River Road

by JoAnn Ross

  "Shit! I knew it," he shouted. "Take Julia into the house and stay with her," he instructed "Nate as he sprinted toward the cemetery, Jack right on his heels.

  "What on earth?" Julia stared after them.

  "I guess he just cracked the case," Nate said with what Julia found to be amazing aplomb under the circumstances.

  When he put his hand beneath her elbow to usher her into Beau Soleil, she shook off the light touch. "Whatever's happening, I want to watch."

  "The back upstairs windows look out onto the cemetery," Dani said. "You can watch from there, so Finn won't be distracted worrying about you."

  Remembering that wicked looking scar on his thigh, Julia allowed herself to be convinced. She'd no sooner entered the house when the threatening sky opened up.

  "What if whoever it is has a gun?" Julia fretted.

  "If he tries to use it, he's in trouble. Finn's a crack shot," Nate assured her. "He and Jack used to have quick draw shootouts with cap pistols when they were kids. Jack was fast, but Finn was like lightning."

  Real guns were a long way from cap pistols. Dear God, surely they weren't going to have a shootout in Blue Bayou's cemetery? Even Warren wouldn't have come up with such a thing.

  Julia dragged her hands down her wet face, then leaned forward, trying to see him through the thick gray curtain of falling rain.

  Chapter 29

  Where the hell was she? Finn ran through the cemetery, rain blinding his vision, knowing that if he failed, the hunter who'd been stalking Julia and arranged to have her kidnapped would return another day, more determined than ever. Even more focused on his prey.

  When he caught a glimpse of a bit of black dodging around a marble obelisk, he lifted the Glock, prepared to shoot, when a chip of marble blew off the wing of the angel atop the tomb behind him. Finn dodged behind it.

  "Nothing like an old-fashioned gunfight to get the blood racing," Jack said conversationally as he joined his brother behind the tomb. "Do we know who we're chasing?"

  "No. But if she's really an old lady, I'll eat my shield." He took a deep breath. "On the count of three."

  "Got it," Jack agreed.

  "One . . . two . . . three." Finn darted out, bending low as he charged the obelisk, Jack right beside him, just like back when they'd been kids.

  The extra who was once again dressed in widow's mourning lifted her heavy skirts and began running across the sodden turf, past the tomb of Andre Dupree, who'd won Beau Soleil in a bourré game before the War Between the States. The two Callahan brothers chased after him, beginning to close the gap.

  "FBI," Finn shouted. "Stop or I’ll shoot." It might sound like a television show cliché, but once in a blue moon it worked. He also wanted to be sure he identified himself as a law officer if he ended up shooting the guy. Which seemed like a damn good idea right about now.

  He was close enough he could hear the shooter's labored breathing. It was down to inches. Finn reached out the hand that wasn't holding the pistol, his fingers brushing black taffeta. The guy tried to dodge a low black iron fence around a pair of gravestones and slipped on the wet ground. As he struggled for his footing, Finn launched himself airborne, the same way he had gone over the opposing team's defensive line for a touchdown back at LSU.

  They went down together. When the shooter's gun skittered across the gravel, Finn kicked it out of reach. Then he put the barrel of his own Glock, the backup piece to the one he'd had to hand over to Jansen, against the attacker's temple.

  "Maybe you didn't hear me," he said. "I said to stop."

  "Fuck you," the male voice shot back.

  "I think I'll pass," Finn ripped off the jet bonnet and the gray wig, grabbed hold of the short hair, and slammed the shooter's face against the ground. "But I bet there'll be lots of guys up at Angola who'll be more than happy to take you up on the invitation."

  He pulled a pair of the handcuffs he was never without from his pocket, yanked the man's hands behind his back, and captured his wrists.

  "Nothing like the satisfying click of metal on metal," Jack said approvingly.

  "You can say that again. Now, here's what we're going to do," Finn told the man lying beneath him. "I'm going to read you your rights. Then we're going to get up. And if I were you, I wouldn't try anything funny, because I'm really pissed off at bad guys in general these days, super pissed at cretins who get their rocks off hurting women, and you can't even imagine, in your worst and darkest nightmares, how pissed I am at you in particular, and how I'd love an excuse to blow your head off."

  "You wouldn't dare," the man said. "Not with all these witnesses."

  "Want to bet?" Finn countered. "Maybe you aren't tapped into the Blue Bayou gossip line, 'cause if you were, you would have heard that I'm on disciplinary suspension for beating up a perp. I probably would have killed him, but two FBI agents, a Maryland State trooper, and a court-appointed shrink managed to pull me off him before I could."

  Finn's emotions, usually so steady, were on a hair trigger. "Get up." He jerked his prisoner to his feet, aimed the pistol directly at the center of his back, and pushed him forward.

  As frightened as Julia had been to find herself tied up in that cabin, it was nothing compared to hearing the sound of gunshots from Blue Bayou's cemetery. Despite Nate's assurance that his brother would be all right, Julia was flooded with relief when she saw the trio headed toward the house. She flew down the stairs and out the door, heedless of the rain.

  "Are you all right?" She raced to Finn, intending to throw her arms around his neck, but was stopped by the sight of the treacherous pistol in his hand.

  "I'm fine. But I'll be a lot better when this creep's behind bars."

  She took a closer look at the woman clad in black mourning. "Graham? Is that really you?" With the wig and bonnet off, it certainly looked like him. "What on earth are you doing here?"

  "What do you think I was doing?" Graham Sheffield asked peevishly. "I was protecting my property."

  "Property?" Julia stared at his face and wondered why she hadn't seen through the makeup and women's clothing to the man who'd proposed on their first date. Perhaps because her mind had been so filled with Finn.

  "You're mine, Julia. You've always been mine. And you knew it, too, or you wouldn't have slept with me."

  Hell. If she'd known he was going to bring that up., Julia might have wished for Finn to shoot him back in the cemetery.

  "I knew we were meant to be together the first time I tuned into River Road and saw you making love to that ski instructor in the hot tub at the resort. I knew he wasn't good enough for you. Which he proved by blackmailing you a few months later."

  "Graham, that was Amanda."

  "Well, of course it was," he huffed. "I can tell the difference. I am, after all, your number one fan."

  Her heart hitched as the reality hit home. "It was you who sent me those letters?" Something else clicked in. "That's why they stopped coming after I came and talked to your class."

  "Of course. I didn't have to write anymore, because you were in my life. Where you belonged." His eyes narrowed. "Where you still belong. I love you, and although you may have problems with commitment, you know you love me. I want us to spend the rest of our lives together."

  "Great way you had of showing it," Finn said as a pair of cop cars arrived, lights flashing, sirens screaming. "Having a woman kidnapped and held hostage in some filthy cabin is not the way to get her to fall in love with you."

  "I needed time alone with Julia, away from distractions. So I could convince her that we're soulmates." Despite the fact he was covered in mud, despite his hands being handcuffed behind his back, his voice slid back into that patronizing royal tone that she suspected his British ancestors had used with their serfs. "And, of course, I couldn't let her leave for Kathmandu."

  "Because you'd stand out like a sore thumb if you tried to stalk her there," Jack said.

  "Watch over her," Graham corrected stiffly. "I am not a common stalker."


  "Who were those men?" Julia asked.

  "James was one of my students. The other one was his brother."

  "A brother who'd served prison time for conspiracy in an armed robbery and shooting." Julia's temper flared.

  "James didn't mention that," he said defensively.

  "Did it ever occur to you that you were putting me at a terrible risk?"

  "Of course I realized there was an outside chance of your being injured, but then I could have taken you back to L.A. and cared for you."

  "And if I'd died?" How had she not noticed how mentally disturbed Graham was? "Did you think of that?"

  "Naturally. But that was a risk I was prepared to take."

  Julia shoved wet curls out of her eyes. "You were prepared to take? What makes you think you had any right to play with my life?"

  "You belong to me," he insisted yet again. "If you were too stupid or stubborn to realize it, then you deserved whatever happened."

  "If you couldn't have her, no one could," Finn said. Unfortunately, he'd seen that mind-set before.

  The professor nodded, as if the idea was perfectly rational. "Indeed."

  "By the time you get out of prison, you're going to forget what a woman is," Finn said. "I'm going to make sure the DAs here and back in California throw the book at you. We're talking stalking, kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon—"

  "It's an air gun," Graham sniffed. "I would think any law enforcement officer worth his salt should be able to tell the difference."

  "Sure I can. It's a Webley Nemesis. I suppose you thought you were being cute, choosing a model named for the Greek goddess of retribution."

  "It seemed appropriate," Graham agreed. "Under the circumstances."

  Finn shook his head and cursed softly. "You're also looking at attempted murder of a police officer, along with a shitload of other possible charges, including littering since there are pellets all over the cemetery."

  "You know, you could save two states a lot of money by just feeding the bastard to the gators," Jack suggested.

  "That's not such a bad idea." Finn rubbed his jaw.

  "You wouldn't dare." Graham's tone lacked conviction and for the first time, his situation seemed to hit home.

  "Want to bet?"

  "You're an FBI Special Agent. You can't just assassinate someone."

  "Relax, Sheffield. I'm not going to kill you. But only because you're not worth the trouble it'd cause me." He reached into the pocket of his wet jeans, dug out his car keys, and tossed them to Jack. "Why don't you put this guy in the Suburban and we can take him to the state cops in Baton Rouge?"

  "Works for me," Jack said. Finn knew his brother had made the right decision to get out of the DEA after the near-fatal shooting that had taken the life of his partner, along with a lot of other innocent people. But it was obvious that Jack was enjoying playing cops and robbers again.

  Finn took Julia aside. Excitement over for now, the others went back into the house, giving them some privacy. "I noticed you didn't exactly jump in and beg me not to shoot him," he said as they watched Jack walk Sheffield toward the SUV.

  "That's because I wasn't worried. You promised me you wouldn't resort to unnecessary violence. And you're a good man who takes your oath to uphold justice seriously."

  Despite the seriousness of what had happened, Finn felt himself smiling. "This from the woman who thinks cops are lower than pond scum."

  "I may have been a little misguided about that."

  "May have been?" "All right. I was wrong. It's obvious that you and your brother are

  two of the good guys." Graham was now in the back seat of the Suburban. "Why are you taking him all the way to Baton Rouge? Doesn't Blue Bayou have a jail?"

  "Sure. But since the department currently consists of one grandmotherly dispatcher, who sits behind the desk and crochets afghans, a deputy on the long side of seventy, and another fresh out of college who's as green as new grass, the jail's mostly being used as a place for drunks to sleep it off. Oh, and last month Jack and Dani's daughter Holly had a sleepover in the cells."

  "Well, that does it. You have no right to make any more cracks against life on the commune, since a slumber party in a jail is more off-the-wall than anything my parents ever came up with."

  "It was all Jack's idea. He's pretty much reformed since he and Dani got back together, but there's still a streak of bad boy in him."

  "Lucky Dani."

  "Jack's the lucky one. Fortunately, he knows it."

  "That's nice." She'd always been a sucker for a love story. Which was probably partly how she'd ended up on a soap.

  As the rain began to pick up again, they stood there, Julia looking up at Finn, him looking down at her. They were drenched to the skin but neither noticed. She felt the heat rise and wouldn't have been surprised if they'd been engulfed in clouds of steam.

  "I don't suppose, after all you've been through, that you'd feel like going into New Orleans tonight?" he asked.

  In all honesty, she'd rather take a long hot bubble bath to wash the swamp ftom her hair and skin, and then spend the night in bed with him. But then it occurred to her that Finn was a very traditional man. Perhaps he was taking her out for a night on the town to tell her, on her last night in Blue Bayou, how much he loved her. To tell her he couldn't live without her. Maybe even, she thought with a secret thrill, to propose.

  "I'd love that," she agreed as heady anticipation sang like a siren's song in her blood.

  * * *

  The bathtub might not be true to the antebellum period, but it was wonderfully hedonistic. Julia soaked for a long time in the perfumed water, breathing in the fresh, fragrant sea mist scent of candles and luxuriating as the Jacuzzi jets bubbled away her aches and pains. Not wanting to keep Finn waiting when he and Jack got back from

  Baton Rouge, she finally forced herself to abandon the bliss of the tub and was sitting at a skirted dressing table, putting on her makeup, while her mother perched on the edge of the antique bed.

  Having packed only that one outrageously bare Amanda cocktail dress she'd worn to the parish council welcome party and casual clothes, Julia had been trying to figure out what she was going to wear for what might turn out to be the most important night of her life, when Dani had offered to lend her a dress she'd brought home from Hawaii. Made of gleaming white silk ablaze with scarlet poppies, it was a dress made for celebration. For seduction. It was hanging on the back of the closet door, a colorful promise of the night to come.

  "I love him, Mama," Julia said.

  "I know darling," Peace said gently. Julia had been grateful when Dani had insisted her parents spend the night at Beau Soleil so they could all have some time together before Julia left the country. "I was fairly sure when we talked on the phone while your father and I were still in Coldwater Cove. It was obvious the moment I saw you."

  "Well, it sure wasn't obvious to me."

  "Perhaps you were in denial, since Finn's so different from all those men you'd tried to love."

  "Perhaps," Julia allowed. Deciding to forgo blush since her cheeks were already flushed with the heat of the bath and anticipation, she smoothed some taupe shadow on her eyelids. "But it certainly hit home when I realized I might never see him again."

  The idea had struck, while she'd been stumbling through the swamp, with such a clarion ring of certainty, she'd been amazed that she hadn't seen it coming. "I've been trying to tell myself that the only reason I responded to Finn so strongly was because he was an FBI Special Agent."

  "Because Finn was an agent, you automatically saw him as an enemy?"

  "I felt that way at the time." Now she realized that she'd needed to dislike him because the alternative of such a strong initial reaction would have been to fall in love with him. Which she'd gone ahead and done.

  "I'd hoped we taught you more tolerance," Peace chided softly.

  "It wasn't just me," Julia muttered. She took a sip of the herbal tea her mother had brewed. "Finn wasn’t exactly
flattering toward any of us."

  "Nor your father toward him," Peace admitted. "Believe me, you would not have wanted to be in the bus with Freedom on the drive down here. Fortunately, they seem to have found a common ground in their love for you."

  "Do you really think Finn loves me?"

  "Absolutely." Julia would have felt more positive about her mother's declaration if it hadn't been accompanied by such a serious expression. "But I'm not that sure he's ready to accept the idea yet. And he's an incredibly stubborn man. Which is another thing he has in common with your father.

  "It wasn't easy convincing Freedom that he was not going to ruin my life by taking me away from my wealthy, pampered, lonely existence. Of course he was also trying to protect his own heart, afraid I'd run back to Daddy at the first little problem." She took a blue stone from a small box. "This is the same love-enhancer stone I used to help your father see the light. It's been waiting all these years for you and Finn."

  Although she didn't quite believe in magic spells and potions, Julia could have sworn her palm warmed when she held the lapis lazuli in her hand.

  She'd just finished dressing when Dani came into the bedroom. "Wow," she said. "My poor brother-in-law is a goner."

  "It's the dress. It's wonderful." Julia twirled on strappy red sandals with ice pick heels, causing the short skirt to flare around her thighs. The halter top dipped below the waist in back; and crystal earrings brushed her bare shoulders.

  "The dress is gorgeous, and it fits as if it was designed with you in mind. If you're planning to entice Finn into proposing, you're definitely wearing the right ammunition."

  "Is it that obvious?"

  "Only to a woman who's been there recently." Dani exchanged a smile with Peace, who was beaming with maternal benevolence. "I'm so pleased for you and Finn. He's a good man. Strong, solid, steady. What you see is what you get."

  "Not always," Julia murmured.

  Dani nodded, seeming pleased with that assessment. "So he's let you in."