by Nancy Gideon
A cryptic smile. “That’s out back, too.” He started to pass her the broom he’d been using to clean off the porch, then stopped.
Insulted by his hesitation, Brigit snatched it from him. “Don’t worry. I know how to use one as well as ride one.” As soon as he stepped inside, she began to apply it with a vengeance. Just because she didn’t like to be inconvenienced by chores didn’t mean she was incapable of doing them when it meant having a more palatable place to stay. By the time Giles return to give her the all-clear, she was sweeping the last of the floor clean.
“Don’t forget to leave a tip for the attendant,” he said.
She pushed by him without comment, taking the roll of toilet paper he extended.
“Out back” meant stepping into a wilderness. She paid no attention until after she’d seen to her immediate needs, pleased to note that there was a seat, a covered tin for the roll of paper, and a hook for a lantern so she wouldn’t be caught unaware by anything that had the bad luck to intrude upon her. She wasn’t afraid of bugs or spiders, but she didn’t want to share a bathroom with them any more than she looked forward to sharing the small cabin with Giles St. Clair.
Pressing matters relieved, Brigit studied the backyard and understood what Giles had meant about the shower. There was a huge catchwater cistern and, from it, two taps, one low to fill a bucket and one high with a spray attachment.
Showering would be done in cold water in clear view of the neighborhood, where only one pair of watching eyes gave her pause.
Giles had unrolled the rug and mattress tickings on the two stacked beds and was busy stocking the cupboards. He didn’t turn when he heard her enter through the back door. “Find everything?”
“Everything except electricity, running water, and a bathtub.”
“Those were next on my list of upgrades. They never seemed that important when a group of us guys got together.”
She took in the traps, snares, fishing poles, and nets inside the open closet. “To hunt alligators?”
Giles went still for a moment. “That would be poaching, and that’s illegal.”
“So what did you do way out here with no satellite dish for ESPN?”
“Hunt, fish, play cards, bullshit with my father, cousins, friends. Guy stuff.”
She sat down in the obviously feminine chair, finding it wonderfully comfortable. At the first sound of its rockers, Giles turned, and his features betrayed a raw slash of emotion quickly concealed by his gruff “Be careful with that. It’s old.”
“I will,” she promised. He was asking her to have a care for the memories it held. Of what woman? Had he brought that female whose picture he carried in his wallet?
And now he’d brought her.
“We’ve got everything we need,” he continued. “There’s distilled water for drinking and brushing your teeth, a camp stove for cooking, fireplace for heat, lanterns and candles for light. And no way to get here unless you know where you’re going.”
She wasn’t comforted. “What if the man from the store gives directions?”
“Sammy? Never happen. I’ve known him since I was a baby. I learned everything I know about engines in his garage.”
“And everything about life from Melva?”
He gave his explosive “Ha!” of a laugh at that arch observation. “Melva’s never looked at another man except Sammy. She’s like a mama to me.”
“You let your mama kiss you on the lips . . . with tongue?”
Again a total shutdown of emotion followed by a brief “No.”
Brigit told herself it was because there was nothing to distract her from her curiosity. It wasn’t like she was really interested in her jailer’s history. She continued to rock while he sorted and stacked the canned goods into neat rows by food type.
“You said you had sisters. Do they live around here?”
He blinked. “I’m surprised you remembered that. I don’t really know. We don’t keep in touch.”
“After you went east?”
That shocked him. “Why would you think that?”
“Your accent on certain words. You may be from here, but you’ve lived there.”
A faint smile. “That was a long time ago. I didn’t know it showed.”
“Work or college?”
“Why would you think I went to college?”
“Because you’re obviously not as uncivilized as you’d like people to think.”
“Didn’t know that showed, either.” Another small smile. “I got drafted on an athletic scholarship.”
“Football or basketball?”
“Golf. Why are you laughing? I handle a mean nine iron.”
“Just trying to picture you in those loud plaid pants.”
“I’ll have you know I wore a very conservative check.”
Smiling, she asked, “What did you major in?”
Just like that, the companionable mood was gone. “I never graduated. I can heat up some water if you’d like to wash up.” Conversation over.
“That would be nice.”
A family he didn’t visit. An education he didn’t finish. A lover whose picture he still carried.
Finding out his secrets may give her more leverage, she thought, than returning to his bed.
They were sitting down to canned beef stew for their evening meal when Brigit began chipping away. “Why did Melva call you Robby?”
Giles glanced across the table, his steady stare telling her that she was teetering on the edge of off-limits. “Not Robby. Rob E. It’s for Robichaux. Swamp folk pronounce it Rob-E Chocks.”
“I thought your name was St. Clair.”
“Robichaux was my daddy’s name. I took on St. Clair for my mama’s sake when she married my stepfather. I was gonna change it back . . . but things happened.”
“Around the same time you lost track of them?”
“ ‘Bout then,” he volunteered tightly. “Anything else about me you’re just dying to know?”
“How long have you been in love with Tina Babineau?”
He choked on his coffee, sputtering, “What? What the hell would make you think something like that?”
“The fact that you look like you’re thinking about strangling me.”
“I don’t need you to ask a ridiculous question to want to do that. No. I am not now, nor have I ever been, in love with Tina Babineau. For one thing, she’s another man’s wife, and for another—” He broke off.
“She’s a monster, like me?” Brigit supplied.
“She’s nothing like you. I was going to say she’s a guest in the house where I work.”
“So was I, but that didn’t stop you from tearing off my clothes.”
His lips gripped tight as he held her stare. Finally, he said, “Tina is a fine lady whom I respect.”
“Ah, there’s the difference,” Brigit drawled out.
He looked as though he might have something more to say but decided to keep it to himself.
Brigit surged out of her chair and carried her nearly full plate to the back door. Opening it, she flung the contents outside.
“That’s not a good idea. You’ll attract vermin.”
She turned to glare at him. “Outside, inside, what’s the difference. I’m tired. I’m going to bed. And for your information, I prefer to be on top.”
The lights had long since been extinguished, and the darkness was as complete as the feelings crowding Brigit’s heart.
She lay awake inside her sleeping bag on the top bunk, staring at the ceiling until her eyes burned. Probably from the acrid scent of the cigarette Giles had been outside smoking before coming to lie down on the bunk beneath her.
Probably because there’d been no offer for her to lie down next to him.
Not like she wanted him, anyway. Human. Nobody. She’d had Shifter royalty ask for those favors, only to laugh and deny them.
Where were all those illustrious proposals now? Where was Daniel Guedry with his sultry promises?
How had
she so quickly lost everything she’d scrambled to attain?
She shouldn’t have brought up his feelings for her half sister. That was a grave miscalculation. Women like Tina and Kendra inspired men, good and bad, to heroic thoughts and deeds. They were worshipped and revered. And loved. She, they indulged and lusted after but never respected. Never.
She hadn’t begrudged Kendra her effect on the opposite sex. The lovely, gentle blonde did nothing to inspire or manipulate it, nor was she comfortable with it. Kendra, like Tina, glowed with an internal goodness that Brigit could never claim. She was a little too strong-willed, a little too sharp-tongued, a little too voluptuous for men to think her helpless. Helpless was something she’d never been . . . until now.
The other thing about women like Kendra and Tina was that they were easily duped. They couldn’t see beyond a smile to the bad intention behind it. That was why they needed to be protected in a way she would never need to be, protected from those like her.
It had been ridiculously simple to earn Tina’s trust. A little girl talk, a little attention, the smile that hid all the things she’d been prepared to do. Tina bought in to them all. Someone that naive deserved to be taken advantage of, Brigit justified, ignoring the pang of conscience that made her shift restlessly in the borrowed bed. If she’d ever been that gullible, she’d have been dead at Oscar’s age.
She and Silas had fought and sacrificed to make a life for themselves and for Kendra. The perfect life that had eluded her. The life their parents had wanted for them. The life they deserved. Their name accepted, their honor restored. She was to have her royal match with Daniel Guedry, and Silas was to have Kendra, the one he’d always adored with such chivalrous, hands-off good intentions. Then everything had gone to hell in a hurry. Daniel’s death. Silas wed. Kendra a political prisoner. Brigit a hunted fugitive.
Why had the Terriot killer gone to such dangerous extremes to come after her?
Her throat tightened when she thought of that monster in the same room with Tina and her child, at how close she’d come to losing them through her prideful recklessness. She shouldn’t have waited. She should have spoken up the second she suspected there was danger.
Who was going to protect her now? Her human one-night stand who didn’t respect her enough to acknowledge anything had passed between them other than sarcastic words?
At the moment, he was all she had to stand between her and the outrage of two powerful clans. All she could do was hang on to him. And hope he didn’t have to die in the process.
nine
“Rob-E? Where you at, boy?”
The loud cry woke Brigit from a sound sleep. Someone was in the cabin. She lay flat and unmoving, scarcely breathing, but the intruder discovered her with a crowing laugh.
“Hey, hey. Who dat be up there? Come out, come out, and let me get a look atchu. Don’t be afraid, darlin’. I’m a lover, not a fighter. Maggie, is that you?”
Maggie?
Brigit’s head popped up above the bed frame to witness the surprise and slow smile of the man below. He was devilishly handsome, with chiseled features, wavy black hair, and eyes of laser-bright blue.
“Well, hello. And who might you be?”
“Who’s Maggie?” Brigit growled.
A laugh. “Now, that there’s something you can take up with Rob-E. I’m Boyd, his better-looking and better-dressed cousin. And you are?”
“Brigit, his better-looking, better-dressed houseguest.”
His grin widened to display a charming flash of dimples. “Why, I am mighty pleased to meet you, Miz Brigit. It is Miz, not Missus, isn’t it?”
“If I was a missus, I wouldn’t be here with your cousin.”
“Then you and him are . . . ?”
“That’s something I’ll let you take up with him.”
“Damn, girl, no wonder he’s keeping you way out here all to himself. You’re a sassy one, ain’tcha? Where’s that boy at?”
The sound of a pistol cocking was followed by Giles’s soft drawl as he stepped in from the front porch. “Right behind you.”
Boyd turned toward him slowly with hands partially raised, but his grin never faltered. “You gonna shoot me for trying to make a little go-go with your gal?”
“Only if I thought you’d have any luck with it.”
“Best be pulling the trigger, then.”
Giles let the hammer settle and scooped the smaller man up in a mighty bear hug. While they were grinning and slapping each other on the back, Brigit slipped out of the upper bunk, dismayed by her soiled, slept-in clothes and snarled hair. Boyd pulled out of his cousin’s embrace to ask, “Who is this fetching creature you got out here in the woods with you? If this is a kidnapping, I will rescue you, fair lady.”
Brigit’s smile took on a speculative pout. “In fact, I am his prisoner.”
“Of love,” Giles added smoothly. His arm was about her shoulders, nearly squeezing the breath out of her, before she had a chance to blink. “She’s my fiancée, T-Boy, so don’t get any ideas.”
“Well, now, this is a cause for celebration. When you coming up to the house to share the news?”
Tension ripped through the big frame she was wedged against as Giles said simply, “I don’t think that’s gonna happen, Boyd. You’re welcome to stay for some coffee, if you like, then you’d best be on your way.”
“ ‘On your way,’ ” Boyd mocked. “Like it hasn’t been over ten years? You forget we’re family?”
“I’m not forgetting anything.”
The piercing blue eyes grew serious. “Maybe it’s time you did.” Then he laughed. “What’s your pretty lady gonna think of us, scrapping like a couple of pups? I’d like some of that god-awful strong coffee before you send me packing.”
Obligingly, Giles moved to the counter, giving Boyd the chance to steal up close to Brigit and take her in his arms, crooning, “Let me be the first to kiss the bride-to-be.”
As his lips touched warmly to Brigit’s, they both froze, staring into each other’s eyes with a shock of recognition. Boyd stepped back, his wide grin flickering. “Rob, whilst you’re making the coffee, your miz-soon-to-be-missus and me are going to step out for some air. I want to get a look at that fireball hair in the sunlight.”
Already involved in the task of putting water to boil, Giles didn’t have a chance to object before Boyd was propelling her out onto the porch. His grip on her arm was fierce as he leaned in to hiss, “He doesn’t know.”
“How could he not?”
How could Giles not know his cousin was a Shape-shifter? She’d picked up the Glimmer Boyd gave off the instant he touched her, just as he’d realized the same from her.
“That’s the way my daddy wanted it. His mama and my mama were sisters. There’s no shared blood between us. He left here before I came into my own. Does he know what you are?”
“Yes.”
Boyd took that with a grunt of surprise. “Fancy that. What’s your family, girl?”
“MacCreedy.” As she answered, she had time to examine the scent signature Boyd emitted, and her pulse began to hurry at its familiarity. “And yours? What clan are you?”
“Guedry.”
They heard Giles approach the door. Boyd leaned close again to whisper, “Don’t say anything to him until I have a chance to speak to my family. Will you do that for me?”
She nodded numbly. How could she tell Giles that part of his family belonged to a clan that had sworn to kill her?
Over harsh black coffee, Brigit watched the interplay between the two men with interest. They’d obviously grown up together and had been extremely close, but there was a recent tension she guessed had to do with Giles’s alienation from his home.
She recognized Boyd as more than just a fellow Shifter. He was a player. Beneath the harmless mischief, there was a glint of larceny in his eyes. She read a kindred hunger in them, an edge of restless urgency she understood all too well. And she read his attraction to her, regardless—or maybe becau
se of—Giles’s warning to stay away.
Boyd was someone she could use who wouldn’t mind her doing it. But not if she looked like she’d been dragged behind a truck.
Brigit stood, drawing both men’s attention. “I’m such a mess. You boys keep on talking while I take a quick shower. Boyd, don’t you go leaving while I’m gone, you hear?”
He grinned at her honeyed accent that so easily mimicked his. “Wouldn’t dream of it, darlin’.”
She sorted through her quickly packed bag for fresh clothing and her toiletry pouch, then, with a towel over her shoulder, stepped out the back door.
Standing in the cold spray was like jumping into an early-spring lake. Once Brigit got over the shock, the chill was refreshing. And then there was the delicious clean factor. She lathered her hair and scrubbed every inch of her skin that still smelled of fatigue and travel and faintly of Giles St. Clair. Boyd must have noticed that, too. She took her time. Who was going to see her in the shower? Boyd, if she was lucky, but she doubted that Giles would allow him to take a peek. So she’d have to tempt him with what she could safely display.
She was shivering by the time she pulled on her clothes and loosely braided her damp hair. But the instant she reentered the cabin, the burn of both men’s stares could have dried her like a heat lamp.
She wore the leopard-print jersey dress she’d purchased in New Orleans. The low-cut side wrap of soft, stretchy fabric cradled unfettered breasts made unmistakable perky by the cold. Her legs, toned and tanned by hours at the Terriots’ gym and pool, were bared beneath the short hemline, and her painted toenails winked with a playful glittery polish in the bronze gladiator-style sandals. When she bent over to stuff her ruined jumpsuit into her suitcase, the clingy dress made it apparent she wore nothing below the waist, either.
She smiled sweetly as she turned around. “Now, that was eye-opening. I’ve never showered naked in the great outdoors before. I recommend it to get the juices flowing.”
Boyd’s grin was pure wickedness. “Only if you’ll wash my back, darlin’. ’Sides, there don’t seem to be nothing wrong with my juices at the moment.”
Pretending to be embarrassed by his candor, Brigit slanted a look at Giles, who appeared irritatingly unmoved by their flirtation. “I don’t think my big old honey bear would approve of me sharing suds with another man, would you, darlin’?”