Steve continued to prattle on the other end of the phone, but Kevin was beyond listening as he stared with narrow eyes at the car, preparing to toss the driver out on his ear. But as it came closer and closer to the house, he finally realized that the car creeping up the lane was a Volvo. A gray Volvo. Serena.
“I’ll talk to you later, Steve,” he interrupted, hanging up on his friend and agent without waiting for a response.
Tension he hadn’t known he was carrying eased slowly from his shoulders and the lead weight that had settled on his chest three days before suddenly disappeared, making it much easier to breathe. She’d come back. Wiping his suddenly sweaty palms—who would have believed it—on his ratty jeans, he headed down the porch steps to greet her.
The car had stopped a few yards away from his front door and Kevin crossed the distance easily, oblivious to the mud. He wrenched the car door open, desperate to see her, to touch her, whether she wanted him to or not. She’d had no business driving through the storm, and he would give her hell about it, but first he wanted to look at her. Just look.
He reached a hand in to help Serena out of the car—proper manners had been beaten into him by his mother and years later he was hard put to forget them—even with this stubborn, distant woman who had turned him inside out from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her.
Serena grasped his hands, allowed him to ease her from the car, and his first good look at her had his hands tightening on hers in alarm.
“Mon Dieu, bebe! Etes-vous blessé? Are you hurt? Did you have an accident?” His heart raced as he skimmed his hands over her lightly, looking for injuries. She looked like hell. Her face was drawn, her eyes sunken pools of misery, her body shaking like a leaf.
“I’m fine.” Her chin lifted at his snort of disbelief. “It was a long ride and the storm was bad.”
Momentarily distracted, Kevin answered, “You had no business driving up in a storm like this. You could have been killed. As it is, you look like death warmed over.”
If possible her pallor grew even more pronounced, and he cursed himself. She was obviously scared to death—he didn’t need to rub it in.
He took a deep breath, shocked to realize he was trembling. Because they both needed a moment to regroup, he went around to the trunk to get her bag—determined to rein in his rampaging emotions.
“I had to see you.” Her glorious voice was quiet but steady.
His eyes flew to hers. “What did you say?”
She shrugged, an uncomfortable motion. “I wanted to be here. I couldn’t wait any longer.”
He studied her, eyes narrowed dangerously. “Exactly what game are you playing, Serena?”
“I’m not playing anything.” This time her voice trembled, despite herself.
“Then why the sudden change of tune?” His voice rose and he was helpless to stop it. “Three days ago you made it completely clear that you wanted nothing more to do with me outside of the book. Yet here you are, back early, claiming you couldn’t stay away?”
He shook his head. “I just don’t get you.”
“I—” Her voice broke and she closed her eyes, as if the simple act of speaking to him was too much to handle. “I don’t mean to be …” Her head dropped and he saw, for the first time, the glimmer of tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Serena, what’s wrong?” He dropped the bag in the mud, was at her side instantly. “What happened to you in Baton Rouge?”
She shook her head, defeat in every line of her body. “I can’t …”
“Look at me.” Putting a hand under her chin, he tilted her head up until he could look her in the eye. He fought to keep his tone gentle, even as rage pounded viciously through his system. Someone had hurt her, badly. Gone was the cool, collected woman who had everything together. In her place was the lost child he’d glimpsed only once, the little girl searching for comfort in the middle of a storm. “What happened?”
Tears poured silently down her face as she wordlessly shook her head. With a muttered curse Kevin pulled her against him, shocked anew at how cold she was. He kept her body pressed to his as he grabbed the suitcase in his free hand and propelled her toward the house.
He helped her climb the stairs, fought the urge to simply sweep her up in his arms and carry her the rest of the way to the couch.
He didn’t release her until they reached the comfort of the family room. Directing her toward the sofa, he commented, “I’ll put this in your room and then make some tea. Get comfortable and I’ll be back in a minute.”
Kevin pulled his arm away and watched, shocked, as Serena’s knees gave way and she crumpled soundlessly to the floor.
“What the hell?” Scooping her up, he plopped down in a leather recliner, Serena cradled on his lap. Strangled sounds, horrifying in their intensity, worked their way out of her throat. Shocked, devastated, he rocked her, not knowing what else to do.
“C’est tout le juste, bebe. C’est tout le juste. Je vous ai, amour. It’s okay now. I’ve got you. I’ve got you now. Just relax.” He leaned forward, brushed a kiss against her temple, and just like that, she shattered.
Sobs, deep and brutal, broke the silence of the bayou, shocking him once again with their intensity. Her hands fisted in his torn T-shirt, clawing his chest even as her hot tears burned against his neck.
Minutes ticked by, one after the other as Serena’s heart broke. He didn’t know how long they sat like that, with his hands gently soothing her painful, bitter tears. Didn’t care. But the storm finally passed and while her sobs grew quieter and quieter, her body still shivered with each breath she took. He reached behind him, snagged the blanket he always kept on the back of the couch and covered her. They continued to rock as the tears dried on her face and her shudders grew more and more infrequent.
“I’m not usually a basket case.” Her glorious voice was more hoarse than usual, scratchy from the long crying jag.
“Who says you’re one now?” he asked, his voice more gentle than he would have believed possible.
She laughed, sadly, and pressed her face more firmly against his chest. She didn’t speak for a long time and he couldn’t bring himself to press her. If she told him, it would be because she wanted to.
Finally, when he was just about to give up hope, she spoke again. “My twin sister was murdered almost eleven years ago. Today was the parole hearing for the man who killed her.”
* * *
She was gone. Rage threatened to strangle him before he could get a handle on it. With a bellow of fury he threw the stupid fast-food cup as hard as he could and got a strange sort of satisfaction from watching Serena’s favorite diet soda drip slowly down her door. It looked almost red in the slowly coming twilight, and the image of blood—Serena’s blood—turned him on hard and fast. He tamped down on the reaction, deeming it unacceptable in the present circumstances, and concentrated on the problem.
If she wasn’t here, where was she?
Her mother’s? He discounted the idea immediately. From the moment Sandra had died, Serena’s relationship with her mother had been strained at best, outright hostile at worst. It was the same with her older brother. Tragedy and crisis had a tendency to pull families together, but something about this one had ripped Serena and her family apart.
So who would she run to, he wondered. She didn’t have any friends really—except him. He’d seen to that. A few comments here, a car accident there, and Serena was his. All his.
As it was meant to be.
So where was she? The condo was dark, a surefire way to tell that she wasn’t at home. The two lights she kept burning all the time—the one in the family room and the one in her bedroom—had been extinguished. He’d already gone around the back to check.
An ugly suspicion darkened his mind—had she gone to him? To that bayou rat with his long hair and power tools? Or was she with the agent? He’d seen how the man had touched her, watched the care and concern he poured into her. Maybe she had gone to him—it made more se
nse then the manual laborer, after all.
But still, the indignation was almost more than he could bear. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She didn’t dare turn to another man. Not after everything he’d gone through to ensure that she’d turn to him. Not after the long, long years he’d waited so that they could be together.
The prison. The loneliness. The headaches.
One was coming now. He could feel the prickling behind his eyes, the tension seeping slowly into his scalp. He had to get home before it got too bad. But he couldn’t leave here yet, not without being sure. Maybe the tension had been too much and she’d simply fallen asleep.
Or maybe she really was playing the role of whore, like her sister had before her.
Reaching a casual hand into his pocket, he pulled out a lock-picking set from his younger, wilder days. He was inside in under a minute and turned to deactivate the alarm. But the green light blinked harmlessly, another surefire sign that Serena wasn’t home. She’d never leave her alarm system off if she was inside. Not after Sandra.
Fury lived inside of him, grew with each breath he took. He wanted—needed—to throw something else. To smash everything in the house into irreparable pieces. He reached for the lamp on the entryway table. It was strong and sturdy and beautiful like Serena herself. He longed to destroy it—punishment for her duplicity. For the error in her ways.
But he’d already lost control once tonight—he couldn’t afford to do it again. Besides, it wasn’t time for that yet. Serena might still be able to be redeemed.
He set the lamp down with a clatter and wandered from room to room. He avoided her bedroom and the clichéd search though the underwear drawer that came with it, though a part of him longed to touch something so intimately connected to her.
Because he wanted it so badly his hands shook, he deliberately turned away. A loss of control—now—was totally unacceptable. It wouldn’t get the job done. He walked, deliberately, into her darkroom and an almost orgasmic pleasure overwhelmed him.
This is where she spent her time. This is where her most intimate connections existed. He caressed a bottle of developing fluid, ran a hand over one of the trays she used to develop. The thrill was almost sexual. Like being inside of her and he felt himself harden in response.
He took a deep breath and smiled. He could still smell her in here—the lingering sent of jasmine touched him with every breath he took. It calmed him, relaxed him, reminded him of the connection they would always share.
Another breath told him she’d been in here today—the jasmine lingered despite the harsh smell of the chemicals. But no pictures hung drying, none stood developing—which was an oddity for her. He’d been in here enough to know.
She must have been too upset to work. Too upset to think. And who could blame her, really? It had been a truly terrible day for her.
The realization calmed him as nothing else could have. Serena was too upset to know what she was doing. That’s why she hadn’t waited for him. That’s why she’d torn out of here without bothering to set the alarm. She couldn’t stand the silence.
He could understand that. Respect that, at least for now. So often he had the same problem.
Flipping off the red light, he closed the darkroom door and headed back toward the entryway. He could afford to be patient for a little while longer.
A very little while.
* * *
Kevin’s eyes flew to Serena’s, horror rocketing through him. As he’d sat here listening to her weep, he’d struggled to find an answer for her behavior. But even in his worst imaginings, he’d never pictured this. He searched for something to say, anything, but there was no soothing platitude for the occasion. Or if there was, he’d certainly never heard it.
Finally, he settled for truth. “He got off.”
Her eyes, a deep melted chocolate, caught his and held. “Obviously. Five years before his pathetic excuse for a sentence was up.”
“What happened?”
Her mouth trembled. They both knew he was asking about more than the parole hearing. But when she spoke her voice was rock-steady, as if she were reciting a story she’d told many times. “When we were sixteen, Sandra—my sister—fell in love for the first time. He was rich, good-looking. Everyone thought he walked on water.”
He was watching her closely, saw the grimace she couldn’t hide. “But not you.”
“No, not me. There was always something that seemed just a little bit off about him, you know? Even though he did and said all the right things. Sometimes, he’d get this look in his eyes—like he owned the whole world and dared someone to try to take it away.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he did own almost everything—after Sandra’s death it sure felt that way. Either way, I didn’t like him. I tried to, especially since Sandra was so crazy about him. But Damien and I rubbed each other the wrong way from the first day she introduced us.”
Her voice broke and he nodded encouragingly, needing to know the whole ugly story but wanting her to get it out at one time so she wouldn’t have to revisit it again.
Serena seemed to understand, because after a minute she continued. “Anyway, I tried telling Sandra how I felt, but she didn’t want to hear it. She loved him, more, I think, than she loved me. At least at the beginning.
“So I backed off.” She shook her head and tears welled in her eyes. “Even though I knew something wasn’t right with him, even though I didn’t trust him, I backed off. My distrust was driving a wedge between us and I couldn’t stand it. She was my twin, my best friend. I couldn’t let a guy come between us. So I shut up, went on double dates with them, tried to ignore the fact that my skin crawled whenever he looked at me.”
He stroked her hair back from her face. “You’re not actually blaming yourself for trying to hold on to your relationship with your sister, are you?”
She laughed, a bitter sound that hurt his ears. “Hell, yes, I blame myself. That night, when he came over, I knew—I knew that he was up to something. But I let him in, let him get near her. If I had slammed the door in his face like I’d wanted to, Sandra would still be alive.”
“No, she wouldn’t.” He tilted her chin up until he could look straight into her eyes. “If it hadn’t been that night it would have been the next. You know it, Serena. Much as you’d like it to be otherwise, you know it.”
She looked away, shrugged her shoulders, absently rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “When they first started going out, she was so happy. She laughed all the time, zoomed from school to the library, from his house to home and back again. She’d never been one to sit still—she was always the outgoing one, but when she was with him her energy was supersonic. She practically glowed.
“But things started getting ugly after about six months.” She bit her lip, jiggled her legs up and down as she searched for words that had suddenly abandoned her.
“He started getting jealous, really jealous. Didn’t want her hanging around with anyone but him, wanted to know where she was at all times.” Her laugh was sad. “The same old warning signals, same old story. I recognized them, tried to tell her once, but she was too far gone to listen.
“We had a huge fight and she didn’t talk to me for days. It felt like my heart had been ripped out. So I shut up, kept out of his way. I tried to tell Mom and my stepdad, but they were blinded by his pedigree.” This time the laugh was bitter. “Even after he’d killed her, after he’d raped and mutilated her, all Mom could say was that there must be some mistake. He was a LaFleur.”
“Jonathon LaFleur?” Shock slammed through him and he couldn’t stop himself from butting in. He’d designed a sculpture for the LaFleur building in downtown New Orleans years ago, had spent quite a bit of time with Jonathon and his wife. He’d liked them and their youngest son, Michael, as well.
She snorted, nodded. “Jonathon is Damien’s father. He’s at least as charming, and as amoral, as his son. He’s the one who bought off the police and got them to destroy evidence.
He also put pressure on the D.A., got Damien an incredible plea bargain that never should have been offered.”
“Are you sure?” He could have bit his tongue the second the question slipped out, but the story she told was so at odds to the man he knew.
“Of course I’m sure!” She looked at him scathingly, pushed herself off his lap before he could stop her. “Damien LaFleur murdered my sister in cold blood. When he was arrested he was charged with first-degree murder, felony rape, and first-degree attempted murder. They had him dead to rights—a witness, the fingerprints at the scene and on the murder weapon—a weapon he’d brought with him to the house. They even had her blood on his shoes. And then suddenly the knife is gone, his shoes are lost and he’s being offered a manslaughter plea. You think it was out of the goodness of the DA’s heart?”
Kevin shook his head, stared at her. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
He couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him, as if he was a bug deserving to be squashed. But, he admitted bitterly as he replayed their conversation in his head, he deserved it. Wasn’t he the one always talking about how appearances could be deceiving? Wasn’t he the one who rarely trusted people? As he cursed himself, his mind seized on something that she’d said. “Attempted murder? There was someone else involved?”
Her gaze slid away from his and she shrugged her shoulders, obviously uncomfortable. “Yeah.”
A sick feeling started in the pit of his stomach. An image of the scar on her arm flashed into his head. “What happened, Serena?”
“He killed my sister.”
“I know that. But you said you opened the door, let him in. What happened?” he demanded, grasping her arms in his, looking her straight in the eye so there could be no evasions, no half-truths.