Max laughed. “If you knew how you sound, you’d change the subject. You can get to a play anytime you want to, or whatever—or whomever—you have an itch to see in a hurry. You don’t have to be here at all if you don’t want to be.”
“So you don’t want to reconsider?” Kelly asked.
“No.”
“Neither do I,” Roche said.
A smile, all unaffected charm and guaranteed to disarm, transformed Kelly. He laughed and flipped back overlong, dishwater blond hair. “Just checking.”
Roche was first out of his seat and shaking Kelly by the shoulder. “Rat. You don’t change. Outside. I want to beat the crap out of you.”
Reason stopped Max just in time and he sank back into his seat, but he chuckled watching the other two wrapped in a mock-ferocious embrace. “Nice language from the gentleman shrink,” he said. “You’ve been listening to our clown act here for too long. That wasn’t funny, Kelly, but you always did have a cruel sense of humor.”
“Just wanted to get us together for once,” Kelly said, punching Roche good-naturedly. “I’m relieved to hear you say you’re not wearing rose glasses, though, Max. Hell, I worry about you and so does Roche, you know that. You got a rotten deal and we don’t want to see it happen again just when you think you’re safe.”
Max’s stomach revolved but he kept the corners of his mouth turned up. “My eyes are open,” he said. He never intended to share some of the thoughts that went through his mind. Green Veil would work. He and Roche made a great team and together with a hand-picked staff they were going back to what they loved. Kelly’s financial skills made everything easier and maybe it was a good idea to have him keeping everyone’s feet on the ground.
Pappy’s was busier than usual today, not that it was ever too quiet. Every few moments the front door opened to admit more customers. Then it opened and Annie came in. Carmen went to her at once and they shared a few words before she went directly into her office and shut the door.
Max tensed. She hadn’t looked to see if he was there, but she probably assumed he’d be gone by now. He would hang around until his brothers drove away, then come back and talk to her. The tension in his shoulders relaxed. There was nothing to worry about.
Not far from where Max sat, someone watched his reaction to Annie Duhon. Pleasure, the watcher thought, the good doctor felt real good at the sight of her. He wanted her—it showed in his face. How convenient.
G
ator Hibbs and his wife, Doll, proprietors of Toussaint’s one hotel, the Majestic, arrived at the table. He shifted his round body uncertainly and took off a battered, sweat-stained Achafalaya Gold Casino baseball cap, revealing his sweating bald head. Doll stood behind him as if she were shy, which was anything but the truth from Max’s dealings with her. Nondescript, with fine brown hair held by a rubber band at the back of her head, Doll’s eyes were her one notable feature. They were incongruous. Light gray and wide, as if in perpetual surprise, they didn’t reflect a thing about Doll’s acerbic personality.
“Hi, Gator, Doll,” Max said.
“Nice day,” Gator said, fastening his attention on the rain-splattered windows. “I like this kinda day.” He winced and jerked—and Max figured Doll had elbowed her husband.
“Y’didn’t have to do that,” Gator said, turning his back on Max. “What d’you do that for? Pokin’ me in the kidney like that. Me, I already got water troubles—you heard Dr. Reb—”
“We come to talk to Dr. Savage,” Doll said, her eyes still wide open and blank. “He’s not interested in your water-works, Gator. I hear tell he does the faces and stuff.”
Max raised his eyebrows at Kelly and Roche and stood up. He tapped Gator’s shoulder. “Let’s find somewhere quieter.”
“We can say what we got to say here,” Doll said. “Ain’t nuthin’ private.”
“The hell it ain’t,” Gator said, and turned red. “Thanks, Doc. Appreciate your understandin’.”
They moved outside under the covered entry. Gator shoved his hands in the pockets of his washed-out overalls and spread his feet to brace his weight. Doll stared at him.
“Relax,” Max said. “Just tell me what’s on your mind.”
“We’re real fair folks,” Gator said after a pause. “Give anybody anythin’, we would. Ain’t that right, Doll?”
“Right.”
“You can ask anyone in this town and they’ll tell you how the Hibbses is generous.”
Max smiled. He felt sorry for the man. “You’re uncomfortable with whatever you need to tell me. You can’t say anything I haven’t heard before, so why not get it over with?”
Gator took a deep breath and gave a bronchitic cough. “It’s the damp,” he said, indicating the rain beating into a layer of fog resembling ice vapor. “You did say your Miz Riley was only stayin’ one night?”
“Yes.”
“And she was goin’ to pay when she left this mornin’?”
“She didn’t pay,” Doll said rapidly. “And extra days is extra pay. She’s takin’ up a room even if she ain’t sleepin’ in it.”
These two didn’t amuse Max anymore. “When I made the booking, I told you to send the bill to me.”
“You said it would be one night but check-out’s at eleven. We’re owed for two nights now—as long as she’s gone by tomorrow mornin’.”
His throat tightened. “Miss Riley is still here?”
Doll actually smirked. “Why don’t you tell us? What you do in private is your business, except if you try using us as a cover. Don’t make no difference to us if she’s stayin’ with you, now. But it makes more sense for her to get the rest of her things, don’t it?”
Max couldn’t draw a full breath. “I drove her back to the hotel last night.” He didn’t want to think what he was thinking. “I saw her go inside. Perhaps she just forgot one of her bags. I’ll arrange to get it sent on.” He retrieved his wallet from a back pocket and pulled out some bills.
Doll looked uncertain. “She didn’t clear any of her stuff out of the bathroom. And her rental car’s still parked out back of the hotel.”
A
nnie would know those shoulders and that back anywhere. Looking at Max Savage from any direction was more than a pleasure, except when she didn’t want to talk to anyone, even him.
The doors to Pappy’s swung shut behind her. Annie hovered, the hood of her jacket pulled well down against the rain, and considered backtracking. She still had a chance to get inside without being seen.
With a cell phone clamped to his ear, Max turned and saw her. He must see her. That or he was looking right through her with an expression on his face that turned him into a stranger. Intense agitation—and anger—distorted his features. Annie breathed great gulps of air through her mouth. She half raised her hand to wave, but let it fall again. The intense, blue-eyed man who caught the attention of many women and left them trying to decide if they had seen him on the cover of
GQ,
had stepped out in a frightening disguise today. With a vague smile about her lips, Annie walked on and made to pass him.
Fortunately, since he was on the phone she didn’t need to speak. And she wasn’t sure she could.
Before she managed to escape toward the parking lot, Max caught her by the arm and smiled, with his mouth, not with his eyes. Some emotion made his eyes darker. He averted the phone mouthpiece and said, “Please give me a moment, Annie.” The downpour had turned the shoulders of his denim jacket dark. Rain plastered his black hair to his head and ran down his face.
She nodded, but would rather leave without the inevitable questions about why she looked exhausted. When Father Cyrus drove her home early that morning, Joe and Ellie Gable had greeted her, Ellie with Annie’s cat, Irene, clutched in her arms. Irene was queen in Annie’s flat and never stepped outside. But the Gables had been awakened by the cat yowling at their back door.
With an easy excuse that Irene must have slipped, unseen, out of the building when she left, Annie had lied to her friends. But no matter what else was on her mind, she never neglected Irene who had been asleep on the tumbled bed when Annie left.
Someone had got in and let her cat out.
No, this time she had been so agitated that she left a door ajar somewhere. That’s probably what happened.
Twice since the episode at St. Cécil’s she had dozed, only to be jolted by visions from the nightmare. Cyrus had spent a long time with her that morning and inevitably, spurred on by the trust he fostered just by being himself, she had told him what was happening to her.
Cyrus, who had probably never turned anyone away, promised her he would be there for her and that they’d get together again to see how she was doing.
For the first time, the scenes had continued for seconds when she was completely awake. She turned her head from Max and closed her eyes. What did it mean? What was happening to her?
Max’s grip tightened on her arm. “Spike, I don’t think anything has happened to her,” he said into his phone. “Yes, of course it’s possible. Sorry. Michele drove into Toussaint yesterday morning. She rented a car at the airport. I drove her back to the Majestic last night—after dinner—but according to Gator and Doll, she didn’t sleep there. Her things are still in the room and the rental car’s parked in the hotel lot.”
The conversation was not her business but she heard every word loud and clear. Michele would be Michele Riley, the woman Max had mentioned hoping to hire for the new clinic.
“Of course I’m worried,” Max said. “Look, I’m gonna have to come in and have a chat, but not today.”
While he listened to Spike his color deepened. “Kelly’s the detail man,” he said. “He dealt with the employment information we need to have on file for her. He knows what’s happened. I’ll have him call you…okay? We’ll get back to you.”
Slowly, Annie turned her eyes toward Max. While he listened to Sheriff Spike Devol, a pale line formed around his mouth. When he spoke again, even his voice sounded different, with no trace of the warmth she expected.
He shoved the phone onto his belt. “I want to get away from here, now. Annie, I could use your company. Or can’t you do that?”
She paused. A quick explanation that she had to get back to work would set her free. Only she would rather be with him. “I can take a little while.” She wouldn’t pry. If he wanted her to know about his problems, he would let her know.
Max moved quickly, his strides long enough to press Annie into a trot. He aimed his key, and the lights on his gray Boxster blinked. He didn’t slow down until he took a moment to see her inside the car and close the door. Within seconds he got behind the wheel, and sat swiping water from his face. He turned on the engine and drove from the lot, too fast for the slick conditions.
Without looking at her, or saying a word, he grabbed his phone again and pressed a button. “Come on, come on. Kelly? Yeah, hi, it’s Max. Just got off the phone with Spike…No, dammit, I told him what I found out from the Hibbses, nothing else. Get Michele’s information. Home address, contract, whatever you’ve got. Take it to Spike at his office.” He stopped talking and his attention seemed to wander. “Spike can find out if she was on her plane back to New York today. I forgot to ask if he’d already done that.”
He looked at her. She got another mouth-only smile and pushed a fist into her stomach. This was panicking her and she’d already been through enough in the past twenty-four hours.
“Did you sleep last night?” he asked, pressing the mouthpiece against his shoulder. He figured he already knew the answer. Annie looked sick. She blinked rapidly as if her eyes stung.
“Of course I slept,” she said, sounding defensive and not like the Annie he was trying to know.
“Is that why your eyes look like black holes and you’re so stressed you’d probably break if someone touched you. What did you do to yourself?” He had noticed before, but never mentioned several small, silvered areas on both sides of her hands. Old, insignificant burn scars. Severe burns, taking away the disfigurement they caused, were part of his life, but Annie’s weren’t even near his league. However, today she did have a new gauze dressing on the left side.
“I’m fine,” she protested. “Never been better. Mornings aren’t my favorites, that’s all.” She didn’t explain the bandage.
Max didn’t believe her. Absently, he heard Kelly’s muffled, angry voice.
Annie didn’t intend to talk about what had happened at the church. She returned Max’s blue stare. “Do you think I’m lyin’?”
The road curved but he took the bends with absent ease.
Annie felt every turn of the wheel, the frequent corrections the car made, and looked doggedly at her lap.
“Have you finished?” Max said into the phone, repeatedly glancing back at Annie. “Oh, yes you have. No, I’m not telling you the details—let Spike tell you. I can’t face it. Not yet. Hell, I don’t know but it’s all too familiar. I’m going for a drive…Because I need to.”
He turned off the phone—all the way off—and headed north. Annie wanted to know where they were going but didn’t ask.
Yellow and brown leaves fell from deciduous trees. Some caught in the windshield wipers and slapped back and forth. The rising fog layer steamed as if the rain falling from misty skies were boiling. Billowing vapor rolled from the road and coiled away between trees on either side. Patchy visibility cleared for brief moments before disappearing into ghostly clouds that took the car in a suffocating embrace.
If she asked him to slow down, or even to wait for the conditions to improve, would he turn his strange hostile voice on her, and allow his face to look as it had outside Pappy’s?
Max leaned forward slightly. His damp knuckles were white, the tendons on the backs of his hands and wrists, distended.
“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly and glanced at her. He heard himself swallow. “Really sorry, Annie. I don’t know what got into me, bringing you with me like this. I’m not good company.” This was probably the only appealing woman he had known who didn’t feel her own power over a man. Reticence hovered behind her eyes. Yet she was lovely, her shoulder-length hair smooth and fair, her eyes remarkable for their catlike, almost amber color and her mouth soft, full and inviting. And Annie was slim with gentle curves and long legs.
But Annie Duhon, a thoughtful, gentle woman, had a tough side. She ran Pappy’s with an ease he admired and he had witnessed how she used humor to cut through difficult encounters. Max didn’t think he would enjoy being on the wrong end of Annie’s displeasure. He smiled slightly at the thought.
“Me, I kind of like wild days like this,” Annie said, feeling silly but desperate to break the tension. Each time he glanced at her she felt as if he touched her. Her breathing grew shallower, her lungs tight.
“I can tell I’m upsetting you,” he said. “I’ll go back.”
“Don’t,” she said. “You said you needed my company. I’m here for you. If you want to talk, I’m ready to listen.” She had never been able to walk away from someone in need. Sometimes that had been a mistake but it couldn’t be with Max…could it?
“Thanks,” he said and drove on more slowly.
He thumped the steering wheel and Annie jumped. Her hands trembled and she wound them tightly together. If things did get sticky, she would find a way to bail out. She’d learned the hard way about not allowing a man to trap her where she could be overpowered.
Max wasn’t the type to overpower anyone.
She touched his arm. “It’s none of my business, but you’re worried. Is somethin’ wrong with the person you interviewed yesterday? Michele?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t, and he didn’t want to talk about it—or think about it, for God’s sake.
“Okay.” She wished she hadn’t asked.
“You’re shaking,” he said. “I’ve scared you. Dammit! This isn’t like me. Those bastards are getting what they want, they’re turning me into a madman.”
“Who?” she said automatically.
“Let it go.”
If it might not turn out to be a really bad idea, she would tell him what she thought about being a captive audience for someone in a foul temper.
“Bail,” she said, not meaning to speak aloud. She cleared her throat.
A strong hand settled over both of hers. “There’s no reason for me to bail. I’m going through a rough patch is all. And I’m getting ahead of myself. Do you like bagels?” He continued to hold her hands. “Remember a little restaurant in St. Martinville called Char’s Bagels?”
“No.” She looked around.
St. Martinville?
The weather, the fog, had disoriented her, if it hadn’t, she’d have asked him to go somewhere other than St. Martinville—anywhere but there. The town where she’d grown up wasn’t so far from Toussaint but she’d left a long time ago and never returned since.
“You’ll love it. Every kind of bagel and every flavor whipped cream cheese you can think of. Smoked salmon. Capers. Paper-thin onions. Great coffee.”
“New York food,” she said faintly.
“People eat bagels all over,” Max said. “Could you go to Char’s with me and eat something now?”
Her life in the town was over. The people she’d known were dead or gone—most of them. Those who remained would never recognize her after so long. Almost everything about her had changed.
She definitely wanted out of this car. “Didn’t you get lunch at Pappy’s?” What did it matter? Once she was out of the car she could take charge of herself. “Well, I’ll come. Why not. I always like pickin’ up fresh ideas.” If she made a big deal out of driving somewhere else, Max could get suspicious.
“I had a good lunch.” He couldn’t read her mood. “But I can’t remember what it was, so I’ll take more time with the bagels.”
This man was in control, always. He had never blabbered about inconsequential things—like bagels. “Lead me to Char’s,” she said.
When he glanced at her again, his eyes were narrowed and she felt him assessing her, her reactions. He suspected she was humoring him. She stared back into his eyes and felt drawn to him, even as she couldn’t put fear completely aside.
In St. Martinville, folks had said she was a bad seed, that she went after the kind of excitement that could ruin her. She had heard whisperings: “Disgustin’” “Stay away from her and make sure your George does. She’s ruined more than one decent man.” They had no proof because there was none, but they linked her to men she’d never met and she had no defense because she had made two mistakes that turned out badly enough to trash her reputation.
Max drove into St. Martinville. The rain had cleared the streets of people on foot.
“You know your way around this town,” she said and her voice felt unused. Annie kept her face straight ahead and wished she could put her hood up again and hide inside.
“Blink and you’d miss the place,” Max said. “What’s to know? It’s a pretty town, friendly.”
She shrugged. The fog over the road had dissipated as soon as they entered the town, but the rain beat down here just as heavily as it had in Toussaint.
That’s where she should be, in Toussaint, at Pappy’s doing her job. This was out of character for her and it mustn’t happen again. “Where is this Char’s?” She didn’t recall the place.
“Close to St. Martin de Tours Church. And there’s the church now.”
The white, single-story church boasted a bell tower over the front door. A few people formed a line out front to file up steps and into the building. Visitors liked to tour the building, and a wet day was a good time to be inside. When she’d been a little girl, Annie used to creep into the Perpetual Adoration Garden. She liked to sit and stare at the statue of Evangeline, the Acadian heroine. Peace waited there, and although Annie had never told anyone, she had secretly thought Evangeline watched over children—and fairies. She bit her lip. She had been certain fairies flitted about among the flowers because she’d seen them, and since she would never share that secret, no one would argue the point.