Cry Wolf

Chapter Four

Jack jerked awake, bolting against the cluttered mahogany desk, throwing his head back away from the black Underwood manual typewriter that had served as pillow for the last-what? hour? two? three? He looked around, blinking against the buttery light that filtered down through the canopy of live oak and through the sheer lace curtains at the window. He rubbed his hands over his lean face and cleared his throat, grimacing at the taste of stale beer coating his mouth. With his fingers he combed back his straight black hair, which was too thick and too long for south Louisiana this time of year.

The old ormolu clock on the bedroom mantel ticked loudly and relentlessly, drawing a narrow glare. Eleven-thirty. The respectable folk of Bayou Breaux had been up and industrious for hours. Jack had no memory of coming home. It might have been midnight. It might have been dawn when he had stumbled across the threshold of the old house the locals called L'Amour. He cast a speculative look at the heavy four-poster bed with its drape of baire carelessly stuffed behind the carved headboard. There might have been a woman dozing among the rumpled sheets. He had a vague memory of a woman… big blue eyes and an angel's face… fire and fragility…

There wasn't a woman in his bed, which was just as well. He was in no mood for morning-after rhetoric. His head felt as though someone had smashed it with a mallet.

The last thing he remembered was Leonce's leading him away from Frenchie's. He might have gone anywhere, done anything after that. Pain jabbed his temples like twin ice picks as he tried to remember. Funny, he thought, his mouth twisting at the irony, he drank to forget. Why couldn't he just leave it at that?

"Because you're perverse, Jack," he mumbled, his voice a smoky rumble, made more hoarse than usual by a night of loud singing in a room where ninety percent of the people were chain smokers.

He pushed himself up out of the creaking old desk chair, his body doing some creaking and groaning of its own after God knew how many hours in a sitting position. He stretched with all the grace of a big lean cat, scratched his flat bare belly, noted that the top button on his faded jeans was undone but left it that way.

The page in the typewriter caught his eye, and he pulled it out and studied it, frowning darkly at the words that must have seemed like gems at the time he had pounded them out.

She tries to scream as she runs, but her lungs are on fire and working like a bellows. Only pathetic yipping sounds issue from her throat, and they are a waste of precious energy. Tears blur her vision, and she tries to blink them back, to swipe them back with her hand, to swallow the knot of them clogging her throat as she runs on through the dense growth.

Moonlight barely filters down through the canopy of trees. The light is surreal, nightmarish. Branches lash at her, cutting her face, her arms. Her toes stub and catch on the roots of the oak and hackberry trees that grow along the soft, damp earth, and she stumbls headlong, twisting her head around to see how near death is behind her.

Too near. Too calm. Too deliberate. Her heart pounds hard enough to burst.

She scrambles backward, trying to get her legs under her. Her hands clutch at roots and dead leaves. Her fingers close on the thick, muscular body of a snake, and she screams as she tries to escape the triangular head and flashing fangs that strike at her. The stench of the swamp fills her head as the copper taste of fear coats her mouth. And death looms nearer. Relentless. Ruthless. Evil. Smiling…

Crap. Nothing but crap. With a sound of disgust Jack crumpled the page and hurled it in the general direction of the wastebasket-an old Chinese urn that may well have been worth a small fortune. He didn't know, didn't care. He had stumbled across it in the attic, buried under a decade's worth of discarded, moth-eaten clothing. Apparently it had been there some time, as it was a third full of the dead, decaying, and skeletal remains of mice that had fallen into it over the years and been unable to get out.

Jack owned antiques because the old decrepit house had come with them, not because he was culturally sophisticated or a conspicuous consumer or particularly appreciative of fine things. Material things had become irrelevant to him since Evie's death. His perspective of the world had shifted radically downhill. Another irony. For most of his thirty-five years he had fought tooth and nail to achieve a status where he could own "things." Now he was there and no longer gave a damn.

"Dieu," he whispered, shaking his head and wincing at the pain, "old Blackie must be sittin' in Hell laughin' at that."

Bon à rien, tu, 'tit souris. Good for nothin', pas de bétises!

The voice came to him out of the past, out of his childhood. A voice from beyond the grave. He flinched at the memory of that voice. A conditioned response, even after all this time. Often enough a slurred line from Blackie Boudreaux had been followed up with a back-hand across the mouth.

Jack pulled open the French doors and leaned against the frame, the smooth white paint cool against the bare skin of his shoulder. His eyes drifted shut as he breathed in the sweet green scent of boxwood, the fragrant perfume of magnolia and wisteria and a dozen other blooming plants. And beneath that heady incense lay the dark, insidious aroma of the bayou-a mixture of fertility and decay and fish. The scents, the caress of the hot breeze against his face, the chorus of birdsong instantly transported him back in time.

He saw himself at nine, small and skinny, barefoot and dirty-faced, running like a thief from the tar-paper shack that was home. Running from his father, running to escape into the swamp, his bare feet slapping on the worn dirt path.

In the swamp he could be anyone, do anything. There were no boundaries, no standards to fall short of. He could conquer an island, become king of the alligators, be a notorious criminal on the run. On the run for killing his father, which he would have done if he had been bigger and stronger…

"Shit," he muttered, stepping back into the bedroom.

He left the doors open and shuffled toward the bathroom some previous forward-thinking owner of L'Amour had converted from a dressing room back in the twenties. It still "boasted" the original white porcelain fixtures and tile. Not much of a boast, considering all were dingy with age, cracked, and chipped. Fortunately, Jack's only prerequisite was that they work.

With the flick of a switch the boom box sitting on the back of the old toilet came to life, belting out the bluesy, bouncy Zydeco sound of Zachary Richard-"Ma Petite Fille Est Gone." Despite the fact that it jarred his aching head, Jack automatically moved with the beat as he filled the sink with cold water. The music defied stillness with its relentless bass rhythm and hot accordion and guitar licks.

Gulping a big breath, he bent over at the waist and stuck his head in the basin, coming up a minute later cursing in French and shaking himself like a wet dog. He gave himself a long, critical look in the mirror, debating the merits of shaving as water dripped off the end of his aquiline nose. He looked tough and mean in his current state, a look he didn't let many people see. The gang down at Frenchie's knew Jack the Party Animal. Jack with the ready grin. Jack the lady's man. They didn't know this Jack except through his books, and it amazed them that the Jack Boudreaux who was touted by the publishing world as the "New Master of the Macabre" was their Jack.

He sniffed and tipped his head to one side, a wry half smile curving his mouth. "Pas du tout, mon ami," he murmured. "Pas du tout."

As he reached for his toothbrush, the music on the radio was cut short in midchorus.

"This just in," the deejay said, his usually jovial tone stretched taut and flat by the gravity of the news. "KJUN news has just learned of another apparent victim of the Bayou Strangler. This morning, at approximately seven o'clock, two fishermen in the Bayou Chene area in St. Martin Parish discovered the body of an unidentified young woman. Though authorities have yet to release a statement, reliable sources on the scene have confirmed the similarities between this death and three others that have occurred in south Louisiana in the past eighteen months. The body of the last victim, Sheryl Lynn Carmouche, of Loreauville, was discovered-"

Jack reached over and hit the tape button. Instantly the frantic fiddle music of Michael Doucet whined through the speakers, snapping the tension, drowning out the grim news. He'd had enough grimness to last him. He had a stock stored up, ready to be called upon and brought down on his head like a ton of bricks any- time he wanted. He didn't care to bring in more from outside sources.

Don't get involved. That was his motto. That and the traditional Cajun war cry-laissez le bon temps rouler. He didn't want to hear about dead girls from Loreauville. He couldn't give Sheryl Lynn Carmouche her life back. He could only live his own, and he intended to do just that, starting with a big shrimp po'boy and a bottle of something cold down at the Landing.

Sweat trickled between Laurel 's breasts as she knelt in the freshly turned earth. It beaded on her forehead, and one drop rolled down toward her nose. She reached up with a dirty gloved hand and wiped it away, leaving a smear of mud.

No one would have spotted her for a once-aggressive attorney-a fact that suited her just fine. She wanted to lose herself in mindless manual labor, thinking of nothing but simple physical tasks like turning soil and planting flowers. She suspected she would appear to have bathed in dirt by the time she finished her work in the courtyard. There were worse things to become immersed in.

She poked at the root of a new azalea bush with a small hand spade, mixing in the special compost Bud Landry at the nursery had sent home with her-his own secret blend of God-knew-what that would grow anything, "guar-un-teed."

She spent most of the morning sweeping up yesterday's carnage and supervising the hanging of a new gate at the back of the courtyard. Not pausing for more than a sip of the iced tea Mama Pearl brought out for her, she swept and raked and piled. She then hauled the mess, one load at a time, to the edge of the small open field that lay to the east of Aunt Caroline's property, where she piled all the debris of her first two days' work, and would burn it all before it could become a haven to snakes and rodents.

She made a mental note to call city hall and check to see if she would need a permit. No one in Bayou Breaux had ever been much on that kind of formality, but times changed. She hadn't lived here in a lot of years. For all she knew the place could have been taken over by yuppies on the run from suburban life. Or the Junior League might have decided environmentalism was in vogue-so long as it didn't interfere with their husbands' businesses. Laurel could well imagine her mother leading the crusade against common folk burning brush while Ross Leighton polluted the bayou with chemicals intended to keep his cane crop money-green and safe from insects.

Thoughts of Vivian erased what was left of Laurel 's smile. She had been in Bayou Breaux four days now without making a call to Beauvoir. That wouldn't be tolerated much longer. She had no desire to visit her childhood home or the people who resided there, but there was such a thing as family duty, and Vivian was bound to bring it down on Laurel 's head like a club if she didn't make the expected pilgrimage soon.

The idea hardly overjoyed her. The fact that she would have to deal with Vivian and Ross, if only to sit at the same table with them for dinner, had been enough to make her reconsider the wisdom of coming back. But the instinctive need for a place that was familiar had overridden her aversion to seeing her mother and stepfather.

The thought of going off someplace on her own, someplace where her anonymity would be absolute, had been too daunting. Go someplace where the only company she would have would be herself? That was company she didn't want to keep just now. She had longed for the reassurance of Caroline Chandler's formidable personality and unconditional love. She had felt a need to see Savannah. She had missed Mama Pearl's fussing and truculence. The occasional encounter with Vivian and Ross seemed small enough penance to pay for the privilege of coming home.

With considerable force of will she shut the door on the topic and focused on other things. Her hands packed the soil around the roots of the azalea bush. The scents of ripe compost and green growth filled her nostrils. Across the courtyard bees were buzzing lazily over a wild tangle of rambling roses and wisteria that clung to the brick wall. A Mozart quintet drifted from the boom box she had left on the gallery of the house.

The heat grew a little thicker. She sweated a little harder. Overhead wispy clouds writhed and curled their way across the blue sky, scudding northward on a balmy Gulf breeze. The quintet ended, and the news began, signaling the start of the lunch hour.

"Topping the news this hour: the discovery of another apparent victim-"

Laurel jerked her head around as the announcement was cut short. Savannah stood on the gallery, hands on her hips, a pair of square black Ray-Bans shading her eyes. She had pulled her wild hair up into a messy topknot that trailed tendrils along her neck and jawline, and had dressed with her usual flare in a periwinkle spandex miniskirt that hugged the curves of her hips and backside, and a loose white silk tank that managed to show more than it covered. A diamond the size of a pea hung just above the deep shadow of her cleavage, just below the necklace Daddy had given her years ago, and gold bangles rattled at her wrists as she shifted her weight impatiently from one spike heel to the other.

"Baby, what in the world do you think you're doing?"

Laurel pushed her bangs out of her eyes and flashed a smile. "Gardening! What's it look like?"

She abandoned her tools and straightened up, dusting the loose dirt off the knees of her baggy jeans before heading for the gallery. Mama Pearl would cluck at her like a fat old hen if she tracked it into the house.

"You've spent the entire last two days gardening," Savannah said, frowning. "You're going to wear yourself out. Didn't your doctor tell you to relax?"

"Gardening is relaxing, psychologically. I've needed to do something physical," she said, toeing off her canvas sneakers and stepping up beside her sister. In her heels Savannah towered over her. Laurel had always felt small and mousy in Savannah 's presence. Today she felt like a grubby urchin, and the feeling pleased her enormously.

Savannah sniffed and made a comical face of utter disgust. "Mercy, you smell like a hog pen at high noon! If you needed to do something physical, we could have gone shopping. Your wardrobe is begging for a trip to New Orleans."

"I have plenty of clothes."

"Then why don't you wear them?" Savannah asked archly.

Laurel glanced down at the shapeless cotton T-shirt and baggy jeans that camouflaged all details of her body. Most of what she had brought with her was designed for comfort rather than style.

"It wouldn't be very practical for me to do gardening in stiletto heels," she said dryly, eyeing her sister's outfit. "And if I had to bend over in that skirt, I'd probably get arrested for mooning the neighbors."

Savannah looked out across the courtyard to L'Amour, the once-elegant brick house that stood some distance behind Belle Rivière on the bank of the bayou. The corners of her lush mouth flicked upward in wry amusement. "Baby, you couldn't scandalize that neighbor if you tried."

"Who's living there? I didn't think anyone would ever buy it, considering the history of the place and the state it was in the last time I saw it."

L'Amour had been built in the mid-nineteenth century for a notorious paramour by her wealthy, married lover. By all accounts-and there were many versions of the tale-she died by his hand when he discovered she was also involved with a no-account Cajun trapper. Laurel had grown up hearing stories about the place's being haunted. No one had lived there in years.

"Jack Boudreaux," Savannah answered, her smile turning sexy at the thought of him. "Writer, rake, rascal, rogue. And when he gets to be old enough, I imagine he'll be a reprobate too. Come along, urchin," she said, turning for the house. "Go hose yourself down. I'm taking you out to lunch."

Jack Boudreaux. Laurel stood on the veranda, staring at L'Amour.

"Baby, you coming?"

Laurel snapped her head around, a blush creeping up her cheeks like a guilty schoolgirl's. Concern tugged at Savannah 's brows, and she pushed her sunglasses on top of her head.

"I think you've been out in the sun too long. You should have worn a hat."

"I'm fine." Laurel shook her head and dodged her sister's gaze. "I'll just take a nice cool shower before we go."

Cold shower indeed, she thought, shaken by her response to the mere mention of a man's name. Lord, it wasn't as though she had enjoyed their encounter. It had unnerved her, and in the end she'd made a fool of herself. Mortification should have been her reaction to the words "Jack Boudreaux."

She showered quickly and dressed in a pair of baggy blue checked shorts and a sleeveless blue cotton blouse. Barely ten minutes had passed by the time she trotted down the stairs and turned into the parlor, a room with soft pink walls and the kind of elegant details that put Belle Rivière on a par with the finest old homes in the South.

"… poor girl over in St. Martin Parish," Caroline was saying in a low voice.

She sat in her "throne," a beautifully carved Louis XVI man's armchair upholstered in rose damask. Home from her regular Saturday morning at the antiques shop, she had settled in place, kicking off her black-and-white spectator pumps on the burgundy Brussels carpet and propping her tiny feet on a gout stool some woman in the eighteenth century had doubtless gone blind needle pointing the cover for by lamplight. A tall, sweating glass of iced tea sat on a sterling coaster on a delicate, oval Sheraton table to her left.

"I turned the radio off before she could hear," Savannah said, her voice also pitched to the level of conspiracy. She sat sideways on the camelback sofa, leaning toward her aunt, her long bare legs crossed.

"Before I could hear what?" Laurel asked carefully.

The two women jerked around, their eyes wide with guilty surprise. Savannah 's expression changed to irritation in the blink of an eye.

"It should have taken you at least another twenty minutes to get ready," she said crossly. "It would have, if you'd bothered to put on makeup and do something with your hair."

"It's too hot to bother with makeup," Laurel said shortly, her temper rising. "And I don't give a damn about my hair," she said, though she automatically reached up a hand to tuck a few damp strands behind her ear. "What is it you didn't want me to hear?"

Aunt and sister exchanged a look that sent her ire up another ten points.

"Just something in the news, darlin'," Caroline said, shifting in her chair. She arranged the full skirt of her black-and-white dotted dress slowly, casually, as if there were nothing more pressing on her mind. "We didn't see the need to upset you with it, that's all."

Laurel crossed her arms and planted herself in front of the white marble fireplace. "I'm not so fragile that I need to be shielded from news reports," she said, tension quivering in her voice. "I don't need to be cosseted from the world. I'm not in such a precarious mental state that I'm liable to fly apart at the least little thing."

Even as she spoke the words, her mouth went dry at the taste of the lie. She had come here to be cosseted. Only just last night she had gone to pieces arguing with a no-account drunk about a no-account hound. Weak. She shivered, tensing her muscles against the word, the thought.

"Of course we don't think that, Laurel," Caroline said, rising with the grace and bearing of a queen. Her dark eyes were steady, her expression practical, straight-forward with not a hint of pity. "You came here to rest and relax. We simply thought those objectives would be more easily attained if you weren't dragged into the torrent of speculation about these murders."

"Murders?"

"Four now in the last eighteen months. Young women of… questionable reputation… found strangled out in the swamp in four different parishes-not Partout, thank God." She gave the information flatly and with as little detail as possible. Now that the cat was out of the bag, she saw no point in dancing around the issue with dainty euphemisms. Certainly her niece had dealt with cases as bad or worse in her tenure as a prosecuting attorney. But neither did she see the need to paint a lurid picture of torture and mutilation, as the newspapers had done. She only hoped the case wouldn't snag Laurel 's attention. Coming away from the situation in Scott County, she didn't need to become immersed in another potboiler case of sex and violence.

"All in Acadiana?" Laurel asked, narrowing the possibilities to the parishes that made up Louisiana 's French Triangle.

"Yes."

"Are there any suspects?" The question was as second-nature to her as inquiring after someone's health.

"No."

"Do they-"

"This doesn't concern you, Baby," Savannah said sharply. She rose from the sofa and came forward, her pique doing nothing to minimize the sway of her hips. "You're not a cop, and you're not a prosecutor, and these girls aren't even dying in this jurisdiction, so you can just tune it out. You hear?"

It was on the tip of Laurel 's tongue to tell Savannah she wasn't her mother, but she bit the words back. What a ludicrous statement that would have been. Savannah was in many ways more of a mother to her than Vivian had ever been. Besides, Savannah was only trying to protect her.

Hands on her hips, she tamped down her temper, sighing slowly to release some of the steam, feeling drained from what little fury she had shown. "I don't have any intention of trying to solve a string of murders," she assured them. "Y'all know I have my hands full just managing myself these days."

"Nonsense." Caroline sniffed, tossing her head. "You're doing just fine. We want you to concentrate on getting your strength back, that's all. You're a Chandler," she said, seating herself once more on her throne, arranging her skirt just so. "You'll be fine if your stubbornness doesn't get the better of you."

Laurel smiled. This was what she had come to Belle Rivière for-Caroline's unflagging fortitude and ferocious determination. There were those around Bayou Breaux who compared Laurel 's aunt to a pit bull-a comparison that pleased Caroline no end. Caroline Chandler was either loved or hated by everyone she knew, and she was enormously proud to inspire such strong reactions, whatever they were.

"We're going to lunch, Aunt Caroline," Savannah said, slinging the strap of her oversize pocketbook up on her shoulder. The Ray-Bans slid back into place, perched on the bridge of her nose. "Come along? Mama Pearl's gone to a church meeting."

"Thank you, no, darlin'." Caroline sipped her tea and smiled enigmatically. "I have a luncheon appointment with a friend in Lafayette this afternoon."

Savannah tipped her glasses down and arched a brow at Laurel, who just shrugged. Caroline's friends in other towns never had names-or genders, for that matter. Because she'd never been married, or even seriously involved with any of the local men, Caroline's sexual preferences had long been a source of speculation among the gossips of Bayou Breaux. And she had always staunchly, stubbornly refused to answer the question one way or the other, saying it was no one's damn business whether she was or wasn't.

"What do you think?" Savannah asked as they slid into the deep bucket seats of her red Corvette convertible.

"I don't," Laurel said, automatically buckling her seat belt. Savannah drove the way she lived her life.

Savannah chuckled wickedly as she put the key in the ignition and fired the sports car's engine. "Oh, come on, Baby. You're telling me you've never tried to picture Aunt Caroline going at it with one of her mysterious friends?"

"Of course not!"

"You're such a prude." She backed out of the driveway and onto the quiet, tree-lined street that led directly downtown. Belle Rivière was the last house before the road stretched out into farmland and wetlands. But even up the street, where houses stood side by side, the only activity seemed to be the swaying of the Spanish moss that hung from the trees like tattered banners.

"Not wanting to picture my relatives engaging in sex doesn't make me a prude," Laurel grumbled.

"No," Savannah said. "But it sure as hell makes you the odd one in the family, doesn't it?"

She let out the clutch and sent the Corvette flying down the street, engine screaming. Laurel fixed her eyes on the road and fought the urge to bring her hand up to her mouth so she could gnaw at her thumbnail.

Sex was the last thing she wanted to talk about. She would have preferred there were no such thing. It seemed to her the world would have been a much better place without it. It certainly would have been a better world for the children she'd fought for in Scott County, and for countless others. She tried to imagine what Savannah might have achieved with her life had she not become such a sexual creature.

Those thoughts brought a host of others bubbling to the surface and set her stomach churning. She tried to turn her attention to the familiar scenes they were passing at the speed of sound-a block of small, ranch-style houses, each with a shrine to the Virgin Mary in the front yard. Shrine after shrine made from old clawfoot bathtubs that had been cut in half and planted in the ground. Flowers blooming riotously around the feet of white totems of the Holy Mother. A block of brick town houses that had been restored in recent years. Downtown, with its mix of old and tacky "modernized" storefronts.

She didn't turn to look at the courthouse as they passed it, concentrating instead on the congregation of gnarled, weathered old men who seemed to have been sitting in front of the hardware store for the past three decades, gossiping and watching diligently for strangers.

The scenes were familiar, but not comforting, not the way she wanted them to be. She felt somehow apart from all she was seeing, as if she were looking at it through a window, unable to touch, to feel the warmth of the people or the solace of long acquaintance with the place. Tears pressed at the backs of her eyes, and she shook her head a little, reflecting bitterly on the defense of her mental state she had made to Caroline and Savannah in the parlor. What a crock of shit. She was as fragile as old glass, as weak as a kitten.

"I'm really not very hungry," she murmured, digging her fingers into the beige leather upholstery of the car seat to keep her hands from shaking as the tension built inside her, the forces of strength and weakness shifting within, pushing against one another.

Not bothering with the blinker, Savannah wheeled into the parking lot beside Madame Collette's, one of half a dozen restaurants in town. She took up two parking spots, sliding the 'Vette in at an angle between a Mercedes sedan and a rusted-out Pinto. She cut the engine and palmed the keys, sending Laurel a look that combined apology and sympathy in equal amounts.

"I'm sorry I brought it up. The last thing I want is to upset you, Baby. I should have known better." She reached over and brushed at a lock of Laurel 's hair that had dried at a funny angle, pushing it back behind her ear in a gesture that was unmistakably motherly. "Come on, sweetie, we'll go have us a piece of Madame Collette's rhubarb pie. Just like old times."

Laurel tried to smile and looked up at the weathered gray building that stood on the corner of Jackson and Dumas. Madame Collette's faced the street and backed onto the bayou with a screened-in dining area that overlooked the water. The restaurant didn't look like much with its rusted tin roof and old blue screen door hanging on the front, but it had been in continuous operation long enough that only the true old-timers in Bayou Breaux remembered the original Collette Guilbeau-a tiny woman who had reportedly chewed tobacco, carried a six-gun, and dressed out alligators with a knife given to her by Teddy Roosevelt, who had once stopped for a bite while on a hunting expedition in the Atchafalaya.

Rhubarb pie at Madame Collette's. A tradition. Memories as bittersweet as the pie. Laurel thought she would have preferred sitting on the veranda at Belle Rivière in the seclusion of the courtyard, but she took a deep breath and unbuckled her seat belt.

Savannah led the way inside, promenading down the aisle along the row of red vinyl booths, hips swaying lazily and drawing the eyes of every male in the place. Laurel tagged after her, hands in the pockets of her baggy shorts, head down, oversize glasses slipping down her nose, seeking no attention, garnering curious looks just the same.

The scents of hot spices and frying fish permeated the air. Overhead fans hung down from the embossed tin ceiling, as they had for nearly eighty years. The same red-on-chrome stools Laurel remembered from her childhood squatted in front of the same long counter with its enormous old dinosaur of a cash register and glass case for displaying pies. The same old patrons sat at the same tables on the same bentwood chairs.

Ruby Jeffcoat was stationed behind the counter, as she always had been, checking the lunch hour receipts, wearing what looked to be the same black-and-white uniform she had always worn. She was still skinny and ornery-looking, hair net neatly smoothing her marcel hairdo, lips painted a shade of red that rivaled the checks in the tablecloths.

Marvella Whatley, looking a little plumper and older than Laurel remembered, was setting tables. There was a fine sprinkling of gray throughout the black frizz of her close-cropped hair. A bright grin lit her dark face as she glanced up from her task.

"Hey, Marvella," Savannah called, wiggling her fingers at the waitress.

"Hey, Savannah. Hey, Miz Laurel. Where y'at?"

"We've come for rhubarb pie," Savannah announced, smiling like a cat at the prospect of fresh cream. "Rhubarb pie and Co-Cola."

At the counter Ruby eyed Savannah 's short skirt and long bare legs, and sniffed indignantly, frowning so hard, her mouth bent into the shape of a horseshoe. Marvella just nodded. Nothing much ever bothered Marvella. "Dat's comin' right up, then, ladies. Right out the oven, dat pie. You gonna want some mo' for sho'. M'am Collette, she outdo herself, dat pie."

The table Savannah finally settled at was in the back, in the screened room, where abandoned plates and glasses indicated they had missed the lunch rush. Out on the bayou, an aluminum bass boat was motoring past with a pair of fishermen coming in from a morning in the swamp. In the reeds along the far bank a heron stood, watching them pass, still as a statue against a backdrop of orange Virginia creeper and coffee weed.

Laurel drew a deep breath that was redolent with the aromas of Madame Collette's cooking and the subtler wild scent of the bottle brown water beyond the screened room, and allowed herself to relax. The day was picture perfect-hot and sunny, the sky now a vibrant bowl of pure blue above the dense growth of trees on the far bank. Oak and willow and hackberry. Palmettos, fronds fanning like long-fingered hands. She had nowhere to go, nothing to do but pass the day looking at the bayou. There were people who would have paid dearly for that privilege.

"We-ell," Savannah purred as she surveyed the room through the lenses of her Ray-Bans, "if it isn't Bayou Breaux's favorite son, himself."

Laurel glanced across the room. At the far corner table sat the only other customer-a big, rugged-looking man, his blond hair disheveled in a manner that suggested finger-combing. He might have been fifty. He might have been older. It was difficult to tell. He had the look of an athlete about him-broad shoulders, large hands, a handsome vitality that defied age. He sat hunched over a spiral notebook, glaring down through a pair of old-fashioned round, gold-rimmed spectacles. His expression was fierce in concentration as he scribbled. A tall pitcher of iced tea sat to his left within easy reach, as if he planned on sitting there all day, filling and refilling his glass as he worked. Laurel didn't recognize him, and she turned back to Savannah with a look that said so.

"Conroy Cooper," Savannah said coolly.

The name she recognized instantly. Conroy Cooper, son of a prominent local family, Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He had grown up in Bayou Breaux, then moved to New York to write critically acclaimed stories about life in the South. Laurel had never seen him in person, nor had she ever read his books. She figured she knew all she needed to about growing up in the South. She had listened to him tell stories on public radio once or twice and remembered not the tales he had told, but his voice. Low and rich and smooth, the voice of old Southern culture. Slow and comforting, it had the power to lull and woo and reassure all at once.

"He moved back here a few months ago," Savannah explained in a hushed tone of conspiracy.

Her gaze was still directed at Cooper, her expression masked by her sunglasses. She trailed a fingertip up and down the side of the sweating glass of Coke Marvella had brought, a movement that reminded Laurel of a cat twitching its tail in pique.

"His wife has Alzheimer's. He brought her back here from New York and put her in St. Joseph 's Rest Home. I hear she doesn't know her head from a hole in the ground."

"Poor woman," Laurel murmured.

Savannah made a noise that sounded more like indigestion than agreement.

The pie arrived, steaming hot with vanilla ice cream melting down over the sides to puddle on the plate. Laurel ate hers with relish. Savannah picked and fiddled until the ice cream had completely returned to its liquid state and the pie was a mess of pinkish lumps and crust that resembled wet cardboard.

"Is something wrong?"

She started at the sound of Laurel's voice, dragging her gaze away from Cooper, who had yet to acknowledge her presence. "What?"

"You're not eating your pie. Is something wrong?"

She flashed a brittle smile and fluttered her hands. "Not a bit. My appetite just isn't what I thought it was, that's all."

"Oh, well…" Laurel shot a considering glance at Cooper, huddled over his writing. "I was thinking I would just run up the street to the hardware store. Aunt Caroline needs a new garden hose. You wanna come?"

"No, no, no," she said hastily. "You go on. I'll meet you at the car. I'm going to have Madame Collette box up one of these pies and take it home for supper."

Savannah forked up a soggy bite of pie and watched as Laurel ducked through the doorway, leaving her alone with the man who had effortlessly snared her heart and seemed determined to break it.

Anger shimmered through her in a wave of heat, pushing her toward recklessness. She wanted him to look at her. She wanted to see the same kind of hunger in him that she felt every time she saw him, every time she thought of him. She wanted to see the same raw longing burning in his eyes. But he just sat there, writing, oblivious of her, as if she weren't any more important than a table or a chair.

She rose slowly, smoothing her short skirt, her every movement sensuous, sinuous. For all the good it did her. Cooper went on scribbling, head bent, brows drawn, square jaw set.

Slowly she sauntered across the room, stiletto heels clicking on the linoleum floor. She tossed her sunglasses down beside his notebook, and slowly raised the hem of her skirt, inch by inch, revealing smooth, creamy thighs and a thicket of neatly trimmed dark curls at the juncture of those thighs.

Cooper bolted in his chair, dropping his pen and nearly overturning the pitcher of tea at his elbow. "Jesus H. Christ, Savannah!" The words tore from his throat in a rough whisper. He glanced automatically toward the door for witnesses.

"Don't worry, honey," Savannah purred, sliding the fabric back and forth across her groin. "There's nobody here but us adulterers."

He reached across the table with the intent of pulling the skirt down to cover her, but she inched away from him and slowly moved around the end of the table, her back to the door.

"Like what you see, Mr. Cooper?" she murmured in a voice like honey, wicked mischief flashing in her pale blue eyes. "It's not on the menu, but I'd give you a taste if you asked me real nice."

Blowing out a sigh, Cooper sat back and watched as she lowered one knee onto the chair beside his. The initial shock had subsided, and his usual air of calm settled over him as comfortably as the old tattersall shirt he wore. It was Savannah 's nature to shock. Overreacting only pushed her to be more outrageous, like a naughty child seeking attention. So he settled himself and looked his fill, knowing he would see anyone intruding on the moment quickly enough to act before they could be caught.

"Maybe later," he drawled. "Tonight, perhaps."

She pouted, staring at him from under her lashes. "I don't want to wait that long."

"But you will. That'll only make it better."

He reached out again, slowly, casually, and drew his fingertips up a few smooth inches of leg, meaning to tug the skirt down out of her grasp, but she caught his hand and guided it between her thighs.

"Touch me, Coop," she whispered, leaning against him, pressing her cheek down on top of his head. She wound her right arm around the back of his neck, anchoring his face against her breasts as her hips began to move automatically, rhythmically against his hand. "Please, Coop…"

She was hot and silky, her body instantly ready for sex. She moved against him wantonly. Cooper had no doubt that she would have straddled him on the spot if he would have allowed it, without a care as to who might walk in on them. The idea held a strong fantasy appeal, he thought, grimacing, as desire pooled and throbbed. But he wouldn't follow through.

He thought that might be the only thing that set him apart from the sundry other men Savannah had cast her spell over-that he somehow managed to maintain the voice of reason in the face of her overwhelming sexuality, instead of losing himself in it.

"Please, Coop," Savannah breathed. She traced the tip of her tongue along the rim of his ear, panting slightly as need gathered in a knot in the pit of her belly.

The need swirled around her like a desert wind, heating her skin. She wanted to tear her blouse open and feel his mouth, wet and avid, on her breasts. She wanted to impale herself on his shaft and go wild with the pleasure of it. She wanted… wanted… wanted…

Then he pulled his hand away and stood, disentangling himself from her, and the want congealed into a hard ache of frustration.

"You're such a bastard," she spat, jerking her skirt down, straightening her top. A strand of hair fell across her face and stuck to her sweat-damp cheek. She tucked it behind her ear.

Cooper pulled his glasses off and began cleaning the steam from them, methodically rubbing the lenses with a clean white handkerchief. He looked at her from under his brows, his gaze as blue as sapphire, as steady as a rock. "I'm a bastard because I won't have sex with you in a public place?"

Savannah sniffed back the threat of tears, furious that he had the power to make her feel shame. "You wouldn't even look at me across the goddamn room! You wouldn't even give me a civil 'Good afternoon, Miz Chandler.' "

"I was concentrating," he said calmly.

He settled his spectacles back in place, folded the handkerchief, and returned it to the hip pocket of his khaki pants. That task accomplished, he gave her a tender look, the corners of his mouth tilting up in a way that was, despite his fifty-eight years, boyish and unbelievably charming. "I'm a sorry excuse for a man if my work can so involve me that I miss one of your entrances, Savannah."

He reached out a hand and touched her cheek with infinite gentleness. "Forgive me?"

Damn him, she would. That low, cultured drawl wrapped around her like silk. She could have curled up beside him and listened to him talk for a hundred years, glad just to be near him. She sniffed again and looked at him sideways.

"What are you working on? A short story?"

Coop picked up the notebook as she reached for it and closed it, forcing a grin. "Now, darlin', you know how I am about letting anyone read my work. Hell, I don't even let my agent read it until it's done."

"Is it about me?" The storm clouds gathered and rumbled inside her again. "Or is it about Lady Astor?" she asked petulantly, giving her head a toss as she moved restlessly away from the table.

She paced along the screened wall, oblivious to the shabby pontoon tour boat that was ferrying a load of unsuspecting tourists up the bayou and into the sauna that was the swamp at midafternoon.

"Lady Astor Cooper," she sneered, planting her hands on her hips. "Patron saint of martyred husbands."

"Better I martyr myself to my marriage than to my cock."

"Are you implying that's what I do?" she demanded. "Martyr myself to sex?"

Cooper hissed a breath in through his teeth and made no comment. They were treading on dangerous ground. He had his own theories about Savannah 's sexual motives, but it would do no good to share them with her. He could too easily envision her in a rage of hurt and hysteria, wildly lashing out. And he had no desire to hurt her. For all her faults, he had fallen in love with her. Hopeless love in the truest sense.

"Well, I've got news for you, Mr. Cooper," she said, leaning up into his face, her lovely mouth twisted with bitterness. "I get fucked because I like getting fucked, and if you don't want to do it, then I'll go find someone who will."

He caught her arms and held her there for a moment as she breathed fury into his face, steaming his glasses all over again. A deep, profound sadness swelled inside him and he frowned. "You make yourself miserable, Savannah," he murmured.

She shivered inside, trying to shake off the chill of the truth. Coop saw it, damn him. He caught her eyes with that worldly-wise, world-weary, worn blue gaze, and saw he'd struck a nerve. She jerked away from him and grabbed her sunglasses off the table.

"Save your insights for your work, Coop," she said waspishly. "It's the only place you really let yourself live." She jammed the Ray-Bans in place and flashed him a mocking smile. "Have a nice day, Mr. Cooper."

She whirled out of Madame Collette's in a huff and a cloud of Obsession, not bothering to pay the bill. Ruby Jeffcoat knew who she was, the dried-up old bitch. She'd just add it to the tab and tell every third person she saw what a slut Savannah Chandler was, prancing around town in a skirt cut up to her crotch and no bra on.

Laurel pushed herself away from the side of the Corvette as Savannah stormed across the parking lot, all pique and no pie in sight. She looked furious, and Laurel had a strong hunch it wasn't anything to do with the restaurant, but one of its patrons. Conroy Cooper. Old enough to be their father Conroy Cooper. Married Conroy Cooper.

Oh, Savannah…

"Let's get the hell out of here," Savannah snarled. Tossing her purse behind the seat, she jerked open the driver's door and slid in behind the wheel.

Laurel barely had time to get in the car before the 'Vette was revved and rolling. They hit Dumas, and Savannah put her foot to the floor, sending the sports car squealing away from Madame Collette's, leaving a trail of rubber.

"Where are we going?" Laurel asked as casually as she could, considering she had to shout to be heard above the roar of the wind and the engine.

"Frenchie's," Savannah yelled, pulling the pins from her hair and letting them fly. "I need a drink."

Laurel buckled her seat belt and held on, not bothering to comment on the fact that it didn't look as though they'd be having rhubarb pie for supper, and trying her damnedest not to think about Jack Boudreaux.