She was too innocent, and too dazed, to realize how the lights of the cars shone through the thin fabric of her nightgown, silhouetting her youthful body, her slim thighs and high, graceful breasts. She bent and lifted, each change of position outlining a different part of her body, pulling the fabric tight across her breast and showing the small peak of her nipple, the next time revealing the round curve of her buttock. She was only fourteen, but in the stark, artificial light, with her long, thick hair flowing over her shoulders like dark flame, with the shadows catching the angle of her high cheekbones and darkening her eyes, her age wasn’t apparent.
What was apparent was her uncanny resemblance to Renee Devlin, a woman who had only to walk across a room to bring most men to some degree of arousal. Renee’s sensuality was sultry and vibrant, beckoning like a neon sign to male instincts. When the men looked at Faith, it wasn’t her whom they were seeing, but her mother.
Gray stood silently, watching the proceedings. The rage was still there, still cold and consuming, undiluted. Disgust filled him as the Devlins, father and sons, staggered around, cussing and making wild threats. With the sheriff and his deputies there, though, they weren’t going to do anything more than shoot off their mouths, so Gray ignored them. Amos had had a close call when he’d pushed the youngest girl down; Gray’s fists balled, but she had jumped up, apparently unhurt, and he had restrained himself.
The two girls were rushing around, valiantly trying to gather up the most necessary items. The male Devlins took out their vicious, stupid frustrations on the girls, snatching things from their arms and throwing the items to the ground, loudly proclaiming that no goddamn body was going to throw them out of their house, not to waste time picking things up because they weren’t goin’ nowhere, goddamn it. The oldest girl, Jodie, pleaded with them to help, but their drunken boasting drowned out her useless efforts.
The younger girl didn’t waste her time trying to reason with them, just moved silently back and forth, trying to bring order to chaos despite the clinging hands of the little boy. Despite himself, Gray found his gaze continually seeking her out, and himself unwillingly fascinated by the graceful, feminine outline of her body beneath that almost transparent nightgown. Her very silence drew attention to her, and when he glanced sharply around, he noticed that most of the deputies were watching her, too.
There was an odd maturity to her, and a trick of the lights gave him the strange feeling that he was looking at Renee rather than her daughter. The whore had taken his father from him, driven his mother into mental withdrawal, and nearly cost his sister her life, and here she was again, tempting men in her daughter’s flesh.
Jodie was more voluptuous, but she was noisy and cheap. Faith’s long, dark red hair swirled over the pearly sheen of her shoulders, bared by the straps of that nightgown. She looked older than he knew she was, not quite real, an incarnation of her mother drifting silently through the night, every move like a carnal dance.
Unwillingly, Gray felt his shaft stir and thicken, and he was disgusted with himself. He looked around at the deputies and saw his response mirrored in their eyes, an animal heat that they should be ashamed of having for a girl that young.
God, he was no better than his father. Give him a whiff of a Devlin woman and he was like a wild buck in rut, hard and ready. Monica had nearly died today because of Renee Devlin, and here he was watching Renee’s daughter with his cock twitching in his britches.
She walked toward him, carrying a pile of clothes. No, not toward him, but toward the truck behind him. Her green cat eyes flickered at him, the expression in them hooded and mysterious. His pulse leaped, and the look of her broke his tenuous hold on his temper. The events of the day piled up on him and he lashed out with devastating fierceness, wanting the Devlins to suffer as he had suffered.
“You’re trash,” he said in a deep, harsh voice as the girl drew even with him. She halted, frozen to the spot, with the kid still clinging to her legs. She didn’t look at Gray, just stared straight ahead, and the stark, pure outline of her face enraged him even more. “Your whole family is trash. Your mother is a whore and your father is a thieving drunk. Get out of this parish and don’t ever come back.”
Six
Twelve years later, Faith Devlin Hardy returned to Prescott, Louisiana.
Curiosity had been her companion on the drive up from Baton Rouge, and she hadn’t thought much beyond her reason for going back. Nothing about the road was familiar, because when she had lived in Prescott she’d seldom ventured farther than the small town, so no memories rose to link the past with the present, the girl with the woman.
But when she passed the Prescott city limit sign, when houses became closer together, forming actual streets and neighborhoods, when the tall pine and hardwood forests gave way to service stations and convenience stores, she felt an aching tension begin to grow in her. It increased when she reached the town square, with the redbrick courthouse looking exactly as it had in her memory. Cars still parked at angles all around the square, and park benches were still situated one to each side, for the old men to gather there on hot summer days, sheltering beneath the dense shade of the immense oak trees that grew on the square.
Some things had changed, of course. Some of the buildings were newer, while a few of the older ones were no longer there. Flower beds had been added to each corner of the courthouse square, no doubt by the enterprising Ladies’ Club, and pansies nodded their purple funny faces to passersby.
For the most part, though, things were the same, and the small differences only made the familiar stand out. The ache in her chest swelled until she could barely breathe, and her hands shook on the steering wheel. A piercing sense of sweetness went through her. Home.
It was so sharp that she had to stop the car, easing it into a parking slot in front of the courthouse. Her heart was pounding wildly, and she took deep breaths to steady herself. She hadn’t expected this, hadn’t expected the tug of roots she thought had been severed a dozen years before. It shook her, it exhilarated her. She had been led here by nothing more than puzzlement, wanting to know for certain what had happened after the Devlins had been forcibly escorted out of the parish, but this burgeoning sense of belonging pushed curiosity aside.
But she didn’t belong here, she told herself. Even when she had lived here, she had never really belonged, only been tolerated. Whenever she had gone into any store in town, she had been watched like a hawk, because everyone knew a Devlin would steal anything that wasn’t nailed down. That wasn’t acceptance.
Knowing that, however, had no effect on her heart. Her instincts, her senses, recognized this as home. The rich, colorful scents that were like nowhere else on earth, the sights that had been imprinted on her brain from birth, the subtle influences of latitude and longitude that were recognized by every cell in her body, said that this was home. She had been born here, grown up here. Her memories of Prescott were bitter, but still it pulled at her with invisible strings she hadn’t even known existed. She hadn’t wanted this. She had wanted only to satisfy her curiosity, gain a sense of closure, so she could completely let go of the past and build her future.
It hadn’t been easy, coming back. Gray Rouillard’s words still burned in her memory as if it had been yesterday he’d said them rather than twelve years before. Sometimes she went for days without thinking of him, but the pain was always there—under control, but there, a permanent companion. Coming back made the memories more immediate, and she heard his voice echoing in her mind: You’re trash.
She drew in a deep, shaking breath, and inhaled the sweet green scent so bound up in memories of her childhood. Steadying herself, she made a more leisurely examination of the square, familiarizing herself once again with what had once been as well known as her own hand.
Some of the old businesses lining the square had been spruced up; the hardware store had a rock and cedar front now, and rustic double doors. A McDonald’s occupied the space where the Dairy Dip had been. A new bank h
ad been built, and she’d bet money that it belonged to the Rouillards.
People walked by, glancing curiously at her as small-town people did at strangers, but no one recognized her. She hadn’t expected them to; twelve years had changed her from child into woman, and she had changed herself from helpless to capable, from poor to prosperous. In her tailored creamy business suit, with her heavy red hair tucked into a sophisticated twist and her eyes protected by sunglasses, there was nothing about her to remind people of Renee Devlin.
It was ironic, Faith supposed; Renee had been guilty as sin of most of the charges laid at her door, but she had been innocent of the one that had finally gotten the Devlins run out of town. She hadn’t run away with Guy Rouillard.
It was curiosity about exactly what Guy had done that had brought Faith back to Prescott after all these years. Had he been shacked up with a new girlfriend, and turned up a day or so later astonished at the uproar he’d caused? Had he been on a drinking spree, or maybe even a marathon poker game? Faith wanted to know. She wanted to come face-to-face with him, look him in the eye, and tell him what his irresponsibility had cost her.
She stared sightlessly at the courthouse square, memories washing over her. Her family had splintered after that dreadful night. They had driven as far as Baton Rouge before stopping for the night, sleeping in their vehicles. Amos had been alone in his truck, Russ and Nicky in their truck, with Jodie following in her old rattletrap of a car. Faith and Scottie had been in the car with Jodie, Scottie asleep on Faith’s lap.
Looking back, most of what she remembered was terror and shame. Certain memories were frozen, crystal-clear in her mind: the blinding lights of the patrol cars, that moment of sheer terror when she had been dragged out of bed and pushed through the door onto the ground, Scottie’s shrieks. Sometimes she could even feel the way his hands had clung to her, feel the terrified pressure of his little body against her legs. The most acute memory, though, the one that echoed in her mind with painful clarity, was Gray looking at her with that paralyzing contempt.
She remembered desperately trying to gather their pitiful possessions. She remembered the long drive through the darkness; it hadn’t been that long, but had seemed to take forever, each second expanded so that a minute took an hour to pass. She didn’t remember sleeping, even after they got to Baton Rouge; she had sat stiffly, staring with burning eyes into nothing, cradling Scottie’s warm weight on her lap.
Barely after dawn, a cop had run them off from the city park where they had stopped, and the shabby little caravan had started out again. They made it to Beaumont, Texas, before stopping again. Amos rented a motel room in the worst part of town, and the six of them crowded into it. At least it was a roof over their heads.
A week later, they got up one morning to find Amos gone, just as Renee had left, though Amos did at least take his clothes. Nicky and Russ handled the crisis by spending the meager remains of their cash on beer, and getting roaring drunk. Not long after that, Russ left, too.
Nicky tried. To his credit, he tried. He was only eighteen, but when suddenly faced with the care of his three younger siblings, he took what odd jobs he could. Jodie helped out by working at fast-food restaurants, but even with her help, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t long before the social workers came around, and Jodie, Faith, and Scottie were taken into the custody of the state. Nicky made a few noises of protest, but Faith could tell that he was mostly relieved. She never saw him again.
Adoption wasn’t an option; Jodie and Faith were too old, and no one wanted Scottie. The best they could hope for was to be in the same foster home, where Faith could take care of Scottie. The best wasn’t what they got, but the alternative was workable, at least for Faith. Jodie went to one foster home, while Faith and Scottie went to another. All of Scottie’s care fell on her shoulders, but since she had been taking care of him since his birth anyway, that wasn’t a burden to her. That had been the condition under which they had been able to stay together, so she worked hard to fulfill her promise.
Jodie didn’t stay long at any one foster home, but was moved twice. Faith counted herself lucky in her foster home; the Greshams hadn’t had much, but they had been willing to share what they did have with foster kids. For the first time in her life, Faith saw how respectable people lived, and she soaked up the life like a sponge. It was an unfailing delight to her to come home from school to a clean house, to the smells of supper cooking. Her clothes, though inexpensive, were neat and as stylish as the Greshams could afford on the money they were given for her upkeep. At school, no one called her “a trashy Devlin.” She learned what it was like to live in a house where the adults loved and respected each other, and her hungry heart reveled in the wonder of it.
Scottie was petted, and they bought new toys for him, though it wasn’t long before he began failing drastically. For Faith, the kindness that surrounded Scottie for the short time left of his life had been worth everything. For a little while, he had been happy. That first Christmas after Renee left had made him delirious with joy. He had sat for hours, too tired to play but content to stare at the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. He had died in January, easing away in his sleep. Faith had known that the time was near and had started spending the nights in a chair by his bed. Something, perhaps the change in his breathing, had awakened her. So she took his stubby little hand in hers, and held it while his indrawn breaths came further and further apart, and finally, gently, ceased altogether. She had continued to hold his hand until she felt the growing coolness of his flesh, and only then did she wake the Greshams.
She had spent almost four full years with the kindly Greshams. Jodie finished high school, got married right away, and left for the bright lights of Houston. Faith was totally alone, all of her real family gone. She concentrated on school, ignoring the boys who continually pestered her for dates. She had been too numb, too traumatized by the upheaval in her life, to throw herself into the giddy teenage social whirl. The Greshams had shown her how good stability and respectability could be, how sweet, and that was what she wanted for herself. To that end, she focused all of her energy on building something out of the ashes to which her life had been reduced. After endless hours of study, she made valedictorian, and won a scholarship to a small college. Leaving the Greshams wasn’t easy, but with the state no longer paying for her upkeep, she had to move on. She worked two part-time jobs to support herself while going to school, but Faith didn’t mind hard work, having known little else for most of her life.
Her senior year in college, she fell in love with a graduate student, Kyle Hardy. They dated for six months, and got married the week after Faith was graduated. For a short while she had been almost dizzy with happiness, certain that dreams did come true, after all. The dream hadn’t lasted long, not even as long as her brief marriage. Faith had envisioned settling down, furnishing a cute little apartment, and saving for the future, which included kids, a nice house, and two cars. It hadn’t worked out that way. Despite the responsibilities of his new job, Kyle had continued to enjoy the heavy-drinking, freewheeling life he had enjoyed as a student. It had gotten the best of him one night, coming home from a bar, when his car went off a bridge. No other cars were involved, which was a blessing; when an autopsy was performed, it was found that his blood alcohol level was twice what was legal.
At twenty-two, Faith was alone again. She grieved, then doggedly rebuilt her life. She had a degree in business administration and money from the small life insurance policy Kyle had had, as well as that provided by his job. She moved to Dallas and got a job in a small travel agency; two years later, the agency belonged to her. It had already expanded to a branch in Houston; Faith took a leap of faith and spent her capital to open another branch, this time in New Orleans. To her joy, the business grew steadily.
She had achieved financial stability, and it was as wonderful as she had always imagined it would be, but she was aware of an aching emptiness in her life. She needed emotional solid ground, too. She di
dn’t want to become romantically involved with anyone; the two men she had dared to love, Gray Rouillard and Kyle Hardy, had both taught her how dangerous that was. But she still had family out there, somewhere, and she wanted to find them.
Vaguely she had recalled that her grandmother on Renee’s side had lived around Shreveport; Faith could remember seeing her only once in her life, and when the social services in Texas had tried to contact her grandmother, they hadn’t been able to find her. But the social services were overworked and understaffed, and had given up after a desultory search. Faith had more time, and more determination. She began calling around, and thankfully there weren’t that many Armsteads in the Shreveport area. She finally reached someone, a cousin on her grandfather Armstead’s side, who knew that Jeanette Armstead had moved to Jackson, Mississippi, about ten or twelve years ago, right after that oldest daughter of hers had turned up again.
Faith had been stunned. Her mother, Renee, had been the oldest daughter. But Renee had run away with Guy Rouillard; what had happened that she had sought out her mother? Was Guy still with her, or had he returned to the bosom of his family? A lot of years lay between the present and that horrible night in Prescott. For all she knew, Guy might have spent them very happily with his family, while her own family had been torn apart, destroyed.
Faith had called Information, gotten her grandmother’s number, and called. To her surprise, Renee had answered the phone. Even after all those years, she still remembered her mother’s voice. Startled, excited, she had identified herself. Their conversation had been awkward at first, but finally Faith got up the nerve to ask Renee what had happened with Guy Rouillard.
“What about him?” Renee had said, sounding bored. “Jodie told me that wild tale about me and him runnin’ off, but it was news to me. I got fed up with bein’ Amos’s punching bag and living like dirt, and God knows Guy Rouillard wasn’t goin’ to do nothing about it, so I just left, went up to Shreveport and moved in with Mama. Your aunt Wilma lives here in Jackson, so about a month after that, we moved here, too. I ain’t seen Guy Rouillard.”