by Jenna Mills
And then Gabe could go on. And his need for Evangeline would be over.
Twenty minutes. That’s how long had passed since Lambert had strolled back into the main lobby, with a cigarette in his hand and a self-satisfied smile on his face. He’d gone straight for his wife and slid his arm around her waist, posed for yet another picture.
But Evangeline…
Swearing softly, Gabe abandoned the feeding frenzy inside the saltwater tank and strode toward the rain-forest exhibit. “Gabe, what’s going on?” Jack asked into the earpiece.
“Nothing.” He refused to run. To her.
But, God, his heart pumped with a violence that stunned. She was a grown woman, he knew that. She could come and go as she pleased. He knew that, too—she’d made sure that he did. She made her own choices, her own bed. If she’d chosen to ally herself with Marcel Lambert…
The cool breeze rushed him the second he emerged onto the patio. “Evangeline!” Her name practically ripped from his throat.
Stopping abruptly, he spun, found nothing. Not her, not anyone else. Just the circle of quietly swaying tiki torches and an orgy of shadows, a few ships on the river and the lingering scent of powder and vanilla.
“Gabe, maybe I should stay—”
“No.”
“I can help you go through pictures, see what else we can find out about Darci. Friends maybe—”
“No.”
“I’ll fix sandwiches, then,” Saura said, pivoting from the pile of folders and yearbooks she’d scouted out that afternoon. She and D’Ambrosia had dropped them by after leaving the fund-raiser.
“When was the last time you ate?” she pressed, as she always did. Somewhere along the line the rebellious cousin of his youth had taken on the role of mother hen.
He watched her glide toward his kitchen, looking sleek and elegant and impossibly refined in a swingy little bronze dress and high heels, her hair in a long elegant braid down her back, but saw only the girl she’d been, in her ratty cutoff shorts and flip-flops, her hair in pigtails and mud smeared on her face, wading through a creek bed in search of crawdads. Wherever Saura had been, Camille had been two steps behind….
“Not hungry,” he said, intercepting her before she reached the kitchen. He’d been in there when the doorbell rang shortly before eleven. He’d had his hand on the bottle on the counter. He’d been at the door in a heartbeat, yanking it open—
“I had some of Lambert’s jambalaya,” he said with a dry little smile. “Kind of overdone, if you ask me.”
She twisted toward him, nearly leveled him with the dark glow in her eyes. “It’s going to happen, isn’t it? After all this time…Marcel is going down.”
He reached for his cousin’s braid, as he had so many times over the years, and gave a soft tug. “In spades.”
“What about Evangeline?” she asked, and his fingers stilled. “Where does she fit in? We tried to keep her inside, but—”
“Saura.”
The transformation was immediate. She stopped and looked toward her fiancé, her eyes widening the way they had when she’d been a kid and Cain had busted her rifling through his albums.
And for a moment there, Gabe forgot about the cold fist twisting through him and the question about Lambert he refused to answer, the way Evangeline had looked in those tenuous moments before the black and the white had shattered into a thousand shades of gray.
There was only his headstrong cousin stopped in her tracks, the way D’Ambrosia looked as if he didn’t know whether to turn her over his knee or kiss her senseless, and a realization that sliced to the bone. Neither wavered. But with a simple word, a look, either could bring the other to their knees.
D’Ambrosia’s eyes literally gleamed. “You promised you wouldn’t—”
“Just leave Evangeline to me,” Gabe cut in before John could finish reminding her she wasn’t supposed to nag and worry. “I’ve got her right where I want her.”
Evangeline ripped the scratchy bag from her face and gulped in cool air. Her lungs screamed and her heart pounded, but she didn’t let herself move, not until she was sure the man was gone.
They’d driven…she didn’t know how long they’d driven. Or how far. There’d only been darkness and the monotone voice droning from the stereo. Once, she’d made a move for the door, but another voice had stopped her.
Don’t make a mistake your brother will regret.
Now she blinked against the grittiness of her eyes and tried to orient herself. Her body protested, but she pulled herself upright and blinked again, stared between the bucket seats—to the familiar knobs of the radio.
Jimmy’s car. She was in Jimmy’s car…had been all along. It was her keys dangling from the ignition. Her purse sitting on the passenger seat as if no one else had been there, no one had dragged her from the fund-raiser and shoved her into the backseat, no one had driven for hours while—
She lifted her hands, saw only a hint of red circling her wrists, where the rope had been. Lunging between the seats, she grabbed her wrap and shoved her hand into the flimsy fabric before hitting the stereo’s Eject button.
The cassette that had played over and over, while she’d been driven around town was no longer there.
Barely recognizing the strangled sound that broke from her throat, she reached for the purse—and saw the picture.
Jimmy. He lay on a small cot. A sheet covered his body, but not his bruised arms—and not his bruised face. His left eye was swollen shut. Blood leaked from beneath his right eye. His nose was…crooked, his lips busted.
Beside him sat a newspaper. Blinking against the rush of moisture, she looked at the headlines—and saw a picture of Marcel Lambert. The print was too small to read, but she didn’t need to. She’d read it that morning. The article gushed about the fund-raiser, how Marcel was working to bring life back to the city, even when his own future hung in doubt, as if he were some kind of misunderstood, self-sacrificing hero.
She sat there so very still, staring at her brother and knowing, knowing without doubt, that he’d been hurt because of her. She’d been to the prison just that morning. But she’d been denied access. They’d told her he’d refused to see her. But now she knew. And now she wanted to throw up.
Numbly, she flipped the photo over and saw the words, the same words that had droned from the stereo in that mechanical voice, as she’d lain in the backseat,
Guilt and innocence…
It’s never that black or white.
You have the power. You have the choice.
If Fontenot doesn’t back off…he won’t be the only one to suffer.
Jimmy would suffer. Because of her.
Her eyes filled, but Evangeline would not let the tears fall. Because she refused to buckle, refused to run and hide. Blinking, she looked up from the carefully printed words and stared out the window. And for the first time saw the houses. Quaint, tidy, well manicured. On each side of the tree-lined street. Adrenaline surged as she twisted toward the right and saw the soft glow from inside a small window. And the wide, screened-in porch. And the dark, slumbering trees.
Gabe…
It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. But she could no more have stayed in Jimmy’s car than she could have made her heart stop pounding.
What kind of man do you think I am?
The question taunted as she slid the picture into her purse and stepped into the cool breath of the night. Numbly, almost robotically, she twisted back toward the car and reached for an old denim jacket on the floor behind the driver’s seat, slipped it on. Then she quietly closed the door and crossed the street, walked toward the house.
Toward Gabe—and a choice she could no longer avoid.
Once he might have opened the door with one of those slow easy smiles she had so categorically not expected. In the weeks and months leading up to her arrival in New Orleans, she’d prepared herself for every contingency she’d been able to come up with. To hate him, to toy with him, to battle him. To bring him do
wn.
But she had not prepared herself for those smiles that reached inside her.
And she’d not prepared herself for wanting, so damn bad, to find innocence, instead of guilt.
And she’d not prepared herself to feel anything other than hate. Certainly not compassion. And never, ever remorse.
To the soundtrack of cicadas and crickets, she stepped onto the porch and crossed to the screen door. But she did not open it. Instead, she lifted her hand and knocked.
With the first case she’d prosecuted, the jury had stayed out for eight days and two hours. She’d had to teach herself the art of patience, how to stay calm while each minute, each hour—each day—dragged by. To not let her imagination run away with her—and to not let her body betray her. Deliberations were never easy, even the short ones. Once, the jury had taken less than twenty minutes. The longest she’d had to wait—
There were no footsteps, no small window by the door to warn of his approach. Just the quiet click of the dead bolt. “What’s the matter,” he drawled. “Couldn’t stay away—”
Twelve years. That was the longest she’d waited.
But then the hard wood door opened and he was there, and in that dark, deep place inside, she knew twelve years had been nowhere near long enough.
Chapter 11
H e stood in the dim lighting of the entryway, with a thick white towel around his neck and jeans low on hips, his feet bare. His hair was damp, curling at the nape, but whiskers still covered his jaw. And in his eyes gleamed a dark light that made Evangeline want to step back, even as she wanted to step closer.
“Gabe.” Her throat tightened around his name, but he gave no reaction, just stood there looking at her as if her mere presence were some kind of desecration.
The urge to yank open the screen door and go to him, to step into his arms and hold on, just hold on, pushed through her with a viciousness that stunned.
“We need to talk.” She managed the words with the cool efficiency of an opening argument, as if it wasn’t almost midnight and he hadn’t turned his back on her. “About the case.”
Shifting, he brought his shoulder up against the door frame. But somehow, he didn’t lean. It was more as if he supported—everything. “Is that a fact?”
“Gabe, listen—”
“No, you listen, because I’m only going to say this once.”
Her heart kicked hard as his eyes went even darker.
“You need to leave, Evangeline.” Not Evie. Not even catin. But her full name, Evangeline, spoken as a judge might, with no trace of familiarity. “You need to turn around right now and walk away from here.”
From him.
“That’s not what I need,” she whispered.
“The hell it’s not.” With the words a hard, strangled sound broke from his throat. “This is the last place you should be tonight.”
But it was the only place she wanted to be—and the only place someone else wanted her to be. Beneath the denim of her jacket her wrists burned and she could again feel the rope that had bound her hands. Gone now. As if it had never even been there.
“Why not?” She kept the emotion from tearing through her voice. “You might try to punish me again?”
It was more a reckless taunt than a question. “This has nothing to do with punishment.”
Maybe it was his voice, the absolute lack of emotion in it. Or maybe it was the way he looked at her, as if he felt…absolutely nothing. As if he didn’t even know her. Didn’t care.
Or maybe it was the way he dominated the doorway as unyieldingly as he dominated a courtroom. He’d made no move to open the screen door, no move to invite her in from the night.
Maybe it was all of that. Or none of it. But before she could remind herself of even one reason why she shouldn’t move, she reached for the screen door and yanked it open, stepped inside.
Warmth was her first thought. Then…coffee.
“Doesn’t it?” she whispered. And then she stepped into him, the way she should have done the night before. The way she’d wanted to do. Instead, she’d ripped away and forced herself to consider the fire and the evidence and the logical conclusion that a man who would stop at nothing to make sure he got what he wanted wouldn’t think twice about destroying a little evidence.
She’d grabbed on to that thought, commanded herself to hold on to it, to use it to drive away the other thoughts that kept growing stronger in spite of everything she’d learned. The thoughts that wanted to erase twelve years of animosity and replace them with the gossamer fine hope that Gabriel Fontenot was not the ruthless, driven man she’d so desperately wanted him to be. Because she had the evidence that could make him fall. And if he fell, Jimmy could be free again, he could get his life back and his future.
But if Gabe wasn’t that man…
It was a broken sound that slipped from her throat as she approached him, as his eyes darkened in those few seconds before she pushed up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his. Sliding her arms around his shoulders, she dug her fingers into his back and held on and kissed him.
His body was warm and solid and, as she dragged a hand around to the side of his face, the ache spread from her chest into her blood. He just stood there. He didn’t lift a hand to her body, not to hold her, not to push her away. He didn’t move his mouth, not to curse her or kiss her.
And, in that moment, the evidence fell around her in sharp dark sheets, driving home what she’d suspected from the moment he’d put his mouth to hers at the fund-raiser.
She jerked away and stepped back, forcing herself to breathe. “What’s the matter?” she demanded with a flatness that masked the hurt. “Not as much fun without witnesses?”
Without Marcel Lambert there to see.
The house was dimly lit, the porch light off. Not far from where he stood the hardwood floor of the narrow entryway spilled into a large room. She could see the back of a sofa, a small television set, a fireplace and an almost-empty mantel. Off to the right was a kitchen, separated from the main room by a black granite counter-bar.
On it sat a bottle.
It shouldn’t have been possible for the shadows to deepen, but somehow they did.
Before he could stop her—before she could stop herself—she shoved by him and crossed to the small kitchen. Beyond the pass-through, a single light shone on an old pine table, illuminating stacks of files and newspaper clippings, a few books—and an empty tumbler.
But it was the bottle of whiskey she grabbed.
“Is this why you want me to leave so bad?” she asked, holding it up toward the light.
Only a few drops remained.
“Put it down.” Gabe’s voice came from behind her, soft and controlled and one hundred percent lethal.
She spun toward him. “What were you trying to prove?” But the answer came with the question, the faint residue of whiskey mingling with the coffee brewing. “Tonight. At the fund-raiser. Letting Lambert see us like that…”
Gabe closed in on her, his gaze dropping from her face along her body, slowly, meticulously, lingering on the bulky denim jacket that covered her dress—and concealed the bruises braceleting her wrists. Then just as slowly he lifted his eyes to hers. “Maybe I wasn’t trying to prove anything.”
Her hand tightened around the bottle. “Maybe,” she conceded, even though she knew better. “But not likely. Not with you.” He was always thinking, planning, always three steps ahead. “You always have an endgame.”
The light in his eyes went out. “Not everything is a game, catin.”
The endearment did cruel, cruel things to her heart. It slammed against her ribs, for one dangerous moment cutting off everything else.
Not everything is a game.
But this was, she knew. They were. It was a game she had begun, an ill-fated house of cards she’d started to deal long before they’d even met. A game she alone could end, but both of them would lose. She’d gone after him with a single-mindedness that had consumed her. Playing him
, offering him the illusion of friendship but yanking it back when the situation stopped being so crystal clear, never stopping to think about what she was doing to him.
Now she stood in his empty little kitchen in his empty little house, square and center between him and the man who’d made his mother a widow and a young boy grow up hideously fast.
Before Gabe could bring Lambert down, he had to get through her, the woman who’d fed him false information and set him up, waited to see him fall. Once again his fate rested in her hands.
That’s why he’d kissed her. Not because she’d slipped into his blood, but to make sure she never did.
“Gabe.” His name was barely more than a rasp. “This has to stop.” With one last glance at the empty bottle, she returned it to the counter, next to a green apple and a neat stack of mail. “I know you want to bring down Lambert, but playing vigilante isn’t the way to do it. He knows—”
If Fontenot doesn’t back off, he won’t be the only one to suffer….
“Of course he knows,” Gabe said. “That’s never been a secret.”
No, the secrets were hers. And before all was said and done, they would destroy everything. He would hate her, but if she could make him back off Lambert, at least Gabe would be alive.
“By dragging me into your game—” she started to say, but Gabe chose that moment to come to life.
He stepped toward her and bracketed his hands against the counter on either side, shredded her with one of those slow, easy smiles. “I don’t recall any dragging.”
Her heart strummed low and hard and deep. He stood so close she could feel him, all of the heat and the strength and the contempt. But there was something else, too, a struggle that disturbed, even as it fascinated.
He was right. No one had dragged her. She alone had charged into his life. She alone had gone after him.
Throat tight, she lifted her chin, keeping her attorney’s face in place and refusing to fall for his blatant attempt to use sexual innuendo to misdirect. That he would touch her now—