The sheriff’s car was only halfway down the driveway before she said, “Curran, about me and Maggie Butler—”
“I realize that I wasn’t being fair comparing you to her,” he interrupted. “Her life wasn’t so complicated. And it wasn’t on the line.”
“But I understand what you were feeling. I was holding back, but you knew about Gavin, didn’t you? You thought I had been having an affair with him and hiding it because I was embarrassed that he was someone who worked for me, just as Maggie was embarrassed to let her world know about you.”
He nodded. “It all felt so familiar.”
“I’m not embarrassed about you, I promise,” Jane said. “And I wasn’t embarrassed about Gavin, either, at least not when it began.” Her mouth went dry as she finally geared herself to tell the whole truth at last. “Gavin charmed me. He wined and dined me and too quickly asked me to marry him.”
“A whirlwind courtship.”
“He seduced me. I know this sounds odd in this day and age, but I had never been…uh, seduced before. But I had never been in love before, either, and didn’t know if I would ever find it. At least not the storybook kind. Gavin Shaw, Irish horse trainer, seemed to be a perfect match for me,” she went on. “I was afraid of the responsibility I had taken on. Nani and Susan and Grantham Acres. I was afraid I couldn’t do it myself. A family of my own with a man who shared my love of the Thoroughbred industry seemed perfect. A future together seemed perfect.”
“You loved him, then.”
Curran’s flat tone made her stare and wonder what filled his thoughts. Surely he couldn’t think that. Surely he knew that if she was his legacy, then he was hers.
“I was attracted to Gavin and to his offer to be a full partner in life,” she said honestly. “I did care for him and I thought love was something that merely needed time to grow, as did our relationship.”
“And yet you accepted his proposal.”
“Yes, I did. I had convinced myself that I was lucky to have found him. And because it was so sudden and I was away from home, I didn’t tell anyone. I wanted to wait at least until Nani and Susan met Gavin. Susan had been so upset by Daddy’s death, and then Mother’s remarrying and moving…I just couldn’t make another change without telling her in person.”
“And then before you came home, Shaw tried to break Finn’s legs. After which, he tried to kill you.”
Jane shuddered at the memory.
“These past months, I thought my only saving grace in this whole debacle was that I hadn’t brought my most dreadful mistake to light. I had to steel myself to take my neighbors’ pity. I couldn’t have borne their scorn, as well. Does that make me a terrible person?”
“It makes you wonderfully human.”
“I really didn’t know what love was like, Curran, not until you. I distrusted my own feelings when I realized how I felt about you. I thought I was repeating my mistake. I couldn’t trust myself.”
“And now?”
“And now I know you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m only sorry that I didn’t wait for you, that you weren’t the one who—”
Before she could finish, Curran hushed her with a kiss. If she had any doubts that he was the right man for her, that sweet, passionate kiss brushed them aside.
“You’re mine now,” Curran said huskily, drawing his lips from hers. “And that’s all that matters. We both had a journey we had to take to find each other. If you hadn’t met Shaw…if Finn hadn’t been hurt…you wouldn’t have needed me.”
“Don’t say that. I do need you. I’ll always need you.”
Curran pulled her close to his heart, “You have me, then, my Sheena, for the rest of our lives. You are my legacy.”
Jane clung to him, knowing that no matter how things turned out with Finn, they would be all right.
Together.
Epilogue
Curran held on to Jane tightly as the gates opened and twelve powerful Thoroughbreds took the track at the start of the Classic Cup. Finn mac Cumhail had drawn the number-twelve slot and was closing toward the rail at the back of the field.
“Just let him be on the board,” Jane murmured.
Curran countered, “Just let him win!”
He knew Jane was grateful that he’d been able to get Finn ready to race in time. But Curran wanted him to win more than anything he’d wanted in his life—other than his Sheena, of course—and not for himself this time, but for Jane and Belle and Susan and for Grantham Acres itself.
“He’s blocked,” Jane said, sounding dismayed.
Indeed, as the horses came to the first turn, Finn was in the middle of the pack, Stonehenge clearly ahead of him in third behind the pacesetters.
“He’s fine,” Curran said, hoping he really was. “Jimi will watch for a break.”
The young jockey had worked wonders with Finn during their morning workouts at the track.
As the horses thundered down the backstretch, Curran watched through binoculars. Finn was firmly entrenched in sixth, boxed in by an American and a French horse.
“Come on, Finn mac Cumhail,” his sister Keelin shouted. “Make your Irish ancestors sing with pride for you!”
Curran grinned at her. Seeing little Kelly in one of Tyler’s arms, Keelin pressed against his side with the other, Curran was envious.
Anxious to start his own family, he gave Jane a squeeze as, halfway through the second turn, Jimi broke Finn out of the box by dropping back slightly and bringing him to the outside.
“Come on, Finn!” Jane cried.
The chant went up in their box. “Finn! Finn! Finn!” Granthams and McKennas and Leightons all cheering the stallion on together.
As the horses rounded the last turn and headed for home, Curran saw Finn had a clear shot but wasn’t making his move. He focused on the stallion.
The ground came up to meet him as he passed the nearest horse and drew up to Stonehenge.
Blinking, Curran looked out to see it happening.
Stonehenge’s jockey used his crop and the English stallion surged forward. But Finn kept with him, and when they passed the horse in the lead, they were neck and neck. The finish line was an eighth of a mile away.
“Finn! Finn! Finn!”
Jane was grabbing at him in her excitement and jumping up and down.
The rival stallions were pulling away from the field.
Finn! Finn! Finn!
The finish line—concentrate!
“He’s going to do it!”
Jane’s scream shifted Curran’s reality as Finn took the lead and crossed the finish line by a neck.
Exactly as Jane had projected to him when he’d lain unconscious in the paddock.
And now she threw her arms around his neck and rained kisses on his face.
“I love you! I love you! I love you!”
“I knew you could do it, boyo,” Keelin said, beaming.
“As did I,” Belle added.
“You did it!” Susan cried. “You saved Grantham Acres!”
“It was a joint effort,” Curran said, his arm possessively around Jane.
Something he repeated to the media a few minutes later when cameras were focused on them and microphones were shoved in their faces.
“Do you agree, Miss Grantham?” a reporter asked.
“Absolutely,” Jane said. “And it will continue to be a joint effort, if I have anything to say about it. Curran McKenna and I are a team, in every sense of the word.”
“Ah, Sheena…”
Then, on national television—as big an audience as one could get—Jane threw her arms around his neck and kissed him senseless.
Bayou Midnight
by Emilie Richards
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
>
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 1
The late-afternoon sunshine oozing through the window was a punishment. Antoinette Deveraux winced and squeezed her eyelids shut, wishing for a second eyelid—like that of some lucky amphibians—to screen out every ray of light in the room. The involuntary facial contortions sent more pain radiating through her body. There was no hope for it. Her headache wasn’t going away. The aspirin she had taken wasn’t doing its job; three cups of coffee and the attendant caffeine hadn’t made a dent in it. There was only one cure for the misery that was sucking the marrow from her bones and the breath from her body.
A cigarette.
Antoinette opened her eyes and focused them on the deceptively innocent pack lying on her desk. It was crumpled; the cellophane encasing it was tattered as if someone had nervously poked a finger beneath it and traced a circle around and around the shiny red-and-white package.
Someone had. That someone had been her. The package of cigarettes had been in and out of her desk drawer for a week. She had fondled it like a mother with her infant, toyed with it like a cat with a mouse, railed at it with the venom of a jilted lover. The only thing she hadn’t done was take out one of the cigarettes, put it in her mouth and light it. And of course that was the thing she wanted most to do.
Now her hand hovered over the desk and then over the cigarettes. One finger dipped down to crackle the cellophane. Even the sound was nostalgic. How much more nostalgic would be the smell of tobacco, the inhalation of smoke, the comfort of a long-loved habit.
“That habit’s killing you!”
Her hand landed back in her lap with a thud. Now she was talking to herself. It had come to that. She prided herself on her rational outlook on life; there were people all over the city who depended on her to radiate serenity and analytical good sense. And here she was, Dr. Antoinette Deveraux, talking to herself like the craziest of her clients.
Antoinette looked at her watch and then, once more, at the pack of cigarettes. She had time to succumb. She could fill her nicotine-starved body with the familiar acrid smoke and count the seconds until her headache disappeared. She would be a nice person if she did, a credit to the human community. She could consider this experiment a failure and remember it when she sometimes got impatient with people who refused to give up a habit that was damaging them.
Antoinette watched her hand take flight. It was amazing what the unconscious could do. Her hand was reaching for the pack before she had even given it permission. Obviously she had come to a crossroads. Either she was going to have to give in or give herself a dose of her own therapy. Which was it going to be?
The hand hovering over the desk punched the button on her office intercom. “Rosy?”
Antoinette waited for the reassuring sound of her secretary’s voice. Rosy was an anchor. On her sloping shoulders rested the business affairs and, more often than not, the personal affairs of the five psychologists who shared the second floor of the converted Uptown mansion in the heart of New Orleans.
Rosemarie Madison was a psychologist’s psychologist. She knew when to nod, when to shake her head and when to murmur, “Yes, dahlin’, of course you had to.” She hadn’t gone through years of graduate school. She had gotten her GED after four children and two husbands, and Rosy’s education in the school of hard knocks had given her a wisdom the psychologists she worked for envied.
Now Rosy’s voice held the sympathy she’d been openly expressing to Antoinette all week. “Doing all right?”
Antoinette smiled, sending new shivers of pain to pierce her brain. Valiantly she ignored it. “Worst day yet,” she admitted.
“Always is. My Harry always said the seventh day was the worst. Every time he quit smoking he said the same thing.”
Antoinette couldn’t keep from asking the obvious. “How many times did he quit?”
“Six. He never made it through the seventh day. Good thing you’re stronger than Harry, may he sleep with the angels.”
“Good thing,” Antoinette murmured. “Listen, Rosy, I’ve got a five-thirty appointment. A Sam Long. If he gets here before you go, buzz me. If he’s not here, just leave the front door unlocked. I’ll make sure my door’s open so I can hear him come in.”
“It’s not safe to leave that front door unlocked,” Rosy scolded. “You know that. Besides, should you be alone in the building with a patient, dahlin’?”
Antoinette could almost see the worried frown that would be fighting the other lines in Rosy’s weathered face. “Don’t worry. He’s a policeman. Detective Sergeant Sam Long.”
“A cop? That’s worse. A cop gone crazy is the worst kind of psycho. I’m not setting foot out of this office!”
“He’s not crazy, Rosy. He’s coming about a case he needs help with. Go on home.”
There was silence when Rosy decided if she was going to obey her favorite boss. Then, “Okay, but you have any problems and you call my oldest boy, Deke. He just lives over on Birch Street. He could be here in seconds.”
“I’ll do that,” Antoinette said solemnly. She flicked off the intercom and stood, moving restlessly around the room. She propped her door open with a volume of Jung’s Man and his Symbols, and then she took care of the sunshine by pulling the heavy drapes across the large picture window that looked out on Carrollton Avenue. The window was usually a source of delight. She had fought for this particular office just so that she could enjoy the sunshine and the view of the bustling avenue, complete with old-fashioned green streetcars rolling up and down the median strip, or neutral ground as it was called in New Orleans. Today the view, the noise and the indecently bright winter sunshine only added to the pounding in her head.
Settled once more at her desk, she faced the pack of cigarettes, turning them so that they were in front of the chair at the side of her desk. She took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, drawing another breath, only to exhale again. After the third she began.
“I don’t understand the hold you have on me,” she told the cigarettes. “I’m a twenty-eight-year-old psychologist who’s well established in the community. I’ve got a good head on my shoulders and no other bad habits. You’re the only thing standing between me and real maturity.”
She sat quietly, staring at the pack, and then after a minute got up and moved to the chair at the side of her desk. She put her hand on the cigarettes and shut her eyes. “Well, I’m just a lowly piece of tobacco,” she answered herself with a whine, “but if I had to make a guess, I’d say maybe you’re just not quite ready to be perfect.”
Sam Long undid the top button of his plaid shirt while he waited for someone to answer his knock. He checked his watch. He was only a few minutes late. Maybe this woman was one of those ultraprofessional types who never took anything into account except her own schedule. Maybe she’d gone home when he didn’t show up at the stroke of five-thirty. He lifted his hand and impatiently knocked once more on the door with the brass sign that read Psychologist Associates.
The door leading into the downstairs hallway had been open. But there were other offices in the building, upstairs and down; there was no guarantee it had been left open for him. He tried the knob, and when it turned, he stepped into the waiting room. It was empty of people but filled with contemporary prints, thriving plants and plush upholstered furniture. The magazine rack had a larger selection than the public library; the fish swimming in a twenty-gallon tank were exotic enough to stock a South Sea lagoon. Obviously, Psychologist Associates was making money.
So where was the receptionist? Where were the patients who couldn’t come during normal office hours? Where was Dr. Antoinette Deveraux?
It only took him seconds to begin to search. Sam Long was not a patient man. It was his impatience that had paid off time and time again as he combed the New Orleans streets looking for people who got their kicks putting bullets in t
heir fellow citizens. Oh, he could wait when he had to. He could wait with every muscle of his body tensed to unleash the deadly energy that made him such a successful cop. But he never wasted time waiting for anyone less important than a murder suspect.
The reception area was flanked on either side by narrow hallways. The house had been cleverly renovated to retain the appearance of a graceful Victorian mansion on the outside and the efficiency of an office building on the inside. Sam admired the effect as he turned to the left and examined nameplates on doors.
It was only when he abandoned the hallway and crossed the waiting area again that he heard the murmur of a woman’s voice. He followed it to the end of the opposite hall, pausing in front of a door that was ajar. He read the sign Dr. Deveraux as he listened to the soft, lilting voice.
“You keep bringing this back to perfection, but I have no desire in the world to be perfect. Only healthy. And if you don’t stop your stranglehold on me, you’ll kill me.”
Sam frowned, wondering just what he’d be interrupting if he knocked. He heard the scrape of a chair and then a voice that sounded like the first voice but with a whining quality that set his teeth on edge.
“You’ve been using me for years to flaunt your independence in your parents’ face. I won’t let you give me up! I’m the one big symbol that shows the world you’re not a pretty little robot!”
The screech of wood against wood was followed by, “What do you mean you won’t let me give you up! I’m a grown woman. I will not be ruled by you! Damn it! I’m going to get rid of you once and for all.”
“You’ve been trying that for a week now,” the second voice whined. “You need me. You’re obsessed with me. You don’t have the courage to be finished with me once and for all.”
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