastered a furious scowl across his face and narrowed his eyes. “Robert Guidry? I thought you’d be dead and buried by now. Leave me alone.”
“Yeah,” the old Cajun chuckled. “That’d be just exactly what Charles Severin would’ve said. How y’all are?”
“Go away.”
The bartender studied him for a moment. “You got the look, boy. Sure enough. Lost love, same as Charles. It’s bad medicine, you coming back here just to become a drunk.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” Chase mumbled. But something the old bartender said got him to thinking. “You knew my father when he was young, didn’t you?”
The bartender swiped a cloth across the sleek wood and nodded. “All of us raised up in the same parish. You included.”
“Did my father always drink too much? What was he like when he went to school? Was he a hell-raiser?”
“Charles Severin was smart as a whip, he was,” the older man said through a half smile. “His mother was widowed young and Charles became the man of the family as a boy. Never knew him to touch a drop of the liquid madness. He worked. Went to school. Most everybody liked him.”
“Then what happened? Why did he start drinking?”
Shaking his head sadly, the bartender lowered his voice to a rasp. “I remember the day Charles came home from college, toting along his pretty young wife. Never saw any man so crazy in love. He worshiped that woman. They planned on building a good life here in Bayou City.”
“So what changed?”
“Your momma died. She wasn’t strong enough for childbirth like the other women round here. From that day forward…well…Charles, he just couldn’t seem to face the days—or the nights without her.”
Of course that was it, Chase thought. His father had loved his mother. And then when she’d died, he’d ended up wishing the child they’d created had died in her place.
It hurt, but it made sense. His father had never been a cruel man, but sometimes it’d felt like he couldn’t bear to look at his only son without a few drinks under his belt.
Chase reached for the bottle again, but stilled his hand before he could pour the shot. Drinking had never solved his father’s problems in all those years and it wasn’t likely to do much for Chase’s now, either.
Dammit.
He stood up and pulled a few bills from his pocket. “Thanks for the history lesson, Guidry. I’ll be going now.”
“Oh, I got lots more lessons to tell, boy. You stick around and I’ll be glad to learn you.”
Shaking his head, Chase grinned at the old man. “Not tonight, thanks. Maybe some other time.” He threw the money on the bar and turned to leave.
The old bartender waylaid him with a hand on his arm. “You in trouble, son? You’ve got the witching about you. I see it plain as day.”
“The witching?” A sudden chill ran up Chase’s spine. But he cursed himself as an idiot for letting his imagination go. “What are you talking about?”
“The magic,” Guidry hissed. “The minute you touched your pocket, a golden mist came down over you. Some witch is stirring with your soul, boy. Better watch out.”
Nonsense. But Chase’s first reflex was to reach into his pocket for the gypsy’s gift. He palmed the jewel-covered egg. There was nothing unusual about the warm metallic feel of the gold.
See there. The old Cajun was just letting his superstitions run away with him. Chase had lived in these parts long enough to know that magic couldn’t touch you unless you believed. And he didn’t.
He bade the bartender a good night and headed back toward the B&B. It had been one hell of a day, and moving into Live Oak Hall tomorrow was going to take every last bit of his attention and resolve.
Gritting his teeth, Chase fisted his hands and swallowed the sickening feeling that he had just stepped into shifting sands that would pull him in far over his head. “What in hell have I gotten myself into?”
The old gypsy woman pushed back from the table and spit out a curse. “So you don’t believe in the magic, young Severin? How foolhardy.”
Passionata waved a hand over the crystal and crossed her arms over her chest. She had a good mind to let him stew forever with his own ghosts.
The minute she’d thought it, however, the gypsy king’s voice, bidding her to keep his deathbed legacy, came back to haunt her. If she didn’t spend the extra time on Chase Severin’s inheritance, her father would never rest—would never let her rest.
“Bah!” She had a feeling that delivering this magic to such a nonbeliever might just be the death of her.
Wearily she rose up and sighed. There was nothing to do but to go there.
She slid the crystal into
a deep pocket and prepared to face the stifling musk of the hidden marshes once again. The stealthy swamp was her old friend. She would make her way back to the jungles, black waters and mosquitoes.
Moonlight and cypress knees awaited her arrival with promise. Young Severin had met his match.
“I am what you have gotten into, boy,” she whispered to him on the winds. “And I am prepared to be the winner of this game.”
Five
Chase drove his Jag down the sun-dappled road that skirted Blackwater Bayou on his way to Live Oak Hall. When the car came out from under the clouds of tree branches with their dripping Spanish moss, he found himself roaring down the blacktop that ran parallel to the mill.
He grimaced at his first clear view of that monstrous ghost. The old rice mill was a pure eyesore. He slowed the car and pulled off on the shoulder to study it a little better from this distance.
He remembered thinking as a kid that the mill resembled a giant beehive, always busy with activity and noisy with people making a living. It was the center of commerce for the whole town, sometimes for the whole parish.
In his memory he saw lines of trucks hauling in raw rice twenty-four hours a day, and seagoing barges leaving from the deep-water port to take the milled rice all over the world. But today, on a sunny Saturday morning, it looked deserted and forlorn.
The people of this town and the surrounding countryside once had employment and prosperity—way back when Kate’s grandfather ran things. But the old man had died when Chase was a teen and Kate’s father had taken over. Now, thanks to years of mismanagement, the citizens had nothing but layoffs and a huge rusting derelict of a building.
Chase had originally come home ready to destroy the mill, thinking that because it had once been run by Kate’s despicable father and represented his incompetent power, it deserved to go up in smoke. But Henry Beltrane was dead and buried. And Chase’s anger at the town for turning their backs on him when he needed them the most seemed like an ancient bad dream.