Sam couldn’t even feel relief that his cousin was all right. He couldn’t feel anything except the lump in his throat. He pushed past it to ask the question he was afraid to have answered. “Did they know anything about Antoinette?”
“I got to talk to Leonce.” Didi’s words were delivered so quickly it took a moment for them to sink in. “’Toinette’s all right. She was in the boathouse when they went to load the dynamite. The others, they wanted to kill her, but Leonce made them bring her with them. They dropped her off in the old egret rookery, the one where you used to go to look for plumes. He said he wanted her hid good in case the others, they got away and decided to go back and look for her. It was the only place he knew where they’d never find the way back. Leonce said you better git her fast. She was scared to death. He’s on his way there with the police, but he says you can reach her faster.”
It was a funny thing. When feeling returned, it returned in one electric rush. Sam felt as if his body was buzzing with sensation. For a moment he couldn’t move.
Martin had no such problem. He was already sprinting down the road toward his house. “Lemme git my airboat,” he shouted over his shoulder.
The sheriff pushed his considerable bulk out of the front seat of his car and stood, peering over the roof. “They’ve got the men in custody. The gal you’re looking for is…” He blinked. Both men were gone. “Think they’ll need us to help look?” he asked the deputies. “We could go get a boat.”
“We can try, but I think they’re halfway there already,” one of the deputies answered. “From the look on that city cop’s face, he’d swim to that rookery and back if he thought it would do any good. She’ll be home before nightfall.”
Antoinette watched the storm roll in. She had cried all her tears, prayed all her prayers. Now she just waited. After a brief bout of hysteria, she had forced herself to be calm. Seeing the outlines of a monstrous alligator in the water ten feet away hadn’t helped, but she had diligently recited the facts she knew to be true. The alligator would sense her presence and stay away. There were few actual cases of alligators attacking humans; they preferred smaller animals. The alligator was more afraid of her than she was of it. She could only hope that the last fact was the only one that was a joke.
Even knowing all that, she watched the alligator with the intensity of a woman whose life depended on it. Gradually he moved farther and farther away, nothing more than two eyes and a long ripple of water that indicated the length of his tail. When he was gone, she scanned the island again. She had managed to break off a branch from the closest small cypress, and although it would be no good at all against an alligator, it might help protect her from snakes.
The storm was a different matter. She had no shelter, but getting wet would be the least of her worries. She’d lived in Louisiana all her life, and she knew how quickly water levels could rise and land could flood. Her tiny island was already losing ground with the inevitable ebb and flow of the bayou water. It would submerge in a bad storm. Then she would be left with no alternative except clinging to the trunks of one of the cypress trees.
The mosquitoes had gotten worse as the storm darkened the sky. So far she’d killed a dozen that had tried to feast on her body, but she knew that soon they would be unbearable and defending herself would only be an exercise in futility.
When jagged streaks of lightning split the dark clouds above her, she listened to the fierce cries of the birds nesting nearby. She had never seen so many egrets. This was obviously the place they came each year to nest because it was so isolated they had no fear of human intrusion.
Sam had shown her the channel that led to an egret rookery the day they had gone crawfishing. She wondered if this was the same one. Leonce would have known about it, too. Perhaps it was the same one, but what did it matter? Sam was in New Orleans doing the job he loved, Leonce was blowing up an oil rig out in the Gulf somewhere and she was standing on an island surrounded by the densest swamp she’d ever seen with a storm about ready to break.
The first drops of rain were almost a relief. She tipped her head back and opened her mouth. She was thirsty and hungry, although neither had seemed important considering everything else. As the rain increased its tempo, she swallowed again and again. The rain cooled the heat of her skin and took the sting out of her mosquito bites. But as it began to pelt her harder and harder, she knew the relief it offered was only a prelude to the misery it would bring.
The lightning and thunder seemed to move directly overhead, and the noise was deafening. The sky was so black now and the rain so dense that she couldn’t see anything farther than six feet away. Even if people were searching for her, they would never find her in this storm. The tiny hope she’d had that Leonce would really come back for her was washed away. He wouldn’t be back, and she would die of exposure. She wondered just how long it would take.
“Antoinette!”
For a moment she was sure she’d imagined the shout. It had been sandwiched between two claps of thunder, and in comparison it had sounded like a whisper. Earlier she had screamed for help so loud and so long that she’d gotten hoarse. Now she summoned up the volume she had left and shouted, “Here!”
The thunder drowned out her attempt. Lightning split the air so close that it seemed to dance along the top of a nearby tree. In the burst of light she saw a boat in the distance, one like Martin sometimes used. An airboat, Sam had called it.
“Here!” she shouted again. “I’m here.”
The boat was going in the wrong direction. When the lightning flashed again, the boat was gone.
Someone knew she was there. Someone had come to rescue her. Or perhaps someone had come to kill her. She clapped her hands over her mouth and rocked back and forth with a new surge of terror.
Whoever had come for her had disappeared back into the swamp. Shouting might bring them back, but she might be making a terrible mistake if she allowed them to locate her.
“Antoinette!”
She heard the voice again from the same direction. Faced with the worst decision of her life, she could only stare through the rain at the spot where the boat had been.
It was gone as surely as if it had never been there. She couldn’t stand on the island knowing that her one possible chance for survival had just passed away. And yet she was helpless. She could not shout; she could not swim to the spot where the boat had been. Without knowing who was on the boat, she could simply wait. She stared at the spot, willing the rain to part so that she could see if the boat was to be her salvation or her doom. The lightning flashed, the thunder roared and she could feel the cold swirl of water around her ankles.
“Antoinette!”
This time the voice was behind her. She turned, disoriented, and stared into the darkness. She watched a boat pull up, and through the heavy sheets of rain she saw a man leap into the water, his arms spread wide. She was against his chest, shivering and crying, before she could let herself believe it was really Sam.
On the trip out of the rookery, huddling under a tarp was a luxury. Sam held her tight, and the rain beat down over them as Martin, oblivious to the elements, steered the boat back toward Bayou Midnight. Antoinette was so spent that she couldn’t find words to ask how she’d been found or how Sam had come to be involved. She just accepted the reality of his presence and the fact that her life had been spared. She tried once to tell him that Leonce and friends were headed somewhere to blow up an oil rig, but he stopped her with his lips against hers in a gentle kiss. “Don’t worry about anything,” he had said. “It’s all been taken care of.”
She was surprised when the boat came to a stop. Sam and Martin held the tarp over her and encouraged her to step onto a platform. It took her a few moments to realize that she was on the deck outside Sam’s cabin. The storm was ending, and once inside, she turned for a quick glance out the window. The black clouds of the storm were giving way to a more natural twilight. Soon it would be night. She tried not to think about what would have ha
ppened if no one had found her.
“I’ll take it from here,” Sam told Martin, his arm still around Antoinette for support. “Can you bring me the skiff tomorrow morning?”
Martin clapped his cousin on the back and disappeared back outside into the rain, which now resembled nothing more than a heavy mist. Sam guided Antoinette toward a chair. He left, but he was back in a moment with a heavy towel and a large T-shirt. He knelt beside her, drying her face and hair, whispering soothing words.
She was too exhausted to respond. She sat in the chair, eyes shut and let him continue. She felt his fingers at the throat of her shirt, and then she felt each button give way. The shirt was parted, and she leaned forward a little at his coaxing as he slipped it off, along with her bra. The towel was rough as he smoothed it along her shoulders and breasts. It was replaced by the soft knit of the T-shirt. She felt Sam unsnap her shorts, and she got up so that he could remove them. She slipped her panties off herself, smoothing down the T-shirt as she did. As tired as she was, she wasn’t oblivious to the intimacy of this. Sam dried her legs, and then he picked her up as if she were Bridget Martane or Laurie Fischer and carried her out to the porch to his bed.
The last thing Antoinette remembered was the feel of something warm covering her. She drifted into a deep sleep immediately.
It was much later when she awoke. She’d been dreaming that an alligator wanted to share her island. She was fighting him with her pathetic little stick, and he was croaking, opening his mouth to show rows of huge yellow teeth. She sat up, her hands covering her face, and for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was or why.
Strong arms pulled her back down, and she was cradled against the long length of Sam’s body. “Bad dreams?” he asked softly, his warm breath caressing her ear.
“Am I really here?”
“You really are.”
“I thought I was going to die.”
His arms tightened around her. “I thought you were dead,” he admitted. “I stood on the bank of Bayou Midnight and looked at the place where your car went over the side, and I thought you were in it.”
“I almost was. Leonce wouldn’t let them kill me. But then, he was the one—” the words caught in her throat and she had to force them out “—he was the one who took me to that horrible place.”
“He was afraid that if he left you somewhere the others could find easily, they might return for you. Leonce had already alerted the police about what the men had planned before they even stumbled on you. I imagine he hoped the police would be waiting at the rig, but he didn’t know for sure. He was trying to protect you.”
“I didn’t feel protected.” She shuddered.
“I know, love.” He stroked her hair. “You’re safe now.” His hand drifted down to her back, and he began to caress it in a motion that wasn’t quite comforting.
“Why did you bring me here?”
His hand stopped, then slipped to the side of her breast, slowly smoothing a fluid line along her torso, down to the narrow indentation of her waist, along the graceful swell of her hip. “Because I wanted to be alone with you.”
And tomorrow he’d go on his way, she thought. Sam was grateful she was all right. The fear he’d felt was making him overreact in his relief. She knew him well enough to know that tomorrow he would be silent and withdrawn. Her car was gone and he would drive her back to New Orleans, but once there they would say another goodbye. The pattern was too clear for her to ever be fooled again. “Please don’t do that.” She rolled over so that she was facing away from him.
He turned, too, pulling her body to fit into the curves of his own. His hand began to stroke her breast. “Let me love you. I know you’re here in my arms, but I just can’t quite believe it yet.”
She needed to believe it, too, but she tried to struggle free. “Please, Sam.”
“When I thought you were dead, I wanted to die, too.”
She had thought of him constantly on the island. She had remembered the way his hands felt stroking her body, remembered the way his lips felt on hers. She had thought of him because, with him, she was completely alive. Facing death, that memory had been crystal clear.
“I kept thinking of this,” she whispered. “Lying here in this bed with your arms around me. I kept remembering.” Her voice caught in a sob.
“Don’t cry. Let me love the tears away.”
She stopped struggling. Making love to Sam wasn’t a question of right or wrong. It was a question of being willing to face the truth: when morning came, they would once again go their separate ways. But, oh, she needed this right now. She needed to melt into him and feel his strength. She needed to feel the heat flooding her body and the miracle of merging with the man she loved. It wouldn’t be wrong, only dangerous. And after this day the danger seemed a small consideration.
“Antoinette, I—”
“No!” She turned to face him again. “Don’t say anything. I don’t want you to say anything. Just love me. And don’t be gentle.”
He pushed her to her back, covering her face with kisses. His mouth traced a path to her ear, lingering there as his hands pulled up the T-shirt and found the silken skin of her breasts. There was nothing gentle about his caresses, but he took painstaking care to arouse her. She would know she was alive when he was finished, and she would be his in a way no one had ever been. That thought alone was enough to inflame him until he was so ready to sink into her that his control was stretched to the limit.
Sam had always been a thoughtful lover, but tonight Antoinette felt as if he were inside her head, reading her thoughts and acting on her desires. She had never felt this sense of oneness with him. He knew what she needed and gave it to her with nothing held back. His hands touched her in ways she hadn’t experienced before, and she felt herself moving closer and closer to an explosion of fulfillment. His mouth tormented her breasts and traveled down her stomach to rest at the juncture of her thighs. He lingered there only long enough to bring her one step closer before he lifted her hips in his hands and fit himself slowly inside her.
She groaned when they were one. She knew, finally, that she was really there, that everything that was happening was real. She felt his life pulsating in the deepest part of her, and she knew that, whatever tomorrow brought, this was where she needed to be tonight.
She stroked his chest, then felt the firm, muscle-padded skin of his back, the cool, smooth skin of his buttocks. She let her hands drift to his neck and shoulders. Her hands encountered gauze and the unmistakable feel of adhesive tape. Suddenly she was afraid. “Sam? Were you hurt looking for me?”
“No, I was hurt looking for me.” He kissed her, cutting off more questions. He leaned on his elbows, cradling her face in his hands. He wanted this moment to go on forever. She was his now. It was indisputable. But after they made love, after he explained his new insights to her, would she still be?
He began to move, slowly but with strength. They fit together as if constructed for that purpose alone. He could feel her warmth mold to him. Each time he moved away, he could feel the loss. She was part of him in a way that was so elemental, he understood that, even if she left him, she would only be taking him with her.
Antoinette shuddered with the force of each thrust. She never wanted this to end. She held back, trying not to spur him to finish quickly. She gloried in each movement, in every touch of his skin, in every twist of his body. She was floating, but not away from him—no, never away from him again. She was his. He was making her his. And if that was only true for tonight, it was more than she had ever expected to have again. Much, much more.
Finally there was no control. Perhaps in heaven pleasure was limitless, but on earth it was destined to end before it could begin once more. Wrapped together, they found their release, holding on as if in the finding they might lose something even more precious.
Antoinette didn’t want to talk. She wanted to lie there in Sam’s arms and pretend that what she’d felt as he made love to her was more t
han just a reflection of her own needs. She lay very still, willing herself to fall asleep. Sam was stroking her hair, and she tried to relax and give in to the weariness of body and soul. But she could not.
Sam knew she was still awake. He could feel a slight tension in the body that had been so totally relaxed. He had hoped they could both get some sleep before they tackled the problems between them, but he knew now that wasn’t going to happen.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, still stroking her hair.
She hadn’t thought about it—there had been too many other needs to have met. But she was hungry. She realized she was starving, and she didn’t want to talk until she’d had something to eat. “Yes.”
“I have some canned vegetable soup that’ll probably taste like gourmet fare about now.” He kissed her forehead and slid to the side of the bed. Standing, he took dry jeans from a peg on the wall and slipped them on. The soup was already heating when he heard her behind him.
She was still wearing the T-shirt and nothing else. He realized he’d never gotten around to taking it off her, and he admired the way the well-washed knit clung to the curves of her body. He almost liked it better than the very feminine gown she’d worn the last time they were there. In the gentle glow of his kerosene lantern, she was the most compelling vision he’d ever seen. He knew, without a doubt, that for the next fifty years he would think exactly the same thing each time they were alone like this.
“How did you know where to find me?” Antoinette sat at the small cable-spool table and watched Sam at the stove. The light from the kerosene lantern illuminated his hair with burnished highlights and set off the tanned fitness of his body. Only the white patch of gauze spoiled the perfect image.
“Leonce told the police. They called Didi, knowing that Martin and I could get there before they could.”
“What were you doing down here?”
“Looking for you.”
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