by Tracy Wolff
“A woman’s prerogative.” She stared defiantly at him for a moment, before dropping her eyes to her plate. He felt, more than heard, her sigh. “Look, Kevin, it’s a bad idea.”
“What is?” He refused to make it easy for her. She set him on fire, made him burn hotter and harder than any woman ever had and then copped out at the last minute? Not in this lifetime.
He studied her breasts beneath the gray oxford shirt, saw her nipples pebble under his hot gaze before she crossed her arms defensively over her chest. No, he mused. Definitely not in this lifetime.
“Just because we—kissed—doesn’t mean I have to sleep with you.”
“You’re right.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “So, it’s okay then. You understand what I’m saying.”
He let his gaze linger on her breasts before slowly looking her in the eye. “No.”
“No, you don’t understand?” Her eyebrows furrowed adorably. Despite his anger, he wanted to smooth kisses along them, soothing the fear and confusion he could literally feel rolling off her.
But instead of comforting her, he raised the tension. She had to understand that she couldn’t run from this thing that was between them. “Oh, I understand.” He smiled at the relief that flashed in her eyes. “But it’s not remotely close to being okay.”
He watched her struggle for a response, saw her mouth open and shut several times before she finally got her feet back under her. “Well, that’s too bad for you, isn’t it? Because you’re not the one calling the shots around here.”
“And you are?” He struggled to keep the superior smile on his face. Struggled to remain calm and aloof. Was she about to call his bluff?
“Yes! I mean—” She stopped herself, tugged at the simple gold hoop in her ear. “What I mean is, I definitely am in control of myself. And I’m not going to sleep with you. Not now and not in the foreseeable future.”
He inclined his head. “We’ll see.”
She growled low in her throat, delighting him. She was close, incredibly close, to losing that cool. Why the observation made him happy, he couldn’t have said.
“No, we won’t see. Because I’m leaving! Right now.” She stood up, carried her nearly untouched food to the sink.
Bluff called. She was walking out, without giving this thing between them a chance. “What about the book?” He despised himself for asking but couldn’t hold the words back. “What about the gallery opening in San Diego?”
“What about them?” She shrugged. “I’ll be back in four or five days and we’ll go from there.” She froze, her eyes darting back to his face. “I mean, with the book only. We’ll go from there with the book.”
She was coming back. The thought settled in his head as relief swept through him. She wasn’t running away permanently, just leaving to get some breathing space. He didn’t like it, didn’t want to see her go. But he could handle it. He could even understand it. For someone like Serena, who prided herself on being in control all the time, this thing between them must be pretty uncomfortable. For, much as he wished it wasn’t so, things between them were hot, explosive, far, far out of control.
He watched her stride rapidly down the hall, her heels clicking with each neat step she took. She entered the room only to re-emerge seconds later, her plain gray suitcase clutched in her hand.
“Let me take that for you.” He strode down the hall, relieving her of her burden before she could protest.
“I can get it.”
He smiled, his teeth gleaming warningly in the afternoon light. “I know you can, cher. But where I come from, a gentleman doesn’t stand by and watch a woman struggle with a bag that weighs almost as much as she does.” He headed outside before she could stop him.
“I didn’t realize you were a gentleman,” she shot at him, as she pushed the trunk release on her key chain.
His smile was predatory and sexy as hell. “I most definitely am. Look up the origin of the word sometimes. It’s a real eye-opener.”
She dropped her keys. Grinning like a loon, he hid his face behind the open trunk lid as he loaded her bag. He closed the trunk to find her studying him, an uncharacteristically anxious expression on her face. Shoving his hands into his back pockets, he leaned back on his heels and waited for her to speak.
“I’ll be back in a few days,” she said, her teeth worrying her lower lip.
He shrugged. “I’ll be here.”
She nodded, climbed into the car and shut the door. But he couldn’t let her leave like that—she was biting her lip so hard he was afraid she’d draw blood. He knocked on the driver’s window and waited patiently as she rolled it down. “Drive carefully, bebe.”
Her smile was reserved. “I will.”
“Good.” He stepped back and winked. “I haven’t got the patience to break in two photographers in a week.”
Serena gasped, outrage in every line of her face, before slamming the car into gear and heading down the driveway as fast as safety allowed. Kevin stood watching her gray Volvo until it reached the end of the very long driveway. Gray clothes, gray suitcase, gray car. The woman definitely needed some color in her life. Wasn’t it lucky he had more than enough to share? Whistling, he headed toward his studio to get to work.
Chapter Four
The metal gates of Angola Penitentiary clanged as Serena passed through them. She gazed straight ahead, afraid to speak, afraid to think, afraid to even blink. If she did—if she so much as moved the wrong way—she would shatter. So she concentrated on taking deep, even breaths. On swallowing the lump in her throat and keeping the tears at bay.
She had done all this for nothing. Left Kevin and the book. Dragged up a past she would much rather leave buried. Faced her sister’s murderer. And for what? To see him paroled after ten lousy years? Louisiana sucked and the corruption that ran rampant in the state sucked even more.
As the prison doors shut behind her, the heat struck her like a fist. It was brutal, much like the parole hearing she had just left. And like the hearing, the hundred-degree humidity threatened to bring her to her knees.
Serena stopped, struggling for breath in the dense air. Her legs were shaky, threatening to revolt if she pushed them to continue. Her heart raced and pain exploded through her chest—was it possible to have a heart attack at twenty-eight? She pressed a hand between her breasts, fought the blackness that crept up on her a little more with each passing second.
“Serena! Are you all right?”
She looked into the face of Jack Rawlins, new Assistant District Attorney for Baton Rouge and the man who had been reassigned her sister’s case as the parole date crept closer. It hadn’t been required that he attend the parole hearing, but he had known how well connected Damien was. He’d been afraid things would go sour and he’d been right.
She put up a hand to ward him off, even as she struggled to suck air into her burning lungs. She’d lose it if he touched her. She knew it as well as she knew that Damien LaFleur, murderer and son of old Louisiana royalty, would be walking through these doors to freedom sometime very soon.
She wanted to scream, to claw Jack bloody. But it wasn’t his fault that Damien was getting out, just as it wasn’t his fault that first degree rape and murder had been pled down to manslaughter ten years before. Money talked in Louisiana, more than almost any other place in the country, and Damien’s family had a lot of money. Not enough to cover up the crime completely, but more than enough to keep Damien from spending the rest of his long life in prison. Like her, he was twenty-eight. He had years and years ahead of him to pretend that none of this had ever happened.
“Serena. Answer me.” Jack’s face swam into focus again, his eyes frightened now, his mouth a grim slash as he reached for her.
“I’m fine.” She forced the words past her too-tight throat, nearly strangling on them. She closed her eyes and Sandra’s beloved image hovered there, smiling, laughing, so full of energy that anyone looking at her feared sh
e’d explode if she sat still for more than a couple of minutes at a time.
Again tears threatened and again Serena beat them back. Sandra’s picture slowly faded, only to be replaced by the photos Jack had brought. He was wily and good at his job; instead of packing up the whole file for the parole board to see, he had packed the three most gruesome of the set. No reason to desensitize the board to the crime. Sandra’s mutilated body swam before her eyes and Serena’s stomach revolted. She barely made it to the trash can in time.
“It’s okay. Ssshh, it’s all right.” Jack’s hand stroked her back soothingly as Serena fought for control. When the dry heaves finally stopped, she stood slowly, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Here, take this.” Jack handed her a bottle of water and Serena rinsed her mouth gratefully.
“Thank you.” When she spoke her voice wasn’t back to normal, but it was audible and nearly steady. She took a few more steadying breaths, relieved that the crushing chest pain had eased slightly.
Jack nodded, placed a hand at the small of her back and guided her toward his car. “Let’s get out of here.” He too was aware of Damien’s imminent release, just as he knew the LaFleurs would be here to pick him up in style. Damien’s younger brother, Michael was already here—though he hadn’t said a word throughout the proceedings, he had sat in the back of the room watching everything. She remembered him and his unnatural stillness from school, from a time when they could be—if not friends, then at least not enemies.
He’d smiled at her when she’d first arrived, but she hadn’t been able to smile back—not when his very presence at the parole hearing reinforced everything she already knew. The LaFleurs had bought Damien’s sentence and now they were buying his freedom. Michael hadn’t shown any reaction at all when his brother’s parole had been granted. Not even a flicker of his eyelashes or a quirk of his lips betrayed any surprise he might be feeling. But then again, why should he have been surprised? The outcome had been a guaranteed certainty before any of them had set so much as one foot in the room.
Serena followed Jack to his car and settled into the passenger seat, grateful for the blast of cooling air that hit her face within seconds. They drove in silence for a while before she finally worked up the energy to speak. “I’m sorry.”
He snorted. “For what?” Stopped at a red light he turned to her, clasped her hand in his and looked straight into her eyes. “I’m sorry. I never should have brought you here. But I thought, if they could see you, then maybe …” His voice trailed off.
“Then maybe the money wouldn’t matter?” Serena asked bitterly. “I didn’t realize you were an idealist.”
His mouth tightened, but he said nothing. What could he say, Serena wondered. Nothing would make it okay that her sister’s rapist and murderer would soon be wandering free—years before his full joke of a sentence had been served.
The rest of the two-hour ride was accomplished in near silence. Jack tried, more than once, to start a conversation, but Serena could think of nothing to say. She stared out the window, regrets beating at her as she eyed the threatening sky. It looked like another thunderstorm was due—she couldn’t think of a better day for it.
After Jack had dropped her off at her Baton Rouge condo—against his better judgment—Serena wandered aimlessly around for a few minutes, unable to sit. If she kept moving she wouldn’t have to dwell, wouldn’t have time to think about Damien getting on with his life in a way Sandra never could.
The phone rang, but she couldn’t handle talking to anyone right now. What was there to say? Her mother had refused to go to the parole hearing, saying that it would only stir up bad memories. Was that all her twin sister was? A bad memory? And Mom wondered why Serena had so little to say to her these days. If it was her, calling to see how things had gone, she could wait and hear it on TV. At the moment, Serena didn’t feel up to breaking the bad news.
Her answering machine clicked on and she half-listened, expecting to hear her mother’s voice. Shocked that she’d managed to break away from husband number six—or was it seven—long enough to make a phone call. A high-pitched giggle came over the line—one that definitely didn’t belong to her mother—and chilled her blood. Not now, she wanted to scream. She couldn’t deal with him too, not on top of everything else. She had to give the guy credit, though. If he wanted to shake her up, now was the time to do it. It seemed the creep had an impeccable sense of timing as well as a twisted sense of humor.
“Are you there?” His voice was muffled, but no less frightening because of it. “Are you listening to me right now? Wondering if you should pick up the phone?” He laughed again, the sound grating on her already taut nerves. “I’m glad you’re back home again. Back where I can see you and smell you and touch you. Back where you can remember. You remember, don’t you? You remember even now?”
She crossed to the phone, her hand hesitating over the handset. Remember what?
“I do. I remember everything,” the disembodied voice hissed. “And I bet you do too. Remember, my darling. Remember and dream of me.”
The machine clicked off and she moved to erase the message, as she had the previous ones. But something stopped her, some sense of self-preservation long forgotten. She wasn’t ready to go to the police, wasn’t ready to even contemplate it—but she should keep the evidence, in case she ever changed her mind. Not that the police could do much, except tell her it was some random, crazy guy. After all, Louisiana was full of crazies. Look at Damien LaFleur.
With that incredibly depressing thought in the front of her mind, Serena wandered into her darkroom. Maybe she could work through the devastation, get the hearing out of her head. But after a few minutes of puttering with her chemicals, she gave up. For the first time in a number of years, the darkroom felt oppressive, disturbing. A sense of doom permeated the silence of the empty apartment, closing in on her and making work impossible.
Another shiver of fear shot through her and she gave up. It was stupid to think she could stay here, stupider to make herself when she was jumping at shadows.
Grabbing the suitcase she had unpacked just the day before, she yanked clothes out of her closet and threw them in without so much as a second glance. Moving quickly, she added her toiletries case, blow dryer and a couple pairs of shoes. What had she been thinking coming back here today? She should have known better. While she’d planned to return to Kevin’s bayou tomorrow, after the storm had passed and she’d gained some perspective, she couldn’t sit here fighting old and new demons for one second longer.
She needed to see him. Serena refused to question herself, refused to deal with why she so desperately wanted to be with Kevin. She only knew that if she stayed in her lonely apartment much longer she’d go insane. And the only other place she wanted to be right now was at Kevin’s, basking in the warmth and safety he offered without reservation.
Dragging her suitcase down to her car, she dropped it into the trunk and climbed behind the wheel seconds before the sky opened up. Ignoring the danger and the streets that were already beginning to fill with water, Serena negotiated her way onto the highway and headed toward the swamps.
Lightning slashed the sky and rain buffeted her car. The windshield wipers barely made a dent in the water pouring from the sky and it took all of Serena’s concentration just to keep the car on the road.
Despite the risk, she was absurdly grateful to the storm. She had dreaded the three-hour drive out to Kevin’s and the time it would give her to think. But the raging storm held all of her attention; it took all her strength and skill just to keep the car moving forward. There was nothing left over for thinking, even as the three-hour drive stretched to four and beyond.
The storm abated just as Serena pulled off the highway and onto the private bayou road that would take her to Kevin. She spotted his driveway amid the lush vegetation of the swamps and gratefully turned left, taking the winding, gravel-covered road up to his house.
* * *
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��I don’t know where she went, Steve, and I don’t know why she’s not answering her cell phone.” Kevin thrust a hand through his hair, frustration and worry drumming through him. “She told me she was heading back to Baton Rouge for a few days to develop film. Maybe she’s too busy to answer the phone.”
“If it was you, I could understand that. But Serena doesn’t have a temperamental bone in her body, Kevin. Clients like her make up for having clients like you.”
Kevin snorted. “You knew what you were getting when you chased me down, so don’t give me your poor little agent routine. I was doing fine on my own.”
“You were getting scalped, selling your work for peanuts! That’s hardly fine.”
“Sure it is. I might not have been rich, but I was free to do whatever I wanted, unencumbered, with no monkey on my back demanding more and more from me. Seriously, Steve, I don’t know why I keep you around.”
“You keep me around because when I first met you, you could barely afford to pay for your materials, let alone have anything left over to feed yourself. If nothing else, I’ve given you the means to buy more Twinkies than any man will ever need.”
He inclined his head. “There is that.”
“Yes, there is. And it should make up for any aggravation my small interference causes you.”
“Small?” Kevin snorted. “World wars have caused less aggravation than you. But you’ve grown on me, so I guess I can’t fire you.”
“Be still my heart,” Steve replied drily.
Kevin glanced up in time to see a car turn onto the long road leading to the house. Frowning, he watched it creep up his muddy driveway, swerving numerous times to avoid potholes. Every time his mother came she complained about the driveway, asking when he was going to get it fixed. But he liked it—it kept all but the most determined people away from his door, doing more to guard his privacy than a two-hundred-pound Rottweiler ever could.
Whoever it was wasn’t noticeably discouraged by the unwelcoming road—something he would be more than happy to remedy. He was in a foul mood and definitely had no use for company. Taking his angst out on an unsuspecting tourist definitely had some appeal.