Southern Secrets (The Southern Series Book 2)

by Shelley Stringer

  She paused, searching for the right words.

  “I’m worried I might not be able to control my reflexes in response to every emotion,” she finally stated.

  “You seem to be doing so well. I’m sure it will all come with time. Is it difficult, I mean, sitting here with me? Does my…my scent bother you?”

  “No, not when I’m not hungry. That seems to be the key, to make sure I’m well fed, anytime I’m going to be around temptation. If I keep a safe distance, I’m good.”

  “Darlin’, that part will get easier. Soon you’ll be able to be around humans even when you’re hungry and your control will be as good as mine,” Everett assured her. Mr. Philippe nodded in agreement.

  Brie looked back and forth at them, and then watched me intently for several seconds. I noticed another change in her from the last visit, the fact she looked directly into my eyes, instead of staring through me. I was convinced she was well on her way to being re-introduced to John, and my heart soared.

  “How is John?” she breathed as she glanced first at me, and then Everett and Mr. Philippe.

  “Um, he’s dealing,” I stalled.

  “Tell me, how bad is it?” she questioned, gazing directly into my eyes.

  “He’s grieving, Brie. He’s heartbroken, and I’m at a loss as to how to help him. You just have to get better, so we can tell him.”

  “NO! You can’t…” she yelled, then paused.

  “Why? What is it that has you so bothered about telling him?” I asked her softly.

  “I…I can’t control or separate my emotions from my reactions, with him,” she admitted, almost to herself.

  “What do you mean? Have your feelings changed for John?” I asked her gently.

  “No, of course not. I love him so much, and when I’m alone, thinking of him, of a reunion with him, my heart soars. I think about the way he used to kiss me, the way I felt as he held me, when he made love to me, and then…I lose control! My fangs extend and the bite reflex is uncontrollable! I’m dangerous--a highly agitated wild animal. He would think me hideous, a monster. I can’t stand to think he might see me that way. It would almost be better if he thought me dead, and you help him to get over me!

  Tears welled up in her eyes when she finished, and my heart began to ache for her. I reached my hand out to her across the table, and as I heard Everett gasp behind us, she reached and took my hand in hers.

  “Brie, there is no way he will ever get over you. I know you can do this, just think about how far you’ve come already! He loves you unconditionally, and I know he would help you though whatever obstacles you might encounter as you become intimate again.”

  “Chandler, your words are encouraging, but I doubt you grasp all of my meaning.”

  “I think I do,” I answered her, turning to look at Everett. “Ev filled me in on some of it, and I know the bite reflex is part of the arousal for an Aldon. I know if you love each other enough, you can work through this.”

  She smiled a sad smile, and rubbed the back of my hand with her thumb. Her touch was numb, like the part of my hand she touched had no feeling. I’d never noticed it with Everett’s touch. I wondered if it was so, or if I’d just never looked for a difference with Everett.

  “Brie, now that you’ve come so far, I’m going to get Everett to bring me back here more often. I want to help you as much as I can. What can I do for you, or bring to you, on my next visit?” I asked.

  “Could you bring me a picture or two of John? It might help,” she answered wistfully. I began to tear up. “Thank you, for everything. I don’t know what I’d do without you and Everett,” she whispered. Everett motioned to me.

  I impulsively moved around the table, embraced her, and kissed her cheek. It seemed the most natural gesture, and I did it without even thinking. She stiffened, and in the matter of a split second, I was jerked across the room by Everett, the breath literally knocked out of my lungs as his arms circled my waist. I flew through the air, Mr. Philippe catching me and pulling me outside the door behind his protective stance. As I caught my breath, I looked back into the room at Brie over Mr. Philippe’s shoulder. Brie stood, her eyes glowing with an intense green, her fangs fully extended as she seemed to labor to get a breath of air.

  Everett dragged me back up the staircase, taking the steps two at a time. When we’d reached the safety of the foyer, he turned in fury to address me.

  “Chandler Ann Gastaneau, what the hell were you thinking? There was a table between the two of you for a reason! Don’t you realize you might have just set us back a month or so in her rehab? Do you realize she could have bitten you, and sucked just enough of your blood in a split second, to jeopardize your life?”

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” I shook as I thought about how stupid I’d been to get close to her. “It’s just hard for me to realize she’s dangerous to me. I just want to help her, to comfort her…it’s hard!” I exclaimed. We stepped out onto the porch.

  “You have to have a little more self-control, Bebe, or this is your last visit to her, period!” Everett practically yelled at me as the full weight of what had nearly happened occurred to me. I angrily swept stray strands of hair back behind my ears as he continued to scold me. “Do you know what Banton would do to me, if he knew what danger I just put you in…” his voice trailed off. I raised my eyes to see why he’d become silent, and followed his gaze across the street.

  “Oh, my white fanny ass, but we’re in trouble now. We’re busted, Bebe.”

  Banton’s truck was parked directly across from the safe house on a side street, with Banton standing beside it, watching intently as we argued. My face automatically flushed as I felt like a cheating wife who had been caught in the act. I turned back to Everett.

  “I don’t know what you’re going to tell him, but you’d better come up with something quick. You cannot tell him, Chandler. Promise me!” Everett demanded.

  I slowly shook my head at him. I stepped around him, and ignored his stunned expression as I walked down the sidewalk and across the street. Everett had finally made a demand there was no way I could honor.

  Banton left his truck behind, walking toward me and meeting me half-way. There were no words to describe the awkwardness of the moment, so I just looked into his eyes as he studied my reactions. After a moment or two, I stepped around him to continue on to his truck, sensing he followed close behind me. We didn’t need to have the confrontation we were about to have out in the open. When we reached the truck, he came around and opened my door for me, and then returned to the driver’s side, climbing in silently. We rode almost the entire way home in silence as I mulled over in my head the conversation we would have once we were home. I sensed him looking at me often. I gazed out my window, my head leaning on the glass.

  As we turned onto Rue Dauphine, he turned to me and asked quietly, “Baby, are you all right?”

  He took me by surprise. I didn’t expect that to be his first question, and I realized again his one and only concern was my safety. The tears began to gather in my eyes as I nodded silently.

  We entered the house calmly, and I waited until we were in the privacy of our bedroom before I turned to him.

  “Chandler, can you tell me now, what is going on?” he asked as he sat down next to me on the bed.

  “Yes. Everett knows I have to tell you, I told him I didn’t want to keep this from you anymore. You have to know, he asked me again not to, and I am breaking a promise to him. Banton, please, you can’t tell anyone else.”

  He watched me for several seconds before he responded. “Sweetheart, I’m a Navy SEAL. Discretion is part of our job,” he answered simply.

  I shook my head…men never seemed to get it. The world is so black or white to them, no gray areas anywhere. Where there is emotion, there is gray everywhere.

  “You won’t be so sure once I tell you. I don’t even know where to begin,” I breathed out, looking down at my hands. “I…I don’t know how to say it, it’s so incredib
le, and it’s horrible we’ve kept it a secret from you, from John…I…”

  “Go on, Andie,” he urged me.

  I sighed, looking up at him as he placed his arms around me.

  “Remember the morning Everett intervened, and took me away for a couple of hours when I was still grieving for Brie?” I asked, nervously searching for the right way to tell him.

  “Yes. You came back and said he’d convinced you to snap out of it, and gave you a reality check…tough love, I think you called it,” he said as he gazed down at me.

  “There was a little more to it. He took me to the safe house.”

  “Where the Aldon took me after I was bitten,” he added. I nodded, and then paused. A funny look crossed his face, and then he added, “Who is there, Chandler. Who does he take you to see?”

  “He made me promise not to tell anyone, especially not you or John. He said until they knew for certain, no one could know. About Brie,” I finished as I watched his reaction.

  “Brie’s not…Brie’s not dead?” he whispered, incredulous.

  “Brie’s not anything, not right now. She’s fighting through the transformation, and the Aldon are trying to help her,” I watched him intently, and the emotion passing over his face in the span of about three seconds terrified me.

  “What the hell…how could they…Chandler! Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, pulling away from me.

  I panicked. I’d never felt him pull away from me before, and it hurt.

  “Everett said it would be worse for John if he knew, and they couldn’t rehabilitate her. The odds are so stacked against her…there are few transformed humans who can be tamed. They are working on her, and she is just now to the point I can be in the same room with her, without her having a violent reaction.”

  “You’ve been with her? Everett put you in danger? What the hell was he thinking! What were you thinking!” he exploded.

  “I promise, I was never in any danger. Olivia and Patrick, Mr. Philippe, they were all there too, between us. They protected me, but they needed a human to work with her, to test her. I’m the only one who knows.”

  “Well, that’s comforting. I suppose that’s where you got the bruises on your arm?” he asked as he pulled my sleeve up to check where the bruises had been.

  “Yeah, in a way. Patrick didn’t realize his own strength when he pulled me from the room the first time we tried it. She’s better now, and we can sit and carry on a conversation. But her emotions are still all over the place, and according to Everett, she doesn’t want to see John until she has complete control.”

  He stood across the room with his back to me. Turning slowly, he raked his fingers through his hair. “I think it should be John’s decision. How could you…how could Everett keep this from him? Let him go on grieving this way! If it was you, I’d want to know so I could help you!” he exploded.

  I was shaking now, the tears threatening as I felt Banton’s anger with me.

  “Believe me, I know. That’s what we were just arguing about, I want to tell John now and stop his grieving…give him some hope. But remember what Dr. Lane said when I’d been bitten, and you didn’t know I carried the gene? He told you the story about his wife, about how she wasn’t able to be tamed. He’d said he had to kill her himself when she attacked a small child!” I reminded him.

  He watched me for several seconds, seeming to weigh everything, and then turned to leave the room. He paused, and turned toward me. “John is my best friend, and he is in pieces. Brie’s death has torn the man apart. You two hold the power to put an end to his suffering, and Everett is making decisions as if he thinks he’s God. I can’t just stand by,” he paused, and looked at me one last time with what could only be described as contempt, slamming the door behind him. It was if he’d turned his back on me and was ashamed of me for keeping the secret. I crawled into the bed, curled into a ball, and cried myself to sleep. Sometimes to curl up into a ball is a girl’s only alternative.

  * * *

  As always, I paid a price for my late night crying jag. I felt the sun as it beamed through my bedroom window. As I tried to open my eyes, my lids felt as if someone had stuffed them with cotton. I sat up and turned to check. Banton’s side of the bed had never been turned down. He’d slept somewhere else last night.

  I’d never felt so torn…my promise to Everett had cost me Banton’s trust, and he was angry with me. I couldn’t blame him. He felt my keeping the truth from him was a betrayal. This was probably one of the greatest conflicts we’d struggled with in our marriage so far, and I’d chosen to keep him in the dark at a friend’s urging. I knew that was the way he interpreted it, and I had no idea how I was going to gain his trust again.

  I soaked in the tub with an ice pack over my eyes, hoping to reduce the swelling. The look on Constance’s face when I met her in the hallway told me I hadn’t been successful.

  “Chandler, what’s wrong?” she asked, walking down the staircase beside me.

  “Oh, nothing for you to worry about. Banton and I just had our first big fight, and he didn’t come home last night.”

  “What? Mr. Wonderful has a stubborn streak? I knew there had to be a chink in the armor somewhere,” she answered smugly, sitting down on the couch with me.

  “Don’t joke about it. I’ve upset him this time, and I can’t say I blame him,” I countered.

  “Is this about the big secret rendezvous between you and Ev?” she asked secretively.

  “Yes, but it wasn’t like that. I…I can’t tell you. Ev asked me not to tell anyone and I have to keep my promise, for a little while longer,” I replied.

  “But you told Banton last night, that’s why he left?”

  “Yeah,” I replied as I sighed.

  “Everything is going to be all right, he adores you, and no one can stay mad at you for long,” she teased, leaning over to look directly into my eyes. I had to smile back at her. I couldn’t help it. Since we were little girls, she always had a way to get me to laugh.

  “Mmm. I sure hope you’re right,” I murmured, shaking my head.

  “Life is good, Sister, unless you piss me off. Then you’re in trouble!” she warned. I finally smiled at her.

  “So, what are you going to do today, besides sneak off with Everett?” she teased.

  “Well, since I don’t know where Banton is, or when he is coming back, I think I will go do some work in the greenhouse. I bought some bulbs, and I think I’ll pot them today.”

  Constance turned to pick up her laptop. “I have a little more work to do on this chem paper, and then when I finish I’ll come out and help. Don’t overdo, and don’t move or lift anything. Everett and Banton will have a hissy.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  I dove into my project, and in the span of an hour or so, I had two dozen pots planted with caladiums. I’d agonized over them at the garden center, I wanted something to remind me of home. My mother always planted caladiums, and she’d tried to tell me all the little tricks she used to get the gorgeous results she was famous for. Was it bone meal, or blood meal she told me to use? Something about drainage, or moisture…eggshells, maybe? “Now I wish I’d paid better attention when she was alive,” I mumbled, beginning to mist up again. I reached up and wiped my tears away with my sleeve.

  “Hey, you okay?” Banton’s voice came from the doorway. I turned as he walked into the greenhouse. “Constance said I’d find you out here.”

  I wiped my eyes again. They just wouldn’t stop watering. “Yeah, I thought I’d pass the time while you were gone by potting these bulbs. I just wish I could remember what my mother told me about them, her secrets for growing her award-winners,” I murmured quietly.

  Reaching out, he caressed my cheek, brushing a tear away with his thumb. “This is one of those times you wish you could talk to her, huh?”

  “Mmm, yeah. I guess so, about a lot of things.” I took a deep breath and tried to steady my voice.

  “Maybe you could call your Aunt Sue. She mig
ht know what your mother used. If she doesn’t know, we’ll Google it, all right?” he urged, sliding his arms around my waist.

  I laid my head over on his chest and curled my arms up around his neck.

  “Andie, I’m so sorry I reacted the way I did last night. I was mad, and I took it out on you. I’m so, so sorry.” He placed his finger under my chin, and tilted it up to look into my eyes. “Oh, God, Baby, you look as if you cried all night.”

  “Yeah, I guess I do look pretty bad.”

  “I tried to call you late last night but you didn’t answer, so I left you a couple of voice mails,” he explained.

  “Oh, I noticed my phone this morning, the battery was dead, so I put it on the charger in the kitchen on the way out here. I haven’t checked my missed calls.”

  “It’s all right, Andie. I was just worried about you, about being gone so long.”

  “Where did you go?” I asked, relieved he hadn’t stayed away from me on purpose.

  “Well, I went to Ev’s first, and we argued for quite a while. Then I convinced him to let me see Brie for myself. We were there a long time, maybe almost three hours. Then when I started home, I spotted John’s lights on; he was up refinishing the woodwork around his fireplace at four o’clock this morning. So I stopped there, and had coffee with him,” he finished.

  “Did you…did you tell him?” I asked nervously.

  He played with a strand of my hair, and then pushed it back around my earlobe. Waiting several seconds, he finally made eye contact with me, his own eyes soft and warm. “No, Andie…I wanted to, it’s the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life, but no. I didn’t say anything to him. I just spent some quality time with him, giving him my opinions on his remodel, and just talking.”

  “Didn’t he wonder why you were out so early in the morning?”

  “I just told him I couldn’t sleep, and I saw his light on,” he murmured. He continued to play with my hair.

  I turned to put the spade up on the potting bench John had built for me, and then took my gloves off and placed them on the shelf. As I moved around putting my other tools away, Banton stayed close behind me, waiting for me to ask him more questions.