by Rebecca York
“If so, the animal isn’t the problem,” he bit out, then gave her an appraising look as he changed the subject. “You need to get warm. You’d better get out of your wet clothes—what’s left of them.”
She’d been so grateful to be back on dry land that any thought of her appearance had fled her mind. Now she looked down at herself, seeing her bare legs, then her blouse clinging wetly to her breasts, plainly showing the darker outline of her tightened nipples.
Embarrassed, she stammered, “I . . . need . . .”
“Clothing,” he supplied. “In the back, I have some things I was taking to the church sale. Climbing out again, he went around to the back of the vehicle. Swiveling, she watched him rummaging through large plastic bags, heard him muttering.
When he returned, he was holding out a lady’s robe, made of soft ecru silk, the front panels decorated with delicate embroidery.
She reached out, stroking the fabric, trying to keep her fingers from trembling, aware of his eyes on her.
“That’s beautiful. You were getting rid of it?” she asked, her voice turning soft.
“Janet said it was in an old trunk,” he answered, sounding offhand. Yet she sensed a current of meaning running below the surface of his words. When he laid the robe across her knees, it felt warm and alive against her chilled flesh. And dangerous.
Janet. His housekeeper. He’d mentioned her in his correspondence.
She continued to stroke the fabric. The robe would cover her; still, she heard herself asking, “Do you have something else?”
He tipped his head to one side, watching her. “You could try one of my shirts and a pair of my pants—if you like the ragamuffin look.”
“I’ll pass on that,” she answered, trying to match his light tone.
“Since it’s stopped raining, I can give you some privacy.”
Before she could answer, he strode around the SUV, and she saw him rummaging again in the bags. This time he pulled out a tee shirt and jeans much like the wet ones he was wearing.
Standing out on the road, behind the vehicle, he pulled his sodden shirt over his head, and she found herself staring at the mat of dark hair spreading across his broad chest, then dragged her eyes away. He said he wanted to give her privacy. She should do the same.
She looked down at the robe still warming her lap. The garment was old and beautiful, like something from a vintage clothing store. Very appealing. Yet as she stared at it, she was oddly reluctant to put it on.
A thought lodged itself in her head. If you put on the robe, nothing will ever be the same again.
Nonsense. It was just an old item of clothing. As good as anything else to cover her goose-bumped flesh. Probably it had belonged to his grandmother or some long forgotten female guest.
Quickly, while he was changing his own clothing, she struggled with the buttons of her blouse. Leaving on her damp panties and bra, she pulled her arms through the sleeves of the robe, then closed the front and began working the buttons.
All at once her fingers became numb and her head muzzy.
Delayed reaction from almost being swept downstream. Because the world was spinning around her, she leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes.
For a moment, she felt like she was floating away from the earth, tethered by only the barest of threads. Dreamily, she slid her hand down the front of the garment, sending little currents of heat over her skin.
Exhaustion had her drifting, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. Then a deep, masculine voice called her name, bringing her back to the world. Only it wasn’t her name—or the twenty-first century. Was it?
“Linette.”
Her eyes blinked open. The sun had dipped low behind the trees at the edge of the clearing. She was sitting on the porch, in the old rocking chair that Papa had made. A bowl sat in her lap. A big wooden bowl of beans she was supposed to be snapping. But really, she had come out here as she had on many evenings, hoping that her love would ride this way again.
She looked toward the shadows, prepared for disappointment. But this time she saw him, and her heart leaped inside her chest. “Andre.”
He didn’t venture any closer to the cabin in the bayou, and she knew the reason. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be seeking her out. She had told him it was wrong. Told herself. Yet here he was. Come from the plantation house to her little cabin.
He could probably guess that her papa was out checking his traps. But did he know that her momma had gone to take care of a sick friend?
Despite all the words of denial that had passed her lips, she set down the bowl on the gray boards of the porch and hurried down the steps, her long skirts swishing around her legs as she picked up speed.
Avoiding the vegetable garden, she dashed into the trees—into his arms. He caught her against his broad chest, hugging her to him.
“I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t come back,” she said in a breathy whisper.
“I shouldn’t have. But I couldn’t stay away.”
“Thank the saints for that,” she heard herself say.
“I am not good for you.”
Probably he was right. But now that he clasped her close, everything felt righter than it had in weeks.
She hung on to him, feeling her heart racing, closing her eyes as his strong hands stroked up and down her arms.
“I had to hold you. Just hold you.”
“Only that?” she teased, then tipped her face up, silently asking for his kiss.
He was glad to oblige, lowering his mouth, brushing his lips back and forth. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him as he moved his mouth more firmly against hers. They had done this before, but she knew he had always set limits on himself.
Now she wanted to push him past that limit. When she boldly pressed her body against his, he answered with a low groan that made her knees weak. Gathering her more tightly in his arms, he slid his tongue along the seam of her lips. She opened instantly to him, and his head angled for deeper possession. When his tongue circled hers in a seductive dance, she felt her head spin.
His hands moved restlessly up and down her back. Through her skirt and petticoats, she felt a hard rod pressing against her. She knew what that was. Knew what it meant, because her mother had warned her that when a man’s body changed like that—he would be dangerous. He might try to bed her. And if he did that, no other man would want her for a wife.
She knew her mother was right. She knew it when she was away from Andre, when she was thinking clearly. He wanted to make love with her, and that was wrong. But when she was with him, her own desire leaped up to meet his.
He lifted his mouth, and she moaned in protest. She wanted more. So much more.
They were both breathing hard now.
In the good girl part of her mind, she knew she shouldn’t be doing this. She had warned herself often enough that the daughter of Jacques Sonnier had no place with the son of Henri Gascon. He was from the plantation. She was from the backcountry. His family had wealth and power. Hers scraped out an existence for themselves as best they could.
Andre Gascon must marry a woman from another powerful family. And Linette Sonnier must wed a man of her own station.
All of that was the truth. But none of it made any difference, now that she was in his arms.
When he bent to kiss her again, a shiver travelled over her body as he stroked the sensitive inside of her lip, then played along the edges of her teeth.
His hand slid up her ribs, sending heat through her body, then eased inward, brushing the side of her breast, creating a jolt of hot sensation.
Their eyes met, and she saw desire. He wanted her. And what he was doing was making her forget she must tell him to stop.
She dragged in a breath. But before she could speak, a voice was interrupting them.
Her father? Had he come back and caught them?
Fear crackled through her.
But it wasn’t her father. It was
someone else. Far away. Too far to reach her and Andre.
“Morgan? Morgan, are you all right?” The words floated toward her from across the bayou. Floated on time and space.
She longed to stay where she was. In his arms, wrapped in the pleasant but pungent aroma that clung to his skin. His scent. For the rest of her life, she would know him by that familiar scent.
Then his hand closed over her shoulder, his fingers burning into her flesh as he gently shook her.
Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself staring up at a face that was the same as her lover, yet not the same.
Chapter Three
Morgan gripped the edge of the car seat, trying to anchor herself, trying to remember who she was—and where she was.
Her name floated into her mind.
She was Linette Sonnier.
Linette.
For a moment, it felt right. Good. Comforting. She liked being the woman in the dream. Then her sense of rightness was shattered as her consciousness swept her back into the terror of the flood waters.
In her mind, the current caught her—carried her away. And she opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
God, no. She was going to die.
She fought the force of the flood. Fought the terror.
“Morgan! Morgan!”
Her eyes flew open. She wasn’t in the water. She was safe
in the car. She was Morgan Kirkland, wearing a borrowed robe. She wasn’t someone named Linette.
Relief flooded through her as she clutched the importance of that fact to her breast.
She was Morgan Kirkland. She hadn’t drowned. She was safe. And as she absorbed that blessed fact, others followed. She worked for Decorah Security, and for some mysterious reason Frank Decorah had wanted her to take this assignment for Andre Gascon.
And he was standing beside her. He was the one who had pulled her out of the water.
She looked up at him and blinked.
“Are you all right?” he asked, and again she was thrown into confusion as images blended and reformed.
He was Andre. Not the man in her vision. The man who had hired Decorah Security. But she must remember there was another man named Andre. Long ago. And she loved him.
No! She loved her husband—Trevor Kirkland. She tried to hold on to his image. But it was like trying to hold on to a picture printed in water.
Deliberately, as she had so many times over the past two years, she brought back the last glorious weekend they had spent together down at the shore.
They had taken a few quiet walks on the beach. But mostly they had spent hours holed up in an expensive motel room, making love, ordering Chinese food and pizza and champagne.
He had said he would come back to her. And she had believed him. Then she’d heard about an uprising at a prison compound in Afghanistan, and she’d prayed that Trevor wasn’t there—that he was all right. But when two men in business suits had come to her house, her whole body had gone cold. She’d known what they were going to tell her—that her husband was dead. Nothing had mattered after that. Not her friends. Not her job. Not her own life.
Now suddenly, everything had changed, and she didn’t like it.
“Morgan, are you all right?”
A man was speaking. His name was Andre. The owner of Belle Vista.
Pushing herself up straighter, she cleared her throat and gave the only answer she could, the only answer she wanted to give. “I’m fine.”
“You looked . . . spacey.”
“I’m fine!” she repeated, this time snapping out the words. She had always known exactly who she was and what she believed.
And she would not allow herself to be confused.
Yet she recognized that something had happened inside her mind—something beyond her control.
It had to do with the robe she was wearing. She had put it on, and her consciousness had slipped away from the here and now.
She couldn’t explain it. And cold fingers of fear clawed at her insides. Grimly, she shoved them away, as she had shoved so many emotions away.
A man stood over her, his face anxious. She had dreamed of him a little while ago. Well, not him. Someone who looked a lot like him. A guy with the same name, but dressed in an old-timey shirt, pants and boots. Like somebody out of a big-bucks historical movie. Maybe he was playing a country gentleman from the late nineteenth century.
She gave a small mental shrug. Why try to fix the episode in time? It was just a dream she’d made up because she was having a bad time—here and now in the Louisiana backcountry.
And exhaustion had a lot to do with it, she silently added. She was wrung out, she’d fallen asleep for a few minutes, and she’d tried to escape.
Deep down, she didn’t quite believe the explanation.
What would Andre Gascon say if she told the story to him?
Unable to meet his gaze, she turned her head toward the water. It still flowed across the road, but not as deeply or as swiftly. Soon the flood would be gone, leaving no indication that she’d almost been swept into oblivion.
She shivered, knowing she was wildly off balance, and not just from the near-death experience.
Andre walked around the car and slipped behind the wheel, then shut the door. In the close confines of the car, she breathed in the pungent aroma that clung to him. It was very appealing.
“What kind of aftershave do you use?” she asked.
“Aftershave?”
“Sorry. I was just thinking I liked the way you smelled,” she said, aware that she had shoved her foot farther into her mouth.
Ignoring the comment, he said, “We should go home. It’s going to be dark soon.”
“I’ll feel pretty silly arriving in this robe,” she muttered.
“It’s better than arriving in just a wet blouse.”
She could have done without the comeback. “We could wait until the water goes down. Then we could get my suitcase.”
“That will take too long. The bayou can be dangerous after dark. Especially now.”
‘Why now?”
“Snakes could have washed up on the road.”
Starting the engine, he backed up, then turned the wheel. On the narrow pavement, it took several maneuvers to reverse his direction. But finally, he was able to make a U-turn and head toward Belle Vista.
The sun was sinking toward the horizon when they turned in at a small sign that announced the plantation. The one-lane drive wound through the bayou, the gloom closing in on them as they made their way farther into the natural area.
He was driving fast now, turning the scenery to a dark blur.
“Slow down,” she said, hearing the thin quality of her own voice.
“I know this road,” he answered. “I’ve lived here all my life.”
Since he was obviously anxious to get home, she switched tactics. “How much land do you have?” she asked.
He sighed, making her think he would have preferred silence. But he answered the question. “Around two hundred acres.”
She made a whistling noise. “That’s amazing.”
“Instead of selling it off, we kept it in the family.” He laughed, “Of course a lot of it is an underwater paradise half the year.”
She sat tensely in her seat as they roared around another curve and emerged from the wilderness onto a double-wide drive. Willow trees on either side led to a large house. As they drew closer, her breath caught.
He’d told her about his estate and sent her pictures. But nothing had adequately prepared her for the reality of Belle Vista. She stared at the graceful stucco building with its twin curved staircases and two-story porticos surrounded by manicured gardens. In the glow from the setting sun, it looked like a jewel that had been lovingly polished.
“Your home is stunning,” she breathed.
“Thank you,” he answered, sounding genuinely pleased. “It was getting a little run-down. I wanted to restore it to its former glory.”
As they pulled to a
stop in the circular drive, she glanced around at what looked like an oasis in the middle of the bayou.
“Your gardener must spend full time keeping all this up,” she said.
“I do it myself,” he answered.
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that a lot of work?”
“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow,” he answered, back in tense mode.
“Okay,” she said carefully, wondering what was bothering him now. Maybe the same thing that was bothering her. She’d gotten physically close to him a while ago. Maybe he was having a similar reaction.
She gave him a sidewise glance as he stepped out of the car and turned toward the sunset. “We made it. But you need to get into the house.”
Quickly he exited the SUV, then came around to yank open her door. “Come inside.”
After her narrow escape from death, she wanted to linger in the driveway, watching the sun set over the trees and simply enjoy the wonder of being alive. But the tension radiating from the man standing next to her seeped into the bucolic picture.
Aware once again that she was barefoot and wearing a borrowed robe, she followed him up one of the curving staircases, to a wide porch—where he ushered her through double front doors.
They stopped in a large center hall, lit by a lamp on a marble- topped chest. She was craning her neck, looking up at the floating staircase when the sound of footsteps made her jerk around. She saw Andre striding rapidly toward the back of the house, disappearing into the darkness at the rear of the hall.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
He left her standing where she was. Alone and a bit confused.
She waited for him to come back. But as the seconds ticked by, she figured that wasn’t going to happen.
What was wrong with him? Had he undergone a personality transplant since their e-mails? Or had he carefully hidden the real Andre Gascon from her? Or did he deal with people better long distance? Was that it?
Because she couldn’t simply stand where she was, she finally started toward the back of the house. Daylight was fading quickly. And there were no windows in the hall. The farther she got from the side lights framing the front door, the more difficult it became to see where she was going.
