"Bon Dieu," he muttered, shaking his head.
"What?" Savannah demanded, two vodka tonics beyond reason, too upset with the turns her life was taking to give a damn. "I'm too crude for you, Jack? That's hard to imagine, considering the way you butcher people in your books. I can't imagine anything offending you."
She wedged herself between his stool and Laurel 's, deliberately brushing his arm with her breast, sending him her most sultry expression. "We ought to go a couple rounds, Jack," she purred, raking a hot gaze from his crotch to his belly to his bare chest, finally landing on his face. "Just to find out."
He met her look evenly, his dark eyes intense, his mouth set in a grim line.
Laurel slipped down off her stool, doing her best to control the fine trembling in her limbs. "Sister, come on," she said, trying to take the glass from Savannah 's fingers. "Let's go home."
Savannah turned on her, angry that Laurel was always the one with the cooler head, always in control, always respectable and bright and perfect.
"What's the matter, Baby? Am I being an embarrassment?" she asked, as angry with herself as she was with Laurel. "You'll never say so in here, will you? Don't make a public scene. Don't call attention to yourself. Never air the dirty laundry in plain sight. Christ," she sneered, "you're just as bad as Vivian."
She jerked her hand free of Laurel 's grasp, sloshing vodka and tonic over the rim of her glass, her expression something that bordered so closely on hate that it took Laurel 's breath away.
"You go on and be little Miss Prim and Proper," she sneered, her voice laced with venom. "Always do the right thing, Laurel. Me, I've got better ways to spend my time."
She whirled around, almost losing her balance, the vodka numbing her equilibrium, as well as her inhibitions. Willing the floor to stop pitching, she walked away, her sights set on the pool players, her hips swinging, a hard laugh ringing out of her as she caught sight of Ronnie Peltier.
Laurel pressed a hand to her mouth and tensed against the emotions that were buffeting her like hurricane winds. She couldn't seem to get ahead. Every time she thought she was getting her feet under her, she got knocked back a step. She pulled in on herself, not hearing the noise of the bar, not seeing the look of concern Jack was giving her. All she heard was her pulse roaring in her ears. All she saw was the mistake she had made in coming home.
Without a word she turned and walked out of the bar. She didn't allow herself to think of anything at all as she crossed the parking lot. She just put one foot in front of the other until she had reached the levee, then she stood on the bank and stared out at the bayou, working furiously to tamp down the feelings Savannah had torn loose. It didn't do any good to get upset. Savannah was who she was. Her problems were rooted in a past she refused to let go of, was perhaps incapable of letting go of. She had her moments when she would say anything, do anything, and damn the consequences. It was pointless to let any of that get to her.
But it hurts, a small voice inside her said. The voice of a little girl who had only her big sister to rely on for love and comfort. The big sister who looked out for her, who protected her, who sacrificed for her.
But who looked out for Savannah?
Laurel bit her lip against the pain, squeezed her eyes shut against it. She pressed her hands over her face and stood there trembling, afraid if she even breathed, the dam would burst and she would dissolve into a quivering mass of weakness and guilt and pain.
Jack stood behind her on the levee, his feet rooted to the spot as he watched her struggle. He should have left her alone. There was no way in hell he wanted to get caught in the middle of what had gone on in the bar. But he couldn't seem to make himself turn around. He damned Savannah for being such a bitch, damned Laurel for being so brave, damned himself for caring. No good could come of it for any of them. But even as he was convincing himself of that fact, his feet were moving forward.
"She's drunk," he said.
Laurel hugged herself, her eyes fixed on the far bank of the bayou. "I know. She's got problems that go back a long way. I've been gone a long time. I didn't realize she was this… troubled," she murmured, searching desperately for a word that seemed safe, a word that skirted way around the one that came strongest to mind. "If I'd known, I don't think I would have come back now."
She braced herself against the wave of guilt that admission brought. Selfish, weak, coward. She should have been willing to help Savannah, regardless of her own fragile state. She owed her sister that much and more. Much, much more.
Jack stepped closer. His hands settled on her shoulders, so slim, so delicate, so strong, and still he told himself he should just go on back into Frenchie's and order himself another beer. "I can't see you running from trouble, 'tite chatte."
Laurel stood still for his touch, while she told herself not to. His hands were big and warm, his long, musician's fingers gentle and soothing. Comforts she didn't deserve. Despair rose on a tide inside her. "Why do you think I came home in the first place?" she asked, her voice choked with the shame of it.
Because she needed a place to hide, a place to heal, Jack thought, but he said nothing of the sort. It didn't seem wise to let her know he'd been reading up on her, thinking about her. She didn't need a mercenary right now. She needed a shoulder. Cursing himself for a fool, he turned her around and offered his.
"Come here," he growled as he pulled her glasses off and folded his arms around her.
Laurel squeezed her eyes shut against the tears, refusing to let them fall. She told herself not to succumb to the temptation of leaning on him, but her arms slipped around Jack's lean waist just the same. It felt too good to be held, to let someone else be strong for a minute or two. Ironic that that someone was Jack, the self-professed antihero. She might have pointed that out to him if she hadn't felt so damn weak.
Trembling with the effort of holding it all at bay, she pressed her cheek to his chest, to the soft washed cotton of his bowling shirt. She concentrated on the sound of his heartbeat, the feel of the taut muscles in the small of his back, the scent of Ivory soap underlying the subtle tang of male sweat.
"You've had a hard day, huh, mon coeur?" Jack murmured, his lips brushing her temple, her faint perfume filling his head. She was so delicate in his arms, he couldn't believe she was strong enough to take on the burdens she had. It killed him to think of her trying. "You oughta be more like me," he muttered. "Don't give a damn about anyone but yourself. Let people do what they will. Take what you want and leave the rest."
"Oh, yeah?" Laurel scoffed, leaning back to look up at him. "If you're so tough, what are you doing standing here holding me?"
He grinned and swooped down to nip at the side of her neck, surprising a little squeal out of her. "I like the way you smell," he whispered, nuzzling her cheek, skimming his hands up and down her back.
Laurel squirmed and wriggled, laughing, finally breaking free of his hold. Snatching her glasses out of his hand, she danced a couple of steps back from him, her gaze suddenly catching on his. While her heart beat a little harder, her laughter faded away, and something warm and seductive and invisible pulled at her, like the allure of the moon on the tides.
"I told you, sugar," he said, lifting his shoulders in a lazy shrug. "Me, I just like to have a good time. And you strike me as a lady in serious need of a good time." He shuffled a step closer, held a hand out to her. "Come on, angel. Let's you and me go and have us some fun."
She eyed him warily. "Fun? What's that?"
She couldn't remember the last time she'd done anything just for fun. Her work had consumed her life for so long, then had come the struggle just to keep herself from falling into a million tiny broken bits. And since she had come home, her focus had been on doing constructive things. She had enjoyed her time in the garden, but the goal had been to accomplish something tangible, a success she could see.
Jack ducked around behind her and got her by the shoulders, steering her down the levee toward the dock. "You need a lesson from the master, sweetheart. I'll teach you all about havin' fun."
Reluctantly letting him herd her along, Laurel shot him a skeptical look over her shoulder. "Would this 'fun' you're alluding to be of a sexual nature?"