Night Fires

by Sandra Marton

  When she came downstairs again, her hair still damp

  from the shower, Gabrielle was dressed in a loose white cotton pullover and white cotton drawstring trousers. James was in the kitchen, one crutch tucked beneath his arm, wearing faded jeans and an equally faded sweatshirt.

  He smiled as she entered the room.

  ‘See? I managed the shower and the clothing, but shaving is something else.’ He winced as he touched his fingers to his bruised jaw. ‘Can you survive the sight of me with a beard?’

  Her heart leaped as she looked at him. He looked sexy and dangerous. It was a combination she had never thought she’d face over the breakfast table.

  She turned away quickly and reached for cups and saucers.

  ‘No problem,’ she said lightly. ‘What do you think about having breakfast on the terrace?’

  ‘I’m one hobble ahead of you, landlady.’ James grinned and motioned to the door that led outside. ‘I’ve already set the table. And before you ask, I downed two aspirin with my juice.’

  She smiled. ‘Good. I was going to threaten not to let you have any beignets unless you did.’

  James grinned wickedly. ‘Too late. I sneaked a couple while I was waiting.’ His smile faded as his eyes moved over her. ‘The waiting was worthwhile,’ he said softly. ‘You look beautiful.’

  Her hand went to her hair in a self-conscious gesture. Their eyes met and she touched her tongue to her lips. ‘Thank you.’

  He smiled, but his eyes were solemn. ‘You’re welcome.’

  Gabrielle swallowed drily. ‘Why don’t you—why don’t you go on outside? I’ll bring the coffee and the cakes.’

  The terrace was small and very private, shut off from the rest of the courtyard by a high brick wall overgrown with ivy. James had set out china and silver, even linen napkins he’d found in the drawer. Alma’s rose stood in a goblet in the centre of the table.

  ‘I see you found Alma’s gift.’ Gabrielle nodded at the flower as she poured coffee. ‘She says to tell you she hopes you feel better soon.’

  ‘ ‘Nice lady,’ he said with a relaxed smile, and then he took a sip of coffee. ‘Umm, this is good. Is it the chicory blend?’

  ‘Yes. Do you like it?’

  He nodded. ‘Very much. I could get used to New Orleans cuisine without any trouble at all.’

  Gabrielle smiled. ‘Good, because I’m going to try my hand at jambalaya tonight. I’ll go out later while you nap. I’ll pick up some shrimp and tomatoes…’

  ‘No.’ She looked up in surprise. James’s voice was as hard as his eyes. He drew a breath, then smiled tightly. ‘Not without me, I mean. You don’t think I’m going to stay cooped up during Carnival, do you?’

  ‘But your knee, James. The hospital said you were supposed to rest.’

  This time, his smile was the boyish one she remembered. ‘Well, I did. I rested all night.’ He put his cup down and sat forward. ‘If you’re determined to make an invalid of me, we’ll drive. That way I can sit and still see what’s going on.’

  ‘The traffic will be impossible. Alma says ’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We’re not in a rush, are we? And if we see something that looks interesting, we’ll park and take a closer look.’

  Gabrielle looked doubtful. ‘You’re forgetting about my little Toyota, aren’t you? After an hour, you’ll probably beg me to drop you off at the hospital.’

  James grinned. ‘Which is why I telephoned the car rental people while you were upstairs.’ He bit into a cake, then swallowed. ‘Would you believe they’ve agreed to let me try my hand at auto demolition again?’

  She laughed. ‘No, I would not.’

  ‘Well, they did. I explained that I needed a car, that it

  would be hard to get to them with my knee all banged up, and they said not to worry, they’d have someone deliver a car to me here this morning.’

  Gabrielle looked at him warily. ‘Hertz is going to do that?’

  James looked down at his coffee. ‘Yes. Why not?’

  ‘You’re a terrible liar, James Forrester.’

  His head came up and he stared at her. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘You could probably charm the catfish out of the Mississippi if you wanted. Just look at the scam you pulled on the hospital.’ She laughed softly. ‘Letting them think I was going to take care of you—honestly, James, that was awful.’

  He leaned back in his chair and smiled. ‘Not so awful. Look where it got me.’

  ‘Yes, look where it got you.’ She laughed again. ‘In other words, deceit does pay.’

  She waited for his answering smile, but it never came. Instead, he tucked the crutch beneath his arm, got to his feet, and hobbled across the terrace to stare over the wall at the courtyard.

  ‘If there’s no other choice, it does,’ he said, his voice flat.

  ‘Hey,’ Gabrielle said softly, ‘I was only teasing.’

  James turned towards her. ‘Sometimes the end justifies the means,’ he said, watching her. ‘I mean, if something is important enough, the way you get it doesn’t really matter.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You can agree with that.’

  She looked at him questioningly. The conversation had somewhere taken a turn. They’d gone from pleasant banter to dark riddles, although she had no idea why.

  ‘James? What is it?’

  He stared at her, then looked away again. ‘Nothing..I’m just tired.’

  Gabrielle rose slowly. ‘Maybe you injured yourself more than you realised.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Did they do X-rays and blood tests and…’

  ‘Believe me, the doctors examined every inch of my body.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He smiled. ‘Yes. And Nurse Ramrod checked again, just to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. That woman knows more about me than my mother.’

  ‘Which puts her light years ahead of me.’ Gabrielle drew a breath. ‘I don’t know anything about you.’’

  He hobbled back to the table and sank into his chair. ‘OK,’ he said easily, ‘what would you like to know?’

  ‘Well, you never mentioned why you were in New Orleans.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’

  Gabrielle shook her head. ‘No. I assumed you were on vacation, but…’

  He sat back and smiled at her. ‘Good assumption. I am on vacation—I always wanted to see mardi gras. What else?’

  She gave him a quick smile. ‘I don’t know exactly. Little things. Where you’re from. What you do for a living…’

  His eyes met hers. ‘I’m disappointed, Gabrielle.’ ‘Disappointed? Why?’

  ‘Such prosaic questions,’ he said, reaching for her hand and lifting it to his lips. ‘I was hoping you’d ask about the important things?’

  ‘The important things?’

  The ghost of a smile tilted across his mouth. ‘Of course. Do I have a wife? Do I have the requisite one point five kiddies and a cottage in the suburbs?’

  It was impossible not to smile in return. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘do you?’

  ‘Do I what?’ he asked, feigning an expression of

  innocence.

  Gabrielle laughed. ‘Do you have a wife, one point five kiddies, and a cottage in the suburbs?’

  He grinned. ‘No, no, and no. And—just to save you the trouble of asking—all my parts are in good working order, except for this damned knee, I like spring picnics and summer rain, I think whoever invented opera did it just to confuse good music and bad theatre, and no one’s painted anything worth a damn since Degas.’ His fingers laced through hers and he looked into her eyes. ‘And I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. Now, is there anything else you need to know?’

  Gabrielle felt dazzled with happiness. ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t think there is.’

  Suddenly, lines appeared beside his mouth, and his expression grew grim.

  ‘Promise me you’ll always remember that.’

  Her smiled dimmed. �
�I don’t understand.’

  ‘Promise me,’ he said urgently.

  She looked at him, seeing once again the dark shadows and the livid flesh beside the stitches across his cheek, and she nodded.

  , ‘I promise.’

  James stared back at her, then leaned across the table and kissed her. His kiss was tender at the start and then, with a swiftness that left her breathless, he cupped her face in his hands and his kiss deepened, became more impassioned and somehow more poignant than she’d ever thought a kiss could be.

  An explosion of light blossomed behind her closed eyelids. She felt it shimmer like a white flame that invaded her mind and body. Her lips parted beneath his; she moaned softly and wound her arms around his neck, whispering his name against his mouth like an incantation for the spell she was falling under.

  The shrill ring of the doorbell shattered the magic and they separated. James’s eyes held Gabrielle’s as he smoothed dark strands of silken hair from her cheeks.

  ‘Who…?’ She swallowed. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone.’

  ‘It’s probably for me. The car rental people said they’d make delivery within the hour.’ He kissed her and got to his feet. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  Gabrielle nodded. She watched as he hobbled into the kitchen, watched until he vanished into the shadowy hallway, and then she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

  A little while ago, she’d told Alma she’d taken James in because he needed her.

  The truth was more complicated.

  A few days ago, James had been a stranger to be feared and avoided. Now, it was she who needed him. She longed for his kisses, for his presence—and for the moment she could tell him she was falling in love with him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A fire-engine red Corvette was parked at the door of the carriage house.

  James was straight-faced when he marched Gabrielle to the kerb and showed the car to her, but the laughter in his eyes gave him away.

  ‘The boy who dropped it off said the manager told him to say they were awfully sorry, but they were out of sedans.’ He smiled and looped his arm lightly around her shoulders. ‘I told him we’d do our best not to be too distressed.’

  ‘It’s a lovely car, James. But your knee—are you sure you’re up to a drive?’

  He smiled. ‘When I injured it in college, my mother was determined to take me home and keep me in bed until it was healed.’ He shifted the single crutch he was using, and he and Gabrielle started slowly through the courtyard to the house. ‘My father insisted I stay at school and keep moving. I preferred my mother’s plan, of course…’

  ‘Of course?’

  There was a brief silence and then James laughed. ‘My father was—is—a man who believes you measure success by how many awards you’ve won or how many dollars you’ve earned. I was up for an athletic trophy and he was sure I’d lose it if I gave in to the injury.’

  Gabrielle looked at him as they entered the house. ‘So you stayed at school?’

  ‘No. I went home. And after a couple of days of being pampered, the knee froze up completely. So I took my father’s advice, went back to school, and kept moving—all of which would have been fine, except it meant admitting he’d been right in the first place.’

  ‘And that was hard to do,’ Gabrielle said with a questioning smile.

  He nodded. ‘We’re different people, the old man and me. We have different goals and…’ He paused and looked at her ‘… and it still amazes me when I realise that, in many ways, he’s known me better than I’ve known myself.’

  A curious flatness had crept into his voice. ‘James? Is something the matter?’

  His eyes met hers, then slid away. ‘No. No, nothing. It’s getting late, that’s all, and if we’re not careful this special day is going to slip by.’ Smiling, he opened the door to his room. ‘You have five minutes to get ready, Nurse Shelton. Can you manage?’

  Gabrielle laughed and touched her hand to her hair. ‘Not if I’m going to put on some make-up and fix my hair and..

  James’s eyes darkened. ‘What could make you more beautiful than you already are?’ he said softly, and the door closed quietly after him.

  An hour later, he’d traded his crutches for a cane. ‘These things have to go,’ he’d said impatiently as he settled behind the wheel of the Corvette. ‘They’re much too restrictive.’

  Gabrielle smiled at him. ‘You’re not likely to play football today,’ she said gently.

  There was no answering smile. ‘You never know what you’re going to have to do,’ he said tersely, pulling out from the kerb. ‘Just tell me where I can find a surgical pharmacy.’

  It took time to find a cane long enough to suit his height, but, once he’d found the right one, he was surprisingly agile. His knee hurt despite all his bravado—

  Gabrielle saw the skin whiten around his mouth when he first put his weight on the injured leg—but after a few steps he was smiling.

  ‘See? I’m good as new. Now, where would you like to go?’

  ‘Some place where you won’t do any walking,’ she said quickly. ‘Please, promise me that.’

  She needn’t have worried. The streets of the city were thronged with revelers. The French Quarter was all but impassable, by car as well as on foot. The crowds were thick along the Rampart Street parade route.

  ‘No crowds,’ James muttered, and Gabrielle breathed a sigh of relief. He tapped his fingers lightly against the steering-wheel, then turned to her. ‘Any suggestions?’

  ‘We could go back to the carriage house,’ she said. “or we could get out of the city altogether. Alma once mentioned River Road—she says there are some beautiful plantations along the banks of the river. I’ll bet they’re all but deserted today.’

  ‘Plantations?’

  Gabrielle laughed. ‘That’s exactly what I said to Alma. But she swears they exist.’

  ‘Well, let’s go find out.’

  The River Road followed the twists and bends of the sluggish Mississippi. It was an old highway, one that had in past times wound its way from plantation to plantation, and, as Alma had promised, many of the big houses were still standing, some in majestic splendour, others in brooding decay.

  ‘After a while, you’ll expect to see Rhett Butler, waitin’ at the side of the road,’ Alma had said, ‘a mint julep in his hand and his eyes smilin’ just for you.’

  Gabrielle glanced across the car at James. Never mind the mint juleps or Rhett Butler, she thought with a little shiver of excitement, the man beside her was all she wanted.

  The day was warm. Out here, near the river, the air was hot and humid, thick with the promise of summertime. James had taken off his tweed jacket and tossed it into the back of the car. He’d changed his sweatshirt for a long-sleeved, cream-coloured shirt which he wore with the sleeves rolled up. Sunlight danced along his muscled forearms. The top buttons of the shirt were undone, and she could see dark whorls of hair curling out from beneath the soft fabric. He was wearing the mirrored sunglasses that had so angered her when they’d first met, but now they only added to the aura of rugged masculinity that emanated from him. The car windows were open, and the breeze played with his hair, tossing the dark locks across his forehead.

  He was as handsome as any wicked-eyed riverboat gambler from the past, a dazzling combination of charm and good looks, strength and gentleness. He was a man women dreamed of, and he was here, with her, smiling at her, talking to her, touching her hand as it lay in her lap.

  The thought of it took her breath away. When had she last felt this happy?

  Not in years, she thought, putting her head back and closing her eyes, not even before her father’s illness or the nightmare that had followed. She’d never smiled as much, or laughed as much—not since she was a little girl.

  She’d been happy then. Her growing-up years had been filled with laughter, despite the fact that she’d lost her mother. Her father—and Uncle Tony—had been all the warm and loving fam
ily she’d needed.

  But as she’d grown older, her life had undergone a subtle change. She had been excluded from the little cliques and secret sororities at school. She knew it had had something to do with her father’s connection with Vitale, but there was nothing she could do about it. Her father had explained things to her. Powerful men, like Tony Vitale, were envied and feared. .

  It was as simple as that. It had to be. Because if it wasn’t, if there was a shred of truth to the rumours, then what did that make of her father?

  ‘Gabrielle?’

  She started as she felt the weight of James’s hand on hers. It seemed to take great effort to open her eyes and look at him.

  His gaze moved over her face. ‘What’s wrong? You seem so far away.’

  She felt .the harsh pressure of past unshed tears in her eyes and she turned her head before he saw them, too.

  ‘I was just thinking,’ she said slowly. ‘This morning, when you talked about your father, you said he knew you better than you knew yourself.’ She paused, swallowed, then looked at him again. ‘But what about knowing him? I mean, do you really know the kind of man he is?’

  His jaw tightened. ‘I thought I did,’ he said after a while. ‘But I’m beginning to think I was wrong.’ He glanced at her and smiled tightly. ‘When you’re a kid, you see things in black and white. Fathers are good or bad, that’s all. It’s only when you grow up that you realise they’re people, that they can be both good and bad, just like the rest of us.’

  A sob caught in Gabrielle’s throat. James looked at her, then drove to an easy stop on the shoulder of the road. She came into his arms in a rush, her face buried against his chest.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded, tilting her face up to his and looking into her eyes. ‘Gabrielle?’

  She shook her head. ‘I just thought about my father. I wish I could tell him I love him again, that nothing could ever make me stop, no matter what he—no matter who…’

  A muscle moved in James’s jaw. ‘I’m sure he knows that, somehow.’ He bent to her and kissed her mouth. When he drew away, she sighed and smiled tremulously.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I haven’t thought about the past at all, and suddenly, today…’