Bayou Heat (16 page)

“She found work in Bruneaux. Determined to leave the bayou and the stigma of being
one of the voodoun behind her. She went to work for my father as a clerk in his law
office. Anyone will tell you that my father is not a man controlled by his passions.
Quite the opposite. But my mother was different. He was totally captivated by her.
Had to have her. His pursuit of her had the whole town in an uproar. Grant Sullivan’s
image was very important to him, except where my mother was concerned.

“She saw him as her way out of the swamps. His name, his money, his prestige, the
respect he commanded, were her ticket to a new life. And to a certain degree, she
was right.” Teague wandered to the back of the house.

Erin remained silent, knowing he was lost in his past, wanting him to drain whatever
was festering inside him.

“But Father’s devotion to her was more obsession
than love. He prided himself on his control, yet with her he had none. He couldn’t
deal with that. He’d be with her, then yell and rant and rave, accusing her of casting
spells on him. Hoodoo. Conjo.”

“Did she tell you this? I mean, how did you—”

Teague turned to her. “Oh, it was common knowledge.” He smiled rather nastily. “
Common
being the operative word there.”

Erin almost cringed under the brutality of what behavior she suspected that simple
phrase covered.

“When he found out she was pregnant with me, he reportedly went off the deep end.
He was convinced she’d plotted it to snare him. And yet he still couldn’t keep away.”

“And she stayed with him?”

Teague looked at her. “Erin, she would have done anything to get away from here. Away
from Belisaire and the voodoun society.”

“But Belisaire was her—”

“Mother. Yes, but as I said before, Belisaire’s priorities are different from most
people’s. My mother understood that better than anyone. She was to be the next priestess.
It was decided. There was no discussion. So my mother did the only thing she could:
she escaped and found a hiding place in the only fortress strong enough to protect
her. One built with Sullivan money. But it was an illusion.

“When I was born, she threatened to keep me from him unless he married her. Everyone
knew he had a bastard son living in the swamps, the son of a demon woman who’d cast
some witchery over him.”

“Oh, Teague, surely people on Bruneaux didn’t really believe that.”

“You’d be surprised. The old ways and beliefs have filtered into much of this area
over the generations. People may act like they don’t believe, even go so far as to
publicly denounce voodoo and all who practice the religion, but let there be the hint
of a threat and Belisaire’s services suddenly become very popular. Maybe not in person,
but there are very few in the parish that haven’t sought her out for one reason or
another. And therein lies most of her power.

“Even after my father married my mother, which he did only because she threatened
to raise his only son in the bayou with Belisaire, the whispers about her never stopped.
And others in the parish knew that if the Sullivan name and bankroll couldn’t stop
the rumors about a Sullivan wife, then it would be social death if word got out of
their own connection to Belisaire. No matter how tenuous or well hidden.”

Teague dropped her hand and moved away, wandering among the ruins in the front part
of the house. Erin followed.

“I can’t imagine what your childhood was like, Teague.”

“Not easy,” he said, an obvious understatement. “I was the proverbial demon seed.
And when I figured out that being good wasn’t going to change that fact, I decided
to live up to my billing. The only regret I have about my behavior was that it made
my mother’s life even more difficult.” He leaned against one of the support beams
and folded his arms over his chest. “I used
to beg her to leave him, to move us back here. But she wouldn’t go near the bayou.
This place was literally abandoned the day she married. Belisaire’s people considered
it sacred. It was hers. No one else would ever occupy it.”

“How did it burn?”

Teague looked to the ground.

“I’m sorry,” Erin said quickly. “You don’t have to—”

“When I was eleven my mother found out Father had been having an affair with a woman
in town. Had been in fact since shortly after their marriage.”

“Marshall’s mother?”

“Yes. Marshall was three years younger than me.”

“Oh, Teague. What did she do?”

“Nothing.”

Erin stiffened. “What? What do you mean she did nothing?”

Teague smiled, but it was hollow. “She wasn’t that strong, Erin. She did what she
had to do to ensure her place in Father’s life. But the last thing she was going to
do was make him choose between her and the woman he’d gone to in order to prove he
could have a ‘normal’ relationship.”

“Is that what he told her?”

“Rather bluntly and in front of several of their closest friends.”

“She must have been humiliated.”

“Possibly.”

Erin made a choking sound. “Possibly? Teague—”

“I don’t mean to sound callous,
chèr
. But instead of
making her mad, it scared her. She was angry, but mostly at herself for forcing the
issue in public. Marie knew better.”

Erin swallowed several very unkind words. Then gasped when Teague laughed.

“What?” she asked, perplexed.

“You and Marie are nothing alike,
ange
. You’d fight to the death for something or someone you believed in. You can’t know
how much I respect that. I loved my mother, I understood her, or at least I tried
to. But most of the time she was too busy trying to save herself to worry about much
else.”

“But she didn’t, did she?” Erin asked softly.

“No,
chèr
.” He held her gaze for a moment, then pushed away from the beam. “No she didn’t.”
He held out his hand for her.

Erin’s eyes burned as she stepped over the rubble and accepted his offer. He led her
back to the path at the edge of the clearing, then turned to stare at the ruins.

“Father asked her for a divorce right after I turned twelve. He made no pretense that
he planned to marry Marshall’s mother, nor did he spare my mother’s feelings. Why
he hadn’t asked before no one knows. For all his anger and adultery, he was still
obsessed with her. He dared her to stop him, as if he was trying to prove to both
of them that no spell existed, that he was truly free to make his own choices.”

“What did she do?”

“She threatened him. But despite her hold on him she was an embarrassment. As was
I. Even more so. A
true black sheep in every sense of the word. Now he had Marshall. The model child
and heir. Blond, handsome, smart. All-American. Untainted by voodoo.”

Erin turned to Teague and placed her hand on his chest. He looked at her, his expression
hard. But she saw the anguish, the old pain. “I didn’t know. How unfair to both of
you. You must have despised him, even though he was as innocent in all of it as you
were.”

“Well, that’s the ironic thing in this whole ugly mess.” Erin began to lift her hand,
but Teague quickly trapped it with his own. She felt the steady pulse of his heart.

“What was?”

“I think I was the only one who truly understood Marshall. Just because his father
was a Sullivan and his mother was from a fine family herself didn’t remove the stigma
of being born a bastard. He was tortured by the other kids as much as I was. Only
he didn’t fight back.”

“And you did.” Erin knew instantly how it had been. “You fought for him.”

“All the time.” Teague forced a smile, but Erin wanted to cry. “He hated me for that.
Made it a point never to ask me for anything, never to owe me.”

Erin rested her forehead on Teague’s shoulder, her heart aching for the boys they’d
been. “I bet you didn’t make that decision easy on him either.”

He pulled her closer. “No. No, I didn’t. It took a couple of years, but when Father
pressed for the final divorce, that was no longer an issue.”

Erin held him more tightly. He returned the embrace,
resting his chin on her head. She knew he was staring at the charred remains of his
mother’s house.

“What happened, Teague?”

“She came back here. The house burned. She died.”

His stark summation of what had to be the worst tragedy a child could suffer hit Erin
like a physical blow.

“The coroner and the fire investigator both pronounced it a suicide,” he went on in
the same bleak voice. “Of course the rumors flew thick and vicious, each one wilder
than the last. It’s been almost twenty years. I still hear them.”

“How could she do that to you?”

“She wasn’t thinking of me, Erin. Hell, I don’t know what was going on in her mind.
I spent as little time at Beaumarchais at that point as possible. The day she died
I had skipped school and hitched down to a pool hall near the bayou. I spent a lot
of time there.”

“The Eight Ball?”

He shook his head. “But one very much like it. Actually, I named my place Behind the
Eight Ball.” He leaned back against a tree and pulled her with him. “Appropriate don’t
you think?”

“You don’t want to know what I think.”

He ran a hand down the side of her face and tilted it up to him. She had no doubt
he saw the fury in her eyes. “Don’t, Erin. It was a long time ago.”

“Time doesn’t make it right. Or okay.” He continued to stare at her, and finally she
let out a sigh and let her head drop back to his shoulder. “I also know that all this
helped to shape the man you’ve become.”

He stiffened, and she immediately looked up at him.

“Why do you do that?” At his raised eyebrow, she said, “Hide.”

His face shuttered immediately.

“See, just like that. I don’t even think you’re aware of it. That’s why I hate what
happened to you as a child. I don’t blame you for wanting to close yourself off. I
don’t think I’d risk myself again either. But it doesn’t stop me from wishing it were
different for you.”

“Minor in psychology, Doctor?”

“No. I majored in life,” she shot back. “I guess between romping naked with the aborigines
and crawling through jungles, deserts, and other slightly nonurban locales, you could
say mine was about as far left of normal as you could get. And I guess as a result
so am I.” She looked away, suddenly feeling awkward and oddly shy. “Maybe I’m not
one to preach after all, huh?”

He turned her face back to his, studying her intently. She stared right back, willing
herself to relax and let him in. Willing him to do the same.

“Maybe I like exactly what and who you are, Erin McClure. Maybe I do hide. I do know
that I don’t want to with you. I’m almost compelled not to.” He shifted her against
him so they both looked at the ruined house. “That’s why I brought you here. To lay
it all out and explain what happened.”

“You didn’t have to. Revisiting this …” She shook her head.

“You said you wanted to understand me. You were right about the past shaping us. It
has everything to do with who I am now.” He pulled her back around to him and kissed
her hard.

Startled, Erin stiffened for a second, then relaxed fully into his kiss. He groaned
deep in his throat and gentled the pressure of his mouth on hers. He lingered, tasting
her slowly, so sweetly, her knees went weak.

He lifted his head and looked down at her. “I’ve never cared what anyone thought of
me,
chèr
. But with you …”

“Shh,
mon cajun
,” she whispered, running a fingertip over his bottom lip. “Kiss me again. I’m not
going anywhere.”

Teague hesitated, his heart pounding. A lifetime of subjugating need and want began
to dissolve like the surge of the tide eroding a sand fortress. Grains of control,
of protective instincts, of anger, of pain, all began to wash away as he stared into
Erin’s eyes.

“
Mais yeah, chèr
, it’s okay,” she whispered.

His breath left him as he sank into the kiss she offered so beautifully, so perfectly.

She took his mouth, slipped her arms around him, and held him.

Home.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to imprint the sensation of completeness on his
soul, to recall whenever he needed it. The hollow ache in his chest began to ease
as she deepened the kiss.

He shifted her body so her hips aligned with his. The sweet pressure made him groan
as his body hardened against her softness.

“Erin,
ange
,” he said against her mouth.

She answered him with a whimper of need that unraveled what was left of his restraint.

“I need you too, Teague.” She pressed kisses along his jaw.

“Oh God, Erin.” He pulled her up against him. “Wrap your legs around me.”

She pressed her knees to his waist and he slowly slid them down until he was seated
at the base of the tree with her in his lap, her legs around him.

He gripped her head in one hand and took her mouth again. And again.

“I want to touch you, taste you,” she said.

He groaned. “You will kill me.”

She lifted her head and smiled at him, pure joy on her face, fierce desire in her
eyes. He felt his heart swell and the bleak spot inside him shattered into a million
pieces.

“Then it will be a sweet death,
mon
Cajin.” She reached down and tugged his shirt loose. He started to help her. “Let
me,” she commanded. “I’ll let you return the favor. Not that there’s anything surprising
under there,” she added with a self-deprecating laugh.

He lowered his head and pressed a kiss against the beat of her heart, then looked
at her. “It’s what’s under here I want.”

Her eyes glistened with sudden tears. “Oh,
chèr
,” she whispered. “I think that’s been yours for a while now.”

“Erin … I …” Teague paused, his own heart thundering at what she’d just admitted.
He wanted to
laugh, to shout. Had he ever felt this … good? Yes, that’s how she made him feel.
As if he were good. Worthy.