Holding Delta by the hand, the tall, strange woman led them across the small clearing that surrounded her cabin and into the woods beyond. They walked silently, Delta numbed by the revelations of the past hour.
Revelations that Brett was indeed wanted for the murder of his wife, and not only his wife, but an infant daughter. The correlation between her dreams and what she was beginning to know as reality filled her with both awe and fear.
They stepped lightly on the damp, soggy ground, which was littered with leaves. The musty odor of decaying nature rose around them. The forest thickened, filled with ghostly shapes of cypress and tupelo and sycamore trees.
Light filtered in thin streams through the masses of gray moss overhead. She looked up expecting to experience the same secure feeling as in the pirogue with Gabriel, but was suddenly chilled by the realization that this was in fact a reenactment of her nightmare.
The sweeping gray moss resembled funeral sprays. By the time Crazy Mary halted at the base of the largest of two enormous oak trees, Delta knew what to expect. A chill wind touched her cheeks—or was that from her dream, as well?
Suffocating with the fear of what was sure to follow, Delta glanced down, and there, as she had known it would be, lay a small mound covered with leaves and moss.
Crazy Mary’s voice penetrated her dream world. “This is Olivia’s grave. The other is Nicole’s. Trainor would not allow them to be buried in the cemetery with his family. Me, I am happy for it.”
Releasing Delta’s arm, Crazy Mary knelt to the ground. As though her movements were being controlled by some force outside herself, Delta watched the woman straighten the wooden cross at the head of Olivia’s grave.
“Ah, such soft earth. I mus’ find a way to keep this cross straight, for truth.”
Suddenly overcome by the awful reality of it all, Delta fell to her knees. Tears poured from her eyes, dripping to the leaves below. Finally she covered her eyes with her hands and wept. Her head reeled with the ultimate meaning of her dreams and of her presence here. This was the baby who cried in her dreams. Brett’s daughter. Brett’s murdered daughter. Little Olivia.
Soulmates. Yes, she and Brett were soulmates. And now that they had found each other they would spend the rest of their lives together—as long as Brett remained free and alive. If he even arrived here without being apprehended.
Sobs shook her shoulders. She was conscious of the presence of Gabriel and Crazy Mary, conscious of a need to gain control of her emotions. But she was powerless to shake the sadness that kept her on her knees as if it were a yoke pressing on the shoulders of an ox.
At length she felt hands on her arms, warm hands that reminded her of the way Crazy Mary had taken Gabriel by the arms and looked into his eyes.
“Chère?”
The hands pulled her to her feet, while her brain weighed the word and the voice, and her heart leaped to her throat. She turned in Brett’s hands, faced him, stared into his magnificent eyes. In spite of all her efforts, tears continued to roll down her cheeks.
“You’re safe,” she whispered, still standing with her hands gripping her arms. “Dear God, you’re safe.” Her words stirred fears inside her, realistic fears that he would not be safe for long.
He stared at her as if he had seen an apparition, scanning her face, her body, the loose-fitting dress Gabriel’s sister had loaned her, returning to her face. “You crazy femme. You shouldn’t have come here.” But his tone was soft and belied his words. Suddenly his expression sobered. “Now you know it all.”
“Oui.” The word escaped on a sob.
With that they fell into each other’s arms. Her heart beat so fast she was sure it would play itself out. Brett was here. He was safe—for the time being anyway. She tightened her arms around him and felt his hands on her back, stroking her, holding her near. When he tried to move her head back, for a moment she refused to lift it off his chest. She never wanted to let him go.
But when she lifted her face and felt his lips, soft and tender, on her own, she knew this was what she wanted to feel forever. Soulmates. What a glorious word. They were soulmates, and so much more.
Finally a measure of sanity returned and she glanced around for Gabriel and Crazy Mary.
“They’re waiting at the house,” Brett told her. When his eyes strayed beyond her shoulder, she turned in his arms, allowing him to view the grave of his daughter, and beyond it, that of his promiscuous wife.
She slipped her arm around his waist, holding him near, and felt his heart beat fast against her shoulder.
“I never knew where they were buried,” he whispered, dropping to his knees in the same spot where he had found Delta.
She knelt beside him, still holding him close. “Olivia had blue eyes,” Brett whispered. “As blue as yours, like Maman’s. That’s the last thing I saw of her, those little blue eyes shining from her cold, lifeless body.”
Delta held him tighter, feeling his chest rumble with unshed tears.
“I couldn’t put them out of my mind,” he said. “For ten years I’ve been haunted by those blue eyes, wondering what I could have done to prevent her senseless death.”
Suddenly he turned toward Delta and clasped her head between his palms. He peered solemnly into her eyes, as if searching for the truth. “I’m going to expose the person who did this, chère. Do you understand?”
She blinked to hold back a rush of tears. “Oui.”
“Do you understand what it will mean for us?”
“I understand that I love you and that you love me. And that I’m going to help you solve this problem so we can be free to live the rest of our lives anywhere we want—together.” She moved forward in his grasp and kissed his lips. “Come, let’s go talk to your mother.”
Chapter Eighteen
Within four hours after Cousin Brady, accompanied by Ellie and Aurelia, drove Kale and Carson to the New Orleans depot, the two brothers arrived at the Waterfront Tavern in Baton Rouge.
The lives of these two brothers had taken vastly different courses, Carson’s to the Texas Rangers, Kale’s to the outlaw trail. Now they had both changed their stripes.
Following his marriage to Aurelia Mazón in Mexico a few months earlier, Carson had resigned his commission in the Texas Rangers to run the Mazón family ranch in Mexico.
Kale had settled down, too, marrying Ellie, widow of Benjamin, the oldest Jarrett brother, after solving Benjamin’s murder in Texas.
Both men thought they had hung up their weapons for good. But neither had counted on their little sister, Delta, finding herself in a peck of trouble in Louisiana.
“I still can’t figure it,” Kale said for the umpteenth time since leaving New Orleans. “That Dupré had to have kidnapped her. Delta wouldn’t have run off with the sonofabitch.”
“Nope,” Carson agreed. “Not Delta. And there isn’t a tree in Louisiana high enough to hang the bastard from, not so’s he’ll swing through all eternity.”
Kale consulted his pocket watch. “Two o’clock. What time are we expectin’ Cameron?”
“This afternoon.”
“It is this afternoon.”
“Barely. I’m itchin’ to get on this trail same as you, Kale, but there’s not a hell of a lot we can do until Cameron arrives.”
Fifteen minutes later Stuart Longstreet entered the Waterfront Tavern and approached Kale and Carson.
“Cameron wired me to meet you here. I’m the agent he sent to look out for her,” Stuart admitted to Delta’s brothers. “Hate the turn of events.” After he brought them up to date on the case, Kale and Carson barraged him with questions.
“You’re sayin’ Delta ran off with some fiddle player instead of a gambler?” Kale quizzed, his tone caustic.
“The fiddler is a friend of that gambler who the troopers think is Dupré,” Stuart explained.
“They don’t know?” Carson questioned.
“Nobody knows, to my knowledge. A member of the theatrical troupe on board the Mississippi P
rincess was a bounty hunter by the name of Nathan Thomas. Seems he was on the trail of this Anatole Dupré. He told your sister as much. Gerard speculates Delta went along with the fiddler in search of a story.”
“Like hell she did,” Kale stormed.
“Not Delta,” Carson confirmed. “Who’s Gerard?”
“Governor Trainor’s aide. He’s conducting the governor’s end of the manhunt. It was the governor’s sister—”
“We heard all that,” Kale informed the Pinkerton.
“You searched Delta’s cabin on that showboat before it took off for New Orleans?” Carson quizzed.
Stuart nodded. “With Zanna’s help. She’s the artistic director of the theatrical troupe. She and Delta became close friends. Zanna believes Delta left the boat of her own accord.”
“She doesn’t know Delta very well, then, if she thinks Delta’s that foolhardy,” Kale told him.
“Zanna thinks Delta’s in love with Reall.”
“Who’s Reall?” Carson prompted.
“Brett Reall, that’s the name the gambler went by.”
“He’s one and the same with this Dupré?” Carson questioned.
Again Stuart shrugged. “Some folks think so. Me, I don’t know. After I came on board he kept pretty much to his cabin, so I didn’t get a chance to observe him.”
Kale and Carson studied each other, then stared separately into the dusty space of the tavern.
“Delta’s not some wet-behind-the-ears kid,” Kale commented to no one in particular.
“She wouldn’t fall in love with a gambler, certainly not with a murderer,” Carson said.
“Unless he duped her,” Kale argued. “Men are good at that.”
They finished their beer, and still Cameron hadn’t shown up.
“Train from Memphis won’t arrive for another hour,” Stuart told them. “You two best find you a bed to lie down in. It might be the last shuteye you get for a while.”
Kale and Carson had just agreed that might be the best suggestion they’d heard in some time, when Luis Gerard arrived with word that the governor wanted a word with “that woman’s kin.”
“That woman has a name,” Kale snapped. “It’s Delta. Miss Delta Jarrett.”
“We’ll be happy to meet with the governor,” Carson told the aide. “Long as it can be accomplished within the hour. After that we’re off on a manhunt.”
The governor, according to his persnickety secretary, had rearranged his busy schedule to accommodate the brothers. His secretary ushered them through the carved double doors, holding her skirts to the side as though their denim and buckskin might contaminate her.
“Wonder if she’ll clean the carpet after we leave?” Kale hissed to Carson after they’d entered the ornate office.
Governor Trainor was a man slight in build and in manners. Instead of rising to greet the two men, he merely nodded to a pair of leather wing chairs.
“Gerard tells me you’re willing to cooperate with us in bringing this killer to justice.”
Kale and Carson mumbled in agreement. “Yes, sir.”
“Sure are.”
“Then sit and let me fill you in.”
The brothers took the indicated seats, which faced the governor’s mammoth cherry-wood desk. The governor eyed them from beneath heavily thatched black eyebrows.
“Dupré’s a devil. Dangerous as a man can get. He has a lot of family in the bayou who can be expected to hide him, so stay alert for names like Broussard, LeBlanc, Fontaine.”
Kale and Carson listened, nodding, trying to record the specifics.
“Bayou folks think highly of Dupré’s mother. According to them she can perform miracles. I happen to know she can’t, but regardless, this puts you up against odds of a different kind. Her name’s Crazy Mary. She’s a Voodooienne, a witch.”
The expressions on the brothers’ faces changed from solemn attentiveness to wary suspicion.
“Sonofabitch,” Kale hissed.
“A witch?” Carson questioned.
Trainor smiled, the satisfied smile of a man accustomed to dominating others. “I don’t believe in such nonsense, but most folks in these parts do. You have to take that into consideration when you’re dealing with bayou folk.”
Carson expelled a whispered oath. “A murderer and a witch. I’m ready to wake up from this nightmare.”
Trainor continued. “Gerard will act as my lieutenant, leading a company of state troopers. I want the two of you to stick close to them. Don’t go initiating things on your own. Understand?”
Carson nodded.
“No,” Kale objected. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn about this Dupré or his mother, witch or not. We’re here to find our sister, hopefully before she comes to any harm. If we have to strike out on our own to do it, you can be damned sure that’s what we’ll do. She’s our sister. We call the shots.”
Trainor’s eyes narrowed to slits. Veins stood out on the backs of his clenched fists.
“Understand?” Kale barked.
Trainor leaped to his feet. “You insolent cowpoke. What did I expect from a couple of Texans?” He flung an arm toward the door. “Get out of here. If you want to search for your sister, you will do so under my terms or not at all. And if you disobey my instructions, understand this—my troopers will be under orders to shoot first and shoot to kill.”
Kale and Carson headed for the door, but Trainor called them back with another warning. “If you love this sister of yours half as much as you say, you’ll cooperate with my men. We’re going to get Dupré. One way or another. The woman that bastard killed was my sister, and the child, her baby daughter, was my niece.”
Arms entwined, Delta and Brett retraced their steps along the leaf-strewn path to his mother’s house. The moment they stepped into the clearing, however, Delta stopped short, as though her feet had suddenly become mired in bayou mud. Apprehensively she glanced around the clearing.
Brett urged her forward. “We’re safe for the time being. Gabriel’s cousins, my cousins, and Pierre are all out there keeping watch.”
Tightening her grip around his waist, she took a tentative step. Surrounded by danger as they were, all she wanted was to throw herself in his arms, to hold him and to have him hold her until, like a storm, the danger had passed.
But this was one storm they could not wait out. As surely as they stood here together, it would come. If they didn’t defend against it, it would destroy them.
Brett’s pace quickened when they neared the house. He dragged Delta up the steps and into the front room, where the first thing she noticed was that the candles and other paraphernalia had been removed from the center of the floor. Crazy Mary rushed to greet her son.
Releasing Delta, Brett swept his mother in his arms, laughing and hugging her. Wordlessly he began to dance her around the room to the beat of some unheard tune.
Delta stepped back beside a grinning Gabriel to watch this suddenly exuberant Brett. His unrestrained laughter echoed in the otherwise hushed room. He continued to twirl his mother in faster and faster circles, missing the furniture by scant degrees.
Crazy Mary laughed with her son, gaily, as though no cloud hung over their house, over their lives. Her eyes stared intently into his, causing Delta to wonder what transpired between these two people who appeared to be in such intimate communication.
Watching them, Delta was suddenly struck by the truth. It was not Brett Reall she watched dancing with his mother to some silent tune in a shack filled with herbs and potions on a lonely Louisiana bayou. This was not Brett Reall, suave and cynical impostor. It was Anatole Dupré, an uninhibited bayou man who bore no more than a stark physical resemblance to the man with whom she had fallen in love. She had never heard Brett laugh like this, had never seen him dance with such abandon, his guard down, relaxed, happy.
The dance did not end abruptly, as it had begun. Rather, it wound down slowly. After a couple more passes around the room, the dancers halted, still gazing into each other’s
eyes. Brett held his mother at the waist, while she lifted a hand to smooth back a shock of hair from his forehead, her expression serious, loving. Methodically, as though she were sightless, she traced his features with rough, willowy fingertips, all the time crooning, “Anatole, my Anatole.”
Yes, Delta thought, here was the real Brett—Anatole Dupré, not the murderer they made him out to be, but a beloved son, a son who loved in return.
As though she had drunk her fill from a long, refreshing drink, Crazy Mary suddenly dropped her hands and her gaze. Her solemn expression turned to one of mischief. “Eh, Anatole, you are proud of me, oui?”
Delta’s heart skipped, watching the familiar frown line crease Brett’s forehead. Her fingers fairly itched to touch him.
Crazy Mary turned to Delta, reaching for her hand, drawing her to them. “For bringin’ you this lovely pichouette.”
Brett slid an arm around Delta’s shoulders and gathered her to his side. “In case you haven’t noticed, Maman, Delta Jarrett isn’t a little girl.” His words teased, but his serious eyes held Delta’s and her heart throbbed in her throat.
“Hurrmph!” Crazy Mary laughed. “I call her what I like.”
“Oui, Maman. I see you have not changed in ten years.” He winked at Delta, continuing to tease his mother. “You claim to have brought us together? Aren’t you taking credit for an awful lot?”
“Me, I deserve it. Without my help, you might not have met in this lifetime.”
Delta listened to the peculiar exchange, unsure how much of it she believed even after all that had transpired. But she didn’t really care, since for whatever reason they had met and fallen in love.
“It was the dreams, oui,” Crazy Mary was saying. While she continued to explain how her attempts to contact Brett—Anatole, she called him—were interrupted by his and Delta’s souls who had been struggling to meet, Brett’s hand left Delta’s shoulder and moved to the side of her head, which he guided to his chest. Beneath her cheek his heart thrummed quite as erratically as her own.
Sunrise Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Three Page 31
