Nightwind (14 page)

“You can say you aren’t mad at me,” he answered.

Her hand tightened on the phone. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother glowering at her.

The look on Maxine Fowler’s face put starch in her daughter’s spine.

“I’m busy. I suggest you call someone else with whom to chat!” She replaced the phone in its cradle and

turned to face her mother. Her chin came up. “I was neither flirting with Mr. Rogers nor was he flirting

with me, Mother. I was being polite to him because he is a polite and courteous man and he is a valued

customer at this store. If there is something you wish to speak with me about, it would be preferable if

you either waited until my lunch hour or called me at home this evening.” She skirted the counter,

motioning for one of the other girls to take over. She moved with purpose toward a customer in the

non-fiction aisle who had been trying to gain her attention.

Maxine Fowler stared after her daughter with a shocked expression of disbelief. She saw the customer

Lauren headed for smile and heard Lauren speak in a friendly, good-humored tone of voice.

“May I help you, Mrs. Lutz?”

“I hope so, Lauren,” the middle-age woman replied. “Do you have the latest book on movies and video

releases?”

“What is going on here?” Lauren’s mother breathed, watching Lauren laughing with the woman. She

glanced at the girl who was now behind the counter. “Who’s the manager here now that Louvenia’s in

the hospital?” she asked.

The girl looked at her with confusion. She could have sworn Lauren had called this woman her mother.

She shrugged, thinking maybe the woman didn’t know. Lifting her hand, she pointed at Lauren.

“Lauren?” Maxine gasped. “You can’t be serious!” At the girl’s nod, Maxine Fowler turned toward her

daughter once more and stared at her, thoughts churning like cresting waves in her mind. Who in their

right mind would trust Lauren with a job of such importance as managing a shop? The answer, Angeline

Hellstrom, flitted across her consciousness like a foul taste.

“I might have known,” Maxine sneered. Her face turned ugly. “And just what other things do you have in

common with that slut, Missy?” she silently asked her daughter. Her nose in the air, Lauren’s mother

spun on her sturdy heels and pushed angrily through the door. She’d do more than call Lauren this

evening; she’d go to her house. Lauren had some explaining to do!

He slowly hungup the phone, a dagger of hurt twisting in his heart. It had taken him nearly two weeks to

free himself of Angeline and her voracious appetite and he was drained: emotionally and physically. Every

day had found his thoughts on Lauren, her face before his wounded eyes, her sweet voice in his ears to

block out the demands being made on his flesh. He had looked forward to, counting the minutes of, his

escape from, Angeline’s hot clutches so he could once more see Lauren; speak to her; feel the respect

and admiration for him she so willing gave. He had dialed the shop’s number with eager, trembling

fingers, had felt his heart thumping inside his chest as he waited for the phone to be answered. When he’d

heard her voice, his heart had soared and he felt the great affection he had developed for this woman

bubble up inside him like molten lava.

He hadn’t expected her to be angry with him. Not really. He hadn’t expected her to talk to him the way

she had. Her tone of voice, more than her words, had stunned him, caused him so much pain he thought

he would collapse under the weight of it. He had stood there, receiver pressed against his ear long after

the dial tone changed into the irritating whir of a receiver off the hook. He had stood there, his heart on

his sleeve, his pain showing in his handsome face, and felt for the very first time since he had been drawn

up from the Pit, the kind of sorrow that drove men to their knees.

“Problems with the phone?” he heard someone ask and he turned to face the stranger behind him who

was obviously waiting to use the public phone Syntian’s hand still touched.

He let his hand fall away. “No,” he answered, shaking his head. “The phone’s fine. It’s my life that’s the

problem.” He moved away, shoving his hands down into the pockets of his acid-washed jeans. He

hunched his shoulders into the brisk Gulf breeze and walked back to the limo where Del sat waiting

patiently,
Pensacola New Journal
spread open in his hands. The black man glanced over the top of the

paper, to the rear view mirror when Syntian climbed into the back seat.

“Wasn’t she at the store?” Delbert asked.

Syntian looked up, locking his gaze with Del’s. Something in the other man’s eyes told Syntian that

Angeline had been hard at work trying to undermine the tentative bond Syntian had been trying so hard

to establish with Lauren Fowler.

“What did she say to her, Del?”

The black man shrugged and folded the newspaper, laid it on the seat beside him. “I don’t know.”

“The hell you don’t!” Syntian growled. “What did Angeline say to her?”

“Let me give you a word of advice as a fellow brethren,” Del told him. “You don’t go around biting the

hand of the woman what owns you, man.”

Syntian snorted. “You might enjoy serving her hand and foot, Del, but I don’t! If she’s telling me one

thing and doing another, I can break that damnable pact!”

Del shook his head. “I suggest you don’t try.” He twisted around in the seat. “You wanna go back to the

darkness in the Earth, brother? I sure as hell know I don’t. I like the light and I like the warmth and I ain’t

gonna do nothing to jeopardize the way I got it now. It took me three hundred years to get where I am. I

ain’t going back!”

“It took me five thousand years to find a woman I can love, Del!” Syntian shouted back. “Do you think

I’ll stand idly by and let Angeline Hellstrom take her away from me?”

“Love?” The black man’s face showed his shocked astonishment. “You better not let Miss Angeline

hear you say that, Cree. Ain’t no telling what she’d do then!”

Syntian turned away and glared out the window. He barely heard the car crank, felt it pull out onto the

highway to Navarre. Blindly he watched the bland scenery moving past him along the road. His mind was

on Lauren and that was exactly who he intended to see the moment he got back to Milton. He would find

out what Angeline had said to her to make her so angry with him. That the witch had said something he

had no doubt. And he had every intention of finding out what!

“Love?” Angelinewhispered as she ran her hand over the pool of water before her. “You love her, do

you, Syntian?”

A smile of pure evil passed over the beautiful face of Angeline Hellstrom and she laughed.

What an absolutely perfect way she had found to control her wayward lover!

Lauren haddeclined the new store clerk, Cathy Atherton’s, offer of a ride home. She had needed the

two-block walk to try to sort out all the conflicting emotions tumbling around inside her head. She

glanced at the red light on the corner, looked to see if any traffic was coming then started across the

street. With her attention on the pavement before her, her mind on her sudden change of station in life,

Lauren didn’t see the car of teenaged girls that had turned onto the road she was crossing. Their car

roared down on the intersection until she was jolted from her reverie by the sharp blare of the little car’s

high-pitched horn. She jumped, her head coming up, face pale, as the smirking teenaged girl behind the

wheel flipped her the finger as the car sped past her.

“Why don’t you watch out where the fuck you’re going, old lady?” the girl yelled at her.

The car plowed through the intersection, deliberately running the red light, and Lauren heard the laughter

of the other teenagers in the vehicle. She stared after them, knowing without having to be told, the girls,

or at least the one driving, were the daughters of high-ranking officers assigned to the naval air station

north of town. She shook her head. She dealt with rude, self-centered self-important little girls like that all

the time at the bookstore. She shook her head again, wondering why the parents of such arrogant little

snots didn’t try to teach them any respect for others.

There was a slight breeze as Lauren headed down the sidewalk from the red light to her little house. The

smell of mimosa was thick on the air and the Spanish moss in the spreading live oaks swung gently as the

wind swept over the trees. Somewhere, the faint chink of a piano playing an old gospel song faded in and

out with the passing traffic, the shouts of children at play, the slamming of screen doors along Canal

Street.

An aloof cat, as black as midnight, trotted by, tail rigidly erect, it’s velvet paws seeming to barely touch

the ground as it walked. It moved ahead several paces, stopped as if to look back at Lauren then veered

off into someone’s yard, disappearing.

Down the block, a dog barked, another answered, and a car horn beeped twice. It was a typical

summer evening, the sun lowering in the western sky, sending shadows skipping alongside Lauren.

Coming up the sidewalk to her front porch, Lauren opened her purse and fumbled inside for the key.

She was tired, bone weary, and was looking forward to a long, relaxing shower before fixing something

light for her supper. She opened the outside screen door, stepped onto the porch and stilled, her gaze

going to her right to the porch swing hanging from the ceiling.

“Hi,” he said, coming slowly to his feet from his place on the swing.

Lauren stared at him for a moment then looked back at the street. His car was nowhere in sight. She

returned her gaze to him. “Why are you here?” she asked.

He took a step forward and saw her stiffen. He stopped. “I wanted to explain.”

Lauren’s brows rose. “I’m sure you don’t owe me any kind of an explanation, Mr. Cree.” She saw him

wince at her use of his formal name.

“I think I do,” he answered. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other like an errant schoolboy. “I

think you’ve somehow gotten the wrong impression and I need to rectify that.”

Her gaze jerked away from him and she stepped closer to the inside screen door, put her hand on the

handle. She stilled then turned her face toward him. “I don’t believe there is anything you need to rectify.

I would appreciate it if you would leave now.” she opened the door.

“Lauren, please,” he begged, stepping to her in one lithe bound that surprised her with its quickness and

fluid grace. He was like the cat that had passed her on the sidewalk, moving so lightly on the balls of his

feet, she hadn’t heard his approach. With his black jeans and shirt, his dark hair, the image of the exotic

feline she’d seen flashed unbidden across her mind.

“There’s nothing we have to say to one another, Mr. Cree,” she told him, putting the screen of the door

between them. She looked at him through the mesh. “I’ve had a very tiring day and I’d like to rest.”

“Someone told you I was with a woman,” he interrupted. “Is that it?”

Lauren’s face flamed, but she continued to look at him. “Your personal affairs are none of my business.”

“Then make them your business,” he bit out. “If I could have called you, I would have. It was business,

nothing more, and I wasn’t where I could get hold of you.”

A look of disbelief crossed Lauren’s face. “I don’t suppose there were phones where you were.”

His face turned bitter. “I wasn’t allowed to use the gods-be-damned phone!” he snarled. “It was a

business matter, Lauren. Strictly business.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, jamming her door key into the lock. She twisted it with shaky fingers and

turned the knob, pushing the heavy pine door open into the riving room.

“Will you at least let me come in and try to explain?”

She shook her head. “My neighbors are watching.”

“Then stay out here and talk to me, Lauren.”

“No,” she said. She turned to face him. “I really would like it if you’d go now.”

He reached out and grabbed the door edge. “Not until we’ve talked.”

She pulled the screen door away from his grip and hooked the latch. It wasn’t any real protection,

especially against a man as powerful as she realized Syntian Cree was, but it put a barrier between them

she saw that he accepted. “I told you, no.”

“At least tell me what’s made you so angry with me.” His hands were on either side of the door frame as

he peered through the screen at her.

Lauren sighed. She hated confrontations. “Just go,” she asked in a tired voice. “I really don’t want to get

into this tonight.”

Hope flared in his expression. “Will you have lunch with me tomorrow then?” She was already shaking

her head in denial. “Why not?” His tone was more hurt than belligerent.

“Mrs. Hellstrom is coming over tomorrow. She’s invited me to lunch.” She saw his lips purse. “There’s a

lot to be done at the store.”

“What did she tell you about me?” he demanded, his voice angry.

Lauren’s forehead crinkled. “Who?”

“Angeline Hellstrom.”

“Nothing,” she answered, wondering why the bookstore owner’s name sounded like a curse exploding

from Syntian Cree’s lips.

“Did she tell you I was with her?”

True astonishment spread across Lauren’s face. She stared at him. Finally finding her voice, for he

seemed to be waiting for her answer, she asked, “Were you?”

He searched her face. He saw the hurt, saw the tremble along her lips that she was so desperately trying