“Why don’t you chain me up instead? I’m the one you’re so eager to punish.”
His eyes were guarded and fathomless. “Wolf can learn different. You’re hopeless.”
“Please, don’t.”
He looked past her. “Wolf! Venez!”
Wolf trotted out of the woods, his nose covered in dirt from burying the offending camera. Caroline watched him come straight for Paul without any sign of shrinking.
Wolf. He thinks we’re very bad. Go away while I explain.
Wolf won’t disobey Master again.
He sat down in front of Paul and looked up solemnly. Paul gestured from him to Caroline. “Go.” He turned toward her and ordered, “Take him to Ed.”
Caroline shook her head and said in a broken tone, “I can’t do it.”
“Then I will.”
Chain! Wolf communicated in alarm as he caught the drift of her thoughts. His ears drooped and he whined.
Paul winced at that heartrending reaction, but he snapped his fingers and strode toward the barns. Wolf crept alongside him but glanced back at Caroline repeatedly.
How were we very bad?
Wolf. I’m sorry. I was bad. Not you. Master is angry with me.
Puzzlement. Lick his nose. He’ll know you like him.
It’s not that easy with people.
What is that under your eyes?
That’s sadness.
There was a potent pause as Wolf turned his gaze up to Paul’s face. Master has it under his eyes too.
Paul sat in a big rocking chair on the front veranda, surrounded by a private darkness that suited his mood, and watched a new moon over the edge of the trees. His senses dull with unhappiness, he wasn’t certain how long he had been there when he heard the soft crunch of feet on gravel.
He looked to his left and saw a tall, loose-limbed shadow ambling up the walkway that ran past the house toward the outbuildings.
“Bonjour, doc,” Frank called jovially. Frank breezed onto the veranda, gave a totally uncharacteristic hoot of laughter, and slumped down in a rocker beside Paul’s.
“I had hoped to find you awake, my man, so that I might chat with you in private.” Frank enunciated his words as if every consonant mattered.
“Frank, my man, you’re soused.”
“I have had a drop more than my Saturday night cocktail, ’tis true. Sir Frederick and I were playing cards and drinking bourbon with your college interns. A mighty challenge, those youngsters.”
Paul leaned back in his rocker and shut his eyes. “This isn’t like you, Frank.”
“I’m rather perturbed, I admit it. I’ve been wrestling with my personal creed. The one about not meddling in other people’s personal creeds.”
Paul looked at him wearily. “Frank, I’ll fix you a cup of strong coffee, yes?”
“No.” Frank shook his head and rocked with vigor.
“Slow down, Captain Kirk, you’re about to reach warp speed.”
“Oh.” Frank brought the chair to a halt. “As the Walrus said to the something-or-other, ‘I have come to talk of many things, of cabbages and sailing ships, of Caroline and …’ Whoops. Did I say Caroline?”
Paul got up and leaned against one of the veranda’s columns. “Where is she?”
“She is in the barn, in the stall where Wolf is chained, sitting in the hay with his head in her lap. She is reading an Agatha Christie novel to him, and he seems to be enjoying it.”
“Are my cats there too?”
“Yes, indeed. I think they’re bored by Christie. They’re all asleep.” Frank cleared his throat. “You hurt Carrie today, my man. More than you can ever imagine.”
Inside his pockets Paul’s hands clenched into fists. “Tell me everything you know about her. Help me understand her.”
“Ah.” Frank slapped the arms of his chair. “Here’s where I fought my personal creed to a standstill. What do you want to know?”
“Did she really love your brother?”
“Ah. Tom and Caroline. Let me tell you a little story, my friend. Tom introduced me to Caroline five years ago. Here was this young woman, twenty-one years old at the time, I think, a hard-nosed runaway from Connecticut who’d spent the last four years living in San Francisco with a Chinese family. They’d given her a job in their restaurant, then a place in their home, and she’d practically become a member of their family.”
Paul frowned in the darkness. “When she told me that she left home at seventeen I thought she meant she’d gone to live with some friends.”
“No. She had nothing and no one. Does that help you understand why she learned to be so tough? Anyhow, she was the new kennel attendant at a ritzy place where Tom boarded his goofy Airedale. Damned dog hated everyone but Tom. The dog fell over and licked Caroline’s feet, Caroline hugged the dog, and then she says to Tom, ‘He’s just lonely. If you buy him a puppy to keep him company, he’ll be perfectly fine.’ ”
Frank chortled. “And she was right. By then Tom was just as smitten with her as his dog was. Anyhow, he brought her over to meet me because he thought she could help me with an ornery skunk I’d hired for a TV show. Skunk was mean as hell, but we had to have him. She goes off with the skunk for ten minutes, comes back and says, ‘Spray him with Chanel No. 5.’ We did. Skunk’s in ecstasy. A joy to deal with from then on.”
“And about Tom?” Paul asked in exasperation.
“So people in the industry heard about the skunk, and she started to get other jobs. Pretty soon she had her own animal consulting business. The rest is history.”
“And Tom?”
“Oh. When I first met her I thought, ‘What does this tough-talking, arrogant kid want with a shy, strait-laced accountant who has severe diabetes?’ And you know what she wanted?”
“What?” Paul held his breath.
“To take care of him.”
“What?”
“She’d never had anybody to take care of. And nobody to take care of her. And, by God, she treated him like a king. She made him sublimely happy, and he returned the favor. She was hell on the rest of the world until Tom softened her up and we finally realized that she was just scared to death of us. You may not believe this right now, but to know Caroline is to love Caroline.”
Paul puzzled over her past. “She was faithful to Tom?”
“Without a doubt.”
“But after he died, she was lonely, yes?”
“Sure. She lived with Gretchen and me for a while until she got over his death.”
“No, I mean, then she started dating again. Okay, who does she have now? What’s his name? What are their names? Tell me the truth, Frank.”
After a silent moment Frank said softly, “This is where my personal creed against meddling takes a real nosedive.” He stood up proudly, as if surrendering in good conscience after fighting a noble battle.
“There isn’t anyone and hasn’t been anyone in the two years since Tom died.”
Paul stared at him in the darkness. “No one? She didn’t go back to California to see somebody?”
Frank sighed grandly. “My friend, you are dealing with a rarity: a one-man woman who’s been waiting for that one man. And you’re him.”
Seven
Caroline woke up to the sound of rustling straw, the hot puff of Wolfs breath against her arm, and the sharp tugging of his teeth in the sleeve of her pink T-shirt.
“Hmmm?” She rubbed eyes swollen from intermittent crying, shifted her aching shoulders against the stall’s coarse partition, then checked her wristwatch and saw that midnight had just passed. “I’m sorry. I always fall asleep when I read in bed.”
She-friend is back. Help me go. Help me.
Caroline tossed the Agatha Christie book out of her lap and grasped Wolf’s ruff. His gaze burned into her and he poked her leg with one huge gray paw. How do you know? she asked.
I feel it.
Where is she-friend?
A long way. But I can get there.
Oh, Wolf. Wait unti
l morning. Then I’ll ask Master if you can go.
He jumped over her outstretched legs and lunged frantically against the thick chain that ran from his leather collar to an iron ring in the wall. Caroline scrambled to her feet and tried to stroke his head. The cats, curled in the straw around him, jumped up amid the commotion and ran.
Help me, help me, Wolf begged. She needs me.
His desperation overwhelmed Caroline, and she quickly unbelted his collar. Wolf bolted out the open stall door.
“Wait! I’ll go with you!” Caroline called, but he was already racing past the curious heads of Paul’s quarter horse brood mares. He shoved through the unlatched door at the end of the barn’s wide corridor and disappeared into the night.
Don’t put sadness under your eyes. I’ll come back.
Caroline ran to the end of the corridor and stood for several minutes, gazing after Wolf in open-mouthed dismay. Paul would never forgive her for turning Wolf loose, and she certainly couldn’t tell him why she’d done it.
You see, doc, I talked with him and he said he had to go help his girlfriend. That was the reason he’s been depressed.
Her shoulders slumped. It was better to suffer anger than disbelief, she thought wearily. She’d learned that lesson long ago.
Caroline walked numbly back into the stall and sank down on her sleeping bag. While preparing for a night of keeping Wolf company she’d exchanged her sundress for loose green chinos, the pink T-shirt, and her jogging shoes. Caroline drew her knees up, hooked her hands around them, and gazed blankly at the wall across from her.
When Paul learned that she’d set Wolf free against his wishes, he’d send her away from Grande Rivage for good, and neither Frank nor anyone else would be able to change his mind. An emptiness like nothing she’d known before grew inside her as she thought about leaving him and his wonderful home.
A few minutes later she heard the barn door swing open. Caroline stiffened with dread; she absorbed the horses’ affectionate, welcoming attitude and knew who’d just entered the building.
She shut her eyes and groaned silently. Paul had come to check on Wolf.
Caroline gazed at the empty collar lying in the straw and strained to pick up his footsteps on the hallway’s sawdust floor. Finally he reached the stall door and stopped. She looked up wretchedly and found a stunned expression on his face.
“What have you done now?” he asked, but with less anger than she’d expected.
“I turned him loose. He’ll be back.”
Paul stepped inside the stall and dropped to his heels by the collar. He fingered it thoughtfully, frowning. Caroline gazed at him with bittersweet sorrow, part of her mind focused only on her problem and part focused solely on the heart-stirring sight he presented in old jeans and a soft white pullover, his thick black hair feathering over the ribbed neckline in back.
In Angelique’s honor he’d traded his lace-up work boots for loafers all weekend. A significant sacrifice, Caroline thought enviously. He really cared about that woman and her son—and why shouldn’t he? They were terrific.
He raised his head and studied her intensely. “Why did you disobey my orders about Wolf?”
Her heart racing, Caroline pretended to study a seam on her pants. “He was miserable. And since you couldn’t be any more disgusted with me than you already are, what difference does it make?”
“I’m not disgusted with you.” He met her shocked gaze and held it. “Chère, I need answers.”
Caroline inhaled raggedly. He hadn’t called her by that endearment in some time, and never in such a loving voice before. A hunger for more flashed through her veins. “Answers?” she echoed in a high, innocent tone.
“You’re not going to make it easy, no. I can tell. You’re too worried that things won’t work out. I understand.”
Confused and feeling trapped by her reckless greed for his affection and approval, she braced her hands in the hay and sidled back against the wall. “I’m glad you understand, because I don’t.”
Moving slowly, he knelt in front of her. The dim overhead light bulb cast inky shadows on his hair and drew mysterious emotions on his face. That couldn’t be affection and approval she saw. The shadows played tricks on her. All her life the shadows had played tricks.
“You belong here,” he told her in a low, firm voice. “At Grande Rivage. You belong with me.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head desperately.
He grasped at the air with one hand, catching invisible problems. “Your memories about your mother,” he murmured. His hand moved again. “Your distrust of your Cajun heritage. Your insecurity about your scar. Your fears about wanting me, a man who lives a life-style that’s very different from yours.”
With one dramatic gesture Paul flung the problems away. “Allez. Poof.” He shook his head slowly, his eyes on hers, then touched his forefinger over her heart. “This is all that’s important.” He brought his finger to a spot over his own heart.
His eyes became possessive and even more determined. “You can run from yourself, yes, but you can’t run from me anymore.”
Caroline trembled. She shut her eyes in an attempt to dilute his effect, only to inhale the erotic, purely masculine scent of his skin and hair. It mingled with good, homey aromas—he loved to cook chicken over hickory chips in an old stone grill outside the mansion’s back veranda, and she knew from his scent that it was what he’d fixed for dinner tonight.
Hickory smoke and the sweet smell of hay—she’d never smell either again without remembering Paul and this moment. Caroline winced. And she’d remember Angelique, for whom he’d cooked dinner.
“Go away,” she begged. He settled closer, rested his big hands atop her knees, and spread his fingers as if she were a button accordion he could play at will. She pressed her head against the wall and turned her face away from him. “Why are you doing this?” she demanded hoarsely.
Every night noise seemed amplified, every movement of the horses’ hooves and every rustle of the straw was a vibrant entity because of her aroused and worried state.
“Why did you let me think you had other men when there weren’t any, hmmm?” he asked in his soft Cajun patois, as smooth as the underside of a magnolia blossom.
Her stomach knotted. Frank, you traitor. “Don’t be misled. I’m no shrinking violet where men are concerned.”
“For three years you hardly left Tom Windham’s side. You had only one man, chère. And since he died two years ago, you haven’t had a man at all. Why didn’t you tell me the truth about why you went back to California the other weekend?”
His warm breath caressed her face. She shut her eyes. “I was trying to keep you from liking me.”
“Because you don’t want me?” he asked slyly.
Caroline stared at him, her chest rising swiftly. “Just the opposite, and you know it.” His face was so near to hers that she could have nuzzled her nose to his. She was awfully tempted to bite it first.
He made a petting motion with one hand. “Easy, easy. I just needed to hear you say so.”
Her mouth went dry from nervousness. This was a totally unexpected turn of events; she was no good at handling people at close range, not people who meant a great deal to her, and especially not this assertive Cajun.
“Angelique would be good for you,” she announced. “Maybe I misjudged her.”
He began to brush a fingertip across her kneecaps. “She’s a wonderful woman. And Mark is a great kid. When did you tell him that you had a pet spider in your room?”
“Well, maybe after lunch, no, let’s see—”
“I don’t remember you having any chance to talk to him after lunch. I don’t remember you having any chance to talk to him at all. This is one of the mysteries I’ll have to figure out about you. It’ll be fun.”
Caroline shifted her knees, trying to escape the disastrous trail of sensation his hands sent slipping up and down her legs. “Stop it,” she ordered softly. “Go back to the house. Just becau
se you’ve realized that I have the love life of a rock doesn’t mean that anything else has changed. I’m leaving for California when the movie’s finished. Don’t forget it.”
“Hmmm-mm.” He cupped his hand over one knee and curled his fingers along the inside.
“Doc, please,” she begged. “Go back to the house and do something smart. Play your accordion for Angelique.”
“She wouldn’t have me if I tried.”
Caroline gaped at him for a second. “What happened? Did you sic the cats on her again?”
He lifted a black brow. “That’s more your territory, eh, witch?”
She shook her head solemnly, and was perturbed to see his eyes crinkle with amused disbelief. He patted the inside of her knee. “I’ll figure you out eventually. There’s plenty of time.”
“No, there’s not.”
His teasing look faded. “Angle’s leaving early in the morning. We had a talk after that mess with the camera this afternoon. She said she saw things between you and me that I can’t ignore.”
Unable to speak without her voice breaking, Caroline squinted at him and tried to look nonplussed.
He moved his fingertips in lazy circles, making tingles run down the muscles of her legs. “I thought you just wanted anything that was Cajun to be your joke—especially me,” he continued, his tone low and apologetic. “I thought that you were laughing at me for being old-fashioned.”
Tenderness burst inside her. “I was envying you. And trying to protect you from making a mistake with Angelique.” She paused, grimaced with the effort of revealing her motives to herself as well as to Paul, then finally admitted, “And I was trying to drive my competition away.”
He bent his head to her knees. “It tore me up when I realized that I’d humiliated you for caring about me, chère. I won’t ever do it again.”
Tears flooded her eyes. She pressed her fingertips to the corners. “Cut it out, doc. I don’t deal with kindness real well.”
“You’ll have to learn.” He grasped her by the shoulders. Caroline lifted her head just as he leaned forward, and suddenly he was kissing her, his mouth a gentle, possessive force that made her whimper with pleasure.