While the idea of escape appealed to her enormously, the idea of escaping with Leonce did not. There was just enough male interest in his big dark eyes to override the sympathy he was offering. And truth to tell, as ashamed as it made her feel, she didn't like looking at him. The scar continually drew her eye-the smooth, shiny quality of it, the grotesque burls of scar tissue that left brow and nose and lip slightly misshapen.
"We can go someplace dark," he said, the musical quality of his voice flattened and hard. His fingers tightened briefly on her shoulder, then he jerked them away.
Laurel felt an immediate kick of guilt. "No, Leonce, I didn't mean-"
"Is everything all right, Laurel?"
Danjermond stood at the end of the hall, half in light, half in shadow, his steady gaze shifting slowly from her to Leonce and back. Leonce swore under his breath in French and pushed past her, heading for a side exit.
Laurel heaved a sigh and pushed her glasses up on her nose. "Yes, everything is just peachy."
"I was just leaving," he said, producing the keys to his Jag and dangling them from his hand. "Would you care to join me for a nightcap or a cup of coffee?"
She shook her head, amazed at his inability to grasp the concept of the word "no." "Your persistence is astounding, Mr. Danjermond."
He smiled that feline smile. She could almost imagine him purring low in his throat. "As I've said, nature rewards strength and tenacity."
"Not tonight she doesn't." Laurel slipped her hand into her pocketbook and brushed the chain of the butterfly necklace away from her tangle of keys. "I'm going home."
Danjermond inclined his handsome head, conceding. "Some other time."
When hell freezes over, Laurel thought as she walked out. The sky was purple and orange in the west. The light above the parking lot was winking on with a series of clicks and buzzes. She unlocked the door of the Acura and slid behind the wheel, thinking she would rather have gum surgery than go out with Stephen Danjermond. A date with him would have to be like consenting to have her brain poked with needles. She wondered if he had ever had a conversation that didn't run on three levels simultaneously. Perhaps as a child-if he had ever been a child. The Garden District Danjermonds probably frowned on childhood the same way her own mother had.
Odd, she thought, that they would have that in common and turn out so very different from one another. But then she'd already seen firsthand that shared experiences didn't guarantee shared responses. She and Savannah could scarcely have been less alike. Thousands of teenage girls were molested by stepfathers or other men in their lives; not all of them responded the way Savannah had. Statistics showed that abused boys grew into abusive men, but she couldn't picture Jack beating a child-he had wept over the one he had lost without knowing.
Jack. She wondered where he was, if he was privately mourning the loss of a friend or if he was tipping back a bottle of Wild Turkey and telling himself he didn't have any friends. He drank too much. She cared too much. She had read once somewhere that love wasn't always convenient, but she had never wanted to believe it could be hopeless. Jack swore he didn't want emotional entanglements. With tensions pulling her in all directions, she didn't feel strong enough to convince him otherwise.
She didn't feel strong enough to face Aunt Caroline tonight, either, but circumstances weren't offering any options. She had put it off as long as she could. Now she was going to have to sit down with her aunt and give voice to all the facts and fears about her sister.
Dread lying like a lead weight in her stomach, she put the car in gear and headed toward Belle Rivière, never aware of the eyes that watched her with vicious intent from cover of darkness.
The house was dark. Laurel let herself in the front door, feeling a guilty sense of relief. As necessary as it was to talk to Caroline about Savannah, she couldn't help being glad for a reprieve. The day had been long enough, trying enough.
The note on the hall table said Caroline had gone to New Iberia to spend the evening with friends. Mama Pearl would still be down at Prejean's, on kitchen duty until the last of the wake crowd had drunk the last of the coffee.
Laurel leaned against the hall table for a moment, trying to absorb the quiet. The old house stood around her, solid, substantial, safe, giving the odd creak and groan, sounds that were familiar and usually comforting. But tonight they only magnified the hollow feeling of loneliness that yawned inside her.
She felt alone. Abandoned. Guilty for having let her sister slip away toward madness.
Struggling with the feelings, she let herself out the hall door and went into the courtyard. Restlessly she walked the brick paths, staying near the gallery. After a few moments she settled on a bench and curled herself into the corner, tossing her purse onto the seat beside her.
The garden was mysterious by moonlight. Dark shapes that crouched and huddled, long shadows and hushed rustlings. By day it was growing lush and beautiful and in need of a weeding. That was what she had come to Belle Rivière for-quiet days of gardening, Mama Pearl's gruff fussing and fattening meals, Aunt Caroline's unflagging strength and pragmatism, Savannah's support.
"Don't cry, Baby. Daddy's gone, but we'll always have each other."
How selfish she had been. Always taking Savannah's comfort, Savannah's protection. Too afraid of losing her mother's love to fight on Savannah's behalf. Burying herself in school, college, law school, work, while Savannah was left with bitter memories and her self-esteem in tatters.
Rise above your past. Put it behind you. Forget. She claimed she had, and it had always angered her that Savannah couldn't, wouldn't. Maybe all her sister had needed was someone to lean on, to help her, to support instead of ridicule, but Laurel had been off fighting other people's battles.
"I'm sorry, Sister," she whispered, tears slipping down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry. Please come home so I can tell you that in person."
Her only answer was the call of a barred owl from the woods beyond L'Amour. Then stillness. Absolute stillness. The back of her neck tingled, and she sat up straighter, straining her eyes to see into the night, holding her breath and trying to hear beyond the rushing of her pulse in her ears. She imagined she could feel eyes on her, staring in through the back gate, but she could see nothing beyond the iron bars. She thought of her sister running through the night, wild with anger, full of pain.
"Savannah?"
Crickets sang, frogs answered back from the bayou, where a heavy mist crept over the bank.
Malevolence crawled over her skin like worms.
Eyes on the gate, she bent over her purse and fumbled for her gun.
"If you wanna shoot me, you're gonna have to turn around, 'tite chatte."
Laurel shrieked and whirled around to find Jack standing not three feet from her. Her heart went into warp drive. "How the hell did you get in here?"
"The front door was open," he said with a shrug. "You really oughta be more careful, sugar. There's all kinds of lunatics running around these days."
"Yes," Laurel said, ignoring his wry tone. She was too damned spooked for banter. "I thought I heard one on the other side of the gate."
Frowning, Jack stepped past her and went to look. He came back, shaking his head. "Nothing. What did you think it was? Someone in the bushes?"
Savannah, she thought, sick that it might have been, relieved that it hadn't been. "What are you doing here?"
Good question. Jack stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and wandered along the edge of the gallery and back. He had spent the evening walking along the bayou, trying to put as much distance as he could between himself and Prejean's Funeral Home. He couldn't bear the thought of a wake, and yet his thoughts had been filled with all of it-the coffin, the choking perfume of flowers, the intoning of the rosary. He could as well have been there for as raw as he felt now.
"I don' know," he whispered, turning back toward Laurel. Lie. He knew too well. He needed her, wanted the feel of her in his arms because she was real and alive and he loved her. Dieu, how stupid, how cruel that he should fall in love with someone so good. He couldn't even tell her, because he knew it couldn't last. Nothing good ever did once he touched it.
"I saw your car," he said, his voice strained and hoarse. "Saw the light…"