by Deirdre Dore
“What does?”
“That you would risk your job, probably your life, for this.”
Raquel stared at him. This was why she hadn’t wanted to get too involved with him. She’d known better than to let anyone care about her. Her heart was wrapped up in this and she wasn’t going to let it go, couldn’t let it go.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she replied finally. “Not right now. Let’s look for another hour and then call it quits.”
Brent opened his mouth like he was about to argue and then closed it abruptly. “Fine.” He removed a book from the shelf, checked it, and replaced it a little too emphatically.
Raquel fought an urge to reassure him, and lost. She put a hand on his arm, feeling the thick muscle beneath. “Brent, I’ve seen you working on a documentary. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t sacrifice to tell a story; I’ve seen you. You love it. You can’t not tell the story.”
Brent shook his head. “It’s different.”
“Is it?” She stared at him. She was thinking about when they’d met the first time, on her college campus, when she’d been nineteen. He’d approached her where she’d sat eating an apple and reading The Faerie Queen for her English class. He’d been leaner then, less densely muscled, and his hair had been thick and unruly.
“Hey, are you Raquel Weaver?” he’d asked, and she’d eyed him up and down. He was older than the boys at her school by a decade, and he seemed confident and driven in a way they did not, his eyes meeting hers directly, the light of intelligence in them unmistakable.
“Yes,” she’d responded. “Who’s asking?”
He’d sat down next to her on the bench where she was reading.
“My name’s Brent Burns.”
Raquel had waited for some further explanation, but he’d just studied her face and said nothing.
Raquel had stared back for a while, intrigued by the strange attraction she felt between them, a kind of magnetic pull. He wasn’t conventionally handsome, but he was tanned and built on a massive scale, the way Raquel liked her men. She hadn’t had many relationships. The men at Fate College were mostly white, privileged, and spoiled, or on scholarship and working several jobs. Either way, they didn’t have much interest in Raquel, either because she was black, because she was poor, or because she intimidated them.
This man looked like he wasn’t intimidated by anything, nor was he bothering to hide that he was attracted to her, very attracted to her.
“Well, Brent Burns,” she’d said finally, putting a bookmark in her book and closing it gently, “what do you want?” She spoke the words deliberately, letting her eyes show that she returned his regard, and that she’d be amenable to spending some time discussing it.
He’d hesitated, his gaze falling to her lips. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so beautiful,” he said finally.
A twinge of unease had settled on Raquel, a premonition that he was about to say something she wasn’t going to like. “And why would you expect anything at all? How do you know me?”
She supposed he could have made something up, strung her along for a while, before admitting his reason for seeking her out. She’d seen the conflict in his face. He hadn’t wanted to tell her why he was there. He’d wanted to spend time with her.
But, as fate would have it, he chose to ask the question that had driven him onto her campus that day, and, in so doing, ruined the chance that he might have known her for herself alone.
“I’m filming a documentary about your mother, Gloria Belle, and I’d like your perspective.”
BRENT SWALLOWED, REMEMBERING when he’d approached her about Gloria Belle. She was right, he had chosen the story. He’d been young and full of himself, and he’d known that the documentary he’d started was going to do well. He’d wanted to be a documentary filmmaker more than anything else. But he’d wanted Raquel as well. She’d been so young, though. So young and already so angry. She’d had reason to be.
“Raquel, if I could go back . . .”
Raquel shook her head and moved a little closer to him, so that he instinctively made room and put her within the cage of his arms, the bookshelf at her back.
“You wouldn’t change it. Making films is part of who you are.” She rubbed her hands down his chest, molding the muscles with her fingers, and he sucked in a breath, releasing the book he was holding to fall to the floor, and braced his hands on the shelf behind her.
“Yeah, but—” he started. She kissed his chin, nipping lightly at it, and he stopped talking and kissed her.
Her long slender fingers sank into his hair, and she wiggled a little in a vain attempt to get closer.
Brent laughed and groaned at the same time. Her lithe body was rubbing up against him, grinding against the all too obvious evidence of how much he wanted her.
“Fuck,” he gasped, and her hungry lips moved to his neck, to the pulse that beat there.
He straightened his hands from the shelf and wrapped them around her. She reciprocated by wrapping her legs around him, and he slid his hands down to her ass to hold her there.
“We can’t do this here,” she told him, but she was moving her butt in a slow circular motion that made him want to beg. The red haze in his brain made it difficult to think.
A breathless “What?” was the best he could manage when everything in him was screaming for him to lower her to the floor and get her pants down far enough to get inside her. He was sinking to his knees with her in his arms, lowering them both to the knotted rug on the floor when she said it again, “Brent, we can’t.”
She arched up against him, her body conflicting with her words. He wanted to listen to her body, God, did he want to, but she had a point. This wasn’t her home; they couldn’t just fuck on the floor of Tyler’s dead uncle’s place.
He knew that. He agreed, but he lowered her to the ground anyway, just for a second, just a second to feel her full length pressed against him.
The book that he’d dropped lay next to her head. It had fallen on its spine and had opened in the center, its pages spreading like a fan. There was something inserted between them.
Brent froze.
Raquel, sensing his tension, looked over at the book. When she spotted what he had, she rolled onto her hip, dislodging him.
Going to her knees, she held the pages apart and removed a folded piece of paper, so old that it had yellowed. It was soft, almost like a hide, but so thin it was translucent, showing the shadows of her fingers beneath it.
She unfolded it carefully, revealing an elaborate drawing of a tree. Its roots descending into the ground, where they twisted through an open cave covered in spiderwebs. Above the ground, the trunk of the tree rose thick and gnarled, spreading low branches. Each branch had a small rectangle with someone’s name and his or her date of birth.
It was a family tree. At the top of the drawing, above the uppermost branches, the name Haven was written in elaborate calligraphy.
RAQUEL, ALREADY BREATHLESS from her activities with Brent, felt like her lungs were seizing. She could see Summer’s tree, saw the branches of her parents split into three—Jane, John, and Summer—but there were other branches with men and women she’d never heard of. She saw Old Ninny, Summer’s great-aunt, and she recognized some of the cousins. But here and there throughout the branches she saw circles drawn instead of rectangles, with lines that ran off the page, like whatever they had been connected to had been cut. Inside the circles, the words Bast. Son or Bast. Daughter were written. The lines were labeled with various names: Collins, Jones, Samuels, Fulbright, Snell, Baker, Carlson, and Bell.
Raquel recognized many of them as people who still lived in Fate. She found herself returning to one circle in particular. A small star had been drawn next to it, as if someone had wanted to make that one important. The line drawn from it read Jones.
Abraham’s last name.
&n
bsp; “I think ‘bast’ means bastard,” Brent remarked, as if he hadn’t noticed that Raquel was frozen in astonishment.
Raquel agreed. “It looks like someone in Abraham’s family had an affair with someone in Summer’s a long time ago.”
“It looks like several someones had affairs with members of the Haven family.” Brent pointed at the circles, at the lines that were drawn off the page.
“Yeah,” Raquel said, “but this is the only one Abraham might have been interested in.”
Raquel flipped the book over. It was a children’s version of the gospel from the 1940s. On the inside cover, someone had written Abraham Jones.
Raquel considered it, her mind spinning. “So, Abraham has a half brother who was a Haven, but who is he? Where is he?”
Brent sat back on his heels. “Maybe Jane knows. Or someone else?”
Raquel set the book down and picked up the family tree, folding it gently back into place. “This child is older than Jane, though not too much older. Old Ninny might know more. I’ll call her in the morning.”
Raquel looked up and met his gaze. “I don’t know how this helps us.”
“I don’t know, either.” Brent shrugged. His eyes had drifted downward.
Raquel swallowed. “We could discuss it further back at my house, if you’re interested.”
“I’m interested,” Brent said immediately.
Raquel managed a smile.
22
BRENT DIDN’T KNOW exactly why Raquel had invited him back to her house tonight, other than the fact that it was stupid late—nearly three a.m.—and she thought he might drive off the road. He sensed that she had reasons beyond wanting his body, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why that idea bothered him. She was planning something, he could tell by the faraway look in her eyes, but he couldn’t figure what exactly.
He’d taken her back to Tavey’s so she could get her bike, and now he was following her home, trying to focus on the road and not the small figure with the excellent ass on the bike in front of him.
He pulled into the driveway of her house behind her bike, gathered up his camera bag, the book, and the family tree, and was out of his Jeep before she’d even taken off her helmet.
She looked at him, tucked the helmet under her arm, and unzipped a pocket inside her leather jacket. Brent’s gaze fastened on her reaching her hand inside her clothes. She pulled out the key slowly.
He swallowed.
Turning away from him, Raquel hurried down the small path to her front door, shoving the key in the lock and turning it faster than absolutely necessary. Brent crowded behind her, urging her to hurry with his body.
She did, letting the door swing wide. She tossed her helmet into the living room, where it bounced on the floor and rolled away. Brent heard a zipper being lowered as she stalked down the hall.
Brent hurriedly set everything he was carrying on the dining room table inside the door to the left, and chased after her, stripping off his T-shirt in the process.
When he reached her bedroom, she’d already turned on the lamp next to her bed, removed all her leather gear, and was standing in her panties and bra next to her bed, her dark skin contrasting with deep blue satin and lace, and outlined in the light behind her.
“Goddamn, you’re hot,” he told her thickly. “I want to lick you from your toes to your lips.”
“Okay,” Raquel agreed, holding his eyes as she reached behind her back and removed her bra, letting it fall to her elbows before catching it in one hand and throwing it away.
Brent stared at her dark breasts and the darker nipples, at the tight, distended tips. God, he’d missed seeing them, sucking on them. After he’d gotten to touch her a handful of times, he realized he’d never stop wanting to do it again.
“God.” He moved without actually planning it, going to his knees in front of her so that her breasts were even with his face. He cupped them in his big hands, liking how it looked as he plumped her breasts gently, stroking the tips delicately with his rough thumbs before taking the left one in his mouth.
She moaned and her knees sagged a little.
He slid the hand that wasn’t cupping her breast down over her hip, dipping briefly beneath her panties before gliding around to cup her bottom and pull her firmly against him.
He continued to suckle her while his other hand squeezed her perfectly rounded ass. Her fingers gripped his hair and she shuddered.
“I missed this,” he groaned, moving to the other breast. “I missed touching you.”
Raquel groaned and begged, “Put me on the bed. Brent. Please.”
“I will. Okay. I will. Just let me—” He slid his lips down over the gentle swell of her stomach and down, until he licked just beneath the line of her panties. He used both hands to cup the cheeks of her ass as he snagged her panties with his teeth and pulled them gently, gently down, until he could see her, smell the salty, wet folds of her flesh.
She shuddered and Brent lost control, standing and lifting her all in one motion, planting her on the bed and tugging her panties away.
She spread her legs and, waiting for him, touched herself while he stripped off his clothes and removed a condom from his pocket.
He watched her the entire time, his gaze focused between her legs, where her slender fingers played with the swollen bud of her clit.
“Fuck, you’re hot,” he told her again and crawled on the bed between her legs. He wanted to tell the story of his need for her with his mouth, worship her with soft kisses over every inch, but he didn’t think he could wait, not with her touching herself.
He braced one arm next to her head while he reached between her legs and gently teased her, his fingers replacing hers as he took up the motion.
“Like this,” he whispered, and she nodded, sweat gathering at her temple.
He mimicked the gentle circular motion until her hips were lifting toward him in a desperate rhythm, then he parted her gently and eased himself inside her, working his way in an inch at a time, until the tight heat of her body clenched the length of him.
“Shit. You’re so tight.”
“Faster,” Raquel begged, her strong runner’s legs wrapping around his hips as he moved rhythmically on her, trying to keep the pace steady, steady. God, don’t come. Not yet. Let her. Just. Hang. On.
Moments later, when Brent seriously thought he was having a heart attack and his throat hurt from breathing in rough pants, Raquel jerked and cried out, digging her nails into his back. Brent couldn’t hold on any longer, not when her body gripped and tightened around him, not when she made those sweet whimpering noises in her throat.
“Oh, my God.” Brent shuddered and collapsed on top of her.
He pushed himself up almost immediately, not wanting to smother her, and met her gaze.
“Wow,” was all she managed, her eyes sleepy and satisfied, one of her hands reaching up to lazily stroke his chest.
“Yeah,” he agreed, and rolled so that he could collapse on his back. It felt like a sauna in the room, a sex sauna. “Can we turn down the AC? I’m dying.”
Raquel chuckled and rolled until she was sitting up. She walked naked down the hall to the thermostat. She lowered it and returned to the bed, crawling on top of the covers and lying next to him, her head on the pillow.
“Am I staying tonight?” he asked her after a minute, wondering bleakly why it felt like nothing had changed between them. Her beautiful face was calm in the dim light, almost sad, as she traced his body with her eyes. “I’d like that.”
“Good,” he replied, and reached for her hand, clasping it with his own, determined to hold on to her.
23
SHE WAS IN the woods again. In the dark, Summer held her hand and whispered to her to be quiet, to be still. Raquel knew she was in the dream, but she couldn’t get out, couldn’t wake up.
; They were being chased.
Gloria Belle’s voice lifted and echoed through the woods that surrounded them, pulling and drawing at Raquel’s ears.
“Baby, it’s okay. Momma’s gonna take you someplace nice.”
“No, no, no. I won’t,” Raquel repeated. Her mom had said that before, had taken her for a ride in a fancy car, only there’d been men in the car. Strange men.
“Shh,” Summer whispered, only it wasn’t Summer as she’d been as a child. She was an adult, her long hair braided with colors, and she was wearing blue scrubs and Raquel’s motorcycle boots. Raquel knew in the dream that this wasn’t right, that Summer was missing, and that she’d been young, very young, maybe six, when they’d hidden in the woods from Gloria Belle and the man she’d brought with her.
“She’ll find me. She’ll find me,” Raquel whispered, and wrapped her arms around Summer’s neck, holding tight.
“She won’t if you shut up,” Summer replied, her voice barely above a whisper. “I won’t let her. I won’t let anyone take any of you. I promise.”
“Swear?” Raquel begged.
Summer tugged Raquel’s arms from around her neck and looked at her, really looked at her. She wasn’t blind.
“I swear on my life. I swear on everything. Don’t be afraid.”
Raquel was afraid, but she swallowed it. “Okay.”
“Good. Now remember, Quelly. When a spider builds a web, it doesn’t wait. It knows when its prey is coming, and it takes.” Summer grinned and held up a long knife that looked like it was made of bone. “We’re going to catch them.”
Raquel jerked awake abruptly—Summer. Her cell phone, still inside a pocket of her riding jacket, was ringing insistently. Confused, still lost in the dream, she’d remembered. She’d never remembered before—only this dream had seemed different. She untangled herself from Brent and slid off the bed, digging her phone out of its zippered pocket. It was eight o’clock in the morning.
“Ryan—”
“I’m still mad at you,” he interrupted her, “but since someone tried to drug Jane last night, presumably in order to remove her from the psych ward, I think you might be right about the group she was involved with still being active.”
