He lowered his head and kissed her, his arms caging her body, so connected they moved as one. Each thrust drove them closer together. He heard the soft sounds she made not with his ears but with his heart. She was his—for this sun-dappled afternoon. His as they reached for heaven. His for all time.
After, with Christine lying replete in his arms, he stared at the shadows the fan cast on the ceiling. His. He’d keep her safe—no matter what.
She snuggled closer to his side. “By tomorrow I should be able to help search for Desdemona.”
His body stiffened, the tension in his neck so tight it threatened to snap. “No.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder and stared at him. “No?”
“No.”
She donned the polite mask that hid the real Christine and pulled away from him.
That pulling away tore at his soul. He reached an arm out and caught her. She didn’t understand. “My sister…”
“Loving me must be terrifying for you.”
He took a deep, relieved breath. She understood him. She understood that the thought of losing her paralyzed him.
“You can’t pack me in cotton.”
He could try.
She traced his tensed jaw line with the tip of her finger. “Love is scarier than all of Desdemona’s demons combined, isn’t it?”
It was. Yet, Christine, a woman petrified by betrayal, had put aside her fears and let him into her heart. If he wanted to stay there, he had to put aside his fears as well.
The fan whirred, voices from the street and a gull’s sharp cry slipped through the window, the sheets rustled as Christine shifted her legs.
She waited.
He glanced around her room—sophisticated, feminine, so very like her.
There were two ways he could lose her. If he asked her to be less than she was, she’d eventually leave him. That was a certainty. If she continued on her current path—fighting bokos, running from mobs, facing down voodoo witches—she might die, but she’d be her glorious self until she drew her final breath.
He couldn’t ask her to give that up.
Drake touched the bloom on her precious cheek, traced the outer edges of her delicate lips. So breakable, so necessary. Then he swallowed—hard. “Where should we look for Desdemona?”
Chapter Twenty
Christine blew a wilting strand of hair away from her face. Next to her, Drake wiped his brow with his handkerchief. Mike, in her ice blue gown that perfectly matched her ice blue eyes, looked unaffected by the tropical feel of the air.
They sat on the patio of Café du Monde, away from the heat of the fryers, hoping for a breeze.
Honey, not vinegar. Christine pasted on a smile. “We’ve been searching for days. If Desdemona was still in New Orleans, we’d have found her by now.”
A breath of air from the river ruffled Mike’s hair. “I have an odd feeling and I can’t leave until we know for sure.”
Christine widened her smile. Putting the ice princess on a northbound train should be simple. It wasn’t. The dratted woman refused to leave. “We could wire you if we find her.”
Drake choked on a bit of beignet.
Mike offered up a cool smile. “That’s kind of you, but I believe I’ll stay.”
Christine would gladly accept all the blame if doing so put Mike on a train. She knew there was nothing between Drake and Mike. There never had been. She believed Drake. She did. But he and Mike had long-standing jokes that left her tilting her head wondering what she’d missed. Mike finished Drake’s sentences. They knew people she’d never heard of. Plus Mike looked like a Norse goddess. What woman wouldn’t want her gone?
Drake’s fingers wrapped around her own made honey not vinegar easier. “Drake and I are the ones who found the water, who removed it from its hiding place. It’s our fault.”
“Something is telling me to stay.”
Around them, people devoured beignets with singular focus. Not Mike. Her pastry still floated untouched on a cloud of sugar.
Christine glared at the bit of fried dough. “They taste best when they’re hot.”
Mike glanced at the beignet as if she hadn’t realized there was a plate sitting in front of her. “It looks…messy.”
It was. Drake’s coat was dusted with sugar. Only the napkin in Christine’s lap had saved her skirts. But was there a hidden meaning to Mike’s words?
Drake squeezed her hand tighter. “Where else should we look?”
They’d looked everywhere. Asked everyone. Even now, Warwick was out talking to ghosts. The woman had vanished.
Mike leaned forward, resting her forearms against the edge of the table. “I think we should…”
Christine let Mike’s voice get lost in the whir of the fans and the sounds from the street. She’d had enough of Mike’s opinions. Christine watched a little boy with a large stick incommode everyone he encountered on the banquette. The lad drew even with their table, looked her straight in the eye, and jerked his chin toward the interior of Café du Monde.
Someone had sent him. Who? Christine stood. “If you’ll excuse me…”
Drake rose from his chair, interrupting Mike’s proposal for searching the prostitutes’ cribs in Storyville.
Christine snorted softly. Wherever Desdemona was, it wasn’t a flea-bitten hole in the wall.
Inside Café du Monde, the boy, a dark-headed child with ridiculously blue eyes, waited for her. “Hector sent me.”
“Oh? Why didn’t he come himself?” She had questions for Hector. Where was he when Yvette abducted her? And, more importantly, did he know where they might find Desdemona?
The child shrugged. “He says New Orleans grows too hot. He is off to Quebec. And”—the boy pulled a folded paper from his pocket and read—“if Desdemona somehow finds the water, drinks of the water, you must cut off her head.”
She’d expected as much, but the thought—decapitating a human being—it made her stomach tighten. She regretted the beignet she’d just eaten. It was a good thing the water was hidden again—in a place no one would ever suspect.
The boy delved farther into his pocket, withdrew a crumpled envelope, and handed it to her. “This is for the blond lady.”
Hector hadn’t even met Mike. Why was he sending her notes?
Before she could ask, the boy dashed out onto the banquette and disappeared into the crowd.
She hurried back to the table and sat before Drake had the opportunity to stand. “I have news.”
“News? Where did you get news?” Drake’s voice carried the thunder of an approaching storm.
“Hector sent a messenger.”
The storm settled on Drake’s face.
“Stop.” She raised her empty hands as if the gesture alone could hold off his anger. “It was a boy. There was no danger.”
“We agreed you’re not to put yourself in needless danger.”
“I wasn’t in any danger. It was a ten-year-old boy.”
Drake shook his head. “Will you listen to me when we’re married?”
Her heart jumped to her throat, hit the roof of her mouth, then skidded back to her stomach. Married?
Mike glanced back and forth between them then rose from the table.
“Wait,” said Christine. “This is for you.” She handed over the envelope. Right now, its contents didn’t interest her nearly as much as what Drake had said. Married?
Mike took Hector’s missive and threaded her way through the tightly packed tables.
Christine watched her go then turned her gaze back to Drake. “You never said anything about marriage before.”
“I thought it was understood.”
“So you just assumed I’d say yes.”
“I had to get your father’s permission. That took some doing.”
She bet it had. Knowing Warwick, he put Drake through absolute hell before offering his blessing. Now it was her turn. “But you assumed I’d say yes.”
He grinned that melting grin of his. The one tha
t made her want to hurry back to her bedroom or his hotel room. “Of course you’ll say yes. We love each other.”
True, but a woman wanted a little romance—wooing. And then there were the practicalities. “Where will we live? What about my shop? What about your job?”
He waved such trifling concerns away with one hand, pushed back from the table, and dropped to one knee.
Around them people fell silent.
Drake reached into his coat and withdrew a small velvet box. He opened it, revealing the largest diamond she’d ever seen. He bit his lips then he cleared his throat. “Christine, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” His words weren’t clipped as usual and his tone—well, his tone was a far cry from the deep timbre she was used to. He sounded positively squeaky when he said wife.
She tore her gaze away from the sparkling ring and looked into his eyes. He might talk as if her answer was a foregone conclusion but she saw a smidge of doubt there.
Was the trickle of sweat on his temple from the heat or nerves? His Adam’s apple bobbed. “We can live wherever you want. I would never expect you to give up your shop. I hope you won’t ask me to give up my job.” The answers to her questions tumbled from his lips.
“If you don’t marry him, I will.” The call came from one of the nearby tables.
Christine laughed. Or maybe it was a sob. She wasn’t in a state to tell the difference. “He’s all mine.” She held out her hand. “Of course I’ll marry you.”
A triumphant grin flashed across his face. “I never thought I could be this happy.” He slipped the ring on her finger, stood, and pulled her to her feet. Then, in front of God and everybody, he pulled her close and kissed her.
His kiss tasted of sugar and chicory. His arms wrapped around her were a safe harbor. The heat of his body had nothing to do with the temperature outside. She pulled away, looked into his eyes, and said, “I’ll love you forever.”
He dropped a kiss on the end of her nose. “I’ll love you longer.”
They were both right.
…
First Zeke, now Drake. The men she’d counted on, her brothers-in-arms, were dropping like flies.
Mike walked toward the river, leaving Drake and Christine to enjoy their moment without her. She didn’t care that no man would ever kneel in front of her wearing that desperate my-heart-is-in-your-hands look. She didn’t.
When a woman towered over most of the men she met, she had to adjust her expectations. When that same woman was a government investigator, even the adjusted expectations disappeared.
Around her gulls dove from the sky, riding invisible air currents. A pelican regarded her from its perch on a pylon. Mike claimed a seat on a bench overlooking the churning water.
She inserted a finger under the flap of the envelope Christine had given her and withdrew a brief letter written in a spidery hand.
Miss Swensen,
We have not met and I cannot see if we will.
The water that gave me eternity also gave me sight—unfortunately that sight is sometimes foggy.
What I can see is that you are the woman who can defeat Desdemona.
Mike lifted her head and looked out over the Mississippi where gulls soared on a breeze she couldn’t feel.
Her gaze returned to Hector’s letter.
She will return to New Orleans and she will bring evil with her. It’s up to you to stop her.
Know this, help will come from unexpected sources. You cannot succeed without it.
A gust from the river snatched the letter from her hands. It swirled in the air with the gulls then landed in the water, floating for a few seconds before sinking to the depths. No matter. The words were imprinted on her brain for all time.
She had a job to do. She was staying in New Orleans.
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About the Author
Julie Mulhern always wanted to be a writer. She spent her childhood creating pen names and dreaming of exotic, romantic places. To that end, she went to Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia (because, when you’re from the Midwest, the South is both exotic and romantic). There she earned a degree in French. She even spent a year living in Paris. But the Midwest beckoned and she returned home. Now she lives with her husband, two daughters and a dastardly dog. It might not be exotic but it is romantic.
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