A wave of fury swept through him at the mention of Brandon. He didn't want to talk about his son. He didn't want her to speak his name. Especially not in a place like this when she was drunk and needy, and his patience were wire thin.
"There is no bond," he said curtly. “Not anymore."
"You're angry because I walked out on you."
Nick was a hell of a lot more than angry. He was furious, but it didn't have a damn thing to do with her walking out on him. ''Tanya ...”
"I had a little boy to think of, Nicky."
Because in the four years they were married she had never thought of anyone but herself, Nick ignored the statement. “This isn't the place to discuss this."
“Why not?" She made a sweeping motion to encompass the bar and all its patrons. "It's not like what happened in New Orleans is a huge secret in this town."
"What happened is between us."
"You're being an uppity prick just like you always were."
Nick knew he was a fool for engaging her. Even more of a fool for letting her get to him. He was playing into her hands, giving her exactly what she wanted. But she'd always known which buttons to push, and tonight she was pushing those buttons with the proficiency of a master hacker.
"If you don't like the company, maybe you ought to take your drink and go." Grabbing the towel he'd slung over his shoulder, he began to wipe down the bar, hating it that he was so angry that he was shaking inside.
Tanya watched him, sipping her drink, a sleek cat playing with a mouse. "It's hard coming back to a place like this after living the high life, isn't it?"
Doing his utmost to ignore her, he bent to retrieve a tray of freshly rinsed glasses and began to towel them dry.
"Well, now you have a taste of what I've had to contend with the last six years. I went from a four-bedroom house in the Garden District to this dump.” Gesturing at the hodgepodge of patrons, she threw her head back and laughed. "How's that for irony?"
He wanted to point out that their losing the house in New Orleans had more to do with her and his scheming partner framing him, but he knew she'd probably already justified her actions in her mind, so he didn't bother. Tanya was the kind of person who, if she heard her own lies often enough, would believe them.
"I think it's a pretty fitting irony,” he said.
"Don't get nasty with me, Nicky."
A burly man in faded coveralls asked for a beer. Nick gave him a nod, snagged a frozen mug, and filled it.
"You showed me how the other half lives, then you get yourself thrown into prison and left me and little Brandon with nothing."
Nick closed his eyes briefly at the mention of his son. "I've got to work. Tanya"
"Don't be such a prick. You can spare a minute for me."
"I've nothing to say to you." He slid the mug to the man in coveralls and collected two dollars. ''If you don't hit the road, I'm going to have Mike show you the door."
"Mike won't throw me out. I'm his best customer." Her lips curved. "Did I ever tell you he fucked me in the men's room once? Bent me over the sink and stuck it in and started grunting and sweating like some fat three-legged pig."
Needing to put some distance between them before he lost his temper, Nick turned away and began stacking mugs on the shelf below the bar.
"Don't turn you back on me, you self-righteous son of a bitch."
Sighing in resignation. he turned to her, gave her a hard look. "This isn't the place for one of your tantrums."
"That's where you're wrong. Nicky." Tossing her head, she looked around, made a sweeping motion with her arms. "This is the perfect place for a knock-down-drag-out. Half the people in this dump would pay a week's salary to see us go a round or two."
"I'm not interested in going a round with you.”
Her smile sharpened to a razor's edge. "Oh, honey, going a round with me is the one thing you could never resist."
"You overestimate your charms. You always have."
An ugly emotion he couldn't quite identify flared in her eyes. "You think you had it rough in prison? Do you think it's been easy for me being back here all by myself and having to start all over again? I had no money. No job. No place to live except that goddamn trailer."
Realizing the situation was getting out of control. Nick straightened and looked around for Mike Pequinot.
"Let me tell you how it's been," she said with sudden emotion. "I've spent the last six years working in that shit-hole motel on the interstate. My salary and tips barely make the rent. I use food stamps. My car is a piece of shit. I need new tires—"
"Maybe you ought to stop spending your money on booze."
She went on as if she hadn't heard him, her voice cracking. "I miss my baby so much I can't stand it, Nicky. Nothing has been the same for me since Brandon."
Just hearing the name hurt. Pain that was bright red in intensity and so bone deep that it took his breath. "Don't bring him into this," Nick ground out.
An emotion he could only describe as hatred flared hotly in her eyes. "Oh, I forgot. That's how you deal with problems. Don't talk about them, and poof! they disappear. God, Nick, if you could put that in a bottle and sell it, you'd be rich."
"Tanya, you're drunk .”
"I may be drunk, but at least I'm alive. At least I'm not dead inside like you.”
"Why don't you go home and sleep it off?"
"You've always been a holier-than-thou-art son of a bitch, and you still are. I guess those years behind bars didn't do a damn thing for that high-and-mighty attitude of yours. Even broke you still look at everyone down your nose.
"Well. look at you now, Nicky. You're nothing but a second-rate loser ex-con working in a shit hole, just like me. You're broke. Back on the farm and living with your crazy old man. You always thought you were better than me, didn't you? Now I guess everyone in this town knows you're not."
Several people standing at the bar had noticed the exchange and were staring. their eyes alight in anticipation of a brewing fight. ''Take your drink and go," he said.
She ignored him. 'The last time I saw you, you weren't quite so high and mighty, were you, Nicky? You remember that day, don't you?"
"Shut your goddamn mouth."
"If my memory serves me, I'm pretty sure you got down on your knees and begged me to stay, didn't you?"
Nick wished he could dispute her words, but he couldn't and the wash of humiliation burned. He'd never begged for anything in his life. But that day in the prison visitor room when she'd told him she was filing for divorce and wouldn't be back, Nick's knees had hit the deck. Not because he'd loved her, but because he'd loved his son, and when it came to his little boy, pride hadn't mattered. Nick had known she was incapable of caring for a child. He'd known his son would be in danger if he let her go.
"Maybe you even cried a little," she teased. “That's a pathetic thing for a man to do.”
"Get out, Tanya. Take your delusions with you."
"Oh, that burns, doesn't it, Nicky?" Her mouth twisted into a smile. "High-and-mighty Nick Bastille begging his little trailer trash wife not to leave him to rot in prison."
"You're making a fool of yourself."
"I'm making a fool of you, and you don't like it. Well, here's a newsflash for you, Nicky. The world doesn't revolve around what you do and do not like. You're a nothing with a capital N. A big fat zero. A loser ex-con with a record who will never amount to anything, just like your old man."
Nick could feel the rage building inside him, a storm cloud heavy with violence. “Someone get her out of here."
A man tried to take her arm. "Come on, Tanny, leave him be. Let's get some air."
Tanya jerked away from him. her furious gaze on Nick. "You didn't know how to be a husband and you sure as hell didn't know how to be a father. All you cared about was that fucking restaurant. You put it above me. Above Brandon."
"Leave him out of this."
She choked out a sound that was hall laugh, hall sob. "And now you have the gall to stand ther
e and look at me as if what happened to him was all my fault, you son of a bitch. You might like to think otherwise, but you played a role, too."
"He was in your care."
"If you hadn't been in prison, he never would have died! You had as much a hand in his death as I did. So don't stand there and judge me!"
Nick's temper snapped with the violence of a gunshot. One moment he was standing a few feet from the bar, the next he was leaning over it with his hands around her biceps. "You let a little child run wild in the swamp unsupervised!"
For a moment, she looked startled. She opened her mouth. Blinked several times as if trying to bring him into focus. Then her lips peeled back. "You son of a bitch!" she snarled. An instant later she drew back and threw her drink in his face.
Nick jolted with the shock of cold. He tasted rum and fury, felt the bum of alcohol in his eyes, and for the first time in his life he wanted to do physical harm to a woman.
"I didn't know he could unlock the door!" she cried. "He was so smart! I swear! He opened two locks. Two, for God's sake! He'd never done it before! He wasn't supposed to do that!"
"You were passed out from being drunk the night before!"
A sound that was half sob, half scream tore from her throat. "You bastard!" She launched herself at him. The first blow caught his left temple, hard enough to snap his head back. Another grazed off his shoulder. Nick staggered back, but she held onto him, and he dragged her halfway over the bar. "Get off me," he growled.
"I wasn't drunk!" she screamed. "I swear to God I wasn't!"
A big woman in leather pants tried to pull her back, but Tanya fought her like a wildcat. She was lying across the bar, holding onto Nick's sleeve with one hand, hitting him with the other. "It wasn't my fault!" she cried. "He died because you weren't there, you motherfucker!"
Nick disengaged himself from her and stumbled back. Vaguely he was aware of the throng of people that had gathered around the bar. He jolted when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. He turned, ready to defend himself. and was relieved to see Mike Pequinot come up beside him. "Why don't you go out back and have a smoke?"
Nick barely beard the words over the jackhammer rhythm of his heart. He could feel his control peeling away. He looked across the bar at the woman he'd once loved. The woman who'd borne his only child. The woman who'd ripped that child from his arms and then let him die like an animal . . .
The urge to put his fist through something was strong, but he held on to his control. “Keep her away from me." Shaking with rage, he tossed the towel onto the bar and started for the door to the kitchen.
"You had no right to say those things to me!" Tanya screamed to his back. "He was my baby, too! Goddamn you! I loved him! It was an accident! You can't blame me for what happened!"
Nick didn't look back. He was too furious. He wasn't sure what he would say to her. He wasn't sure what he would do if she pushed him any farther.
He hit the swinging doors with both hands. They flew open and banged hard against the walls. Pequinot's wife looked up from the steaming pot she was stirring, but she was an astute enough woman to realize he couldn't be talked down.
Nick didn't stop until he reached the back door. He shoved it open hard and stepped into the sultry night. He could still hear the drum of the music beating in time with his heart. He could still feel the rage flowing through him in a swift and dangerous current. He was keenly aware of the ugliness of the emotions inside him. Hatred and grief and a rage that never seemed to leave him no matter how hard he tried to exorcise it.
He sat down hard on the step and put his face in his hands. Of all the terrible things he had endured in the last six years, losing his son was the one that had gutted him. The day they'd taken him into an interview room and told him his innocent little boy had drowned, something inside Nick had died. A piece of his humanity. A chunk of his heart. It was as if a giant hand had plunged into his body and torn out his soul.
At least I'm not dead inside like you.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered and scrubbed his hands over his face.
But when he closed his eyes, it was his son's face he saw. Sweet, innocent Brandon with his bright blue eyes and hair as dark as midnight. He'd had a smile that could light up the darkest of nights. A face that could warm the coldest of hearts. A presence that could banish the deep ache of loneliness. He'd been purity and goodness, and Nick had always looked upon him in reverence, unable to understand how he and Tanya could have created something so utterly perfect. He'd loved that child in a way he'd never loved anything else on this earth. In a way he would never love again in his lifetime. Brandon had represented everything innocent and good in a world where such things were rare and many times false.
"You look like you could use this."
Nick started at the sound of the husky female voice. He looked up to see Pequinot's wife, Rita, standing at the door, offering a lit cigarette. He hadn't touched any kind of tobacco for going on a year, but he needed that vice now with the desperation of a man in the throes of withdrawal.
"Thanks." He took the cigarette, drew hard on it.
"She comes in here all the time," Rita said.
"Yeah, Mike told me."
"She's an alcoholic.”
"She's a spiteful bitch."
"Grief can do that to person, Nick. I'm not making excuses for her, but she hasn't been the same since your boy died."
Surprised that she would touch on the subject of his son, Nick looked up at her. Rita Pequinot stared back at him with the shrewd eyes of a woman who wasn't afraid to speak her mind. She was a substantial woman. Not only in size, Nick thought, but in character, too.
"Nobody's ever the same after something like that," he said.
"She was out of line. I'll tell Mike to keep her out of the bar."
Realizing he'd left Mike at the bar alone in the midst of a rush, Nick said, ''Tell him I'll be right there." But when he looked up, Rita was already gone.
Chapter 7
Nat had never been a good sleeper. even before that terrible night three years ago. she'd been prone to insomnia. Dr. Pettigrew had prescribed sleeping pills, but they made her groggy the next day, so she rarely took them. Herbs seemed to help her relax. Reading kept her mind from grinding. Driving helped when she was restless. Tonight, with the walls and memories closing in, she opted for a drive.
She'd spent much of the evening rehashing her disastrous meeting with Nick Bastille. To say he hadn't believed her was a gross understatement. His reaction had been volatile. She'd seen his bands clenched at his sides, the fury in his eyes. The man had wanted to do physical violence to her.
She wasn't going to let it keep her from what she needed to do. Nick Bastille might be hot-tempered and unpredictable and maybe even a little dangerous. But while any one of those things was reason enough for her not to approach him again, Nat knew they were also her best hope of getting him to listen.
On the outskirts of town, she turned onto Pelican Island Road. The narrow road was shrouded with high weeds and overhanging branches webbed with Spanish moss and kudzu. Her headlights cut twin beams through the utter darkness, and she felt as if she were a diver spelunking in an underwater cave.
The Blue Gator sat at the dead end of the road, a neon oasis surrounded by swamp. Nat wasn't surprised to find the lot packed with vehicles. She located Nick Bastille's truck at the rear and parked next to it. Trying not to think of all the reasons why she shouldn't be walking into a roughneck bar like The Blue Gator to try to convince an ex-con of something he didn't want to be convinced of. she started for the entrance.
She knew broaching the subject of his son again so soon would be like thumping a beehive with a stick. She knew she was probably going to get stung. But Nat had known since the day she'd wakened from the coma and found her life in tatters that the task ahead of her wasn't going to be easy.
Shoving her uncertainties aside, she pushed through the front door and entered the bar. Lou Reed's Sweet Jane blasted from m
ammoth speakers loud enough to rattle the nails right out of the roof. A group of men and a tall blonde in black leather hovered around a pool table at the rear. Two bikers eyed her, but there was no hostility on their faces, no whispers behind her back. An odd sense of relief flitted through her that inside this most disreputable of establishments, she'd found the one place in Bellerose that did not shun her.
She elbowed her way through the throng of bodies toward the bar. An unexpected frisson of tension went through her when she spotted Bastille. He was wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, revealing muscled forearms. His button-down jeans were faded nearly white and hugged his lean hips with the perfection of custom trousers. Nat sidled up to the bar and slid unobtrusively onto a stool.
For several minutes she watched him work unnoticed. He seemed completely at ease behind the bar and served up drinks with the finesse of a man who'd done it many times before. She thought about Faye's assertion that he was attractive and realized she'd been right, though Nat had long since ceased to put any weight in such superficialities.
Even so, she couldn't help but notice his smile. It was the smile of a man who enjoyed what he did. A man who enjoyed being around people. A smile like that was a dangerous thing in a man like Nick Bastille, and she quickly reminded herself that he'd spent six years in prison for murder ....
"Well if it isn't the minister's wife come to gloat."
The words went through her like an ice pick stabbed into her back, and Nat felt every inch of it all the way to her spine. Slowly, she turned. Cold dread spread through her when she found herself facing Ward's brother, Hunter Ratcliffe. He was standing less than a foot away from her. So close she could smell the whiskey on his breath, see the mean glint in his eyes.
Her heart began to pound. "Hunt ... "
“I gotta hand it to you, Nat-a-lie, you have some nerve showing your face around here after what you did to my brother."
She felt the words like a punch, but didn't allow herself to react. "I didn't do anything to Ward or Kyle." She glanced over his shoulder to see the two men behind him, watching her, their eyes glassy with alcohol and malice. "I don't want any trouble."