Hall, Jessica (6 page)

"You don't talk much, do you?"

She glanced at the friendly face of the trucker beside her. He'd
picked her up just outside campus and, after giving her a good scolding for
hitchhiking, agreed to give her a ride back to the bayou. He seemed like a nice
man, and he'd accepted her story about her nonexistent car breaking down in a
ditch. Considering how she looked—and smelled—it was a small wonder he didn't
make her ride in the back with the frozen shrimp he was hauling north to Baton
Rouge.

All she had to do was hold on a few more minutes. A few more
minutes, and she'd be home. She'd be safe. She'd never have to go back again.

"Not much to say." She felt certain that she could
shriek with rage until her lungs collapsed, but that wouldn't solve anything.
Plus it would scare the daylights out of the trucker, and likely then she'd
have to walk home.

"You sure you don't want me to stop somewhere, honey, so you
can get cleaned up and call a tow truck?" the man offered as they headed
out of New Orleans. "Look like you could use a cup of coffee, too."

If he stopped, she'd explode. She should know—she'd already done
it once that evening. "No, sir, but thank you," she said. "My
dad will take care of it. I just want to go home."

"All right, then." He turned on his radio, and Waylon
Jennings and Willie Nelson started singing in duet about a good-hearted woman
in love with a good-timing man. "Now, that's some real music," he
said to her, tapping the wheel with his thumb in time with the song. "You
can keep your Reba and your Garth Brooks—just gimme Waylon and Willie."

The sound of a ear screeching to a halt outside brought Sable back
to the present. Terri Vincent had
opened the only window, but
it was covered with a thick steel mesh bolted on all sides to the frame. From
the shadows on the door panel, it looked as though J. D. and his partner were
standing right outside. Sable lifted a hand and rubbed the large bump on the
back of her head.

Maybe I can pretend to be sick, or faint.

That was stupid, and it would never work—it never did on any of
the cop dramas she'd watched on television. No, they would keep her here until
she told them what they wanted to know, God help her. Her fingers slid down her
neck, then up to the still-sensitive place on her jaw where J. D. had held her.
She bruised easily and he'd probably left some marks. Her skin still tingled
and ached from his touch.

He's so angry.

So was she. The moment he'd touched her, it had all come
back—everything she had spent years trying to forget. The feel of his skin on
hers, the way he used to touch her, as if he were an addict and her body were
his drug of choice.

But it hadn't been all sex. That night, outside his parents'
magnificent home. Sitting on the porch swing holding hands, watching the stars
come out. He'd teased her about not eating enough of his father's excellent
food, and she'd confessed her confusion over the bewildering amount of
utensils. He'd laughed and told her that he always mixed up the salad and
dessert forks himself.

She hadn't meant to say it, but it just burst out of her.
Jean-Delano,
I love you.

He hadn't laughed. He'd lifted her onto his lap and held her, and
he'd looked at her for a long time, like she was something rare and precious.
Do
you mean that? Really, you do?

Sable lifted her head as the door opened. J. D. walked inside,
this time without his partner. He wasn't the boy she loved back in school
anymore. He was all business, a homicide detective intent on questioning a
witness.

Questioning her.

Nausea rolled in her stomach as she thought of how she had
stumbled over Marc's body, and the blood. How could she tell Jean-Del about
that without revealing everything about her and Marc? Would J. D. believe her,
even if she did confide in him?

Ten years ago he'd been all too ready to condemn her.
Have you
lost your mind? How could you do that to my friends?

No, she couldn't trust him. Not with this.

"It's just you and me now." He came over and sat across
from her, in the seat Sergeant Vincent had occupied. He sounded calm and
professional, but an aura of something dark and violent radiated from him.
"I want you to tell me everything that happened, from the time you arrived
at the warehouse to when you escaped the fire."

She avoided his gaze. "I went there to see the property. When
I went inside, someone hit me from behind. That's all I remember."

Frustration and anger flickered across his face; then his voice
changed and softened a few degrees. "Did you see his face?"

He still had a wonderful voice—smooth and deep, with the kind of
warmth that stroked her like a gentle hand. For a moment, she was almost
tempted to confide in him. Almost. "No."

J. D. sat back, studying her for a minute. "You haven't been
back to New Orleans since you left school. I would have heard about it."

She stared at him. They hadn't seen each other in a decade; why
would he care whether she'd come back to the city? Then she thought of Marc,
and realized he must have known the Gambles—the LeClares and the Gambles were
both old Creole families, and between them had more money than God.

Her stomach, already knotted, clenched even tighter. They were
going to crucify her for her relationship with Marc—and they'd make J. D. pound
in the nails personally.

He tried again. "How did you meet Marc LeClare?"

"How did you know I was there?" she countered, stalling
for time.

"Fate. Dumb luck. Take your pick." He looked down at her
hands. "Sable, whatever you're hiding, you can tell me. I can protect
you."

The way he had in college? She'd be better off dancing naked in
front of a news camera. "I'm sorry, I don't remember anything else."
The splinters in her palms shifted and stung as she curled her hands. "Can
I go now?"

"Let me see your hands." When she wouldn't, he reached
across the table and took one gently but firmly by the wrist. "Open your
fingers." He bent closer and turned her palm from right to left.
"These look like wood splinters—are they?"

"I guess." If he didn't stop touching her, she was going
to climb straight up the walls.

He went over to a cabinet, took out a small first aid kit, and
brought it to the table. "Your palms aren't bruised. Did you grab some old
wood inside the warehouse when you were trying to get out?" He pulled up a
chair next to hers.

She had been so desperate to get away from the fire
that
no pain and few details had registered at the time. "I think so. I
remember some boards over a window."

He took out a pair of tweezers, wiped the slanted ends with an
alcohol swab, then took hold of her wrist again. She jerked a little as he
tugged at the first sliver. "Hold still."

"It hurts." No, it didn't. It was his hand, his fingers
against her skin. His body, so close she could feel the heat coming through his
clothes and hers. She could see the faint dark shadow along his jaw and his
upper lip, the marked grooves of tension on either side of his mouth. She
wanted to touch his skin to feel the rasp of his beard.

He still has to shave twice a day.

"You left Tulane, and you moved out of the city," he
murmured as he extracted the first splinter and placed it in a little clear
plastic bag. "Where did you go?"

"Away." She'd lost her scholarship, of course, and it
had taken another year before she'd managed to save enough from guiding swamp
tours to go back to school. It had been different at L.S.U.; no one had known
her, and no one had cared where she came from. In many ways it had been like
being able to breathe for the first time in years—except that she had missed
him terribly, even after a year of being apart.

The same way she'd missed him every day since.

He met her gaze. "Why?"

Because I loved you too much.
"I found a
better school." She bit her lip as he drew another sliver of wood from her
palm. His breath smelled like coffee and mint. "Why did you become a
police officer? I thought you'd be in politics by now." That had been his
mother's most fervent hope, according to what Sable recalled.

"I did, too." His mouth curled on one side. "Evan's
training
horses up in Montana now." He switched hands and started on her other
palm. "Corf s the city fire marshal."

She'd never met Evan, but Cort and his mother had never approved
of their relationship. Only J. D.'s father, Louis, had made an effort to be
kind to her, and she had liked him a lot. "How is your dad?"

"Older." He finished removing the last splinter and set
the tweezers aside. "My mother wants him to retire and let one of my
cousins run the restaurant, but Dad still goes in every day." He swabbed
her palms again. "Why did you leave me?"

The alcohol stung, but not as much as the question. She took in a
sharp breath. "That's ancient history, J. D."

"I was on my way to pick you up that night when I ran into my
friends. I couldn't believe what they said you'd done to them. I went after
you, and saw you get into that truck." When she tried to stand, he latched
on to both of her wrists. "I know you heard me when I caught up with you.
Why did you hide from me?"

Because your friends had tortured and humiliated me. Because I was
eighteen years old and scared and stupid in love with you.
"It
was a long time ago, Jean-Del." She hadn't meant to use his name, but it
hung between them, a ghost from that other time. His eyes narrowed and focused
on her mouth. "Let it go. Let
me
go."

"No." He shifted closer. "Not this time."

Terri Vincent came in, carrying a phone, and plugged it into an
empty wall jack before setting it in front of Sable. "You can make your
phone call, Ms. Duchesne." She looked at J. D. "Let's get some coffee
and give the lady some privacy."

J. D. cursed under his breath as he stalked out of the room.

Sable waited until Terri left and locked the door before she
dialed the number to Martin's Country Store with trembling fingers.

"Allô,
Martin's?" It was one of Hilaire's
cashiers.

"Je voudrais parler
à
Hilaire,"
Sable said.
Please, please, Hil, be there.

The girl was new and didn't recognize her voice.
"C'est de
la part de qui?"

"Sable Duchesne, her cousin—
je suis la cousine de Hilaire."

"Ah, oui—un instant, s'il vous plait."

A moment later Hilaire Martin's cheerful voice came over the line.
"So, how did it go? Is the place big enough? He take you somewhere ritzy
for lunch?"

Sable's hand tightened on the receiver. "Hil, listen to me.
I'm in trouble."

She gave her cousin the bare details of what had happened. The
other end of the line went completely silent until she reached the part about
Jean-Delano being the detective in charge of the case.

"C'est rien que de la merde!"
Hilaire,
who knew every detail about what had happened to Sable in college, was
outraged.

"This is not bullshit, Hil. It's real." Tears welled up
again, but she blinked them back. "Marc's dead."

"Ah,
chère.
I'm so sorry." Her cousin's sweet
voice hardened as she added, "You just tell them keep that no-good
stuck-up
fils de pute
away from you!"

Sable rubbed her fingertips against the growing ache in her
temple. "I can't do that. He's in charge of the case and I'm the only
witness."

"What difference does that make?" Hilaire made a rude
sound. "Jean-Del, working for the poh-lice. Now I heard everything."

Sable knew J. D. and his partner would be back any
minute,
so she hurried out the rest. "My car got burned; I need someone to come
and get me. And don't tell my father a word about this."

"He listen to that news radio station all the time on the
boat, you know," Hil reminded her. "He hear about this, he will go
crazy."

That was true enough—if he heard Isabel had been in a fire on the
radio, nothing would keep Remy Duchesne from coming after her.

"You're right. Check and see that he's taken his pills before
you tell him. Make sure he understands that I'm not hurt." Her head was
really throbbing now. "And hurry, please, Hil." She hung up the
phone.

I want to go home.
Home, where she would be
safe— the only place she'd thought she'd be safe after what happened at Tulane.

Sitting in the truck, listening to the music. Trying not to feel
the duckweed and the mud that were slowly drying into the delicate layer of
creamy lace covering the front of her dress—her mama's best dress, that Sable
had stayed up every night for the last week altering so she could wear it to
the Summer Magnolias Graduation Dance. It kept her from thinking about the
pretty faces of the other girls.