Into the Woods

by LETO, JULIE

  “You asked my opinion, Jack,” she said, a bit more snap in her voice than was likely prudent. “Or did you only want to hear from me if I agreed with you?”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets. “You aren’t responsible for her, I am. I can’t only think about what’s best for Harper now. I have to think about what’s best for the rest of her life.”

  “And what about what’s best for you?”

  “I don’t matter,” he said flippantly.

  “You matter to me,” she argued.

  “Well, I shouldn’t. If I have to choose between Harper’s future happiness and mine, then I choose hers.”

  “Why can’t you choose both?”

  His jaw twitched. He wanted to say something more. She could see it in his eyes. But instead, he broke his stare with her, focusing instead into the dark bayou behind them. “I don’t know how. Do you? Have you discovered the secret to making everyone in your life happy, including yourself?”

  Tatiana didn’t reply. The only secret she knew—that she had to convince him to allow Harper to audition in order to ensure her freedom from her bonds as a fairy godmother—would rip their tentative relationship apart.

  He’d never believe her if she told him the truth. She had no means to prove her claims. No wand to show him. No wings. He’d write her off as a crazy woman and send her packing before she could corrupt his sister further.

  But if she proceeded to press him about allowing Harper’s audition, he was going to tune her out. He was doing it right now, his gaze barely meeting hers simply because she’d expressed a solicited opinion that contradicted his.

  She swallowed a gasp, realizing she had no other choice. In order to grant Harper’s wish, she was going to have to go against everything Jack believed—everything he’d sacrificed his personal happiness for.

  In other words, she was going to have to break his trust—and possibly, his heart.

  13

  FOR THE next week, Ana found excuses to leave the house during the afternoons. Once, she claimed she needed Mrs. Bradley to drive her into town to shop for personal items and refused Jack’s offer to take her himself. Another time, she made arrangements with Harper’s French teacher to review the curriculum for her tutoring. The next day, she simply walked out into the bayou before lunch and returned hours later, flowers in her hair, sweaty, bug-bitten and beautiful. Jack might have joined her for the shower she insisted she needed if Harper hadn’t arrived home early, snagging Ana for herself so they could go over some particularly troublesome conjugations. By Friday, Jack had become accustomed to having Ana in the house without having her in his bed.

  He’d tried to appreciate having his privacy back, but every time he thought about her, his body thrummed and his pulse beat as if he’d grown a second heart. He missed her. But their disagreement over Harper’s future had dug a chasm between them that he wasn’t sure either of them could bridge.

  She meant well, he knew, but he’d been Harper’s only parent for twelve years. He’d sacrificed his football career to keep her safe from any number of threats—distant relatives who wanted access to her inheritance, the press who wanted to exploit the poor little heiress and the ambitions that could drive her down that same destructive road as their mother. He couldn’t stop protecting Harper just because it was more convenient to his love life.

  Though since he’d made his choice, he no longer had a love life.

  All he had were several lazy hours worth of erotic memories, which he replayed in his mind more and more frequently as the week came to a close.

  On Saturday, he threw himself completely into his work. He spent six solid hours fielding e-mails, making phone calls, trading stocks and increasing the portfolios of several of his clients. In the afternoon, he paused near the intercom, tempted to discover what Ana and Harper were doing, but stalked into his studio and painted until sunset instead.

  Only after his stomach growled did he realize that no one had called him for dinner.

  He descended into the kitchen and the silence in the house gave a hollow sound to his footsteps. He shouted for Mrs. Bradley, but she didn’t answer. He’d already checked Harper’s bedroom and found it empty. The guest room, where Ana had insisted on staying (and which she and Harper had cleaned up and decorated with some of the more sparkly props and costumes from his mother’s collection), proved unoccupied, as well.

  He checked his cell phone, which he’d turned off while he was painting. He had a text message from Harper.

  The first message read: Went shopping. The second, sent several hours later: Car broke down. At the Boudreaux place. Pick us up!

  The Boudreaux family lived closer to Hastings than Jack did, but their cabin was small and without running water. From what little he knew of his neighbors, they didn’t take to visitors. Cursing for losing himself in his art—which had grown more and more erotic the longer he and Ana were apart—he punched in a response for them to stay put, grabbed the keys to his truck and headed out to rescue them from a dinner of stewed possum and dirty rice, whose name might not be as metaphoric as the usual Cajun-style recipe.

  Unlike his house, which he’d built on stilts and flooded with light to keep the creatures away at nighttime, the Boudreauxs’ house sat like a toad, squat and hunched amid the cypress trees that nearly blocked it from view. Once he’d fought his way over the marshy path that led to the cabin, the sound of singing greeted him. Quite a few animals slithered or skittered out of his way as he marched up to the porch. A single oil lamp burned by the door, but bright golden light poured out of the window along with the music.

  The sound was angelic. Not one voice, but two—intertwined and harmonious—with one soaring into the high notes, the other belting out the low. Through a slit in the dingy curtains, he spied Ana and Harper standing across from the Boudreaux family and Mrs. Bradley, singing a show tune once performed by his mother and her best friend. The same best friend who had been at her side when Marina St. Cloud ingested one too many hits of cocaine. The same best friend who had called for help while his mother’s body cried uncle.

  He banged loudly on the door.

  From inside, Ana yelped in surprise. Harper’s voice on the other hand, continued for a few more notes, as if she’d been so wrapped up in the song even the booming sound of Jack’s fist against the rotting wood couldn’t pull her from her performance.

  “Who’s there?” asked a gruff male voice.

  “Jack St. Cloud,” he replied.

  The door flew open. Paul Boudreaux was a small, wiry man with a gap-toothed smile. “Come on in! Your sister and her friend were just giving us a concert. Beautiful voices. Straight from above. Come on in and give a listen.”

  Jack lingered on the other side of the threshold. Mr. Boudreaux slid out of the way to allow Jack room to enter, but the minute he caught sight of Ana’s and Harper’s faces, he could not move. His sister’s expression was one of shock and fear. Ana’s reflected guilt and not a little defiance. It was only then that he realized the two women could not have performed so flawlessly on a whim.

  They’d been rehearsing.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Boudreaux. I certainly don’t mean to be rude, but the women of my household have imposed on you and your family long enough. I think it’s time we got going.”

  Contradicting Jack’s perception of the neighbors he’d lived near for twelve years, Mr. Boudreaux proved friendly and gregarious, refusing Jack’s notion that they could depart without first sharing some of the homemade biscuits his plump wife had just drawn out of their woodburning stove. They gathered around a pocked and dented table and slathered the pillows of deliciousness in honey that one of the Boudreaux children had harvested from a hive in the bayou while Mr. Boudreaux took out his fiddle and played.

  By the time he’d pulled out a jug of something he called Bayou Moon for the adults (which smelled suspiciously like high-octane gasoline) and his wife had poured lemonade for the younger set, Jack was more than ready to leave. He a
nd Ana had some serious talking to do—and it was far past Harper’s bedtime. But now that he knew how nice his neighbors were, he decided they should stay long enough for everyone to finish their drinks.

  Ana, apparently, was smart enough not to do anything more than politely sip the strangely golden liquid in her mason jar, but Mrs. Bradley took a mouthful and declared it surprisingly smooth. That caused Paul Boudreaux to pour twice as much in the woman’s glass, ensuring they’d be stuck here a little while longer.

  Jack wandered out onto the porch while Harper begged Mr. Boudreaux to show her how to properly hold a fiddle.

  Ana joined him a few minutes later.

  “I can’t believe you rehearsed with her,” he said, suddenly not so adverse to drinking Mr. Boudreaux’s home brew. Mrs. Bradley hadn’t been off base. The stuff was potent, but went down like single malt, despite the fact that his stomach was churning with acid.

  “Oh, is there a rule against that, too?” Ana asked, defiantly. “Maybe you should be a little more specific about the things I’m allowed to do with your sister.”

  “I told you I don’t want you to encourage her,” he said.

  “Someone has to,” Ana snapped.

  “Why? She knows she’s talented. Why does the whole damned world have to know?”

  “Because she wants the world to know, Jack.” Ana cursed, then moved closer. He could feel her hand hovering near his arm, as if she wanted to touch him, but was afraid.

  Almost unconsciously, he leaned back so that her fingers brushed against his sleeve. The sensation hinted at warmth, but was not powerful enough to shatter the cold wall between them.

  “I don’t want to fight with you,” she admitted. “I miss you.”

  He turned and in the darkness of the porch, slid his hands around her waist. “I didn’t ask you to stay away. I miss you, too. I don’t want this to come between us.”

  She nodded, but did not reply. Not that he gave her much of a chance, since he lowered his head and stole a kiss. It was quick, but incendiary. Blood rushed from his brain to his groin, making him dizzy, making him hot. He’d never have a moment’s peace until he buried himself in Ana’s softness and lost himself in the delirium of her passion. Her breasts brushed his chest and the beads of her nipples told him she wasn’t unaffected by him, either.

  “Ana?”

  The sound of Harper’s voice made them separate quickly. A split second later, the girl opened the door. “Mr. Boudreaux taught me to pluck the fiddle. Wanna hear?”

  Ana’s hand instinctively covered her lips. Jack hoped his sister wouldn’t spy the tenderness of her tutor’s flesh, the blush on her cheeks or the guilty look in her eyes.

  “Sure, hon,” Ana answered, “but then we have to go. It’s late and your brother has been waiting long enough.”

  She disappeared inside. Yeah, Jack had been waiting a long time for Ana. A whole damned week. Maybe his whole life.

  14

  THE RIDE home was relatively quiet, though Mrs. Bradley was more talkative than usual. Tatiana suspected the housekeeper had had more of Mr. Boudreaux’s Bayou Moon liquor than she was going to be happy about in the morning. Once they arrived back at the house, Harper helped the older woman to her room and put her to bed, while Jack disappeared into his study. Tatiana waited until she heard Harper go upstairs before she knocked and then opened Jack’s door.

  The study was dark, except for the slightly bluish glow from his computer screen. Jack’s face, illuminated by the screen, was shadowed. He spared her a glance, then returned to listening to his messages on his speaker phone while scrolling through what she assumed were e-mails. She’d watched him work before, usually while waiting until he could take her to his bedroom and while away the remaining daytime hours in more pleasurable pursuits.

  Suddenly, the memory of his fingering her to orgasm while he suckled her breasts mercilessly sprung into her mind. Deciding that talking to him tonight was not a good idea, she turned to leave. But as her hand touched the door latch, one of the messages caught her ear.

  “Mr. St. Cloud, this is David Lucas again. I hate to keep bothering you, but my partner and I are only going to be in New Orleans for another couple of days. We’re staying at the Hotel Monteleone and we’re holding auditions at the Saenger. To be honest, we only opened auditions to give us something to do. We really just want to hear Harper. And, of course, to discuss concerns you might have about our production. I knew your mother, Mr. St. Cloud. I understand your concerns for Harper’s well-being, but I assure you, we can make all the necessary arrangements for chaperones—”

  Jack clicked off the phone.

  Tatiana stared at him. “They’ve been contacting you?”

  Jack grabbed a stack of papers and gave them an unnecessary and rough straightening. “Two or three calls a day for over a week. Broadway producers don’t like taking no for an answer.”

  “That must mean they really want Harper to audition.”

  He scoffed. “She could sing like a toad and they’d hire her for the publicity alone.”

  “But she doesn’t sing like a toad,” Tatiana argued. “She sings like an ang—”

  “Yeah, an angel. I know. I heard you. I heard both of you.”

  He took a deep breath and Tatiana could tell he was trying to rein in his emotions—anger first and foremost. “I can’t argue about this with you anymore, Ana. You simply have to accept my decision.”

  “Why? Because I’m just a stranger who came into your life accidentally? Because I’m just some woman you’ve been making love with to pass the time?”

  “No.” He slammed his hands on the desk and stood. “You’re more than that to me.”

  “But not enough to influence how you treat your sister, a young girl that I care about deeply.”

  He grabbed the sides of his head. “Enough! My decision is made.”

  The finality in his voice nearly snapped her in two. The producers were only in town for a couple of more days, so her timeline for fulfilling Harper’s wish and winning her own freedom had just shrunk to nearly nothing. She’d been rehearsing with Harper on the sly, hoping to show Jack just how spectacularly talented his sister was and convince him to, at the very least, allow her to gain the experience of a professional audition. But now her plan was falling apart.

  “Jack, please. Just let her audition. Give her your blessing. She doesn’t have to take the role if they offer it to her. But it means so much to her to try out.” So much to me. “Then, I swear, we’ll have everything we’ve ever wanted.”

  Jack refused. “You want me to let her get her hopes up and then rip the carpet out from under her? That’s cruel. Believe me, they’ll want her and Harper won’t be able to resist. Then I’m going to have to tell her no all over again.”

  He was right, of course, but what else could Tatiana do? If Harper did not audition with Jack’s blessing, Tatiana would have to return to Elatyria forever. Joe Stiltskin had warned her, though at the time, his caveat had meant nothing to her. She’d expected to come into this world, fulfill the wish of a human girl without magic and break her unwanted bond. She hadn’t thought about what she’d do afterward, though the idea of seeking out a prince and resuming her quest for the throne had not entirely left her.

  But she’d never anticipated meeting a man like Jack. Never guessed she’d fall so hard that her insides coiled at the idea of losing him forever. Because if she failed, not only would she serve the rest of her long life as a fairy godmother, she’d forget him. She’d have no memory of the intimacies they’d shared or the powerful secrets she’d learned about herself in his arms.

  “You’re the most stubborn man I’ve ever met,” she said, her voice rising.

  “Stubborn?” he said, coming around the desk. “You think my pride drives this decision?”

  “No,” she conceded. “I understand why you’re afraid for Harper, I honestly do. But if you only knew everything that is riding on this, you wouldn’t be so inflexible.”

&
nbsp; “Riding?” He took a step back and swallowed thickly. His eyes first widened in shock, and then narrowed. “Ana, please don’t tell me you work for David Lucas. Swear to me he didn’t send you here to soften the way to Harper’s audition.”

  The betrayal in his stare sliced her to her core, but would not prove half as eviscerating as his reaction when she told him the truth. “No one sent me here. I came here on my own.”

  “For Harper?”

  She shook her head. “For myself.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Suddenly, the study walls seemed confining, as if they were closing in. She had no choice. She had to tell him the truth.

  “Not here.” She took his hand and tugged, wanting him to leave with her.

  “What? Ana, wait.”

  But she didn’t hesitate and luckily, he didn’t resist. She pulled him out of the study, through the house and out the front door, snagging the flashlight he kept on the porch and flicking on the beam. Once they reached the bottom of the steps, he tried to stop her, but she let go of his hand and broke into a run, only realizing that tears were streaming down her face when she could hardly see her way to the edge of the trees where she’d first emerged with Harper.

  He overtook her, braced her shoulders and held her still. “Ana, tell me what’s wrong.”

  “My name isn’t Ana. It’s Tatiana. Tatiana Starlingham. I’m not who you think I am.”

  “You’re not a French tutor?”

  She laughed, but the sound was hollow and tragic, even to her own ears. “I’m not anything in your world, this world. When I said I wasn’t from here, I wasn’t kidding. I’m from another place, a place you don’t even believe in—or at least, a place you haven’t believed in since you were a child. A place where wishes come true because fair—er, people like me make them come true. With magic and wands and wings. I belong in a place where your fairy tales come from, a place you can’t find except during a full moon somewhere south of here, where the walls between your world and mine blur. That’s how I got here, hoping to find a way to free myself from a pact my parents made when I was barely older than Harper. She made a wish, Jack. Harper did. She wished to audition for the role, but with your approval and support. I can’t use magic to grant her wish. I have to use you. And if you don’t give Harper your blessing and take her to that audition, I have to go back to my world forever.”