Cry Wolf

by Tami Hoag

  Without a word she turned and walked out of the bar. She didn't allow herself to think of anything at all as she crossed the parking lot. She just put one foot in front of the other until she had reached the levee, then she stood on the bank and stared out at the bayou, working furiously to tamp down the feelings Savannah had torn loose. It didn't do any good to get upset. Savannah was who she was. Her problems were rooted in a past she refused to let go of, was perhaps incapable of letting go of. She had her moments when she would say anything, do anything, and damn the consequences. It was pointless to let any of that get to her.

  But it hurts, a small voice inside her said. The voice of a little girl who had only her big sister to rely on for love and comfort. The big sister who looked out for her, who protected her, who sacrificed for her.

  But who looked out for Savannah?

  Laurel bit her lip against the pain, squeezed her eyes shut against it. She pressed her hands over her face and stood there trembling, afraid if she even breathed, the dam would burst and she would dissolve into a quivering mass of weakness and guilt and pain.

  Jack stood behind her on the levee, his feet rooted to the spot as he watched her struggle. He should have left her alone. There was no way in hell he wanted to get caught in the middle of what had gone on in the bar. But he couldn't seem to make himself turn around. He damned Savannah for being such a bitch, damned Laurel for being so brave, damned himself for caring. No good could come of it for any of them. But even as he was convincing himself of that fact, his feet were moving forward.

  “She's drunk,” he said.

  Laurel hugged herself, her eyes fixed on the far bank of the bayou. “I know. She's got problems that go back a long way. I've been gone a long time. I didn't realize she was this . . . troubled,” she murmured, searching desperately for a word that seemed safe, a word that skirted way around the one that came strongest to mind. “If I'd known, I don't think I would have come back now.”

  She braced herself against the wave of guilt that admission brought. Selfish, weak, coward. She should have been willing to help Savannah, regardless of her own fragile state. She owed her sister that much and more. Much, much more.

  Jack stepped closer. His hands settled on her shoulders, so slim, so delicate, so strong, and still he told himself he should just go on back into Frenchie's and order himself another beer. “I can't see you running from trouble, 'tite chatte.”

  Laurel stood still for his touch, while she told herself not to. His hands were big and warm, his long, musician's fingers gentle and soothing. Comforts she didn't deserve. Despair rose on a tide inside her. “Why do you think I came home in the first place?” she asked, her voice choked with the shame of it.

  Because she needed a place to hide, a place to heal, Jack thought, but he said nothing of the sort. It didn't seem wise to let her know he'd been reading up on her, thinking about her. She didn't need a mercenary right now. She needed a shoulder. Cursing himself for a fool, he turned her around and offered his.

  “Come here,” he growled as he pulled her glasses off and folded his arms around her.

  Laurel squeezed her eyes shut against the tears, refusing to let them fall. She told herself not to succumb to the temptation of leaning on him, but her arms slipped around Jack's lean waist just the same. It felt too good to be held, to let someone else be strong for a minute or two. Ironic that that someone was Jack, the self-professed antihero. She might have pointed that out to him if she hadn't felt so damn weak.

  Trembling with the effort of holding it all at bay, she pressed her cheek to his chest, to the soft washed cotton of his bowling shirt. She concentrated on the sound of his heartbeat, the feel of the taut muscles in the small of his back, the scent of Ivory soap underlying the subtle tang of male sweat.

  “You've had a hard day, huh, mon coeur?” Jack murmured, his lips brushing her temple, her faint perfume filling his head. She was so delicate in his arms, he couldn't believe she was strong enough to take on the burdens she had. It killed him to think of her trying. “You oughta be more like me,” he muttered. “Don't give a damn about anyone but yourself. Let people do what they will. Take what you want and leave the rest.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Laurel scoffed, leaning back to look up at him. “If you're so tough, what are you doing standing here holding me?”

  He grinned and swooped down to nip at the side of her neck, surprising a little squeal out of her. “I like the way you smell,” he whispered, nuzzling her cheek, skimming his hands up and down her back.

  Laurel squirmed and wriggled, laughing, finally breaking free of his hold. Snatching her glasses out of his hand, she danced a couple of steps back from him, her gaze suddenly catching on his. While her heart beat a little harder, her laughter faded away, and something warm and seductive and invisible pulled at her, like the allure of the moon on the tides.

  “I told you, sugar,” he said, lifting his shoulders in a lazy shrug. “Me, I just like to have a good time. And you strike me as a lady in serious need of a good time.” He shuffled a step closer, held a hand out to her. “Come on, angel. Let's you and me go and have us some fun.”

  She eyed him warily. “Fun? What's that?”

  She couldn't remember the last time she'd done anything just for fun. Her work had consumed her life for so long, then had come the struggle just to keep herself from falling into a million tiny broken bits. And since she had come home, her focus had been on doing constructive things. She had enjoyed her time in the garden, but the goal had been to accomplish something tangible, a success she could see.

  Jack ducked around behind her and got her by the shoulders, steering her down the levee toward the dock. “You need a lesson from the master, sweetheart. I'll teach you all about havin' fun.”

  Reluctantly letting him herd her along, Laurel shot him a skeptical look over her shoulder. “Would this ‘fun' you're alluding to be of a sexual nature?”

  His dimples flashed. “I sincerely hope so.”

  “I'm out of here.” She changed directions deftly, ducking under his arm and marching back up the levee toward the parking lot.

  “Aw, come on, 'tite ange,” Jack begged, jogging around to cut her off. He gave her his most sincere look, pressing his hands to his heart. “I'll behave myself. Promise.”

  Laurel gave a sniff of disbelief. “Are you going to try to sell me swampland, too?”

  “No, but I'll show you some. I thought we could take a nice relaxing sunset boat ride.”

  “Go into the swamp at sunset? Are you crazy? The mosquitoes will cart us off and carve us up for dinner!”

  “Not in the boat I have in mind.”

  She gave him a long, considering look, amazed that she could even be considering his offer. She didn't trust him an inch. But the idea of a leisurely cruise on the bayou, of escaping to the wilderness that had been her refuge as a child, held a strong appeal. And Jack himself was temptation personified.

  “Come on, sugar,” he cajoled, his head tipped boyishly, an irresistible smile canting his lips. He held his hand out to her. “We'll pass a good time.”

  Three minutes later they were climbing aboard a boat that was essentially a small screened porch on pontoons. The roof was waterproof canvas in a jaunty red-and-white stripe. A pair of redwood planters filled with geraniums and vinca vines sat as decoration flanking the door to the screened area.

  “This is your boat?” Laurel asked, not bothering to hide her skepticism.

  Jack reached under the velvety leaves of a geranium, plucked out the starter key, and blew the dirt off it. “No.”

  “No?” she followed him into the cabin. “What do you mean, no? You're stealing this boat?”

  He frowned at her as he started the engine and gunned the throttle. “I'm not stealing it. I'm borrowing it.” Laurel rolled her eyes. “Lawyers,” he grumbled, scowling as he concentrated on piloting the pontoon away from the dock. “Relax, will you, angel? The boat belongs to Leonce.”

  With the issue
of ownership out of the way, Laurel sank down on one of the deep cushioned benches that faced each other in front of the console. She tried to concentrate on the passing scenery—the businesses that backed onto the bayou and the ramshackle boathouses that were tucked along the bank behind them; the houses that lined the bank farther down, many with people in the yard gardening or talking with neighbors or watching children play. Normal scenes of people with normal lives. People who had ordinary backgrounds and boring jobs.

  The thought struck a pang of envy inside her that hummed and vibrated like a tuning fork. If she had had a boring job, an ordinary background, maybe she and Wesley would still be together. Maybe they would have a child by now.

  Sighing, she toed her shoes off, pulled her feet up on the bench, and tucked them under her, settling in, unconsciously letting go of the tension and easing into melancholy. Slowly, the fierce grip she held on her mind eased, and her thoughts drifted. They passed L'Amour, the brick house looking vacant and lonely standing amid the moss-draped live oak and magnolia trees. Huey watched them pass from the bank, a woebegone expression on his face. Then civilization grew scarce—the occasional plantation house visible in the distance, the odd tar-paper shack teetering above the black water on age-grayed pilings.

  The scenery grew lusher, wilder. Trees crowded what land there was, shoulder to shoulder, their crowns entangling into a dense canopy of green that blotted out the evening sun, leaving the ground below them veiled in darkness. Sweet gum and persimmon and water locust, ironwood and redbud and a dozen other species with buttonbush and thorny dewberry and greenbriar skirting their bases. The banks were thick with patches of yellow spiked cane and coffee weed, fan-fronded palmetto trees and verdant ferns. Vines and flame-flowered trumpet creeper braided together along the edge like embroidery, and the shallows grew thick with spider lilies and water lettuce.

  The bayou branched off again and again, each arm reaching into another pocket of wilderness. Some of the channels were as wide as rivers, others narrow trickles of streams, all of them part of a vast labyrinth of no-man's-land. The Atchafalaya was a place where it seemed the world was still forming, ever-changing, metamorphosing, and yet always primitive. Laurel could never come out here without feeling transported back in time. That had always been the appeal for her, to escape to a time when none of her problems existed. The swamp worked its magic on her again, pulling her into another dimension, leaving all her troubles in the distance as the pontoon chugged along.

  They passed through a shadowy corridor of trees where no land was visible at all, giving testimony to the constant battle here between water and earth. A cat squirrel vaulted from one gray trunk to the next, skittering around behind it to peek its head around and stare at the passing boat. Birds darted everywhere, warblers and wildly painted buntings and orioles; flashes of color in the gloom, flitting among the lacework of branches.

  Finally, they emerged from the natural bower into an area where the bayou grew wide, looking more like a lake than a stream. Jack maneuvered the pontoon into a spot near the south bank, positioning them so they had a panoramic view of the swamp as the sun slid down in the west. He cut the grumbling motor and stepped out of the cabin to cast the anchor over the side. When he returned, he sank down beside Laurel, stretching his legs out in front of him, laying his arms along the back of the bench.

  “It's beautiful, no?” he said softly.

  “Mmmm . . .”

  The sky was an artist's palette of color. The eastern horizon was a deep, luxurious purple that gave way to azure that faded into a smoky white that grew deeper and deeper orange to the west, where the sun was a huge ball of flame. Before them lay the swamp, desolate, beautiful, full of secrets. Laurel soaked it all in, absorbed the quiet of it, let the peace of it seep into her. The pontoon swayed gently on the current and the tension leeched out of her, leaving her limbs feeling heavy and relaxed.

  In the absence of motor noise, the bayou chorus began. Crickets trilled in the reeds, an unseen string section. Then came the bass chug-a-rum of the bullfrog, then the rattling banjo twang of the green frog. From a distance came the occasional accompaniment of bird calls, and nearer the boat the low hum of mosquito squadrons lifting off the surface of the dark water to fly their sunset sorties.

  “Savannah and I used to come out here when we were kids,” Laurel said softly. “Never too far from home. Just far enough so we thought we were in another world.”

  To escape. Jack heard the words. They hung in the air, there for anyone who knew the secret desires of unhappy children. “Me too,” he said. “I grew up over on Bayou Noir. I spent more time in the swamp than I did in the house.”

  To escape, Laurel thought. They had that in common.

  “I had a secret hideout,” he admitted, staring out past the swamp to another time. “Built it out of peach crates and planks I robbed from a neighbor's pasture fence. I used to go out there and read my stolen comic books and make up stories of my own.”

  “Did you write them down?”

  “Sometimes.”

  All the time. He had scribbled them down in notebooks and read them aloud to himself with a kind of shy pride he had never experienced in anything else. He'd never had anything to be proud of. His daddy was a piss-mean, drunken, good-for-nothing son of a bitch who had told him time and again he would never be anything but a good-for-nothing son of a son of a bitch. But his stories were good. That realization had been a surprise as wonderful as the Christmas his maman had given him a real cap gun—which he also kept at his hideout. More wonderful, really, because the stories came from him and proved he was worth something.

  Then had come the day Blackie had followed him out to his secret hideaway. Drunk, as usual. Mean, as always. And the hideout was smashed, and the comic books and his stories and the dreams that were attached to them plunged into the bayou.

  As worthless and useless as you are, T-Jack . . .

  Laurel watched his face, saw the way his jaw hardened against some unpleasant memory, saw the anger in his dark eyes and the vulnerability that lay beneath it, and her heart ached for him. The few words he had spoken about his childhood had sketched a bleak picture. She could only guess that what was passing before his mind's eye now was a chapter from that time.

  “Daddy had an old bâteau with a little trolling motor on it,” she murmured to break his tension. “He taught Savannah how to work it. It was our secret, because Vivian would never have approved of her daughters doing such a thing. After he died, we used to sneak away and go out in it all the time. It made us feel closer to him somehow.”

  And far away from Beauvoir.

  Jack turned toward her, shifting his weight on the bench, searching her face with his gaze. She looked a little embarrassed, as if she had never told anyone this particular secret before. The idea pleased him in a way he shouldn't have allowed, but he didn't try to stop it.

  “When I was a kid, I used to think my family would be great if only we had money,” he said. “I thought every problem we had was because we were poor. That wasn't true at all, was it?”

  “No,” she whispered, bleakly.

  She stared down at her hands, fingering a thumbnail that had been bitten to the quick. She looked small and tired and vulnerable, not strong enough to fight off all the feelings coming home had churned up. She had gone off to create a life for herself, never suspecting that life would chase her right back to the problems she had been escaping from.

  “Dieu,” Jack muttered, letting his arm slip off the bench and around Laurel's shoulders. “I'm not doin' my job very well, am I?” he asked in a teasing voice while he massaged her shoulder. He leaned down close and nuzzled her ear. “I brought you out here to have fun, to make you happy.”

  Warmth bloomed inside Laurel. She told herself she didn't want it, but the voice wasn't stern enough to make her move away from him. She shot him a wry look. “I think you brought me out here with ideas of raiding my panties.”

  He grinned an unholy grin,
his eyes shining like polished onyx in the fading light. “Mais oui, mon coeur,” he murmured, his smoky voice purring deep in his throat as he slipped his other arm around her. “That's how I plan to make you happy.”

  Had any other man made such a statement to her, she would have cut him off at the knees with her rapier tongue and sent him crawling home. Jack's arrogance, tempered with his sense of humor, only made her want to go along on whatever wild adventure he suggested. That wasn't the smart thing or the safe thing, but it was the most tempting thing. As his lips found her throat and he began to kiss her with teasing little taste-testing kisses, the temptation grew stronger.

  “I thought—” She broke off at the breathless sound of her voice, cleared her throat, and tried again. “I thought you were going to be on your best behavior.”

  He chuckled wickedly against her neck, sliding a hand up and down her upper arm, his thumb brushing seductively against the side of her breast. “Sugar, this is my best behavior.”

  A shudder of pure longing went through her. She had ignored her physical needs for so long, she had forgotten what it was to want a man.

  No, her mind insisted, the correction cutting through the haze of desire, she had never known what it was to want a man. Not the way she wanted Jack. She had grown up subduing herself sexually, avoiding something she had seen only the ugly side of. Her marriage to Wesley had been a marriage of friends, passionless on her part because she didn't think herself capable of passion.

  She'd been wrong. As Jack trailed kisses down the column of her throat to the sensitive curve of her shoulder, passion came to life inside her like a fire that had been smoldering beneath cold ash. It startled her, frightened her. She didn't want to want him. She had never wanted to think of herself as being vulnerable to the lure of sex.