Worth a Thousand Words

by Doreen Alsen

  “Where’s that?”

  “Go back to Main Street and take a right at the long narrow road to the harbor. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks, lady.”

  Birdie waited until they were out of hearing distance then jogged back into the lobby, to the front desk. She pulled the landline phone’s receiver. “Hallo, Katelyn? It’s Birdie McCorkle. Here’s what I need you to do.”

  ****

  “Who are you looking for?” Katelyn Sullivan furrowed her brow, looking for all the world like she was scouring her brain for a memory. “I don’t know any Angelique Durand.”

  “Short blonde hair, scar on her cheek,” a photographer said.

  “Scar? Oh, you must mean Angie Doucette. She and Tim were here but they didn’t stay long. They told me they wanted to check out something at the Venus Gallery.”

  “Venus Gallery? Where’s that?”

  “Sounds like a sex club,” one of the other photographers said, looking hopeful.

  Katelyn shook her head. “Oh no, it’s an art gallery on Maple Ave. They’re open longer today than usual because of a new exhibit being installed.”

  The photographers left in a clump, all of them trying to get through the door at the same time. Katelyn laughed and picked up the phone. “Abigail, it’s Katelyn Sullivan from Mariner’s. A bunch of paparazzi are on their way to the Gallery, looking for Angie and Tim Baldwin.” She rolled her eyes while she listened. “I know they’re not there. I want you to send them somewhere else they’re not going to be.” She grinned. “That’s right. I knew we could count on you.”

  ****

  “Look mister, we’ve been to the Sea Crest Inn, Mariner’s Fish Fry, the Venus Gallery, Murphy’s Bar, and the Sang Freud Coffee House, where some waitress named Melanie told us to come here. Are Angelique Durand and T. L. Baldwin here?”

  Sal, owner of Sal’s Pizza, which was part of the local bowling alley Lobster Lanes, stroked his chin as he thought. “Could still be here. Or maybe they went on out to The Red Club, right on the outskirts of town on Second Street. You’re welcome to stay and look around, in case they’re still here.”

  “The Red Club.”

  “Oh yeah. Real friendly place. They ought to make you feel right at home.”

  Sal and the customer he was serving watched the motley crew stroll out of the bowling alley. “Sal, you realize that you sent them“

  “To a BDSM club? Ayuh, I did.” He rapped his knuckles against the counter. “Oughtta keep ’em busy.”

  ****

  “I’m sorry. I’ve signed confidentiality agreements with my guests. I can’t tell you who’s here and who isn’t.” Jessie Michaels, owner of the Red Club said.

  “What is this? Some kind of secret society or something?”

  Another photographer, who’d already figured out the lay of the land said, “Or something.”

  “I’m going to need you to leave right now,” Jessie said in tones that meant she was way beyond serious.

  “We won’t take pictures inside, I promise.”

  “I don’t believe you and you won’t get inside no way, no how.” Jessie raised her eyebrows. “Please go away and leave my guests in peace.”

  “Is something wrong, Jessie?” Caleb Drake, dressed in the leather uniform of his Dungeon Master position came out to stand next to Jessie. Without a shirt, he looked mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

  Was probably all that leather covering the rest of his body.

  Maybe the whip he held in his right hand. He looked like he knew how to use it.

  “Nothing I can’t handle.” Jessie tossed her hair over her shoulder. “You need to leave before I call the police,” she told the assembled crowd.

  “You heard the lady,” Caleb growled. “Get out of here.”

  The paparazzi, grumbling mightily, moved back the pre-requisite number of feet away from the Red Club.

  “I think they’re in there,” one pap said to another one.

  “Oh yeah. Me too. Imagine the bucks we can get for pictures of Angelique Durand leaving a bondage club.”

  The boys settled in for the night, visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “Where are we going?” Angelique limped alongside Tim. She’d taken off her shoes after he’d deposited her in his car.

  “Here.” Tim stopped. “No one will think to look for us here.”

  She looked around. “This is a cemetery.”

  “That is correct. This is the Lobster Cove cemetery.” He grinned at her. “The best place we can hide.”

  Sun washed down over the well-manicured grass plots, the pristine white marble grave markers decorated with rafts of summer flowers and tiny American flags that fluttered wildly in the sea breeze.

  “It’s morbid,” she murmured, her Cajun superstition and fear of the spooky kicking into high gear.

  “It’s private.” He opened the huge metal gate and ushered her in, then closed the gate behind them. “And it’s broad daylight. No one will even think to look for us here.”

  Her skin started to itch. “I suppose it could be.”

  “What? Are you afraid of ghosts?”

  “No,” she lied.

  “Don’t be scared, Sparky. I’ve got a particle accelerator in my pocket, and I know how to use it.”

  She slanted her eyes. “I’ve heard it called all kinds of things before, but never that.”

  “Hey, baby, don’t you know? I got me a veritable proton pack.”

  “Of course you do.” Sighing, she stopped in her tracks. “Really. Why are we here?”

  “I wanted to get you where we won’t be interrupted, and where you can’t run away from me so easy.” He reached out and pushed a lock of her hair off her face. “You’ve got to hear me out.”

  Her ears buzzed. She didn’t exactly expect to have this conversation in the Lobster Cove cemetery. She bit her lower lip. Any glossy shine of color that had been there earlier in the day she’d already chewed off, and she felt at a loss.

  No lipstick, no control. Sizzling red lipstick was only one weapon in her arsenal, but it was a damn good one.

  He was right, though. They did have a lot to talk about. “Go ahead.”

  He took a deep breath. “What I did to you was selfish. And you were right. At first, when I didn’t know you, it was all about getting my ability to take pictures back, the ability to get that just-perfect shot. But the more I got to know you?” He shook his head as he took her hands. “I saw the beautiful woman, both inside and out. You let me in and let me see your vulnerability. Your sweetness. Your strength.” He looked at the ground. “You’re a very strong woman, Angelique. Don’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t.” He brought her hands up to his mouth and brushed his lips across her knuckles.

  Oh, he was saying all the right things, all the things she’d dreamed he’d say. She wanted to trust him.

  She had, however, believed pretty words and trusted the wrong people in the past. “You had to know how horrible those pictures would make me feel.”

  He hung his head. “I admit that at first, taking those candids of you were all about the rush of having my power back. I rationalized it by telling myself I could bring you around to my point of view.”

  Ouch. Yet she’d asked for honesty. “At the expense of my power.”

  “And I truly hate that I did that to you. I should have been up front and asked if you’d pose for me.”

  She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have.”

  “Yeah, I figured that. I should have tried to talk you into it, trust my Iraq work to convince you how I saw you. That I wouldn’t exploit you.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  He nodded. “But I didn’t. And I’m so sorry.” He looked out to sea. “Like I told you, I’m going to a counselor, for, you know. The PTSD. I’ve been a couple of times.”

  “That’s good.” She licked her lips. “I’m glad.”

  “I’m doing it for you.” />
  Alarm skittered up her spine. “Oh, Tim. Don’t do it for me. Do it for you.”

  His smile was rueful. “My therapist says the same thing. But here’s the other thing. You deserve a whole man, a man who can give you the best life possible. The man who can make all your dreams come true, without you worrying if he’s going to fall apart every time a car engine backfires.”

  Tears swam in her eyes. “Tim, I“

  “I can be that man for you.”

  She shook her head. “I want you to beat your demons for you, not for me. Lord knows, I’m not totally together. I’m damaged, just like you.”

  “I need you. You have no idea how much. I haven’t been able to eat, sleep, anything without you. If you forgive me and stay with me, I will move heaven and earth to make it up to you, to make you happy. Please tell me it’s not too late.”

  Was it too late? Were they too far gone for each other?

  How could she possibly know?

  ****

  She’d been silent for too long. It couldn’t mean anything good.

  “There’s another reason to bring you here,” he said, desperation riding him hard. He let go of one hand and pulled her by the other. Dragging her from one family plot to another, he finally stopped in front of one with a stone border around the large plot with the name Sinclair styled on all the gravestones enclosed within. Some of the stones were old and well-aged by the weather. “Here.” He stepped over the stone border and pulled her in with him, then pointed. “Look there. There’s Rab and Lisbeth Sinclair. Rab was the town blacksmith and loved Lisbeth from afar for practically all his life.”

  He looked at Angelique and willed her to understand. “She finally understood and reciprocated his love and here they are. Together for eternity.” He spread his arms. “An actual monument to their love and the life they made with each other.”

  “What? How do you know this?”

  “Local legend. Everyone around here grows up knowing the story of Rab and Lisbeth Sinclair.”

  He had to make her see. “Just look around and you’ll find others just like them. Honest men and women who took a chance on each other and their happily ever afters.”

  She turned her head this way and that, clearly lost.

  “How about this? I’m pretty sure we’ve lost the reporters. How about I take you to the beach where I first fell in love with you?”

  She took a couple of deep breaths then looked at him. “You know the place? The exact moment?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  Damn.

  As he led her out of the cemetery he tried not to think about how even though he’d spoken of love, of his sincere devotion to her, she had not uttered one word of love for him.

  She was listening to him. He assured himself that was the important thing.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  “Looks like they haven’t set up camp here yet,” Tim said as he pulled into his driveway, turned off the ignition, and pulled up the hand brake.

  Angelique breathed a sigh of relief and nodded. “Merci au bon Dieu for small favors.”

  They’d taken a side trip to Jeff’s place to fetch Chester. Fortunately, Jeff had managed to grab the dog and take him home while she and Tim hid away from the paparazzi. Beth also had the foresight to pick up Angelique’s bag.

  “Come in with me?” Tim unlatched his seat belt.

  “Yes.” Her heart beat a little bit faster.

  He carried her to his front door since she still didn’t have any shoes on. After setting her down to open the door, he picked her up again and carried her inside. “Let’s go to the beach.”

  She nodded. He took her to the beach and set her down on the cool sand.

  “I’d seen you before, during Jeff and Beth’s wedding reception at the Yacht Club. You were walking on the beach. I thought you were an angel sent to tempt me with your hair tangling in the breeze, with the amazingness of your body.” He reached out and tucked an errant blonde curl behind her ear. “Then I got home and you were here, right next door. I didn’t think. I just started taking pictures. I never intended to do it more than the once, but I couldn’t stop. I know it was wrong,” he shook his head, “so wrong, but you gave me back something more essential to me than breathing. Please forgive me.”

  Angelique searched his face trying to see the truth. She wanted to believe, she wanted to forgive and fall into his arms. But there was one more thing she had to see. “Can I see the pictures?”

  “Are you sure you want to see them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I’ll bring them down.”

  She sat and stared out at the foaming waves while she waited for Tim to come back. The bubbling surf imitated the churning going on in her stomach.

  She continued to sit on his beach stairs.

  He told her the pictures he’d taken were beautiful. That he saw something she didn’t see.

  How she hoped he was right.

  He dropped and sat on the steps next to her. “Here. If you don’t like them, I’ll burn them and destroy every trace they ever existed. I’ll never take another photograph in my life.”

  Her hands trembled as she took the book.

  “Do you want me to open it for you?”

  “No.” She shook her head. This, she had to do for herself. She lifted the cover.

  And didn’t believe what she saw.

  Yes, the pictures were of her, but only because she remembered the events he’d caught. The woman was someone she had never met.

  That woman smiled freely, laughed without reservation, danced with abandon along the waves. She twirled and spun. She knelt beside a child and watched a crab or some such on a sand bar at low tide.

  None of the pictures showed a damaged woman with a scar. They showed a woman with a lot of life to give and to live.

  They showed the love the man held for the woman he was taking the pictures of.

  Tears welled in her eyes as she turned to look at him. “I don’t know who this person is.”

  He smiled a smile so gentle and with so much love. “She’s you. The woman I love. The woman I respect. The woman I can’t live without.”

  “I will disappoint you. I always disappoint people in the end.”

  “You will never disappoint me.” He stood and helped her up. “You can’t.”

  He swung her into his arms, carried her inside, and up the stairs to his bedroom, where he laid her on his bed like she was made of spun sugar and twice as sweet and fragile. “I love you.”

  “I love you.” Oh, her heart was so full it broke in two to hold all the love she had for him.

  They made love, all soft kisses and gentle touches, poignant and full of promises. Every whisper, every caress was a benediction. Then, in the aftermath, they fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms, bones melted together in peaceful, sated happiness.

  ****

  Angelique awoke to the sound of her phone blowing up. She leaned over the side of the bed feeling around for her purse. Fumbling, she located it and slid her cell on.

  “Angelique! Finally! What’s going on there?” Lucien demanded.

  “Um,” She shook her head. She was still sleepy and in a love coma. “You woke me up.”

  “I bet. Go online and check out TMZ then call me back. Immediately.” Plbbbbt, he was gone.

  She frowned.

  “What is it?” Tim’s voice was lower and gruffer than usual due to the early hour.

  “Lucien called. He wants me to go online and check out TMZ.”

  “Let me get my laptop.”

  He did and they fired it up.

  “Oh. My. God.” Angelique pressed her fingers against her mouth. “All those scumballs are camped outside the Red Club waiting for us to come out.”

  “No wonder Lucien got a little bit bent.” Tim chuckled.

  She swatted his arm.

  “Ow!”

  “This isn’t funny! It isn’t funny at all!”
She all but cried it.

  “I’ve got an idea. We’re going to give those bottom feeders a story they won’t forget.” He hopped out of bed. “Call your brother; tell him we’ve got everything under control. In fact, tell him to stay tuned to the live feed.” He squinted at her. “You do still trust me to take care of you?”

  “From Lucien?” Angelique knew better. “I imagine he’s already on his way here to rescue me from whips and chains in a dungeon.”

  “Just call him and tell him to stay put. I’ve got it all under control.”

  She sighed. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Oh yeah,” he assured her. “Just trust me.”

  “Well, from your mouth to God’s ears.”

  “You just watch me, Sparky. Just watch me.”

  ****

  Angelique recognized the road out of town heading to the Red Club. Really, who knew that the small, roll-up-the-sidewalks-at-nine-o’clock Lobster Cove would have such a thing.

  Not that she was a prude. There was a BDSM club on every corner in New Orleans. She might have even gone to one a time or two, not that she’d ever admit, publically, to it.

  A girl had to have a few secrets, right?

  Tim pulled his Mercedes up to a curb about two blocks away from the club. “Let’s walk.”

  “Walk?”

  “Yeah, you know that thing you do when you put one foot in front of the other in order to get from place to place?”

  “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “Can’t help it. It’s my parents’ cross to bear.” He chuckled and made her ache to kick him in the shins. “I want them to see us coming from a place that is not the club. A place where we couldn’t have snuck out the back door or in the laundry bins, whatever. They’re going to see we were never there. Here’s the thing.” He looked a little unsure of himself. “I do want you on board with this.”

  “Ooooo-kay.” She really didn’t like the sound of this.

  “It’s going to mean facing the press. They’re going to take our picture.”

  “They are?”

  “I’m counting on it.” He practically rubbed his hands in glee. “As long as you’re okay with it. It’ll be good, I promise. Do you trust me?”