by JoAnn Ross
“I just remembered something.”
He immediately pulled over to the shoulder and cut the engine. He’d been hoping this trip would trigger something and was pleased it was already paying off.
“After I left you outside the hotel, I was running through the Quarter and had reached Armstrong Park when a man in an executioner’s hood caught up with me.”
Hell. “I remember seeing that guy.” Roarke’s hands curved into fists as he pictured the man who’d run past him in the other direction.
“He pulled me into the cemetery and threatened to take me out into the bayou, which made me realize he was going to kill me, so I tried offering him something that might change his mind.”
“What?” Thinking he was about to learn what the rogue cops had trashed her house trying to find, Roarke was not expecting her next words.
“Me.”
“You?” He dragged his hand through his hair and stared at her. “Are you nuts?”
She lifted her chin defiantly. “I didn’t feel I had any choice. And I certainly wasn’t planning to actually go through with it. I was just stalling for time.”
“Terrific plan, Nancy Drew.” His sarcastic tone said otherwise.
“The point is, it worked. I distracted him long enough to get away. I remember scooping my purse from the ground—for some reason it seemed important at the time—then noticing that it had come open. That’s the last thing I remember.”
It wasn’t much. But it was more than they’d had earlier. “I’ll get Mike working on it.” The van, which was obviously more than just a fish-delivery truck, was outfitted with a cellular phone. Roarke punched in his brother’s office number.
“I’ll have some people start checking out the cemetery right away,” Michael said without hesitation when Roarke passed on Daria’s latest recollection. “See what we can find, although anything of any value would already have been snatched up. We’ll also go over Louis Armstrong Park with a fine-tooth comb and track the way to where you found her. There’s always the chance that she lost it on the street, which means the cleaning crews would already have swept it up. Whatever it is.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll have dropped out in the cemetery,” Roarke said.
“I’ll burn a candle to Marie Laveaux.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Roarke laughed at his brother’s dryly stated offer. “Thanks, Mike. I owe you.”
“Hey, that’s what brothers are for.” That said, Michael hung up.
“It’s probably nothing,” Daria murmured.
“And it could be exactly what we need to break the case,” Roarke countered. “Besides, it’s more to go on than we had five minutes ago.”
That was true. As she settled back into the seat and watched the magnificent scenery flash by the passenger window, Daria hoped that being out here in the bayou—which had proved so horrifying when her would-be killer had threatened her with it—would stimulate even more memories.
The afternoon sun was slanting low on the horizon when Roarke turned off the single-lane dirt road and cut across the quaking land. Five minutes later, he stopped in front of small dock. A flat-bottomed boat Was tied up at the dock.
“We’re going out in a boat?”
She hadn’t agreed to this. It would make her much more vulnerable. And definitely under his control.
“It’s either that or swim.”
As she got out of the car and glanced back at the way they’d come, Daria knew that she would never be able to find her way back to civilization. She’d opted to trust him; the only thing to do was to stick to that decision.
She didn’t answer, but climbed into the boat and settled down on a wooden seat with a regal air. Roarke thought she looked exactly how Princess Di would look if she ever suddenly decided to drop by the bayou for a ride in his mud boat. Restraining a grin, he retrieved their suitcases from the van.
As he started the engine and pulled away from the dock, Daria felt as if she’d cast her fate to the winds. She was at the mercy of this handsome-as-sin stranger who frazzled her nerves and made her feel hot and cold all at the same time.
As the boat skimmed across the water, edging through the shallows, the only sound was the drone of the inboard motor, and even that stopped when they reached a place that was more mud than water. Worried that they would be forced to spend the night in this smoky, spooky place, Daria was relieved when Roarke picked up a long pole from the bottom of the boat and began expertly maneuvering them through the marsh. Toward their destination. Wherever that was.
While the boat drifted through the towering cypress trees, a deep silence settled over them. Nothing was as quiet as a swamp. Especially during this twilit time between day and night.
As civilization slowly disappeared behind them, Daria found herself almost forgetting her reason for coming out here. She felt her entire body relax—neck, shoulders, spine. In this place that was both melancholy and comforting at the same time, her mind began to drift like the slow-moving current flowing inexorably to the Gulf. Somewhere in the far distance, someone was playing “Jolie Blonde” on an accordion.
They passed a small sign nailed to a huge cypress: Oil and Gas Pipeline. Do Not Anchor or Dredge.
“My father was an oil-company executive,” she said suddenly.
Roarke glanced over at her, pleased that more of her memory was returning, but wishing it had more to do with the case. “Mike’s been trying to locate your family. But he hasn’t had any luck.”
“That’s because I’m an only child. And my parents were killed in a plane crash in the Rockies the winter before I graduated from college.”
Roarke supposed that explained her strong independent streak. When you didn’t have anyone to lean on, you’d better learn to stand on your own two feet.
“Did you grow up in Colorado?”
“No. I was born in New Orleans, but I was sent away to private schools in Europe. Dad’s work involved so much traveling, my parents felt it’d be better for me to grow up in a more stable environment. It was in Switzerland,” she remembered, envisioning the crystal lakes and snowclad Alps.
Roarke thought about the noisy house filled with brothers and aunts and uncles and cousins he’d grown up in. “Sounds lonely.”
She sighed. “It was. And cold. I remember when I was fourteen, trying to talk my parents into letting me transfer to a school in Hawaii, but my father was afraid I’d spend all my time hanging out on Waikiki with surfers, sailors and beach bums.”
“I think most fathers of fourteen-year-old girls would probably worry about that.”
She grinned at the memory of the arguments that had raged via transatlantic lines for days. “The annoying thing is that, although I hate to admit it, he was probably right.”
“So he kept you in the protective custody of a convent of nuns.”
“Until I was paroled to go to Stanford.”
“Where you made up for lost time?”
She thought about that for a minute. Then shook her head. “Not really. In fact, I was considered pretty much a geek. I always had my nose in a book and since I’d spent so many years living in a totally female environment, I had no idea how to talk to boys.”
Roarke thought back to their first meeting in the bar. “Obviously sometime between then and when you picked me up in the Blue Bayou, you’ve learned a few tricks of the trade.”
Since his half smile took the sarcasm out of his tone, Daria didn’t take offense. “I suppose I have. Then again, maybe you were just easy.”
This time he flashed a full-blown smile that bathed her in its warmth. “Honey, the one thing no one has ever called me is ‘easy.’”
Now that, Daria could believe.
When the narrow mudflat opened back into a riverway, Roarke put the pole away and returned to using the engine. Dusk was settling in long silvery-pink fingers that caused an otherworldly glow to spill over the landscape.
They came around a bend and suddenly the
river opened onto what seemed to be a secret lake. Located on the banks of the lake, beneath the limbs of a huge spreading oak tree hundreds of years old was an old-style planter’s cabin set on stilts.
The cabin, which boasted a front porch and an outside stairway to the garonnière, a place beneath the roof that had originally been designed for the young men of the large families to sleep. The sun was setting quickly into the water now, draping the cabin in shadows that resembled the Spanish moss hanging from the cypress trees all around the place. The cottage had been built in a location isolated even by bayou standards.
“I don’t want to sound picky,” Daria said tentatively as he guided the boat up to the dock, knowing all too well the wildlife that made their home in these waters, “but how long has it been since anyone’s been in here?”
He glanced back over his shoulder as he cut the engine. “What’s the matter? Got a problem sharing your quarters with cottonmouths?”
“It seems I already have enough two-legged snakes in my life,” she said. “I’m not exactly eager for more.”
He laughed at that. “Don’t worry. Mike uses it a lot as a getaway. And my Uncle Claude comes in every so often to beat back the wildlife. I called him before I left Moscow, and he said he’d get the place fixed up and the pantry stocked for me.”
Daria didn’t bother to conceal her relief. Or her embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I realize you probably think I’m a nervous female, but—”
“Shut up.” When he leaned toward her, Daria braced herself for another kiss, but he merely brushed his lips against her forehead. “You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.”
The compliment shouldn’t have meant so much. But it did. “Really?”
Her radiant smile warmed the glacier that had taken hold of his heart even before that debacle in Moscow. Roarke had learned early on in his career that if you allowed yourself to care too much, the pain could eat you alive. Some war correspondents drank heavily to forget the horrors they witnessed firsthand. Others tended to overindulge in sex or drugs. A few opted for suicide.
The day Roarke had discovered the ABC reporter who’d become a mentor of sorts hanging from a rafter in a shelled-out building in Beirut, the first sheeting of ice had coated his heart as a self-defense mechanism. Over the years the ice had thickened and although it had developed fissures from time to time, never had it. been in such danger of melting.
“You’re also crazy.” Because he wanted to kiss her—worse yet, needed to kiss her—Roarke backed away. “Did you ever think that coming out here in the middle of nowhere with a total stranger could get you killed?”
“Not for a minute.” Her smile vanished, her expression turned as sober as he’d ever seen it. He could see the lines of strain on a face as pale and translucent as the petals of a water hyacinth. “Not with you.”
She truly was the most reckless woman he’d ever met. Or she really was nuts. Either way, she triggered something unwanted deep inside him, beneath the ice. It was, Roarke realized, the determination of a male to protect his mate. Whatever the cost.
Their eyes met, his dark and filled with warning, hers soft and trusting, but laced with a steely determination. Roarke felt powerless against her alluring combination of passion and fragility. He tried to remind himself yet again that the lady was not his type. Despite her assertion that she was willing to settle for a hot, short-lived affair, Roarke knew Daria was the “forever after” kind of woman. Like his mother.
He’d grown up watching the emotional pain and loneliness Mary O‘Malley had endured as the wife of globe-trotting photojournalist Patrick O’Malley. When he’d chosen a similarly rootless career path, Roarke had made the decision not to get enmeshed in deep emotional relationships.
His hit-and-run style had always suited him perfectly. Just as it had suited lovers chosen for their own carefree attitude toward sex. Women willing to move on to other countries, other conflicts, other men, when their time together had run its course.
Feeling as if he’d stumbled into quicksand, Roarke was debating taking Daria back to the city, straight to the federal building, where he probably should have taken her in the first place. But suddenly, what had been merely a low, threatening rumble on the horizon became a vicious crack directly overhead. Seconds later, the sky opened up and rain began pouring down on them.
10
ROARKE TUCKED THEIR suitcases under one arm and together they ran the short distance to the steps leading up to the raised porch. By the time they entered the main room of the cabin, they were both drenched.
The room was as dark as the inside of a tomb. And just as quiet. The only sounds were the rat-a-tat of the rain on the tin roof and the cracks of thunder. Lightning lit up the room in sulphurous flashes that reminded Daria of strobe lights.
“You’re wet clear through to the skin,” he said, running his hands over her shoulders and down her arms.
“So are you.” She did the same thing to him.
“I don’t have electricity out here, but there’s a propane tank out back that supplies gas for heat, hot water, the stove and refrigerator. I could run you a bath.” His hands slipped beneath her sweatshirt and cupped her breasts. “Or, if you don’t want to wait all that time, we can try to create a little heat on our own.”
They were already doing that. Daria could feel the little flames licking at her blood. Unwilling to play coy, she began unbuttoning his shirt, and was appalled to see that the bruises had turned such a deep, ugly purple, they looked almost black.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” When she touched one particularly dark spot on his ribs she felt his involuntary intake of breath.
He took hold of her wrist and moved his hand downward, over his battered ribs, his taut belly, to his waist, then lower still. “The day I’m not up to taking a beautiful woman to bed,” he murmured, “is the day they stick me in the Broussard family tomb.”
“Broussard?” He was hard as forged steel beneath her palm, but even as Daria’s blood beat faster and hotter, her natural curiosity was piqued. “But your name’s O’Malley.”
“That’s my father’s name. My mama’s one-hundred-percent Cajun. In fact, this used to be Broussard land before my granddaddy left it to go to work in the salt mines on Jefferson Island. He took his family into town, which was where my mama met my daddy when he came south to photograph a story about the oil boom.”
He thought about the story he’d heard all his life, how both his parents had felt as if they’d been hit by lightning. And how his mother had been pregnant when they’d married. Michael had been born nine months to the day of their first meeting, but Patrick O’Malley, on assignment at Cape Canaveral photographing the launch of the Mercury capsule Freedom 7, which had put America’s first man into space, had ’missed the birth. As he had the subsequent arrival of his two younger sons.
“What’s wrong?” Watching the dark scowl move across Roarke’s face, Daria reached out with her free hand and touched his cheek.
“Nothing,” he said brusquely. Nothing that he wanted to go into right now. “Your teeth are beginning to chatter. I’d better start a fire.” Without giving her a chance to argue, he went back out onto the covered porch and gathered up some wood from the stack his uncle had obviously left for him.
Daria wrapped her arms around herself—partly to ward off the cold, partly in an unconscious gesture of self-protection against his rebuff. She watched him stack the wood in the black stove that, with the doors open, also served as a fireplace. His normally lithe movements seemed more deliberate. Stiffer than usual. Which wasn’t surprising, considering yesterday’s beating.
“Are you hurting?”
“Yeah. But not in the way you mean.” Surrendering to the inevitable, he caught hold of the hem of her wet sweatshirt and yanked it over her head. “I’m hurting in a way only you can make better.”
Daria gasped with pleasure as he deftly undid her bra, tossed it aside, then pulled her against him. His crisp ches
t hair against her bare breasts was one of the most erotic sensations she’d ever felt.
Remembering how he’d felt when he’d believed that he was about to die without ever having made love to Daria and tired of playing games, he pulled her down onto the fur rug in front of the fire.
“I thought you said this would be a mistake,” she murmured.
“I did. I also recall saying that I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. So one more probably isn’t going to make that much of a difference.”
Gazing up at the hunger in his dark stormy eyes, Daria ignored the fact that she was not accustomed to having sex with men she’d picked up in bars, and completely overlooked the fact that she was an engaged woman.
All she knew was that if she didn’t let Roarke make love to her, if she didn’t allow herself to make love to him, she would regret the loss every day for the rest of her life.
“I think about you all the time,” he murmured as he touched his mouth to the hollow of her throat. “Even yesterday, when those thugs were beating the hell out of me.”
She tilted her head back, reveling in the heated touch of his lips and tongue. “I thought about you, too. I was so worried you were going to be killed.”
“That thought passed through my mind.” While his mouth roamed back down to create havoc on her breasts, his hands slipped beneath the waistband of the wet leggings. “In fact, there was a moment there, just when I thought I was about to die, that my entire life actually passed in front of my eyes, just like in the movies. And you know the only thing I truly regretted?”
His wicked, clever fingers were stroking her in a way that had her squirming against his hand. “What?” she managed on a ragged moan
“That I might die without having made love to you.” He bent his head and took a breast in his mouth, and sucked deeply.
“I know the feeling.” She arched against him, felt his unmistakable hardness and felt a damp warmth gathering in that hot, burning place between her thighs.
“Tell me what you want, Daria.” He was rocking against her, the wet denim scraping against her in a way she was surprised didn’t create sparks.