by Julie Kenner
She hugged herself and gnawed on her lower lip, a habit very much at odds with her confident demeanor. It made her seem more vulnerable, somehow, especially when she started slapping at her neck as the mosquitoes’ advance guard began its evening onslaught.
Ms. St. Cyr caught him watching. “I used repellant,” she protested, trying without success to keep her hands at her sides.
“Mosquitoes just like some people better than others,” he said. “Once they get a fix on you, ain’t no repellant gonna do the job.”
“So I—” whack “—see. Well, Mr. Arceneaux, it seems that your kind offer is my only salvation.”
“Allons. It’s Remy. No one’s called me Mr. Arceneaux in—” Oh, about six years, since the days when he’d had an office on the tenth floor, with his own secretary and Herman Miller furniture. “In a long time.”
“Remy,” she said, a mere breath, as if she could hold back from that small intimacy by turning his name into a sigh.
“Bon.” He held out his hand. “Shall we go?”
At least she tried not to be obvious about it when she sidestepped his hand and strode ahead of him just to prove that she wasn’t afraid. He caught up and pulled her out of the path of a particularly nasty mud hole. She flinched a little at his touch, but it wasn’t fear that lit her eyes when they met his.
Hé bien, but the woman had fine eyes. And she wasn’t nearly as good at hiding her feelings as she thought she was. Remy winced at the sudden tightness of his jeans. Even something as relatively harmless as sheer, uncomplicated mutual lust was a very bad idea.
He took several steps away from her and set out across the highest ground. “Why did you come into the swamp today, Ms. St. Cyr?”
“It’s Dr. St. Cyr.”
Ah, a touch of frost to quench the fire he’d seen in her a minute ago. “Doctor?” he said. A perverse little devil of mischief made him stop short. He held up his thumb to display the tiny cut he’d received while pulling the motorboat onto the bank. It would be gone in half an hour, but she didn’t know that.
“You think you can fix this for me, Doc?”
She just barely kept herself from crashing into him. “I’m not…that kind of doctor.”
“You mean there’s a kind of doctor who doesn’t know how to mend a cut?”
For the first time, he was treated to the sight of her blush. It started at the neckline of her shirt and crept up to stain the marble contours of her face in a delicate and very tasteful shade of pink.
“I’m a plastic surgeon,” she said. Primly, as if she were somehow ashamed. Her pleasant fragrance, underlain by the scents of soap, deodorant and some mercifully subtle perfume, took on a tinge of unease.
A plastic surgeon. That explained the sense of wealth, the confidence, the air of superiority. He was willing to bet she was at the top of her field, though she couldn’t be more than thirty.
At the moment, though, she wasn’t confident. He realized that he wanted her comfortable with him, even though he wasn’t likely to see much of her after tomorrow morning. At least he hoped he wouldn’t. Or did he?
He struck a melodramatic pose. “Tell me, Doc—do you think I could benefit from your special talents?”
She gave him a look of utter contempt. “If you’ve ever looked in a mirror, you know damned well you wouldn’t.”
“Ouch.” He grinned sheepishly. “I guess you only operate on ladies with double chins and middle-aged men with beer guts?”
“Do you mind if we change the subject?”
“Don’t you like what you do, Doc?”
“Dana,” she said gruffly. “My name is Dana.”
It suited her. Strong and feminine at the same time. “Dana. You think I’m a pretty conceited cochon, don’t you?”
“Conceited, yes. I don’t know about the other, since I don’t speak French.”
She was willing to admit ignorance, which was quite a bit for a woman like her. He knew. Maman had always said he had something to prove every day of his life.
“I can see we’ll have to have a few lessons tonight,” he said as he began to walk again. “Cochon. Pig.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” she said, coming up beside him. “Tell me some other words.”
“The name for your friend with the buzz is maringouin. Just over there, under the black willows, are a couple of white-tailed deer—chevreuils. You don’t see them too much in south Louisiana these days. Just about now the rabbit—lapin—is looking for his dinner, and the owl—hibou—is getting ready to hunt him. The woodpecker, piquebois, is turning in for the night. And soon you’ll hear the bullfrogs—ouaouarons—begin their evening chorus.”
Dana’s lips moved, repeating the words. “You speak like someone who loves this place.”
Remy was quiet for a time, debating how to answer. As a boy, he had loved the swamp and the endless adventures he and Tris found there. But his restlessness had pulled him away, to the university and a career in the city. In the six years since his return, he had learned all over again how to value such simple thing as peaceful nights, family loyalty and running free where men seldom intruded.
But love? The very word was one he’d put from his mind long ago.
“I grew up in this parish,” he said at last, guiding her through a button bush thicket. “Cajuns—Acadiens—start learning about the swamp almost the day they’re born.”
“Is your family here, as well?”
“Scattered throughout south Louisiana. I don’t see them much. What about yours? Where did you grow up?”
“San Francisco—the Bay Area.” Something in her tone told him that she was no more ready to talk of her past than he was. “I was an only child.”
That must have been difficult. For all his problems with his family and his status as the Arceneaux “black sheep,” he’d never felt alone as a boy. Acadians tended toward large and close-knit clans, his even more so than most.
He was the one who had left them.
By unspoken agreement, he and Dana fell silent, concentrating on the nearly invisible trail winding among the broom sage and chokeberry shrubs. They skirted the edge of Matou Lake, dotted with the knobby projections of cypress knees, and Remy could smell the scents of sun-warmed metal, tomato vines and seasoned cypresswood that meant home.
It was time to warn Tris.
He stopped Dana with a light touch on her arm. “Wait here,” he said. “There’s something I have to check.”
Dana glanced up at the darkening sky but didn’t protest. Remy jogged into a willow grove, out of her sight, and ran another quarter mile so that there was no chance she would find him if she went looking.
In the fading twilight, he took a deep breath, lifted his head and howled.
He knew Tris would hear him. He’d been very clear before he left; if he gave the warning, it would mean he wanted Tris well away from the houseboat until he signaled that it was safe to return. Tris wouldn’t find it a hardship to spend the night in the swamp, but Remy hoped his younger brother’s curiosity didn’t get the better of him.
Once the message was given and answered, Remy ran back the way he’d come. Dana stood where he had left her, arms wrapped around her chest as she searched the darkness. She released her breath when she saw him.
“Where did you go?” she demanded.
“You miss me that much, chère?”
“Did you hear something…unusual a few minutes ago?”
Remy put on a puzzled expression and shrugged. “You mean the howl? Probably some hound chasing a coon.”
“It didn’t sound like a dog to me. Are there any wolves in Louisiana?”
“Not anymore.” She was sharp, this one. “They were killed off years ago. Let’s go.”
He waited until he was sure she followed, and then he led her across the remaining half mile to the banks of the bayou, where the houseboat rested on low water. The sun had gone down behind moss-draped cypress and tupelo, but the lamps shining from the deck made a beacon for
weary travelers.
You’d better be gone, Tris, Remy thought. He pointed toward the lights. “Home. I can almost smell the fish sizzlin’.”
Dana stopped and stared. “A houseboat?”
“Don’t worry. I put it together myself.”
She threw him a dubious look and paused at the ramp to examine the steel-riveted hull of the old barge, the small cabin with cypress roof on top, and the large pots of tomato and pepper plants on the open deck.
“It’s perfectly safe,” he said, grabbing her hand. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry as a wolf.”
To his surprise, she let him pull her up the ramp. The boat hardly rocked under their footsteps; she seemed to take comfort in its solidity. There was no sign or scent of Tris.
Remy seated Dana at the small table in the kitchen next to the propane stove and started a pot of coffee. While he worked, Dana gazed about the room with barely concealed curiosity.
“Do you live here alone?” she asked.
He grinned at her over his shoulder. “What do you think?”
“Without seeing the rest of the house, I’d guess you do.”
“Why is that?” He poured the freshly brewed coffee into a mug with The State Of Louisiana printed on it and set it in front of her.
“It’s utilitarian. Spartan. Women can live that way, but they usually don’t prefer to.”
He pulled an exaggerated frown. “Ah, chère—now you know my sad story. None of the ladies will have me.”
“You mean your charm isn’t enough?”
He sat down across from her and gazed into her eyes. “You think I’m charming as well as arrogant?”
She let the steaming coffee consume all her attention. “Thanks for the coffee. It tastes wonderful.”
With a chuckle, he got to his feet and set about preparing the bass for supper, refusing her offer of help. “Any Cajun who can’t cook fish is a sad specimen. And anyway, I’ll bet you don’t cook.”
“I—” Her voice took on that stiff, guarded tone once more. “I usually don’t have time.”
“And me, I have all the time in the world.”
“You never told me what you do for a living.”
“A little of this, a little of that. I know the best water holes for the fishermen, and I keep the tourists out of trouble.”
“Like me?”
“Is that what you are, Dana—a tourist?”
She turned her mug around and around in her hands. “I told you, I have family here.”
“So you did.” He slipped the bass strips into the pan. “But you never did tell me why you came into the swamp today.”
Her silence lasted long enough for him to slice the onions and bell peppers. Finally she said, “I came here to find the place where Sally Daigle died.”
Chapter 5
Dana had seen many faces undergo major alterations, often under her own skilled hands. But the way Remy Arceneaux’s expression changed was beyond anything in her experience.
One moment he was affable, flirtatious and, yes, charming. The next he was regarding her as if she were a deadly enemy. He had looked this way when they’d met on the side of the road, but his behavior since then had put that disconcerting moment from her mind.
No more. His eyes had become cold. “I told you,” he said softly, “that you shouldn’t come here.”
“Actually, you said I shouldn’t stay in Beaucoeur Parish.”
“And I meant it.” Abruptly he turned back to his fish, banging the utensils in a way that set her nerves on edge.
What had she said? Something about Sally Daigle, or her death, had set him off. And Chad Lacoste had warned her about him. Was there some connection between the warning and Remy’s reaction to the name of a dead woman? The name spoken by the cousin who looked just like her.
She had a thousand questions, but Remy’s demeanor seemed to wrap a muffling veil about both of them. She picked at the fish he set before her, knowing she ought to find it delicious but unable to enjoy it. Soon thereafter, Remy disappeared down the short connecting hall and returned with a terse comment about showing her to her room.
Dana would have liked nothing better than to walk right out the door and leave Remy to his brooding. But she was dead tired, grimy, and desperate for a little peace and quiet. Remy showed her the small bathroom, complete with sink, shower and a toilet occupied by an outboard motor. She turned down his offer to restore the facility to its original function and accepted a flashlight and directions to the outhouse set several yards back from the bayou. She didn’t relish the thought of using it after dark, but at least she would have a full harvest moon for company.
A few sentences later, Remy left her to herself. She heard him moving around for a few minutes, and then the houseboat settled into an eerie silence. The small window was no impediment to the myriad sounds of a bayou night: the singing frogs Remy had mentioned, hoarse bellowing she guessed might be the voice of an alligator, and…once more…that eerie howling.
She sat down on the bed, a narrow affair clearly not intended for two. Remy’s, she supposed. The room was as bare bones as the kitchen, with little in the way of decoration except for an old fishing pole hung on the wall and a colorful but amateurish oil painting in an incongruously ornate frame.
Dana got up to study the painting, wondering if it might be some early work of Remy’s. It depicted the swamp, and though the technique was inexpert, there was obvious love behind the depiction of the brown water, green trees and blotches of color indicating wildflowers. But the scrawled signature at the bottom spelled out another name: Tristan.
A relative, perhaps. At least he cared about someone enough to hang that person’s work on the wall of his bedroom.
After a quick peep into the hall, Dana washed up, made a hasty trip to the outhouse—it wasn’t nearly as awful as she feared—and gratefully returned to the boat and the relative safety of her borrowed bedroom.
She found an oversize red T-shirt, printed with the image of an alligator in a baseball cap, lying across the bed. She fingered it, trying to decide whether or not she should wear something that plainly belonged to Remy. In the end she pulled it on, preferring it to nudity in a strange bed and with a strange man in very close proximity.
Once under the covers, her soiled clothing draped over the room’s single wooden chair, she made a token effort at sleep. She was hardly surprised when it refused to come. The sheets and T-shirt, though freshly laundered, held a faint masculine scent she couldn’t ignore. The night noises seemed to grow louder and louder; if Remy was still awake, he gave no indication of it.
Remy. He was the reason for her insomnia—he and his grin, his compelling eyes and his changeable moods. Face it, she told the ceiling, you’re attracted to him.
Most women would be. The difference was that she knew better. There was about as much likelihood of a romantic relationship between her and Remy Arceneaux as there was between a cottontail and a cottonmouth.
That painted a pretty picture. Dana sighed and pushed aside the blankets. It was still hot, and now that the sun had set the mosquitoes might not be quite so bad. A little walk on the deck…
Her bare foot brushed something dry, sleek and definitely moving. She gave a brief, strangled shriek and bolted across the room. The object of her terror flicked its tongue at her.
“Dana?”
The door swung open and Remy stepped in, his gaze darting back and forth in alarm. Then he saw the snake, and the tension went out of his shoulders. In a darting motion almost too swift for Dana to follow, he snatched the reptile just behind its darting head.
“Is this what you were screaming about?” he asked.
Dana flushed. “Didn’t you say this boat was safe?”
“It’s just a li’l ol’ milk snake.” He lifted the creature’s head to eye level as if he were including it in the conversation. “Now, if it was a water moccasin, you might have something to worry about.”
“And that’s supposed to
reassure me?”
“Guess you don’t see too many snakes in San Francisco.”
Dana eased behind the bed. The room seemed about ten times smaller with Remy in it. “Not too many bellowing alligators, either, or howling wolves.”
“I told you…” Remy trailed off as if he’d forgotten what he was about to say, his gaze falling slowly from her face to the T-shirt, which extended to Dana’s upper thighs. She had completely forgotten what she was wearing—or not wearing.
Dana had blushed more in the past couple of hours than she’d done in nearly thirty years. She made no effort to cover herself. Remy might consider that a victory.
“Don’t you think you should put the poor snake outside?” she suggested.
He looked down at his hand in surprise. “Oui,” he said. “It’s scared half to death.” With pointed haste, he turned on his heel and left the room.
Unfortunately, the door didn’t lock. Dana dove back under the sheets and pulled them up to her chin. A little while later she heard footsteps on the deck outside, then a longer period of silence. She imagined serpents of every description crawling all around the room. What had Remy said about water moccasins?
Coward. You’re on edge about everything tonight. All you have to do is—
A face appeared at the window, a pale blur in moonlight. Dana shot up, clutching the sheets to her chest.
The face was not Remy’s. That was all she was sure of. The hair was darker than his, and the eyes stared at her, unblinking, like those of a madman.
Dana was no hapless heroine of some derivative teen horror movie. She tore her gaze away from the window long enough to search for a makeshift weapon. When she looked back, the face was gone.
She sat very still, listening for movement, any sound beyond the pounding of her heart. Surely it hadn’t been her imagination, that face. After the incident with the snake, she was less than enthusiastic about running to Remy. It might be midnight or 2:00 a.m., or even later, but dawn still seemed very far away.
She had almost begun to doze off from sheer exhaustion when the howling came again: uncanny, drawn-out, and filled with such mournful pleading that Dana felt her throat close in sympathy. On impulse, she got up and struggled into her mud-caked jeans and sneakers. She crept onto the deck, keeping close to the wall.
