His grin was self-effacing and contagious. Despite the circumstances, Lucy felt herself relax.
“Thank you, Justin.”
“That would mean more to me with a proper introduction, so I would know who was thanking me.”
“Lucy Ryan.”
His grin widened. “Lucille. Fits you, chère. I always loved that name.” As he took the coffee pot from the stove and filled a mug for her, he said, “Sit,” and began humming the song “Lucille.”
She didn’t correct him. Didn’t want to admit she wasn’t a Lucille with all that exotic name conjured. She was just plain Lucy and had always been so. The Lucy guys were comfortable talking to. The Lucy who never caught a leer at the singles bars she sometimes visited with Dana.
Dana! Good Lord, by now her roommate must have discovered she wasn’t home. That might not be of much concern, but when she didn’t show up at the shop…
“You don’t have a phone, do you?”
“Here? Afraid not.”
“No cell phone?” Hers was still in her shoulder bag on the floor of her car.
“That would defeat the idea of having a few days of solitude, don’t you think?”
Guilt flooded her. “Oh. I’ll be out of your way as soon as I can find someone to get my car unstuck.”
“I’m not complaining. But after we eat, we’ll find a phone and a tow.”
“Great. Thanks.”
As she carefully cased herself into a chair at the table, her stomach growled again.
“Patience, chère, food’s coming.”
Lucy tipped back her mug and watched him take the iron skillet from the stove, links of andouille on one side, scrambled eggs on the other. He handled the food like he knew what he was doing. Unlike her. He split the breakfast on two plates, shoved one at her, then sat opposite her and began to eat. Lucy followed suit, not stopping until every morsel was gone.
“Delicious,” she muttered after swallowing the last forkful.
“You really were hungry.”
“All that stress.”
“That. What was that about?”
“Just some guys stalking me.”
“Oh, chère, you make a very bad liar.”
She glared at him, and even though his expression wasn’t accusing, said, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“But I saw something I shouldn’t have.”
“And these guys wanted to keep you quiet.”
She nodded and pushed the empty plate away. “And were willing to kill me to do so.”
“Tell me.”
She took a deep breath. Knowing she couldn’t tell all of it, she said, “New Orleans, last night. It was in a courtyard.” The vision was as clear in her mind as if she were seeing it now. “They were holding her arms…those two swine…and a third man knifed her to death.”
“Did you know this third man?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t even see his face. It was…like something out of a dream.”
She wasn’t going to tell him that by the time she arrived, the deed had been done and the woman’s blood was spreading over her white dress as the accomplices let her fall facedown to the pavement. Or that she had seen the actual knifing in a dream that had awakened her an hour before. Lately, her dreams had been more frequent and more vivid than ever before.
Even so, she had arrived at the crime scene too late to save the victim…though not late enough for her own safety. As she’d stared at the body, she’d heard a shout, and the next thing she’d known the killer’s accomplices were after her.
If she told him the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Justin wouldn’t believe her. No one would.
Only her family would, and even they tried their best to make her stop tapping into the universal unconscious. Even her younger sister nagged at her to stop, though Lucy suspected that Jennifer was more intimately acquainted with the family curse of precognition than she would admit to. They all told her to ignore the dreams and they would go away. Only they never had. She’d really tried. Gran was the only one who really understood, because she’d had a lifetime of those dreams. Gran had suggested the day would come when she would want to develop her own gift.
So here she was, being taken care of by the man she’d made love to in her dream—make that dreams, plural—and she couldn’t even warn him that she’d put him in danger.
Which made her feel awkward and intimidated.
“This courtyard,” Justin said, “is it near your home? Would those two be able to find you easily if they went looking for you?”
“The murder took place near Canal, and I live right off Esplanade, so no, I don’t think so.”
“Opposite ends of the French Quarter,” he mused. “So you chose to leave the city instead of going home. And you were on foot so late at night?”
“I walk for exercise,” she hedged. She really did, even if that hadn’t been her purpose last night.
“But your car was nearby.”
Oops. Caught. Now what?
Not thrilled that he was questioning her like a cop with a prime suspect, Lucy took the offensive. “If you don’t believe me, just say so!”
Justin stared at her for a moment before lowering his lids, stopping her from reading his expression. “I simply wanted the whole picture of what happened. More coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
Lucy tried to relax again, but Justin Guidry was throwing her off-kilter in more ways than one. This unsettled feeling was due to more than a couple of erotic dreams featuring Justin that might link him to the dangerous situation she found herself in. He knew she wasn’t telling him everything.
“Why run here to the bayou?” he continued. “Why not go straight to the New Orleans police?”
Irritation growing, she countered, “Why didn’t you take me to a doctor and report a gunshot wound to the closest sheriff’s office?”
“Impulse. It was only a flesh wound…and I wanted to hear your story before acting.”
Pacified by his explanation, she echoed him. “Impulse, right. Me, too. I was too freaked out to think clearly. But afterward, I had time to give it some thought, and I was going back to New Orleans, straight to the police, when those creeps caught up to me. Now I don’t know what to do.” Another way of saying she was afraid, Lucy supposed. She didn’t want to end up dead like that poor woman last night. “What about you? Are you going to turn me in?”
“Interesting turn of phrase,” Justin mused. “But no. I don’t want to bring you more trouble than you already have. I’m aware that things aren’t always black or white, and secrets have a way of staying hidden in bayou country.”
A thrill shot through Lucy, and she wondered if he meant something beyond her own situation.
She certainly wasn’t a bayou country kind of girl, so the hiding part was only temporary. Sooner or later, she was going to have to return to New Orleans and deal with this mess.
But the ache in her side and fear made her opt for later.
LUCY RYAN was hiding something. That much was obvious. And she was afraid.
Looking out over the bayou where a lazy alligator pretended to be a floating log, Justin let all his questions drift at the back of his mind.
Let her be, part of him thought. But letting her be could get her killed, and I don’t need another death on my conscience.
Whether he liked it or not, he was going to have to go back to New Orleans sooner than he liked.
Hearing movement at the door, he turned to face Lucy, who’d insisted on cleaning up the breakfast dishes. Funny the way, each time he looked at her, she got more appealing. With her womanly hip pressed against the doorjamb, her gaze soft and her lips parted slightly, she was downright tempting.
He cleared his throat. “You ready to go to town?”
She met his gaze and lifted both hands. “These are the only clothes I have, so what you see is what you get.”
Justin liked what he saw and would
n’t mind getting some of it for himself, he thought, his groin tightening.
Her soft body wasn’t weak, merely inviting to a man’s hardness. Her reddish brown hair made her complexion appear pale and delicate, despite the splash of freckles across her short nose. She had alluring gray eyes and a luscious bow-shaped mouth. The thing that tempted him most, however, was the smooth expanse of skin between her short top and low-cut pants. Skin that he’d had to look at and touch when he’d tended to the wound in her side. Skin that he longed to taste….
For a moment, he forgot about New Orleans and murders and guilt. For a moment, he wondered what it would be like to take her right there, in the doorway. For a moment, he felt so connected to this woman that he didn’t even know what he might do to protect her.
And then the moment passed.
Fighting off the sexual haze, he decided any questions he had for her could wait.
“No bridge?” Lucy asked, looking around at the nearby bank in confusion.
“No bridge. No vehicles out here, either.”
“Then how do we get to town?”
“Pirogue.” He indicated the shallow, flat-bottomed boat tied to the houseboat.
“We’re both going to fit in there?”
“Unless you want to walk through the swamp.”
“Been there, done that,” she muttered. “I have no desire to be a snack for an alligator.”
He stepped down into the boat and held out his hand. She took it and then stepped in gracefully.
Still, the pirogue tilted slightly and her body brushed against his. He slipped his hands around her waist to steady her. Her eyes flared and he dared to think her reaction was personal. With one hand, he touched her cheek. A becoming color again filled her face. He rubbed the fleshy part of his thumb against her mouth until her lips parted, and she flashed her tongue over the full lower one as if in expectation….
What the hell was he thinking? They were standing in the pirogue in the middle of the swamp, breathing hard like two teenagers.
“You’d better sit down,” he said more softly than he was feeling.
She nodded curtly, then dropped like a rock.
He untied the pirogue and pushed off.
“What’s the name of the town?”
“LeBaux.”
“You have people there?”
He immediately thought of his mother who would be ecstatic when he walked into the house with a woman on his arm. She’d been after him to marry for years. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to marry. He’d even felt love for a woman before, but that emotion had been fleeting. They hadn’t meshed in the essential way two people needed to so they could make a life together. He’d drifted from one woman to another, and once he’d hit his thirtieth birthday still single, his mother had played matchmaker. He’d come to Sunday family dinner several times in the past year only to be treated to a prearranged companion. Nice women, but he’d felt no connection, not like he did with Lucy.
“My mother,” he said, “twin younger brothers, two aunts and an uncle, assorted cousins.” He’d been the only one in the family struck by the urge to move to the big city. “But to tell the truth, the whole town is like family. Anyone there would do anything for one of their own.”
“I don’t even know my neighbors,” she admitted.
He shoved off, and as always, ever since he’d been a kid, nature held him in thrall.
They drifted through patches of duckbill grass and under cypress trees draped with Spanish moss. Here and there a water lily poked out of the water and wild flowers were scattered along the banks. Ahead, an otter swam, and overhead a blue heron wheeled and then dove to pluck a fish from the waters.
“This place is a paradise,” Lucy said, turning to smile at him.
“A nice place to visit,” he agreed.
“Under the right circumstances. I am a city girl at heart, though. I don’t fit in here.”
“Where do you fit?” he asked, thinking she’d fit perfectly in his bed.
“In a town house at the edge of the French Quarter. Dana Ebersole and I have been renting it for more than a year now.”
He couldn’t keep his disappointment at bay when he said, “Ah, so you live with someone.”
“Oh, no, not like that. I mean, Dana isn’t a man. She’s been my best friend since we were kids. She’s my business partner, as well.”
A clarification that brought a smile to his lips. “What kind of business?”
“A shop in The Quarter called Bal Masque.”
“Souvenirs.”
“That, too. And masks for Mardi Gras. But mostly art pieces. We also give classes teaching people how to make their own masks.”
“Are you an artist?”
“I went to art school. Not the same thing.”
“So, some of those art pieces you sell—”
“Are mine,” she admitted. “I lead the classes, as well. Dana was a business major. She’s responsible for numbers and organization and advertising. In other words, she’s the one who keeps us from going bankrupt.”
“The partnership sounds like a good match.”
“Very good. What about you?” Lucy asked, glancing at him again. “What do you do for a living?”
Not wanting to talk about his own work and the way he’d bungled his last case, he said, “Look, we’re just about there,” hoping to distract her.
He saw her tense up and scan the bank ahead, as if she were afraid the thugs were waiting for her. But all that awaited them were the buildings across from the dock—a small grocery store and a diner.
“Don’t worry, chère, I’ll see that you’re safe.”
Lucy glanced back at him. “I’m not your responsibility,” she said in all seriousness. “As soon as we get my car, I’m off.”
He wanted to tell her that wasn’t advisable, that she needed to give the flesh wound a couple of days to heal—anything to keep her with him a while longer, so he could see what she was all about, maybe even figure a way to help her—but he was fairly certain nothing he said would sway her. She seemed determined to be rid of him as quickly as she had the hoods who’d driven her into his arms.
He just had to decide if he was willing to let her.
3
WHEN JUSTIN TURNED from the languid stream of the bayou and poled up to a floating dock, Lucy anxiously looked around.
Part of her expected to encounter the men who’d chased her into the swamp waiting for her, guns drawn. But they were nowhere in sight. Lucy breathed a little easier.
Justin jumped out onto the floating dock first and with a few twists of rope against a wooden post tied up the boat. Then he hooked the hull to the dock with one foot and offered her a hand and a smile.
Heart fluttering at the way he was looking at her—like he knew, for heaven’s sake, like he could read her mind about the dreams—Lucy reluctantly took his hand. Their physical connection was immediate and more intense than she would have imagined. Her palm felt scalded and as the sensation spread up her arm, she swayed slightly.
Justin easily pulled her right into him. The tips of her breasts brushed his chest, oh, so lightly, but her nipples immediately tightened and sent a warning to parts below. She squeezed her thighs together and awkwardly pushed past him.
“Are you all right, chère?”
The dock swayed under her, the motion adding to her already wonky stomach. “Yes, why?”
“You seem…well…a little breathless,” he said, his voice low and warm as the sunshine. “I thought maybe the wound was letting you know it was there.”
“Yes, the wound…” She was lying, of course. She’d forgotten all about being shot. She shrugged and forced a smile. “Just a twinge. It’s fine now.”
“Good.” Placing a light hand at the small of her back, he started for the bank. “Watch your step here.”
Her quick jump to dry land—make that squishy land—was inspired by the touch of his hand. Being close to Justin was difficult enough. Allowing him
to continue touching her would drive her nuts because the intimate contact would remind her of the hot dreams.
And then all she would want to do is tear off his clothes and see if the sex was as good as she’d imagined.
Nothing could be that good, she argued with herself. At least nothing in her experience had led her to believe that sex could be in the fireworks category.
But wouldn’t she like to find out?
No. NO. She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. That would mean involving Justin Guidry in her life.
And that would mean involving Justin in the murder she’d witnessed.
Totally unacceptable. She’d got herself into this mess, so she was going to have to get herself out of it without involving anyone else with the murderers or the authorities.
First, though, she had to get her car out of the bayou.
“So where’s the local garage?” she asked, as they walked along the edge of town. She was careful to leave a few inches of space between them. “I need to arrange for a tow truck.”
“All in good time, chère, all in good time.”
Now what was that supposed to mean?
Lucy thought Justin was headed straight through the center of town—all two blocks of double-story buildings, shops at street level, probably living quarters above. But he kept going, straight away from the bayou and toward a neat white house with a big front porch raised off the ground by cement-block stilts.
She looked around and noticed all of the houses were likewise equipped to deal with flooding from the bayou, the downside of living below sea level.
Suddenly Lucy felt Justin’s hand at the small of her back again, and she practically raced him up the front steps to the door so he couldn’t get a better grip on her.
“Hey, Mama, you got guests!” he called out, as he threw open the screen door.
The room was big and comfortable. Soft gold walls and dark rust couches were accented with brightly colored pillows and scarf valences at the long windows. A piano was set against one wall covered with dozens of framed photographs. Family, she thought, smiling.
A woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to Justin flew through the doorway. Her hair was dark with a single silver streak tumbling down over her heavy-lidded brown eyes.
In Dreams Page 2