Cry Wolf

Chapter Eight

Savannah took the demise of her Corvette with remarkable good grace. It was news of who had been driving she took exception to.

"Jack?" She arched a brow, stiffening slowly but visibly, her back straightening. She sat on Laurel 's bed, wearing her champagne silk robe open over a black lace teddy, looking like an ad for Victoria 's Secret with her hair mussed and her lips kiss-swollen. "What the hell were you doing out on the bayou road with Jack Boudreaux?"

"A question I asked myself as we hurtled along like some kind of rocket test car on the salt flats," Laurel grumbled as she studied herself with a critical eye in the cheval glass.

The skirt she wore was soft and flowing with a pattern of mauve cabbage roses and deep green leaves on an ivory background. The waist was riding at the top of her hips, and the hem hung nearly to her ankles. Weight loss was hell on the wardrobe. It would have to do. She hadn't brought many good outfits with her. At any rate, the petal pink cotton summer sweater was baggy enough to hide the sagging waist. She heaved a sigh of resignation and looked at her sister via the glass.

"I can't drive a stick. He offered-no, he commandeered," she corrected, irritated all over again with his highhandedness. If he hadn't been so pushy, she never would have ended up kissing him, never would have ended up staring at the ceiling half the night.

Savannah frowned, hit unaware by a jolt of jealousy. Frenchie's was her territory, her little kingdom of men. Jack Boudreaux was a member of her court. She didn't like the idea of his sniffing around her baby sister, especially when he had yet to come sniffing around her. And she didn't like the idea of sharing Laurel, either. Laurel had come home to her big sister for love and comfort, not to Jack Boudreaux.

"He's trouble," she said, rising to come and stand behind Laurel. "Stay away from him."

Laurel shot a curious look over her shoulder as Savannah fussed with the lace collar of her sweater. "Yesterday you seemed charmed enough by him."

"It's one thing for me to be charmed by him. I don't want him charming you, Baby. The man's a cad."

Savannah the great protector. Always watching out for her while no one watched out for Savannah. A cad was good enough for Savannah, or a pool shark ten years her junior, or a married Pulitzer Prize-winner old enough to be her father. Laurel chewed back the urge to say something she knew she would regret. She loved her sister, wanted something better for her than the life Savannah had chosen for herself, but now was not the time to say so. She had enough on her mind thinking of the dinner she had no appetite for.

"You said he was a writer. What does he write?"

"Oooh," Savannah cooed, a wicked smile curling the corners of her mouth and sparkling in her eyes. "Deliciously gruesome horror novels. The kind of stuff that makes you wonder how the man sleeps nights. Don't you ever go to the bookstores, Baby? Jack's practically always on the best-seller lists."

Laurel couldn't remember the last time she'd read anything that wasn't written in legalese. The Case had consumed all her time, pushing all else out of her life-her hobbies, her friends, her husband, her perspective… at any rate, she wasn't given to reading the kinds of books that kept people up wide-eyed with fear of everything that went bump in the night. She didn't need to pay money to be horrified and get depressed. She dealt with enough real-life horrors. Depression was something she could get for free.

She tried to reconcile her image of Jack, the piano-playing, car-stealing, kiss-stealing rogue, with her mental image of what a horror novelist would be like, and couldn't. But there was another Jack, the man she had caught glimpses of at odd moments. A harder, darker man with an inner intensity that unnerved her. Just the memory of that man brought out a strange skittishness in her, and so she dismissed all thoughts of him and concentrated instead on the matter at hand.

She looked at herself in the mirror again, deciding she looked like a little girl playing dress-up in her mother's clothes. Not that Vivian had ever allowed them to do such a thing. Savannah rummaged through a drawer in the walnut commode and came back with two safety pins. She made a pair of pleats in the front waist of the skirt and secured them, hiding the pins with the hem of the sweater.

"Instant fit. Old fashion-model's trick," she said absently, studying Laurel with sharp scrutiny.

"Why didn't you stick with it?" Laurel asked.

"You'll wear my new gold earrings," she muttered, then snapped her head up. "What? Modeling?"

"You had a good thing going with that agency in New Orleans."

Savannah sniffed, lifting one shoulder in a casual shrug while she picked up a makeup brush and a pat of blusher and expertly dusted soft mauve along Laurel 's cheekbones. "Andre loved me for my blow jobs, not my portfolio. I wasn't good enough-at modeling, that is. I happen to give the world's greatest blow job."

Laurel didn't comment, but Savannah caught the tightening of her jaw, the thinning of her mouth. Disapproval. It stung, and she resented it. "Do what you do best, Baby," she said, a fine razor edge to her voice. "Your thing is justice. My talents lie elsewhere.

"Now, let's take a look at you," she said briskly, setting the makeup aside. "I can't imagine why you're going to this. I would have told Vivian to go to hell."

"You have," Laurel said flatly. "On numerous occasions."

"So it's your turn. She jerks you around like a dog on a leash-"

"Sister, please." She closed her eyes briefly. Lord, if she wasn't up to this fight, what in hell would she do at Beauvoir? A tremor of nerves rattled through her. Dinner with Vivian and company was like dancing through a minefield. God, she thought derisively, how had she ever survived in the courtroom when she was such a coward?

"I could have said no," she said wearily, "but I don't need the trouble. One meal, and I'm off the hook. I might as well get it over with."

Savannah made a noncommittal sound. "Well, please borrow my new gold earrings, and for chrissakes, don't wear those awful Buddy Holly glasses. They make you look like that little chicken in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons."

Laurel arched a brow. "You don't want me to go, but you want me to look good?"

Her pale eyes turned hard and cold, and a bitter smile cut across her lush mouth. "I want Vivian to look at you and feel like the dried up old hag she is."

Laurel frowned as Savannah went to fetch the earrings from her room. They had always been adversaries-Savannah and their mother. Vivian was too selfish, too self-absorbed to have a daughter as beautiful, as attractive to men as Savannah was. Their rivalry was yet another unhealthy facet in an unhealthy relationship. That rivalry was one reason Laurel had always down-played her own looks. Always the little diplomat, she hadn't wanted to rock an already listing boat by attracting attention to herself. Her other reason wasn't so noble, she admitted, scowling at herself in the mirror.

If I'm not as pretty as Savannah, then Ross will leave me alone. He picked Savannah, not me. Lucky me.

There wasn't a word for the kind of guilt those memories brought, Laurel thought as Savannah returned. Her robe had slipped off one shoulder as she fiddled with the earrings, revealing a hickey the size of a silver dollar marring her porcelain skin. Laurel 's stomach knotted, and she wondered how she was ever going to choke down pot roast.

Sunday dinner at Beauvoir was a tradition as old as the South. The Chandlers had always attended Sunday services-as much out of a sense of duty and obligation to the community as out of reverence for the commandments-then a chosen few would be invited to dine at Beauvoir and pass the day away in genteel pursuits. There were no Chandlers left at Beauvoir, but the tradition endured, a part of Vivian's twisted sense of social responsibility.

If only she had possessed a fraction of that sense of responsibility for her own family, Laurel thought as she stood on the veranda and rang the bell. It had begun to rain again, and she listened to it as she waited, hoping in vain that the soft sound would soothe her ragged nerves. She thumbed a Maalox tablet free of the roll in her skirt pocket and popped it in her mouth.

The downtrodden Olive answered the door, as gray and gloomy as the afternoon, looking at Laurel with dull eyes, as though she had never seen her before. Laurel tried to give her a sympathetic smile as she stepped past the woman and headed toward the main parlor, visions of old zombie movies flickering in the back of her mind.

This would be the perfect setting for a horror movie or a horror novel. The old plantation on the edge of the swamp, a place of secrets, old hatreds, twisted minds. A place where tradition was warped into something grotesque, and family love curdled like spoiled cream. She tried to imagine Jack writing it, but could picture him only in a Hawaiian shirt with his baseball cap on backward and that cat-that-got-the-canary grin on his face. The image brought a ghost of a smile to her lips as she pictured him here, in the main parlor of Beauvoir, observing the assembled guests.

That he wouldn't exactly fit in was the understatement of the year. Ross stood near the sideboard looking freshly pressed and perfectly groomed in a silver-gray suit. He was the model of the well-bred, distinguished Southern gentleman, right down to his neatly manicured fingernails. The easy, patronizing smile. The aura of authority.

Laurel dragged her gaze away from him, sure the hate she felt for him was strong enough, magnetic enough to draw the attention of everyone in the room. She focused instead, briefly, on the other guests, quickly sizing them up in a way that was automatic to her. As a prosecuting attorney she'd had to draw swift and accurate impressions of victims, perpetrators, prospective witnesses, defense attorneys. She did so now for many of the same reasons-to give herself an edge, to formulate a strategy.

The man Ross was speaking with wore a clergyman's collar. He was small and thin and balding, and nodded so often in agreement with Ross's pontificating that he looked as if he had some kind of nervous condition. She labeled him as weak and obsequious and moved on.

A middle-aged couple stood behind the settee where Jack had corralled her the night before. A pair of plump, pleasant faces-the man's slightly sunburned, the woman's pale and perfectly made up. The woman wore a pale pink suit with a flared jacket that looked too crisp not to be brand-new, and her black hair had that wash-and-set roundness achieved by an hour of teasing and back-combing in a chair at Yvette's House of Style. Her gaze strayed continually, covetously to the obvious signs of wealth in the room. They would be neighbors, Laurel guessed. Planters, but not on a par with the massive Chandler-Leighton holdings. People who would be suitably humbled and impressed with an invitation to Beauvoir.

She moved on to Vivian, enthroned in her wing chair, looking cool and sophisticated in a royal blue linen dress. The other wing chair was occupied by a tall, dark-haired man who sat slightly turned, so that Laurel couldn't see his face. Before she could shift positions to get a quick look at him, Vivian caught sight of her and rose from her chair, the corners of her mouth curling upward in her version of a motherly smile.

" Laurel, darlin'."

She came forward, hands extended. Dutifully, Laurel took hold of her mother's fingers and suffered through the ritual peck on the cheek as they became the focal point in the room.

"Mama."

"We missed you at services this morning."

"I'm sorry. I wasn't feeling up to it."

"Yes, well…" Vivian kept the thin smile in place. Only Laurel caught the censure in her gaze. "We know you need your rest, dear. Come meet everyone. Ross, look, Laurel is here."

Ross came forward, his smile like a banner across his face. " Laurel, darlin', aren't you looking pretty today!"

He put a hand on her shoulder, and she moved deftly away, not willing to suffer his touch for anyone's sake. "Ross," she murmured, tipping her head to avoid making eye contact with him.

The clergyman was introduced as Reverend Stipple. His handshake was as soft as a grandmother's. The couple, Don and Glory Trahern, had recently taken over the plantation of Glory's uncle, Wilson Kincaid, whom Laurel remembered vaguely as a friend of her father's. Don Trahern seemed a nice mild-mannered sort. Glory was obviously courting Vivian's favor, smiling too hard and gushing too many pleasantries. Laurel murmured the requisite greeting, then found her gaze straying to the last of the group to be introduced.

The little circle of guests opened to make way for him, everyone looking up at him as if he were the crown prince of some foreign place come to grace poor little Bayou Breaux with his presence.

"… and our guest of honor today," Vivian said. "Stephen Danjermond, our district attorney. Stephen, my daughter Laurel."

A setup. Laurel felt as though she'd been blindsided. She had expected Vivian's usual assemblage of minor local royalty. She hadn't expected her mother to play this game. She and Danjermond were the only people in the room younger than forty-five. The only two people conspicuously unattached. She felt like a fool, and she felt like leaving. But she gritted her teeth and held her hand out, tilting what she hoped was a blandly pleasant look up at the district attorney.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Danjermond."

"The pleasure is mine," he said smoothly.

His gaze caught hers like a tractor beam and held it, steady, unblinking, calm. Flat calm, like the sea on a windless day. His eyes were a clear, odd shade of green. The color of peridot, fringed by thick, short lashes and set deep beneath a strong, straight brow. He was strikingly handsome, his face a long rectangle with a strong jaw and a slim, straight nose. His mouth was wide and mobile, curving up on the ends in a sensual, almost feline way.

He would be a formidable opponent in the courtroom. Laurel knew it instinctively, could feel the power of his personality in his gaze even while she could read nothing of his thoughts. She started to draw her hand back, but he held on to her-lightly but firmly, closing both his long, elegant hands over her much smaller one.

"I've heard so much about you," he said. "I've been looking forward to meeting you, Laurel."

There was something almost intimate in his tone. His voice was a warm, well-schooled, well-modulated baritone that vibrated with the ring of old Southern money.

"Stephen is from New Orleans," Vivian said brightly, raising her voice a fraction as thunder rumbled overhead. "I met his mother years ago-though no one will get me to confess how many years," she added coyly, lashes fluttering. "Back when I spent summers with my cousin, Tallant Jordan Hill. You remember Cousin Talli, don't you Laurel? Her father was in oil, and his brother was the one who made such a fortune in the silver market and then lost it all on the New York Stock Exchange? It was such a scandal!

" Laurel was a junior bridesmaid in Cousin Talli's second wedding," she explained. Glory Trahern hung on every word. Everyone else's eyes had begun to glaze over. "Her first husband was crushed to death, you know. Lord, it was a horrible thing! But Talli bounced back and remarried well.

"A remarkable woman, Talli. She introduced me to Stephen's mother at a soiree. A lovely woman, just a precious, lovely woman! As it turns out, we had both attended Sacred Heart, but she was several years older than I, and we ran in different circles.

"The Danjermonds have been in shipping for years," she said in conclusion, the mention of business making the men tune in once again.

"Shipping and politics," Danjermond said. To his credit, he had managed to smile all the way through Vivian's monologue. "My elder brother, Simon, went into the shipping business. That left politics for me."

The rest of the cast cooed and bobbed their heads approvingly. Laurel bristled. He still held her hand, and she couldn't pull it loose without creating a scene. She brought her chin up a notch and looked him hard in the eye.

"I've always been of the belief that a prosecuting attorney's first loyalty is the pursuit of justice, not public office."

Glory Trahern sucked in a little gasp and put a hand to the bow at her throat as if it were choking her. The rest of the party stood staring at Laurel with owl eyes, except Vivian, whose stare more resembled a she-wolf's. Only Danjermond himself seemed unoffended. His smile curled a little deeper at the corners of his mouth.

"I'd heard you were quite the champion for Lady Justice."

"That was my job," she said flatly, refusing to be charmed. "And yours."

He tipped his head, conceding the point. "So it is, and my record speaks for itself. The good people of Partout Parish can attest to that."

"We certainly can, Stephen," Vivian chirped.

Beaming a smile at him, she stepped to his side and slipped her arm through his, as if she had decided Laurel wasn't worthy of him so she was taking him back. Laurel pulled her hand free and crossed her arms, thinking she might have been amused if she hadn't been so damn angry with her mother to begin with.

"Your record is impeccable," Vivian went on, glowing proudly at him, as if she were somehow responsible for this paragon of manhood. "I declare, I don't know how we'd get along without you. While all around us crime is running rampant throughout Acadiana, Partout Parish has become a virtual haven for the law-abiding."

"I swear," Glory Trahern gushed, leaning over to touch Danjermond's arm as if he were a lucky charm. "I hardly dare to set foot across the parish line, what with all these murders going on around us."

Danjermond's green eyes glowed with amusement as he met Laurel 's skeptical stare. "You see, Laurel, the advantage of having a politically ambitious district attorney? I have to do my job well, or no one will vote for me when I run for office."

The comment drew chuckles all around. Vivian patted his sleeve, pleased with his benevolent good humor. Laurel managed a smile. Stephen Danjermond was hardly the first politician to train for the job in the district attorney's office. She was hardly up to arguing philosophy with him at any rate. She had come here to put in her required appearance, that was all. By the looks Vivian was sliding her, she figured she would do well to stick to that plan.

Be a good girl, Laurel. Don't rock the boat, Laurel. Always say the right thing, Laurel.

Olive slunk into the room, looking almost apologetic, and announced in a meek monotone that dinner was ready, flinching like a whipped dog as lightning flashed outside the tall French doors.

"Well, I certainly have an appetite!" Ross announced with a blazing smile. He slapped Reverend Stipple on the shoulder. "How about you, Reverend?"

The minister bobbed his head like a window ornament in the back of a hopped-up Chevy. "I surely do."

Everyone moved on toward the dining room, Vivian leading Danjermond ahead, then returning without him to herd the rest of her guests out of the parlor. She snagged Laurel by the arm and held her back as the others continued down the hall, chatting amicably.

Laurel closed her eyes briefly and bit down on a sigh.

"Laurel Leanne! How dare you be rude to a guest in this house!" Vivian snapped, her voice a harsh whisper, her bony fingers biting into Laurel 's arm. "Stephen Danjermond is an extremely important man. There's no telling how far he will go in politics."

"That doesn't mean I have to agree with him, Mama," Laurel pointed out, knowing it wouldn't do her any good. Her mother's code demanded that ladies be agreeable regardless. It wouldn't have mattered if Stephen Danjermond's politics had rivaled Adolf Hitler's for extremism.

Vivian pinched her lips together and narrowed her eyes. "Be civil to him, Laurel. I raised you to be a lady and won't tolerate less in this house. Stephen is educated, powerful, from a very good family."

Translation: Stephen Danjermond was a prize catch. No doubt every debutante in the parish had her sights set on him. Laurel wanted to tell her mother that she wasn't fishing, but she kept the comment to herself. Somehow it had never occurred to Vivian that she might need time to heal in the wake of all that had happened to her.

"I'm sorry, Mama," she murmured, not wanting to prolong the argument.

"Oh, well," Vivian said with a sigh, her temper cooling as abruptly as it had flared up. "You've always had your headstrong moments. You're just like your father that way."

She reached up to brush lightly at Laurel 's bangs, her expression softening into one of her rare, truly motherly looks. "You do look pretty today, darlin'. This shade of pink becomes you."

Laurel said thank you, hating herself for letting the compliment mean anything to her. She never seemed able to escape that childish need for her mother's approval.

A weakness. One of many.

She glanced at her watch as Vivian took her by the arm and led her out of the room, wondering how soon she could leave. This emotional tug-of-war wasn't what she needed to get herself back on track.

It's just a dinner, just a couple of hours. Get through it and go home.

The dining room was as elegant as the parlor, as filled with heirlooms and oil portaits of Chandlers dead and gone. The Hepplewhite table and shield-back chairs shone from two centuries of hand-polishing. Footfalls sounded against the cypress floor and bounded up to the twelve-foot ceiling. Glory Trahern stared up as if she were trying to see them rather than calculating the worth of the blown glass chandelier. Her husband snatched her arm and herded her toward a chair.

Not surprisingly, Laurel found herself seated directly across from Stephen Danjermond, who had the place of honor-at the right hand of Vivian, who sat at one end of the table, opposite Ross. Laurel slid into her chair and focused on her Wedgwood plate, uncomfortably aware of the handsome, elegant, articulate man across from her, wishing she had worn her glasses. She didn't want to attract his attention any more than she had wanted to attract the attention of her stepfather two decades ago. There was no room in her life for a man right now.

The image of Jack's mocking smile appeared before her mind's eye, and she frowned and speared a stalk of baby asparagus.

The topic of law and order had survived the trip down the hall, and the participants discussed the dynamic duo of Partout Parish-Sheriff Duwayne Kenner and District Attorney Danjermond-pleased and proud of the fact that crime here was being kept to a minimum.

"People can say what they will about Kenner 's personality," Ross said with his usual air of supreme authority, "but the man does his job. I daresay if those killings had taken place in our parish, Kenner would have had the man responsible by now."

"Perhaps," Danjermond murmured as Olive collected his salad plate and slunk away. "He would certainly do his utmost. He's a very capable man, and tenacious as they come. However, we have to remember that killers of this sort are notoriously clever. Brilliant even."

"Sick," Glory Trahern said, fussing with her bow as she shivered. "Crazy and sick, that's what he is."

He tipped his head, conceding the possibility. "Or cold. Emotionless. Soulless." He turned his intense, mesmerizing gaze on Laurel. "What do you think, Laurel? Is our Bayou Strangler crazy or evil?"

Laurel twisted her napkin in her lap, wishing herself away from this conversation, afraid that it would gradually turn her way and the Traherns and Reverend Stipple and Stephen Danjermond would want to hear all about her life as "the prosecutor who cried wolf." "I… I couldn't say," she murmured. "I don't have enough knowledge about the cases to form an educated guess."

"There is a difference, though, don't you agree?" he prodded, the insistence in his voice subtle, smooth, strong. "While society deems all murderers insane to one degree or another, the courts have a different criterion. In the eyes of the law, there is a distinct difference.

"You believe in evil, don't you, Laurel?"

Laurel met his steady gaze, uneasiness drifting through her. She didn't want to be drawn into this conversation, but Danjermond held her attention, and the other diners waited expectantly. She could feel their eyes, sense the pressure of their held breath. Thunder rolled through the leaden skies outside. The rain came a little harder.

"Yes," she said softly. "Yes, I do."

"And good must triumph over evil. That is the foundation of our judicial system."

Yes, but it didn't always. She knew that better than most, and so she held her tongue and glanced away, and Danjermond's cool green eyes held fast on her, speculating.

"Speaking of good and evil," Laurel said, catching the eye of Reverend Stipple, "what do you make of Jimmy Lee Baldwin, Reverend?"

"As much as I hate to speak ill of anyone, my own opinion of him is less than complimentary," the minister said as he served himself a portion of beef. "He's a bit too fancy for my tastes. However, his television ministry does reach out to the homebound and calls back those who may have left the fold of Christ on the wayward paths of life."

One opinion was canceled out by the other, but Laurel bit her tongue on the urge to point that out. Just do your time and get the hell out of here.

"And he is campaigning against sin in the community," Reverend Stipple went on, looking as though he might just convince himself to like Baldwin after all.

Laurel thought of Savannah 's comment about Jimmy Lee Baldwin's twisted sexual preferences and held her tongue as the potatoes came her way.

"I hear he's going to try to close down Frenchie's Landing," Glory Trahern said, her eyes lighting up at the chance to pass on gossip.

"Yes," Laurel said, "and the owners are very upset about it." At least T-Grace Delahoussaye was upset. She had to take T-Grace's word for it that Ovide was upset.

"You've been there?"

Laurel winced inwardly at Vivian's tone, but pushed the fear of her mother's reaction aside. She was a grown woman, able to go where she chose. "I had to see a man about a dog," she said, cutting the one thin slice of roast she had taken. "While Frenchie's doesn't compare with the country club, it hardly seemed the den of sin Mr. Baldwin is trying to make it out to be."

"It's nowhere for respectable people to go," Vivian commented, her face tight with disapproval.

"I see your point, though, Laurel, darlin'," Ross announced. "Skeeter Mouton's is by far the most notorious place in the parish. If Baldwin were serious about this war against sin, Mouton's would be the likely target. I suspect, however, that Mr. Baldwin knows too well the kind of trouble he'd be asking for poking at that hornets' nest. He'd get himself killed."

"Instead, he's harassing a legitimate business."

"Are you taking up the Delahoussayes' cause, Laurel?" Danjermond asked mildly.

Laurel met his steady gaze once again. "I'm not practicing at the moment, but someone should take up their cause."

He shrugged slightly. "I can't act on their behalf unless they make a formal complaint. You might pass that information along. It isn't against the law to preach; trespassing is another matter."

"Yes, I already have made that suggestion to them."

He smiled slowly, as if to tell her he knew her far better than she knew herself. "So you are taking up their cause, aren't you, Laurel?"

The truth of his statement stopped her short for a second, but she shook it off. "I merely made a suggestion."

"Stephen has more important causes to take up. Don't you, Stephen, dear?" Vivian said, reaching out to pat his hand approvingly. "Why don't you tell us about the state attorney general's appointing you head of the Acadiana drug task force?"

The meal progressed at a snail's pace. Laurel picked at her food and glanced at her watch every thirty seconds. Finally, they left the table and went back to the parlor for coffee. While Vivian bossed Olive around and the Traherns settled on the gold settee, Laurel roamed to the French doors and stood with her cup in her hand, staring out wistfully at the rain-washed garden. The thundershower had passed. When she escaped, she would go back to Belle Rivière and take a book out to the courtyard and sit in a corner reading and absorbing the quiet, the scent of rain, roses, and wisteria.

"Is the company really all that unpleasant?"

She started and glanced up, surprised to find Danjermond standing so close beside her. He had abandoned his coffee and stood with his hands tucked into the pockets of his fashionable pleated trousers.

"No, not at all," Laurel said quickly.

Danjermond smiled like a cat. "You're not a terribly good liar, Laurel. Tell the truth now. You'd rather be elsewhere."

"I admit I didn't come back to Bayou Breaux to socialize."

"Then it's my good fortune you made an exception in this case. Unless I'm the reason you're staring so longingly out that window, wishing yourself away."

"Of course not."

"Good, because I was about to suggest we get together in a more intimate setting one evening soon. A candlelit dinner, perhaps."

"I hardly know you, Mr. Danjermond."

"That's the whole point of intimate dinners, isn't it? To get to know each other. I'd like to find out more about your views, your plans, yourself."

"I have no plans for the moment. And I don't care to discuss my views. I'm not trying to be rude," she said, lifting her free hand in a gesture of peace. "The fact of the matter is I was recently divorced and have been through a great deal in the past year. I'm simply not up to a date at this point."

"Or a job offer?" he queried, lifting a brow, seeming not the least affected by her rejection of him personally.

Laurel tucked her chin back and eyed him with more than a hint of suspicion. "Why would you offer me a job? We've only just met."

"Because I can always use another good prosecutor in my office. The Scott County case notwithstanding, you have an excellent record. Your work on the Valdez migrant worker case was outstanding, and you went far above and beyond the call of duty investigating the rape of that blind woman back when you were little more than a clerk for the DA's office in Fulton County."

She had been barely out of law school. It was ancient history. The fact that he had for some reason dug that deeply into her past brought a return of the uneasiness she had felt earlier. She crossed her arms in front of her, careful not to dump coffee down the front of her sweater. "You seem to have an inordinate knowledge of my career, Mr. Danjermond."

"I'm a very thorough man, Laurel." He smiled again, that even, handsome smile. "You might say attention to detail has gotten me where I am today."

To the DA's office in backwater Louisiana? It seemed an odd thing to say, considering Stephen Danjermond had Bigger Things written all over him. With his pedigree and family connections, Laurel would have expected him to be firmly entrenched in Baton Rouge or New Orleans.

"There is a method to my madness, I assure you," he said, reading her silence with amazing accuracy. "Ambitious prosecutors are a dime a dozen in New Orleans. Acadiana offers me the chance to shine on my own. And there are unique problems here, problems I feel I can help control-drug smuggling, gun running. There is a certain element in the bayou country that remains largely uncivilized. Bringing that faction to heel and making them realize the days of Jean Lafitte are long past is a worthy goal."

"And one that will attract the attention of the powers that be."

His broad shoulders rose and fell. "C'est la vie. C'est la guerre. To the victor go the spoils."

"I know how the game is played, Mr. Danjermond," Laurel said in a cool tone. "I'm not naive."

"No, you're an idealist. A much more difficult lot in life. Better to be a cynic."

"Is that what you are? A cynic?"

"I'm a pragmatist." He held her gaze and let the silence build between them until Laurel had to fight herself to keep from stepping back. "Will you consider my offer?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'm flattered, but I can't think about work yet."

"But it's not just work to you, is it, Laurel? The pursuit of justice is a calling for you, an obsession," he said. "Isn't it, Laurel?"

The question was too personal. She was feeling too sensitive. He stood a little too close, watched her too intently. He looked relaxed, and yet she had the impression of leashed power beneath his calm facade. He was too… everything. Too tall, too handsome, too charming. Too still.

She glanced at the platinum Rolex strapped to his wrist, and relief flooded through her. "I'm afraid I have to be leaving now, Mr. Danjermond. I promised my aunt I'd help her with some things this afternoon. It was a pleasure meeting you."

"Until we meet again, Laurel."

When donkeys fly, she thought. She hadn't come home for challenges or entanglements or trouble. She backed away another step, some primal instinct keeping her from turning her back too quickly on Stephen Danjermond. He watched her, calm amusement lighting his green eyes, and she turned then, simply to escape looking at his too-handsome face, turned just as Savannah walked in the door.