Or maybe he did remember, and it was that Eden Kelley wasn't nonessential.
The notion scared the hell out of him. He couldn't get centered in the way he'd come to expect of himself. Couldn't help returning to the way she'd soaked up his kissing her like a dying desert flower soaks up rain.
When she woke again, moonlight was filtering through the trees surrounding the guest cottage, spilling through the picture window in the bedroom, and Eden was back to Mr. 2~terney--not in a'sarcastic way, but after "savior" a little distant.
He shook his head. What the hell are you thinking, Tierney? He reheated a saucepan of beef barley soup and coaxed her into eating a few spoonfuls.
She wanted a hot bath. He didn't want to take the chance that a light might be seen by Edward Bancroft up at the main house, so he lit a thick candle he found in the pantry and ran the hot water for her. She insisted she would be all right on her own.
He sat in the dark outside the bathroom door in case she passed out. She did fine until she needed to rinse shampoo from her hair. He didn't know what was wrong, but he heard her sniffing and he couldn't make himself stay out of the bathroom.
In the candlelight, she looked as bedraggled and defenseless as a half-drowned kitten--from the neck up. She grabbed a washcloth, trying to cover her breasts.
He gritted his teeth and started through the door. "Don't come in here, Tierney."
The cloth didn't come close to covering her. "How are you going to get out, Kelley?" he snapped, tired of Tierney and Mr. Tierney and feeling his groin tighten. The situation was just too damned ridiculous. The woman was on and off death's door. What he knew of her he knew from government-witness documents, but he was half in awe, half in love with the woman no dossier could reveal by half.
His blood pooled painfully at the sight of her bare breasts.
The washcloth clung to her shape as faithfully as a second skin and the glow of the candlelight only heightened his awareness. He hadn't been with a woman in nearly two years--not Catherine, not any woman, and now the pent-up sexual energy made him hostile.
"How are you going to get the shampoo out of your hair? Huh?"
Her chin quivered. Her gray eyes filled with tears. She swallowed. He watched her throat muscles move in her slender, long neck.
"I don't know."
"Me, neither." He shrugged, dismissing the standoff, picked. up a bath towel and stood over her, offering a hand. "This is crazy, Eden," he murmured. His voice was thick. "Let me help you."
She breathed deeply, then took his hand and stood. He couldn't help seeing her breasts or the deeply feminine lines of her torso and bottom or the slender length of her leg. He wrapped her in the bath towel for his sanity as much as her modesty.
He pulled the drain and stripped off his jeans, then stepped into the tub and sat in his boxer shorts on the side. Laying her across s his lap, her head in the crook of his arm, he rinsed the lather from her hair with the spray attachment so the warm water flowed off her hair into the tub, By the flickering light of the candle, he saw that the stitches were doing fine, that her flesh had begun to heal.
She had on one of Margo's expensive discarded bathrobes," a thick white terry cloth embossed at the breast with a coat of arms, when she climbed beneath the fluffy goose-down comforter on the bed. Chris sank into the chair. Eden stared for a while at the LED numbers on the bedside clock. " How long have we been here? "
"Two nights." Wearing only his boxer shorts, he lay back and -put his feet up on the chintz-covered ottoman. Holding her in the candlelight wrapped in nothing but a bath towel, rinsing her hair, combing out the tangles,~ carrying her against his body--had worn on him like coarse sandpaper on a fine patina.
"Two nights? You've been taking care of me all that time?"
He nodded. "Nearly." Enough hours that he'd begun to expect pursuit. But he hadn't seen Margo at all, and she would have come to warn him if there was news of a manhunt in search of a kidnapped protected witness. Tears suddenly glistened in Eden's eyes. He cursed the moon for scattgring enough ambient light that he could still see the glitter of her tears in the darkness. And cursed himself more for allowing her tears to matter. His throat tightened. "What is it, Eden?" Why ask, you fool?
The silence was so complete he could hear her swallow. "Nothing."
"Did you think David Tafoya would have rescued you by now?"
"No." She stared at him. "I wasn't thinking of David at all. I was thinking how lucky Catherine was. Not... I mean, not when she died, of course, but to have you to take care of her... to be there for her."
"Yeah," Chris answered, but he flinched inside. "How, do you bear it?" "What?"
"The loneliness. Being without her."
He shoved himself out of the chair and walked to the window. He stood there staring out, fending off reactions, harsh responses he might make. "It doesn't concern you, Eden." He wanted her to be quiet, to go back to sleep.
She didn't seem inclined to do either. Instead, she was wakeful now, and talkative.
"With Broussard," she said, "I was lonely all the time. I just didn't realize it. He had this way of making things seem exactly the opposite, you know?"
Chris turned back and leaned against the window casing. It was easier to face her even in the dark when she wasn't on the subject of Catherine. The sash bars on the windows east shadows in the moonlight on the bed. "A real stand-up guy. And then he gave you the boutique."
"He wanted to give me the boutique," she corrected, "but I drew the line there. I would only accept a loan. I
needed the boutique to be mine. " She fell silent for a few seconds. " David Tafoya said that was my fatal mistake, trying to have something of my own. Why Web started wiring money and orders and invoices through Eden's. t accounts. "
"It wouldn't have made a difference," Chris said softly, "whether Broussard gave you the boutique outright or not. The business he did through your channels represented less than a percentage point of his operation."
"I know." She nodded and lifted herself up on one elbow. "Tafoya told me the FBI believed Broussard had been arming terrorists, citizen militias and mercenaries for a long time before I met him."
Chris gnawed on the inside of his lip, thinking there was some element to Broussard's motives she hadn't begun to touch upon. "You're saying Tafoya chalked Broussard's action up to arrogance' that he used your international connections because they were there."
"But you think there was more, something else?" Eden blanched. It wasn't as if Chris could see any color in her face by only the moonlight coming in through the window, but her cheeks seemed to go translucently pale and he felt a level of panic coming from her.
"Tell me."
She sat up and drew the covers with her. "It doesn't really matter why he did what he did. It only matters that in the end he used me and I betrayed him." Her voice strained, fading to a whisper. "He would forgive anything but that."
Chris cleared his throat. It turned him stone-cold insid~ to thimk Eden Kelley would die if Broussard succeeded in exacting his pound of flesh. "You didn't betray him. You only tried to stop him from dealing death without a backward glance."
'"But that came later." Her riggers idly went to the stitches the doctor had put in beneath her collarbone, exploring, massaging. "I don't know why I'couldn't see how much power Broussard had over me. How controlling he was. He didn't try to dictate what I did or where I went. I would never have gone along with that;
"Instead, little by little, he gave me things--everything I had ever wanted in my life--even the loan to start the boutique. I guess I wanted it all too much. And I believed he loved me,"
Chris sat again in the overstuffed chair. He couldn't fathom why she hadn't seen the trap coming, either, but he had none of her life experience at being a ward of the state, never belonging anywhere, never having anything of her own. "It felt safe, I imagine. Secure?
"I suppose." Her expression hardened, and she shivered.
"What went wrong, Ed
en?"
Her shoulders slumped. "I knew. Somewhere inside me, I knew that it was all wrong. I knew there would be a terrible price to pay for letting Broussard take care of me. But I had spent my whole life-mistrusting people, and 'after Monique took me in, I wanted to believe that was all be, hind me. I thought what I had with Broussard was extraordinary. Sheila thought so, too--and I Wanted to believe that I didn'thave to mistrust everyone all the time. That I finally belonged." She sat cross-legged now, clutching one of the pillows to her middle. "That's all I ever really wanted. just to belong somewhere."
His chest tightened. Catherine hadn't wanted a safe haven or a place to belong, hadn't wanted what Chris had to offer her. He'd wanted to believe otherwise himself, but
even before Broussard's assassin mistook her for Eden, the time for lying to himself was over. He'd seen it coming at him like a freight train out of control. He'd thought he could still avert the disaster with Catherine, but he couldn't.
"I was very wise, you see," Eden was saying. "Or at least I thought I was. I thought I'd seen it all. Awful things go on in orphanages. Not so much now, I guess, but twenty years ago they did. And I,d lived in foster homes where the dad would... come after me." Her voice quavered. She breathed deeply, then plunged ahead. "Twice I was sent away--thrown out, really--because those foster dads said I was behaving inappropriately. Because I was comigg on to them."
~Chris grimaced. He hadn't grown up knowing there were men who preyed on children, but he'd known better for a lot of years now. "Did the Social Services people believe them?"
"They didn't know what to believe." She shrugged. "I was only ten the second time it happened. They had no choice except to move me:" She took a deep breath. "Somehow I dodged all those bullets. Years went by. Then I went to St. Anne's--you know, on the North End?"
"
The Boston parish ran an all-girls school and boarded. homeless adolescents. Chris knew from her witness profiles that Eden had attended St. Anne's. He shifted his weight in the chair. "Is that where you met Sheila?"
Eden nodded. "We shared a room for four years with two other girls. I learned to sew and I became good enough at it that when I graduated I was hired as a dressmaker's assistant to Monique Lamareaux at her bridal boutique in Cambridge."
"Treasures?"
"Yes. You know it?" she asked, surprised.
'
"Yeah." He'd read about it in Eden's witness profiles, but he'd been there, too. "Catherine bought her wedding dress there." He switched subjects. "Isn't Monique La-mareaux a cousin of Broussard's?"
"Yes. They're first cousins. It seemed everywhere I turned there was another cousin or aunt or uncle--family of some description. Cajun, you know, but very upscale, very different. They all had the attitude that home was home but not nearly grand enough to embrace their passions. Petites pommes de terre, chore! Broussard would say. Small potatoes... A mixed-language joke." Eden gave a shake of her head. "Anyway~ Monique took me under her wing and I moved into the fifth floor of her brownstone."
"Which is where you met Broussard?"
"Yes. At a party. Monique gave. He was so respectful and so gallant--more of a gentleman than I had ever met. I began to see him, He took me out for several months, and in all that time, he never touched me except to take my arm crossing the street and once in a while to kiss my fingers /
"After a year or so, 'he made the offer of my own boutique. Not long after that, he asked me to marry him. I... he never expected... anything... from me."
Chris felt the surprise, the shock, invade him. "Are you saying he never touched you?"
"You're kidding."
She met his disbelief straight on. "No. I'm not."
"Did you think that was normal?"
Her chin jutted up. "Normal? No. It went against everything in my experience with men from the time I was old enough to understand what they wanted from me... from women. That's why I thought Winston Broussard was
extraordinary. I thought his gallantry, his restraint, proved that he loved me. "
Chris straightened in the chair. Alarms began to go off in his head. "What did he want, Eden?"
She didn't answer for a moment. Her eyes fixed somewhere beyond Chris. "I didn't know. Eden's! began to flourish. I was working very hard. I thought he approved of my success, but I know now he'd only expected it to be an interesting little diversion. A hobby to keep me occupied with something other than bonbons whefi he was busy. When Eden's! became more than that, he began to get more and more distant. A little... cold."
Chris had the sudden urge to smash something. He knew he hadn't heard the worst of it yet, nor did he want to, but he couldn't shut her down. Couldn't not listen to her. He gnawed on the inside of his lip. "Were you concerned?"
She looked at him, then looked quickly down. "It was terrifying. I confided in Sheila. We... I thought he was getting impatient with me, that he was. waiting for me to make,.a move, to indicate that I wanted... him. So I made the grand gesture. I chose a night when Monique was to be out and invited Broussard to dinner. I made a special Cajun-style meal for him. A quail dish and acre me au card for dessert.
"I had sewn a beautiful old-fashioned corset. It took days to complete. The stays alone... then the ribbons and lace." Her voice thickened with emotion.
Chris's jaw tightened. The garment, he thought, was everything to her. Something beautiful she'd created. A piece of herself. Everything she was in hec heart. Heat spread through his chest. He knew what she looked like in such a garment. He'd seen her. The image of her breasts came readily to his mind. His own sex thickened. He didn't want to hear what Broussard had done.
She wasn't sparing herself though. "After supper we went to the living room and~ I began to unbutton my... blouse, to reveal the corset I had made. It was... He stared at me. His face grew" -- her hands fluttered "--mottled... with anger. He told me to cover myself. I was confused. I never expected such displeasure. He looked at me and said I must not cheapen myself--as if what I'd done made me somehow dirty. He said I must keep myself pure for our wedding night. But he refused to set a date." Tears welled in her eyes. "He said. he'd know I was ready to marry, to 'take him to my bed," when Eden's! assumed its proper place in my life again.
"God, l hate this!" she cried. Swiping angrily at a tear on her cheek, she climbed off the bed. Still clutching the pillow to her chest, she began to pace. "I hate the way it sounds. Like if I had two brain cells to rub together I would have known what he was! But he never treated me with anything- less than the utmost respect, He never did or said anything to make me feel sordid or ashamed of my-self--until that night."
And then, Chris thought, Broussard had shown his true colors. He sat watching her pace in the dark, stunned to his core, indecisive. He wanted to get up and take her into his arms and hold her. To comfort her and kiss her and make her know what a sick bastard Broussard was. But she knew that now, and he knew she hadn't told him any of this so. he could fix it for her.
He didn't know what to do. She stopped a small distance behind him by the window. He turned sideways in the chair and slung his legs over the armrest. Still holding the pillow to her chest, Eden was watching thin streams of wispy, insubstantial clouds floating across the face of the moon through the canopy of maple leaves.
He wanted to take the pillow from her. He wanted to see the shape of her body silhouetted against the moonlight. She turned her head and looked at him, and though he couldn't see her eyes, he felt caught out with his thoughts, with wanting her. Rationally, he realized it was impossible that she knew his thoughts; but a mighty awareness hummed between them and she didn't turn away,
He took a deep breath. "Why didn't you leave him then, Eden?"
She breathed deeply, as well. Weariness pervaded her. She combed her fingers through her hair and held it back that way for a long time. "I should have. I knew that night that Broussard was not the man he pretended to be. That Cajun charm, the respect he showed~ me the courtesy, the kindness--was all a sick
game with him. I knew what I had saspected all along was true. There were strings attached to everything. I had just refused to see them. But I thought I could save Eden's?"
Chapter Ten
Winston Elijah-Broussard III wasn't sleeping well. He paced the length of the veranda off the master bedroom suite, sipping at a fine, aged brandy, listening to the waves lapping against the beach below. Well sated as all his appetites were, he should have been soundly asleep by now. Instead, inside 'himself he felt this constant buzz ever intensifying, a foreboding that rode through his nerves like too much electricity humming down too few transmission wires.
He blamed Eden Kelley. She haunted his every moment. His little garden of secret delights had concealed a viperous nature he still couldn't fathom having overlooked.
Like some vengeful wraith, her visage rose from out of his dreams to persecute him at every turn. He didn't know why this should be so. Hidden away, terrified for her life,
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