He couldn't have cut her more cleanly if he had used a scalpel. And he'd done it so subtly, seemingly without effort. And once again, Laurel could say nothing without incriminating herself. She had the distinct feeling he was punishing her for turning down his invitation, but she could hardly accuse him. The best thing she could do was concede to an opponent she was no match for and get the hell out.
She took a very rude, very deliberate look at her watch and said flatly, "Oh, my, look at the time. I have to be going."
Danjermond gave her a mocking little half bow. "Until we meet again, Laurel."
She left the courthouse feeling battered. Kenner had been bad enough, but she couldn't encounter Stephen Danjermond without feeling she had walked into a tiger's cage. He was beautiful, charismatic, but there was a strength, an ego, a temper there beneath the handsome stripes. This time he had reached out and swiped at her with his elegant paw, and she felt as if his claws had sliced into her as sure and sharp as razor blades. She thanked God she would never have to face him in a courtroom.
The Acura was parked beneath the heavy shade of a live oak at the edge of the courthouse lot. Laurel slid behind the wheel, and the tension that had gripped her in its fist all morning finally let go, leaving her feeling like a puddle of melted Jell-O. She stared across the street for a moment, watching the weathered old men who sat on their bench in front of the hardware store.
They gathered there every morning in their summer hats and short-sleeved shirts, suspenders holding up baggy dark pants. Laurel knew the faces had changed over the years, but she could remember old men sitting there when she had been a small child. They took their places on the bench to watch the day go by, to swap stories and gossip. Today they looked grim, unsmiling, wary of every car that drove past, watchful of strangers. A woman emerged from the store, holding the hand of a daughter who had probably considered herself too old for it just yesterday.
Annie Delahoussaye was on a lot of minds today.
Was she on Jack's mind?
"Shit," Laurel whispered, her lashes drifting down as weariness weighed like lead on her every muscle-most especially her heart. His image drifted into her mind without her permission, that haunted, brooding look in his eyes, his face hard. She'd seen that look all night, heard his harsh, smoky voice. "I've got enough corpses on my conscience…"
He might have been referring to his work, but he had played the cynical mercenary hack every time she brought the subject up. He wrote horror for the money. He would claim he had no trouble distinguishing fact from fiction. Her thoughts turned back to what little mention he'd made of his life as corporate attorney for Tristar Chemical. Hardly a violent occupation. Still, every time she started to dismiss it, something pulled her back. He had crashed and burned, he'd said, and taken the company down with him. Why?
Intuition told her she would find some of the answers she was looking for in Houston, where Tristar had its headquarters. She had acquaintances there, could make a phone call… Practicality told her not to look. She was far better off leaving Jack and his moods alone. He obviously had problems he needed to work out-or wallow in, as seemed to be his choice. They would be disastrous together, both of them wounded, looking to each other for strength that simply wasn't there. He didn't want her anyway. Not in any permanent sense. They had had some fun together, "passed a good time" as the Cajuns said. That was all Jack wanted.
She ignored the way that knowledge stung, and reached for the ignition, firing the car's engine and airconditioning to life. How many times had she said she wasn't looking for a relationship? She was in no emotional condition to enter into one. That she had taken him as a lover was a whole other matter, a matter of letting herself live, of taking something for her own pleasure. She told herself she wanted nothing more than that from him, and did her damnedest to forget the way his arms had felt around her while she cried.
Lunch consisted of stuffed tomatoes and garden-fresh salad that no one seemed to have an appetite for. They sat at the glass-topped table on the back gallery, looking out at the courtyard where old growth was flourishing, now that it was free of choking weeds, and new flowers were growing fuller and more vibrant by the day.
Whether deliberately or subconsciously, Laurel thought Caroline had chosen to eat out here so they would be surrounded by positive affirmations of life and beauty when talk around town all morning had been of death and ugliness. They could sit and feel the breeze sweep under the shade trees and along the gallery, bringing with it the heavy perfume of sweet olive and gardenia. They could listen to the songs of the warblers and buntings and look out on the abundance of life in the garden and try to counterbalance thoughts of death.
"Me, I dunno what dis world comin' to," Mama Pearl grumbled, wagging her head. She dug a good-size chunk of chicken out of her tomato with a ferocious stab of her fork, but she didn't bring it to her mouth. Setting the fork aside, she heaved a sigh and rubbed a plump hand across her lips, as if to push back the words that might have spilled out. As tears rose, her eyes darted to the courtyard and she stared hard at the old stone fountain with its grubby-faced cherubs cavorting around the base.
Caroline toyed with her salad, turning a ring of black olive over and over with the tines of her fork. Her usual air of command seemed dimmed, subdued by the weight of events, but she was still the head of Belle Rivière, their leader, their rock, and she rose to the occasion as best she could. Drawing in a deep breath to fortify herself, she squared her dainty shoulders beneath the soft white chiffon blouse she wore.
"The world has been a violent place since the days of Cain," she said quietly. "It's no worse today. It only seems so because the violence has hit so close to home."
Mama Pearl gave her a sharp look of disapproval and hefted her bulk up from the table, scraping her chair back. "You tell dat to T-Grace Delahoussaye. I gots to check my cake."
Grumbling under her breath, she waddled into the house, her red print cotton shift swishing around her with every step. Caroline watched her go, feeling helpless to do anything to alleviate the grief and worry and anger that had tempers running short and fears running close to the surface of everyone she knew. She turned her gaze to Laurel, who was picking at her chicken salad.
"How are you doing, darlin'?"
"Fine." The answer was automatic. Caroline ignored it and waited patiently for something closer to the truth.
Resigning herself to the inevitable, Laurel set her fork aside and rested her forearms on the cool glass of the tabletop. "I feel stronger than I did," she said, a little amazed by the admission. "But with all the things that have happened… everything I feel myself getting dragged into… A part of me would like very much to run away to a resort someplace where I wouldn't know a soul."
In a gesture of love and an offer of support, Caroline reached across the table and twined her fingers with her niece's. "But you won't."
To leave now, with her word given to the Delahoussayes, with tension between her and Savannah, would be the coward's way out. She couldn't walk away and live with herself. "No, I won't."
Caroline squeezed her hand, her heart brimming with love, with sympathy. "Your father would have been so very proud of you," she said, her voice suddenly husky with emotion. "I'm proud of you."
Laurel couldn't think of a single thing she had done to be proud of, but she didn't say so. She didn't say anything for a minute for fear she would burst into tears. For a long moment she stared off at a particularly beautiful cluster of purple clematis that was twining around one of the gallery pillars, and just hung on to her aunt's hand, savoring the contact and the strength that passed to her from someone who loved her unconditionally.
She suspected a great many people in Bayou Breaux were paying special attention to family today, having been struck aware that loved ones could be snatched away in a heartbeat with feelings left unspoken and dreams never realized. Today, life would seem more precious, more urgent, something to be clung to and relished.