Bayou Heat

by Donna Kauffman

  “She asked me to come up early and watch her prepare so I could observe and make notes. She wasn’t going to let me stay for the actual ceremony, but we discussed it—”

  “Discussed it? Erin, for all we know it’s one of her initiates that is feeling threatened by you. Anything could happen.” He turned and stalked a few feet away, raking his hand through his hair. Nothing he said was going to dissuade her, he knew that. “Damn Belisaire,” he ground out. “She knows about the petro gris-gris. I can’t believe she’d allow this.”

  “I’m sure she has her reasons, Teague, but—”

  “Oh, I have no doubt about that, chèr,” he broke in, striding back to where she stood. “But one thing you have to understand about Belisaire, she serves her interests first, her followers second, and everyone else as she sees fit. Don’t ever forget that, Erin. God knows it took me long enough to figure it out.”

  “I can take care of myself, Teague. Believe it or not I’ve managed just fine on my own in situations far more volatile than this one.”

  He took her by the shoulders, gripping harder than he should. “You don’t know what the hell you’re getting into here, Erin. I do!”

  “Then tell me, dammit!” she railed back. “I’m an observer, I won’t be involved. What are you afraid of?”

  He hauled her closer, pushing his face in hers. “I’m afraid you’ll get caught up in what’s going on and won’t see the danger until it’s too late. I’m afraid that I won’t be there to see it for you.” His voice dropped. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to stand it if something ever happens to you. I’m afraid I’m falling in love with you and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

  She gasped. “Oh, Teague.”

  “You’re killing me, Erin.”

  She pulled his head closer, then buried her face in his neck, holding him tightly. Against his jaw, she whispered, “Nothing will happen. This is too important to me. I know how to be careful, how not to be seen. I was taught by the best, Teague. You have to trust me.”

  He held her tightly, his heart warring with his mind. The need to tell her what was really going on in the bayou that night, knowing it was his only hope in keeping her away, was almost undeniable.

  She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “I don’t want to cause you more pain, Teague. I don’t want to worry you, add to whatever burden it is you carry.” She kissed him, the tender pressure of her lips on his shattering his heart. “But don’t ask me to stay away. Please.”

  “Would you?”

  She held his gaze. “I think I would do almost anything for you.” Then she added, “You’re not the only one who’s afraid here, Teague.”

  He kissed her gently. Then it came to him. The one way he might be able to make her understand without compromising his responsibility to his job. “Then do one thing for me.”

  “What?”

  “I want to show you something. I know you want to get to the lab but—”

  “I’ll go.”

  He released a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. “Thank you, ange.”

  “I want to understand. If this will help, then the lab can wait.”

  They were silent as Teague maneuvered the bateau farther up the bayou. Erin’s mind was reeling with everything that had happened in the last several hours.

  But demanding center stage in her mind was Teague’s confession that he was falling in love with her.

  It wasn’t until he’d uttered the words that she realized how desperately she wanted to hear them. How close they were to the tip of her own tongue. Only his obvious displeasure with the fact had kept her silent.

  They rounded a lazy bend and Teague moved the boat toward shore. Erin scanned the gnarled cypress root shoreline for a track or some landmark. Nothing. But one quick glance at Teague—all she dared—showed he obviously knew exactly where they were headed.

  He tossed a line over one of the heavier exposed roots and climbed out. Once he had the boat secure, he turned to help her. His hands on her arms and waist made her heart beat faster. Hell, everything about this man made her pulse pound.

  “Watch your step. The path is a few feet in.”

  He held her hand and helped her tiptoe across the exposed roots until they were on the somewhat more stable, marshier ground. She spied the trail. It was wider than the ones leading to the hounfour, yet Teague held on to her hand as she followed behind him. The contact with his skin, with his warmth, felt intensely vital to her. Her grip tightened instinctively.

  Her body hummed when he very deliberately squeezed back. She had no idea where he was leading her, or where their relationship was headed. But nothing could have deterred her at that moment from finding out.

  Several minutes later they came to a small clearing. The swamp was slowly reclaiming the area, but it was still open enough to make out the charred ruins of a tiny house. Only part of the stilt frame and the rear quarter were left, though they, too, were being encroached on by vines and new vegetation.

  Teague stopped several yards from where the front steps would have been. Erin watched him without speaking. He was staring at the moldering shell so intently, she wasn’t sure he even knew she was standing beside him.

  His hand tightened on hers, and after a long moment he turned to face her. She swallowed a gasp at the anguish and pain on his face.

  “Teague?”

  “I was born here.”

  Her mouth opened, but she could think of nothing to say. Maybe there was nothing for her to say. It was his need to speak that had brought them here. The dozens of questions teeming in her mind were abruptly dismissed by her need to be there for him, for whatever it was he needed to unburden onto her.

  “My mother lived here. Belisaire’s people built this for her when she turned twenty-one. She was to be the next mambo. All the people treated her as one. This was their tribute to her.” He moved forward, stopping near one of the support beams that had held the house above the dangers of the swamp. “She didn’t want it. The house or the mantle Belisaire was so damned determined to pass on to her. But she took the house, mostly so she could escape.” His short laugh was harsh and totally void of humor. “Not that she could.

  “She found work in Bruneaux. Determined to leave the bayou and the stigma of being one of the voodoun behind her. She went to work for my father as a clerk in his law office. Anyone will tell you that my father is not a man controlled by his passions. Quite the opposite. But my mother was different. He was totally captivated by her. Had to have her. His pursuit of her had the whole town in an uproar. Grant Sullivan’s image was very important to him, except where my mother was concerned.

  “She saw him as her way out of the swamps. His name, his money, his prestige, the respect he commanded, were her ticket to a new life. And to a certain degree, she was right.” Teague wandered to the back of the house.

  Erin remained silent, knowing he was lost in his past, wanting him to drain whatever was festering inside him.

  “But Father’s devotion to her was more obsession than love. He prided himself on his control, yet with her he had none. He couldn’t deal with that. He’d be with her, then yell and rant and rave, accusing her of casting spells on him. Hoodoo. Conjo.”

  “Did she tell you this? I mean, how did you—”

  Teague turned to her. “Oh, it was common knowledge.” He smiled rather nastily. “Common being the operative word there.”

  Erin almost cringed under the brutality of what behavior she suspected that simple phrase covered.

  “When he found out she was pregnant with me, he reportedly went off the deep end. He was convinced she’d plotted it to snare him. And yet he still couldn’t keep away.”

  “And she stayed with him?”

  Teague looked at her. “Erin, she would have done anything to get away from here. Away from Belisaire and the voodoun society.”

  “But Belisaire was her—”

  “Mother. Yes, but as I said before, Belisaire’s priorities ar
e different from most people’s. My mother understood that better than anyone. She was to be the next priestess. It was decided. There was no discussion. So my mother did the only thing she could: she escaped and found a hiding place in the only fortress strong enough to protect her. One built with Sullivan money. But it was an illusion.

  “When I was born, she threatened to keep me from him unless he married her. Everyone knew he had a bastard son living in the swamps, the son of a demon woman who’d cast some witchery over him.”

  “Oh, Teague, surely people on Bruneaux didn’t really believe that.”

  “You’d be surprised. The old ways and beliefs have filtered into much of this area over the generations. People may act like they don’t believe, even go so far as to publicly denounce voodoo and all who practice the religion, but let there be the hint of a threat and Belisaire’s services suddenly become very popular. Maybe not in person, but there are very few in the parish that haven’t sought her out for one reason or another. And therein lies most of her power.

  “Even after my father married my mother, which he did only because she threatened to raise his only son in the bayou with Belisaire, the whispers about her never stopped. And others in the parish knew that if the Sullivan name and bankroll couldn’t stop the rumors about a Sullivan wife, then it would be social death if word got out of their own connection to Belisaire. No matter how tenuous or well hidden.”

  Teague dropped her hand and moved away, wandering among the ruins in the front part of the house. Erin followed.

  “I can’t imagine what your childhood was like, Teague.”

  “Not easy,” he said, an obvious understatement. “I was the proverbial demon seed. And when I figured out that being good wasn’t going to change that fact, I decided to live up to my billing. The only regret I have about my behavior was that it made my mother’s life even more difficult.” He leaned against one of the support beams and folded his arms over his chest. “I used to beg her to leave him, to move us back here. But she wouldn’t go near the bayou. This place was literally abandoned the day she married. Belisaire’s people considered it sacred. It was hers. No one else would ever occupy it.”

  “How did it burn?”

  Teague looked to the ground.

  “I’m sorry,” Erin said quickly. “You don’t have to—”

  “When I was eleven my mother found out Father had been having an affair with a woman in town. Had been in fact since shortly after their marriage.”

  “Marshall’s mother?”

  “Yes. Marshall was three years younger than me.”

  “Oh, Teague. What did she do?”

  “Nothing.”

  Erin stiffened. “What? What do you mean she did nothing?”

  Teague smiled, but it was hollow. “She wasn’t that strong, Erin. She did what she had to do to ensure her place in Father’s life. But the last thing she was going to do was make him choose between her and the woman he’d gone to in order to prove he could have a ‘normal’ relationship.”

  “Is that what he told her?”

  “Rather bluntly and in front of several of their closest friends.”

  “She must have been humiliated.”

  “Possibly.”

  Erin made a choking sound. “Possibly? Teague—”

  “I don’t mean to sound callous, chèr. But instead of making her mad, it scared her. She was angry, but mostly at herself for forcing the issue in public. Marie knew better.”

  Erin swallowed several very unkind words. Then gasped when Teague laughed.

  “What?” she asked, perplexed.

  “You and Marie are nothing alike, ange. You’d fight to the death for something or someone you believed in. You can’t know how much I respect that. I loved my mother, I understood her, or at least I tried to. But most of the time she was too busy trying to save herself to worry about much else.”

  “But she didn’t, did she?” Erin asked softly.

  “No, chèr.” He held her gaze for a moment, then pushed away from the beam. “No she didn’t.” He held out his hand for her.

  Erin’s eyes burned as she stepped over the rubble and accepted his offer. He led her back to the path at the edge of the clearing, then turned to stare at the ruins.

  “Father asked her for a divorce right after I turned twelve. He made no pretense that he planned to marry Marshall’s mother, nor did he spare my mother’s feelings. Why he hadn’t asked before no one knows. For all his anger and adultery, he was still obsessed with her. He dared her to stop him, as if he was trying to prove to both of them that no spell existed, that he was truly free to make his own choices.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She threatened him. But despite her hold on him she was an embarrassment. As was I. Even more so. A true black sheep in every sense of the word. Now he had Marshall. The model child and heir. Blond, handsome, smart. All-American. Untainted by voodoo.”

  Erin turned to Teague and placed her hand on his chest. He looked at her, his expression hard. But she saw the anguish, the old pain. “I didn’t know. How unfair to both of you. You must have despised him, even though he was as innocent in all of it as you were.”

  “Well, that’s the ironic thing in this whole ugly mess.” Erin began to lift her hand, but Teague quickly trapped it with his own. She felt the steady pulse of his heart.

  “What was?”

  “I think I was the only one who truly understood Marshall. Just because his father was a Sullivan and his mother was from a fine family herself didn’t remove the stigma of being born a bastard. He was tortured by the other kids as much as I was. Only he didn’t fight back.”

  “And you did.” Erin knew instantly how it had been. “You fought for him.”

  “All the time.” Teague forced a smile, but Erin wanted to cry. “He hated me for that. Made it a point never to ask me for anything, never to owe me.”

  Erin rested her forehead on Teague’s shoulder, her heart aching for the boys they’d been. “I bet you didn’t make that decision easy on him either.”

  He pulled her closer. “No. No, I didn’t. It took a couple of years, but when Father pressed for the final divorce, that was no longer an issue.”

  Erin held him more tightly. He returned the embrace, resting his chin on her head. She knew he was staring at the charred remains of his mother’s house.

  “What happened, Teague?”

  “She came back here. The house burned. She died.”

  His stark summation of what had to be the worst tragedy a child could suffer hit Erin like a physical blow.

  “The coroner and the fire investigator both pronounced it a suicide,” he went on in the same bleak voice. “Of course the rumors flew thick and vicious, each one wilder than the last. It’s been almost twenty years. I still hear them.”

  “How could she do that to you?”

  “She wasn’t thinking of me, Erin. Hell, I don’t know what was going on in her mind. I spent as little time at Beaumarchais at that point as possible. The day she died I had skipped school and hitched down to a pool hall near the bayou. I spent a lot of time there.”

  “The Eight Ball?”

  He shook his head. “But one very much like it. Actually, I named my place Behind the Eight Ball.” He leaned back against a tree and pulled her with him. “Appropriate don’t you think?”

  “You don’t want to know what I think.”

  He ran a hand down the side of her face and tilted it up to him. She had no doubt he saw the fury in her eyes. “Don’t, Erin. It was a long time ago.”

  “Time doesn’t make it right. Or okay.” He continued to stare at her, and finally she let out a sigh and let her head drop back to his shoulder. “I also know that all this helped to shape the man you’ve become.”

  He stiffened, and she immediately looked up at him.

  “Why do you do that?” At his raised eyebrow, she said, “Hide.”

  His face shuttered immediately.

  “See, just like th
at. I don’t even think you’re aware of it. That’s why I hate what happened to you as a child. I don’t blame you for wanting to close yourself off. I don’t think I’d risk myself again either. But it doesn’t stop me from wishing it were different for you.”

  “Minor in psychology, Doctor?”

  “No. I majored in life,” she shot back. “I guess between romping naked with the aborigines and crawling through jungles, deserts, and other slightly nonurban locales, you could say mine was about as far left of normal as you could get. And I guess as a result so am I.” She looked away, suddenly feeling awkward and oddly shy. “Maybe I’m not one to preach after all, huh?”

  He turned her face back to his, studying her intently. She stared right back, willing herself to relax and let him in. Willing him to do the same.

  “Maybe I like exactly what and who you are, Erin McClure. Maybe I do hide. I do know that I don’t want to with you. I’m almost compelled not to.” He shifted her against him so they both looked at the ruined house. “That’s why I brought you here. To lay it all out and explain what happened.”

  “You didn’t have to. Revisiting this …” She shook her head.

  “You said you wanted to understand me. You were right about the past shaping us. It has everything to do with who I am now.” He pulled her back around to him and kissed her hard.

  Startled, Erin stiffened for a second, then relaxed fully into his kiss. He groaned deep in his throat and gentled the pressure of his mouth on hers. He lingered, tasting her slowly, so sweetly, her knees went weak.

  He lifted his head and looked down at her. “I’ve never cared what anyone thought of me, chèr. But with you …”

  “Shh, mon cajun,” she whispered, running a fingertip over his bottom lip. “Kiss me again. I’m not going anywhere.”

  ELEVEN

  Teague hesitated, his heart pounding. A lifetime of subjugating need and want began to dissolve like the surge of the tide eroding a sand fortress. Grains of control, of protective instincts, of anger, of pain, all began to wash away as he stared into Erin’s eyes.