by Nancy Gideon
There was no one else for her. No one else she would ever want. Max Savoie was it, her everything. Her lover. Her mate. Perhaps even the father of her children. Thrilling. Terrifying.
“Oh, screw it,” she muttered, and yanked him to her for a kiss.
Max’s hands slipped under the teasing hem of her cropped shirt. “Where do you want me to touch you?”
“Everywhere. Anywhere you’ve been before is good. And if you can find someplace new, go for it.”
He grinned, wide and wicked. “I’ll see what I can do.” Her shirt went flying off, followed by her bra.
She’d expected a hot, hungry feasting to match her frenzied impatience. So when his breath blew soft and moist, when his mouth suckled lightly, when his tongue flickered with a delicate finesse, he woke a startled shiver that quickly triggered an earthquake in her primed system.
As she loosened her fingers from his hair, her breath spilled out in a wondering gust. “Wow. That was new. You haven’t even gotten my pants off yet.”
He nipped at the swell of her breast, his voice full of smug accomplishment. “But, I seem to have gotten you off to a nice start. Unfortunately, that was my only new trick.”
“Good thing I like the old ones, too.”
AN HOUR LATER, splayed out on her back with only a tarp between her naked skin and the rough subflooring, Cee Cee gave a contented sigh. Max eased from her with a groan, then collapsed alongside her. With the exception of his jeans about his ankles, he was still fully dressed, his raincoat spread over the both of them.
“I’m going to just lie here for a moment, then I’ll call for room service. What would you like?”
She smiled without opening her eyes. Her fingertips traced intricate patterns on the heated skin of his low back. And amazingly he felt the stirrings of arousal again. Nothing he had the energy to act on, but infinitely pleasurable nonetheless.
“Espresso and éclairs. And a hot bath. And a mattress would be nice. This plywood is murder on my butt.”
“It’s only seven o’clock. Maybe I could find a store that’ll deliver. I wonder if we have the hot water plumbed yet.”
Hearing footsteps, Max lifted his head, a soft growl of warning stirring in his chest.
“Hey, Max, are you about ready—” LaRoche broke off as he came around one of the supporting walls. He continued toward them, grinning. “Hey, Charlotte. Didn’t know you were here. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” He lifted up Cee Cee’s lime green bra with the tip of the yardstick he was carrying. “This belong to you, or is the day crew having more fun up here than they should be?”
“Just christening our new apartment,” Cee Cee told him, unperturbed by his presence. “Looks like we’ll be neighbors.”
LaRoche’s smile widened. “Sorry I didn’t bring champagne. Three’s a crowd, so I’ll catch you later on. Some things have come up that we need to discuss, Max.”
“Tomorrow, Jacques.”
“Okay. Tomorrow it is.”
As he started to turn away, Cee Cee called, “Jacques, watch his back for me.”
Frowning slightly, he nodded. “You got it.”
Once LaRoche was gone, Max stood to quickly restore his clothing, his mood suddenly somber. As she hunted around for her attire, he said, “I’ll ride down with you. I’m finished here for the night.”
“Okay, but just to my car. I’ve still got to pack.”
As she stood beside him in the elevator, she resisted the urge to grab onto him and hang on.
When the doors opened, Max placed his palm on the small of her back to guide her. Such a simple thing, yet it wasn’t—because it was Max. Because he conveyed everything that was good and solid in their relationship with that easy gesture. The unspoken support, the confident intimacy, the sense of unity without the need to control. And even after all they’d put each other through, there was trust.
She turned into him, put her arms about his middle, and laid her head on his shoulder. His other hand came up, cradling her cheek as his lips moved over her hair. His chest rose and fell as he breathed in their mingled scent laced with her perfume, Voodoo Love. She depended on him to be strong, and he didn’t disappoint her. When she stepped back, he let her go.
The early evening was thick with gathering humidity as a storm crept in from the Gulf. Cee Cee glanced around, expecting to see Giles or Pete waiting for Max with one of the sleek cars from Legere’s massive collection. Instead, she saw a motorcycle.
Black. Something that looked like it should have the Bat insignia on the cowl. Sleek, low, with sexy contours both stylish and sinister.
Rather like Max Savoie.
“Whoa, baby. What’s this?”
“BMW K 1200 Sport. Laterally mounted 16-valve water-cooled engine, angling the cylinders forward by fifty-five degrees for a low CG. Six-gear shifting with a narrow profile inspired by Formula One. It took first place at Daytona from the last row by nineteen seconds. I love a scrapper.”
She blinked at his recitation. Then he grinned. “Zero to sixty in two-point-eight seconds.”
“Hmmm.” She refused to look impressed as her fingertips caressed the streamlined silhouette. “A Brit bike. Not exactly what I would have chosen, but at least it’s not one of those horizontally mounted two-cylinder flat-twin Boxer engines.”
He pushed a helmet at her. “I didn’t buy it for you. I bought it because I like it. Because when I take it from a purr to a roar between my knees, it makes me think of you. Come for a ride with me. There’s something I need to do, and I’d like you there.”
Something in his voice spoke of importance. Her gaze traced along the black leather seat, then stroked up the inseam of his black jeans from knees to zipper with a measured heat. “Well, then. Take me for another ride, Savoie.” She started to slip the helmet over her head, then paused. “Someone did teach you how to drive this, right?”
He grinned at her caution. “I have a full endorsement.” He didn’t mention the endorsement was from Giles, who pronounced his boss man looked good sitting on it. And that since the bike was just under five hundred pounds, he should be able to lift it off himself if he dumped it.
“Hang on,” he called over his shoulder when they’d both settled on the seat.
Sound advice.
She’d told him she liked fast, dangerous things. She hadn’t been thinking of straddling a surface-to-air missile guided by an absolutely fearless crazy man.
He rocketed through the tight traffic, threading between cars as if in a flat-out downhill slalom. His reflexes were as quick and smooth as the raw powerhouse he crouched over, ignoring the rules of the road as if they didn’t apply to him. Cee Cee’s fingers dug in so deep, she thought for sure they’d gone through skin and muscle to cling to the bottom of his rib cage.
Then they shot out onto the open road and Cee Cee found herself delighted the way only an adrenaline junkie could be.
Fast, exciting, and hot—both bike and rider.
Then she recognized their surroundings. Why was he taking them back into the bayou?
IT WAS A small house, just a notch above a shack, set back off the road at a shunned distance from the mostly abandoned village. Weeds ran rampant and paint was a faded memory, but the structure was sound. No broken glass, no signs of vandalism, but no sign that it had been lived in for a very long time.
Max hesitated at the gate of the sad fence that circled the yard.
“Whose place is this?”
He held up a key. “Mine. I was born here. Jimmy bought it, kept it for me. I didn’t know about it until after he died. I couldn’t make myself come here . . . until now.”
He struggled with the gate for a moment. It had settled at an angle, sinking into the soggy ground. He closed it behind them, then knelt down to peer between the slats.
“What are you looking at, baby?”
“Everything I knew about the world I saw through this fence. We had no television, no radio, no newspaper. We never went into town. I couldn
’t go out of the yard except to church, and to stay with the neighbor when my mama . . . when she had company. I remember wondering what it would be like to ride by on a bicycle or run up and down the road the way other kids did. But then they’d yell things at me, and I was glad there was this fence between us.”
She touched his shoulder, not saying anything.
He shook off the sadness by covering her hand with his, then held it as they walked up to the porch.
As they started up the solid steps, a voice called out from across the road. “Max?”
They turned to see a black woman in her seventies with wiry gray hair and thick plastic-framed glasses. Her head was cocked to one side on a skinny neck in an oddly birdlike fashion.
“It is you. Marie’s boy.”
Max froze. “Do I know you?”
“You probably don’t remember. I’m Mrs. Pelletier from across the way. Haven’t seen you since you was just a wee one, but I’d knows you anywhere. You look just like your daddy.”
Twenty-four
HE SAT RIGHT where you be sitting now, and made me tell him all about you.”
Only the comforting weight of Cee Cee’s hand on his thigh kept Max from leaping up off the raggedy sofa to pace in agitation. He remembered the musty scent of the room, with its mountains of soap opera magazines on the floor by the nineteen-inch portable prominently displayed on a metal TV tray. The television was new. The old rabbit ears had been replaced by a satellite dish outside.
He took a calming breath and another sip of the lemonade the old woman had provided. He remembered that, too: the way its sour bite turned the mouth inside out and made the eyes sting. As his were burning now.
“Did he come for me?”
“No, child. This was a day or so after you and your mama disappeared. He seemed to expect to find you gone, but was worried about her.”
Because he’d already sold his son to Jimmy Legere, and he didn’t know Marie Savoie had been killed in the transaction.
“What did he want?”
“To hear about you—every little detail I could come up with. Seems him and your mama had a lover’s quarrel and she ran off ’fore telling him about you. He sat there and had hisself a good cry over not being daddy to you whilst you were a bebe.”
Rollo? Max imagined big crocodile tears, but said nothing.
“He’d wanted to see your mama, but couldn’t stay more than a few hours. He gived me a number where she could reach him if either of you needed anything, and he gived me a package for her. She never come back for it.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I gots to confess, when she didn’t come back after them first few months, I gots curious. I tried to call your daddy at the number he gived me, but there was never no answer. So I open the package, thinking he might have left some kinda address.”
“What was in it?”
“Money. Woo wee, so much money! For the house, he said in his note inside. So his boy would have someplace to come back to. ’Bout den, Mr. Legere’s fancy lawyer done come to my door, axing what I know about the empty house. I tell him about the money and dat I ain’t seen your mama for a long, long time. He tole me your mama had died and he axed if I could look after the place, ’cuz someday you’d be coming back with questions about it and about your mama. Tole me to keep the money to use for whatever needed fixing, and to call if I needed more. So me and my boys, we look out for the place and we watch out for you. We put dat money in the bank. Only used about half of it, most of that for a new roof. The rest, dat be yours.”
Max didn’t know what to say in response to her goodwill.
“I boxed up all your personal things and brought them over here. Didn’t want to leave them in that empty house case somebody gots ideas.”
It hadn’t occurred to Max that there might be anything left. Anxiety and anticipation combined in a taste more bitter than the lemonade.
“The furniture’s still in there,” Mrs. Pelletier continued. “I put covers over it and check now and again to make sure no varmints get in. Seem to remember you having a real nice rug in the front room. Don’t know what happened to it.”
It was at the bottom of the swamp, weighted with stones, wrapped around the Shifter he and his mother had killed over thirty years ago.
“Oh, did I mention your daddy’s letters? One to your mama. One for you. I’ll get them.” She was up before he could stop her.
“A nice woman,” Cee Cee said quietly, her hand gently rubbing.
“Yes. I remember her now. She was always good to us. The only one who was.” He stood when Mrs. Pelletier reentered the room, taking the two envelopes with reluctance.
“I’m right sorry about your mama. She was a quality lady, doing her best for you, and don’t you let anybody tell you different. She loved you.”
It took him a moment to manage simple speech. “Thank you, Mrs. Pelletier. For everything. I’ll stop back soon to pick up the things you have stored and pay you for your kindness.”
“Pay me?” She waved a dismissing hand. “You’ll do no such thing. Just stop by for a visit. I’d like to hear all about how you done for yourself. Seen you and your pretty lady on TV. And that was a right nice shot in the newspaper.” She winked saucily to indicate the picture of Cee Cee’s hand on his ass. “If you want to bring something, bring your lady here. And maybe some rum. It makes the lemonade go down smoother.”
CEE CEE WATCHED from the front door as Max took a slow tour about the vacant house, giving him time with his memories, but staying close should they overwhelm him. She couldn’t tell anything from his expression. It was blank, no emotions visible.
He went from room to room, in and out of the two little bedrooms in less than thirty seconds, as if they held nothing for him. Or he was afraid to linger. He circled the kitchen. She could hear his low snuffles as he searched for a trace of scent. Then he rejoined her in the front room.
“There’s nothing here,” he said in a toneless voice. She couldn’t tell if it held disappointment or relief. “I can’t find her here. I thought maybe . . . Charlotte, I can’t remember what she looks like.”
She took a step toward him as his features crumpled, but he stopped her and gathered his control.
“I can see her in my dreams, or I think I do, but the impression doesn’t stay with me. Her scent’s lost to me, too. Jimmy, why didn’t you tell me about all this?” He closed his eyes briefly and took a slow, deep breath.
She could have answered, but didn’t. The truth would only hurt him. Jimmy had kept the existence of this place a secret so Max would have no attachment to the past. So there would be only him when Max thought of family. The old bastard.
“Let’s go,” he said at last, his voice heavy. “It’s getting late and you have to—”
He broke off as he bumped one of the shrouded bits of furniture and set it rocking. Max took a quick hop to one side, his posture alert and edgy as he followed it’s motions with a guarded gaze. He pulled the dust cover off, then he touched the tapestry back of the platform rocker, tracing the raised pattern. He slowly bent to press his cheek to the faded material, his eyes closing as a whisper of a smile touched his mouth. He circled to the front of the chair and sank down to the planked floor, resting his head on the seat and swaying with it in a slow, comforting motion.
“We’d sit together in this chair in the evenings. She’d rock me until I fell asleep. She’d read to me from one of my books. Or we’d just rock. Just rock.”
He was silent for long minutes. When he finally spoke, his words were hushed.
“I asked her how long I’d be gone. She didn’t answer right away and I got scared, because I’d heard her crying and she never cried. She told me I’d like it there—that I’d have everything she’d ever wanted for me, everything I dreamed of. And I begged her not to make me go. I promised I would never, ever ask for anything again if I could just stay. She said, ‘Stop your crying. It won’t help. You have to go with them. You have to be good
and be quiet and do everything they tell you, so they’ll keep you safe. That’s all that matters.’ “
But he hadn’t been able to stop crying, pleading until she’d given him a hard shake, her eyes fierce and angry.
“Stop it,” she’d snarled. “You will go and you will behave, and you will not give them any reason to send you back here. Because I can’t take care of you, Max. I can’t protect you.
“They’ll come for you. They’ll come like before, only more of them. They’ll kill me, then they’ll take you and hurt you. Is that what you want, Max?”
No, it wasn’t. He remembered the one who’d come to their door, who’d hurt his mama, who tried to take him, who was now nothing but bone wrapped in their living room rug.
So he’d promised her he’d be good. He’d do whatever he was told. Because he didn’t want her to die. It would be his fault if she died.
“She held me in this chair all night, just rocking. I must have fallen asleep, because she woke me and told me they were here, and that I was to wait in my room while she talked to them. I could hear them arguing. I’d never been anywhere with strangers before, but I didn’t want anything bad to happen to my mama, so I pretended I wasn’t afraid.
“They were two very big men and I was happy when Mama told me she was going to ride along with me to make sure I was all right. We rode for a long time, out into the swamps. ‘This isn’t the way,’ my mama said. ‘Change of plans,’ they told her. Then Mama reached over the seat and grabbed the steering wheel. ‘You won’t take him. I won’t let you take him. We had a deal,’ she was yelling. ‘But they paid more,’ one of them told her.
“And she opened the car door and threw me out. I could hear her screaming for me to run. ‘Run, Max! Don’t look back. Run! Save yourself.’ “
Tears running down her face, Cee Cee stood helpless to do anything but let him finish. Let him recite how he’d run and run, until one of the men shouted that if he didn’t come back they’d shoot his mother. How he’d stood knee-deep in muck, four, maybe five years old, and turned to see them with a gun at his mother’s head.