Midnight Bayou

by Нора Робертс

  "Something wrong with most of them," she tossed back, and opened the door.

  He was right. It hit her immediately, that same throbbing sense of grief and loss and loneliness. She saw walls and floor and windows, dust and neglect. And felt as if her heart were breaking.

  Even as she started to speak, the cold swept in. She felt it blow over her skin like breath, pass through her hair like fingers.

  "It's the center," she declared, though she was far from sure what she meant, or how she knew. "Can you feel it? Can you?”

  He swayed in the doorway. Bearing down, he dug his fingers into the jamb. His fear was unreasonable, spearing like knives into bones. It was his house, he reminded himself grimly. His goddamn house. He took a step inside, then a second.

  The room spun. He heard a scream, saw Lena's face, the alarm that leaped over it. He thought he saw her mouth move, form his name. Then his vision grayed, white spots dancing through the mist.

  "Declan. Here now, cher. Here, darling.”

  Someone was stroking his hair, his face. He felt lips brush over his. He opened his eyes to a blur, so simply closed them again.

  "No you don't." She tapped his cheeks now with fingers that trembled lightly. He'd gone down like a tree under the ax, right after his face had drained of color and his eyes had rolled back white. "Open your eyes.”

  "What the hell happened?”

  "You fainted.”

  His eyes opened now, focused on her face. Mortification warred with a vague nausea. "Excuse me, men don't faint. We do, on occasion, pass out or lose consciousness. But we do not faint.”

  The breath she let out was a shudder of relief. He may have cracked his head, she thought, but he'd come to with his wits about him. "I beg your pardon. You passed out. Cold. Hit the floor hard enough to bounce your head off it." She leaned down again, brushed her lips over the raw scrape on his forehead. "You're going to have a bruise, bйbй. I couldn't catch you. I guess if I had, you'd've taken us both down.”

  She had managed to roll him over, and now stroked her fingers over his pale cheeks. "You do a lot of passing out?”

  "Usually I have to drink myself into oblivion first, which I haven't done since college. Look, at the risk of embarrassing myself twice in a matter of minutes, I really have to get the hell out of this room.”

  "Okay. All right. Can you stand? I don't think I can haul you up, cher. You're a pretty big guy.”

  "Yeah." He got to his knees, tried to catch his breath, but it was clogging again. It felt like a semi had parked on his chest, and his heart was tripping to try to find a beat. He staggered up, stumbled.

  Lena wrapped an arm around his waist, took as much of his weight as she could manage. "One step, two steps. We'll just get you downstairs so you can lie down.”

  "It's okay. I'll be okay." His ears were ringing. The minute he got out of the room, he headed for the steps, then just sank down and put his head between his knees. "Jesus.”

  "There now, sweetheart." She stroked his hair.

  "Close that door, would you? Just close it.”

  She hurried back, slammed it shut. "You get your breath back, then we'll get you down and into bed.”

  "I've been wanting to hear you say that since the first time I laid eyes on you.”

  The clutching in her belly eased a bit. "You're coming back, aren't you?”

  "Better." He could breathe again, and the nausea was fading. "I'll just have to go beat someone up, or shoot some small mammal so I can regain my manhood.”

  "Let me see your face." She tipped his head back, studied him. "Still a little pale, but you got some color again. I bet Grandmama's right. You don't eat. What'd you eat today, cher?”

  "Wheaties. Breakfast of champions." He managed a wan smile. "Doesn't seem to have worked.”

  "I'm going to fix you a sandwich.”

  "Really?" The simple pleasure of the idea trickled through him. "You're going to cook for me?”

  "A sandwich isn't cooking.”

  "In my world it is. Lena, that room …”

  "We'll talk about that-after you get something in your stomach.”

  The pickings were sparse. One look in the secondhand refrigerator currently gracing the dining room had Lena sending Declan one long, pitying look. "How old are you? Twelve?”

  "I'm a guy." He replied with a shrug. "Guys' grocery habits never age. I've got peanut butter to go with that jelly." He glanced around the room. "Somewhere.”

  He also had one lonely slice of deli ham, two eggs, some anemic-looking cheese and a half bag of pre-cut salad. "Looks like I'm going to cook for you after all. Where's the stove?”

  "Right here." He tapped the top of a microwave.

  "Well, we'll make do. Bowl? Knife? Fork?”

  "Ah …" He rooted through the box of his current kitchen supplies and came up with the plastic ware.

  "Honey, this is just sad. Sit yourself down, and Lena'll take care of you. This one time," she added.

  He hitched onto a sawhorse and watched her beat some eggs, shred in the ham, the cheese, sprinkle in some of the contents of the salad bag.

  "You got any herbs, cher? Any spices?”

  "I got salt and pepper. That counts," he muttered when she sighed. "Explorers discovered whole continents for salt.”

  "Grew up with a cook, didn't you?”

  "Yeah. So?”

  "What did you do when you moved out on your own?”

  "Takeout, delivery and the microwave. With those three things, no man need starve.”

  She set the bowl in the microwave, programmed it, then turned back to him. "Living out here, you'd best hire yourself another cook.”

  "Name your price.”

  "You're a funny man, Declan." His color was good now, his eyes clear. The knot that had been in her belly since he'd pitched over loosened. "How come you don't have a woman?”

  "I had one, but it turned out I didn't really want her."

  "That so?" She opened the oven when it beeped, whisked the egg mixture around, then programmed it again. "What happened?”

  "Remy didn't tell you?”

  "He doesn't tell me everything.”

  "I was engaged. I called it off three weeks before the wedding, which makes me, you know, a cad. A lot of people in Boston are still cursing my name.”

  He was trying to make it a joke, she thought, but wasn't quite pulling it off. "Is that why you left?”

  "No, it's why I realized I could leave.”

  "You didn't love her.”

  "No, I didn't love her.”

  "It makes you sad to say that." She drew out the bowl, got a fresh plastic fork, then handed it to him. His eyes were stormy again, she noted. With regret. "She love you?”

  "No. We looked good together. We were used to each other. She thought we wanted the same things.”

  "But you didn't.”

  "We never did. And the closer it got to D-Day, the more I saw my life just … narrowing down until I was squeezed into this tiny slot. No room, no air. No light. I realized I felt the same way about marrying Jessica as I did about practicing corporate law, and if that was going to be the rest of my life, I could jump off a bridge or get out of the slot while I had the chance.”

  She brushed the hair from his forehead. "It was braver to get out than to jump.”

  "Maybe. This is good," he said as he scooped up more egg. "Why don't you have a man?”

  She cocked her head. "Who says I don't?”

  He grabbed her hand before she could turn away. "I need to know if you do.”

  She looked down at his hand, back to his face. "Why is that?”

  "Because I can't stop thinking about you. I can't get you out of my head, from under my skin. Because every time I see you, my heart kicks in my chest.”

  "You're good at that, too. At saying things that stir a woman up." If it had just been that, just a matter of being stirred by him, she might have eased in between those long legs and satisfied them both. But this wasn't a simple ma
n, she thought.

  Being with him wouldn't be simple.

  "Eat your eggs," she told him, and slid her hand free of his. "Why are you starting with the kitchen if you eat peanut butter and don't have a single dish to your name?”

  "I've got dishes, just not the kind you wash. The kitchen's the heart of a house. The house where I grew up-this big, old wonderful house with big, wonderful rooms. We had that cook, but it was the kitchen where we ended up if there was a crisis or a celebration, or just something to talk over. I guess I want that here.”

  "That's nice." She leaned back on a cabinet to study him. "You want to have sex with me, cher?”

  His pulse lurched, but he managed to hop nimbly off the sawhorse. "Sure. Just let me kick the plumber out." He loved the way she laughed. "Oh, you didn't mean right this minute. That was, what, like a true or false type of question. Let me check." He laid his fingers on his wrist. "Yeah, I'm still alive, so the answer is true.”

  She shook her head, took the empty bowl from him and dumped it in the box he was using for trash. "You're an interesting man, Declan. And I like you.”

  "Uh-oh. Hold on a minute." He glanced around, picked up the screwdriver lying on a plank. "Here you go," he said as he handed it to her.

  "What's this for?”

  "So you can plunge it into my heart when you tell me you just want to be friends.”

  "I bet Jessica's still kicking herself for letting you slip away. I do want to be friends." She turned the screwdriver in her hand, then set it down again. "I don't know yet if I just want to be friends. I have to think about it.”

  "Okay." He took her arms, ran his hands up to her shoulders. "Think about it.”

  She didn't try to pull away, but lifted her face so his lips could meet hers. She liked the easy glide from warmth to heat, the fluid ride offered by a man who took his time.

  She understood desire. A man's. Her own. And she knew some of those desires could be sated only in quick, hot couplings in the dark.

  From time to time, she'd sated hers in just that fashion.

  There was more here, and it came like a yearning. Yearnings, even met, could cause a pain desire never could.

  Still, she couldn't resist laying her hands on his face, letting the kiss spin out.

  Inside her, deep inside her, something sighed.

  "Angelina.”

  He said her name, a whisper of sound, as he changed the angle of the kiss. As he deepened it. A thousand warnings jangled in her brain and were ignored. She gave herself over for one reckless moment, to the heat, to the need. To the yearning.

  Then she drew back from all of it. "That's something to think about, all right.”

  She pressed a hand to his chest when he would have pulled her into him again. "Settle down, cher." She gave him a slow, sleepy smile. "You've got me worked up enough for one day.”

  "I was just getting started.”

  "I believe it." She let out a breath, pushed her hair back. "I've got to go. I'm working the bar tonight.”

  "I'll come in. Walk you home.”

  However calm his voice, his eyes had storms in them. The sort, she imagined, that would provide a hell of a thrill before they crashed over your head. "I don't think so.”

  "Lena. I want to be with you. I want to spend time with you.”

  "Want to spend time with me? You take me on a date.”

  "A date?”

  "The kind where you pick me up at my door and take me out to a fancy dinner." She tapped a finger on his chest. "Take me dancing after, then walk me back to my door and kiss me good-night. Can you handle that?”

  "What time do you want me to pick you up?”

  She smiled, shook her head. "I'm working tonight. I got Monday night off. Place isn't so busy Monday nights. You pick me up at eight.”

  "Monday. Eight o'clock.”

  He grabbed her arms again, jerked her against him. There was no glide into heat this time, but a headlong dive into it.

  Oh yeah, she thought, it would be quite a thrill before the crash.

  "Just a reminder," he told her.

  A warning, more like, she thought. He wasn't nearly as tame as he pretended to be. "I won't forget. See you later, cher.”

  "Lena. We didn't talk about what happened upstairs.”

  "We will," she called back, and kept going.

  She didn't breathe easy until she was out of the house. He wasn't going to be as simple to handle as she'd assumed. The good manners weren't a veneer, they went straight through him. But so did the heat, and the determination.

  It was a package she admired, and respected.

  Not that she couldn't handle him, she told herself as she got into her car. Handling men was one of her best skills.

  But this man was a great deal more complicated than he seemed on the surface. And a great deal more intriguing than any she'd met before.

  She knew what men saw when they looked at her. And she didn't mind it because there was more to her than what they saw. Or wanted to see.

  She had a good brain, a strong back and a willingness to use both to get what she wanted. She ran her life the same way she ran her bar. With an appreciation for color and a foundation of order beneath the chaos.

  She glanced in her rearview mirror at Manet Hall as she drove away. It worried her that Declan Fitzgerald could shake that foundation the way no one had before.

  It worried her that she might not find it so easy to shore up the cracks when he walked away.

  They always walked away. Unless you walked first.

  He fell asleep thinking of Lena, and drifted into dreams of her. Strong, full– bodied dreams where she lay beneath him, moved under him with hard, quick jerks of her hips. Damp skin, like liquid gold. Dark chocolate eyes, and red, wet lips.

  He could hear the sound of her breath, the catch and release, little gulps of pleasure. He smelled her, that siren's dance of jasmine that made him think of harems and forbidden shadows.

  He dropped deeper into sleep, aching for her.

  And saw her hurrying along a corridor, her arms full of linens. Her hair, all that gorgeous hair, was ruthlessly pinned back, and that tempting body covered from neck to ankle in a baggy dress covered with tiny, faded flowers.

  Her lips were unpainted and pressed tightly together. And in the dream, he could hear her thoughts as if they were his own.

  She had to hurry, to get the linens put away. Madame Manet was already up and about, and she didn't care to see any of the undermaids scurrying in the hallways. If she wasn't quick, she could be noticed.

  She didn't want Madame to notice her. Servants stayed employed longer when they were invisible. That's what Mademoiselle LaRue, the housekeeper, said, and she was never wrong.

  She needed the work. Her family needed the money she could bring in, and oh, but she loved working in the Hall. It was the most beautiful house she'd ever seen. She was so happy and proud to have some part of tending to it.

  How many times had she stared at it from the shadows of the bayou? Admiring it, longing for a chance to peek in the windows at all the beauty inside.

  And now she was inside, responsible in some small way for the tending of that beauty.

  She loved to polish the wood, to sweep the floors. To see the way the glass sparkled after she'd scrubbed it.

  In his dream, she came out of the corridor through one of the hidden doors on the second level. Her eyes tracked everywhere as she hurried along –the wallpaper, the rugs, the wood and glass. She slipped into a dressing room, put the linens away in a cupboard.

  But as she turned back toward the door, something caught her attention, and she tiptoed to the window.

  He saw, as she saw, the riders approaching through the grand oaks of the allйe. He felt, as she felt, a stumble of heart as her gaze locked on the man who rode a glossy chestnut. His hair was gold, and streamed as he galloped. Straight as a soldier in the saddle, with a gray coat over his broad shoulders and his black boots shining.

  He
r hand went to her throat, and she thought, quite clearly, Here is the prince come home to his castle.

  She sighed, as girls sigh when they fall foolishly in love. He smiled, as if smiling at her, but she knew it was the house that caused that joy to fill his handsome face.

  With her heart pounding, she hurried out of the room, back to the servants' door and into the maze.

  The young master was home, she thought. And wondered what would happen next.

  Declan woke with a jolt, in the dark, in the cold. He smelled damp and dust and felt the hard wood of the floor under him.

  "What the hell?" Groggy, disgusted, he stretched out a hand and hit wall. Using it for reference, he got to his feet. He felt along, waiting to come to a corner, to a door. It took a moment to register that the wall wasn't papered.

  He wasn't in his ghost room this time. He was in one of the servants' passageways, as the girl in his dream had been.

  Somehow, he thought, he'd walked as she had walked.

  The idea of stumbling around in the dark until he found a way out had little appeal, but slightly more than the idea of spending the next few hours in there, waiting for dawn.

  He inched along. By the time he felt the seam of a door, he was drenched in sweat.

  He shoved his way out, offered up a prayer of thanksgiving when he gulped in fresher air, saw in the faint light the shape of the second-level corridor.

  There were cobwebs in his hair, his hands and feet were filthy.

  If this kept up, he told himself, he was going to see a doctor and get some sleeping pills. Hoping the night's adventures were over, he went to wash, to chug down water for his burning throat. And to lock himself in the bedroom.

  Declan took the load of books out of Effie's arms, then kissed her cheek. "You didn't have to come all this way to bring me these. I'd've come to you.”

  "I didn't mind. I had a meeting cancel, and some time to spare. And the fact is …" Breathing slowly, she turned a circle. "I had to prove to myself I wouldn't just turn tail and run when I started to come in this place.”

  "Doing okay?”

  "Yeah." She let out one of those slow breaths, then nodded briskly. "Doing just fine." Then she frowned at the shadows dogging his eyes. "Now, you on the other hand look worn out.”