The Unknown Woman (13 page)

“Okay, I believe you. I think.”

He had to laugh again as her lips pursed in doubt. It took all his control not to kiss her again.

Holding hands, they strolled along the street made
famous by the blues song written in its honor. The shadows were long by the time they returned to the hotel. After leaving her package in her suite, they returned to the courtyard and their favorite table for an afternoon drink.

“Funny,” he said, “how quickly people establish a pattern. We always sit at this table. That older couple over there always sit under that tree near the pool.”

She turned to look at the other pair, who were probably in their seventies. “I wonder if this is their first time here, or if they’ve returned every year for, say, fifty years, on their wedding anniversary.”

“Now that’s a thought,” he murmured. “How many marriages last that long?”

“Well, both sets of my grandparents and their parents, too. All except one of my great-grandfathers who died of a heart attack when he was sixty. My mom and dad will probably make it.”

He studied her for a moment.

“What?” she asked.

“Why hasn’t some smart guy grabbed you up long before this?” He took her left hand in his and rubbed up and down her ring finger. “You haven’t mentioned divorce, so I assume you haven’t been married.”

“No, but I was engaged.” She gave a funny little laugh. “For four years.”

“That’s a long time. When did you break it off?”

“Six months ago. He’s the one who wanted out. He
met an old flame and it was love at second sight, I guess you might say. It was at our class reunion.”

Matt didn’t like the idea of her being hurt. “Did you live together during that time?”

She shook her head. “We each kept our own place. He had a condo. I have a very small house, inherited from that great-uncle I told you about.”

“The one with the drinking problem?”

“Yes. I’ve loved renovating the cottage. It sits on five acres of land and has a tiny lake teeming with fish. I think he gave it to me because I loved fishing with him and my dad when we visited.”

“I see. About your fiancé. I’m sorry you were hurt.”

She took his hand between both of hers and pressed it to her cheek. Her eyes sparkled in the last rays of the sun as she told him, “If he felt a tenth of what I feel when we…that is, when…”

“When we make love?” Matt supplied.

“Yes. If it’s like that for him with his new fiancée, then he did the right thing. I’ve never felt anything so intense and exciting. I didn’t know it was possible to experience that much sensation.”

A part of him that had tensed up when she’d mentioned the ex-fiancé relaxed. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

She released his hand and used the straw to stir her drink, one of those rum-and-fruit concoctions that were fun to try while on vacation. “Being with you has made me realize what I was missing. The old relation
ship was comfortable. There was mutual respect and common interests, but I don’t think…I don’t think it was love.”

“I see.”

“I’ve confessed all,” she said in a low, amused tone. “Now it’s your turn. Have you ever been seriously involved with anyone?”

“I was engaged briefly, mmm, about six years ago. I discovered she wanted to be part of my family and their social circle more than she wanted to establish one of our own. Now she’s married to someone who keeps up the social pace she wanted.”

“Were you hurt?”

“At first,” he admitted. “Now when we occasionally run into each other—we have mutual friends—we speak, discuss the weather and go our separate ways.”

“Good,” she said as if affirming he’d made a wise decision.

He smiled and ordered another drink for each of them.

They sat there in a comfortable silence while evening descended and the courtyard gradually filled with returning guests, weary after a busy day of sightseeing. He saw her touch the charms on her bracelet and the way she smiled as she fingered the snake and the thundercloud.

He was glad he’d bought them. The charms would be a token of their time together and a reminder that once she and a fellow traveler had shared an adventure.

“I
T SEEMS ODD
to be on this road again,” Kerry said as Matt slowed the rental car to the speed limit when they arrived in St. Martinville.

Her eyes were drawn to the statue of Evangeline, then to the inn where she and Matt had spent the night on their own private journey to becoming lovers.

Every nerve in her body tingled at the thought. She couldn’t keep from snatching little glances at him while he concentrated on driving. He was so handsome and so
good
—and not just in bed. He was a good person, a phrase her parents used to bestow their highest praise on someone.

“It’s déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra reputedly said,” Matt commented, his smile warm.

“This time we’ve got to finish what we came for.”

“You’re still going home tomorrow?”

“I think so.” Unless you can give me a very good reason for staying. But she didn’t say that.

He nodded, his smile never faltering. That was another thing she liked about him—he respected her de
cisions. He didn’t want her to go, he’d stated his case, but the final move was up to her.

So why not stay an extra three days? Or reschedule her appointments and take another week?

Because it would hurt that much more when she did have to leave. Because she might cry and cling to him, and she just wouldn’t let herself do that. It seemed better to stick with the original plan.

Sighing, she forced the pesky questions at bay and considered the task ahead. She would stop and speak to Atta about their plan for the ashes, but something inside her said it was the right one.

“Why the sigh?” Matt asked with a quick glance at her.

“I feel certain this is the right thing to do, but then there’s this little unsure voice inside me that questions everything.”

“That’s natural. Who can be one hundred percent sure when it comes to someone elses’s wishes?” He paused. “Except in our case,” he added softly, a challenge in his deep voice.

“You think we should stay the extra days.”

“Absolutely.”

She laughed when he gave her a scolding frown. He was too attractive to really look menacing.

“Laugh, woman, but you’re breaking my heart.”

“Part of me wants to stay…the part that wants to be with you, but another part is ready to leave.”

Matt nodded. “It’s been a difficult week. Meeting
Patti, then becoming involved in her life, which was tragic in so many ways. It’s been emotionally draining on you.”

Kerry was silent for a moment. “Thank you for understanding that, Matt. It’s one of the things that makes it so hard to think about leaving New Orleans. And you.”

“It doesn’t have to mean goodbye for us.”

“Sharon thought we might visit. She thinks going to New York for a long weekend for the theater and wine tasting sounds great. Of course she’s been stuck at home in a snowstorm with three sick kids for most of the week.”

“New York doesn’t sound interesting to you?”

“Yes, of course it does.”

“But?”

Each moment they were together
now
made the thought of a future parting that much more difficult for her. She didn’t want to drag out their relationship until one day they realized they were strangers, still clinging to a shared week of mystery and magic. It was better to end things on a happy note.

“This has been one of the best vacations of my life. It’s also been one of the worst.” She glanced in the backseat at the wooden urn inscribed with voodoo symbols.

“I can identify with that.”

“Our lives crossed in a rather dramatic manner, and we became entangled in events not of our making.”

“True,” he agreed.

“But this isn’t our real lives. Mine is in a small town in the Midwest. Yours is in the busy city of New York. After this week, we’ll return to those worlds.”

“And our paths will never cross again,” he concluded.

That sent such a shaft of emotion through her, she couldn’t breathe for a second. “Yes.”

“But Kerry,” he murmured with an oblique glance in her direction as he continued along the bayou road toward Atta’s house, “we were obviously fated to meet. Maybe our paths were meant to merge.”

She blinked in astonishment at this idea. Touching the charm bracelet, she found the three bones. Three lives, three worlds, three divergent paths…or one shining path leading into the future?

“D
O YOU WANT
to stop?” Matt asked when they reached the small, neat house set amid well-tended flower beds.

“Yes. I think we should tell Atta what we’re doing.”

He pulled into the drive.

“I’ll go to the door,” Kerry volunteered.

She dashed up the brick walk and knocked on the door. No one answered. The place had an air of emptiness, Matt observed. She knocked again. Still no answer. She returned to the car.

“She doesn’t appear to be at home,” she said.

“Maybe she’s shopping or visiting with family.”

“I guess. I didn’t get the impression she had much family left, did you?”

“Well, I suppose if you last long enough, you might outlive most of them.”

Kerry nodded, climbing into the car. They continued along the weed-choked lane, the twin tracks barely visible among the grass and thistles.

“This was once a carriage road,” he said. “Can’t you just see the fancy rigs arriving for a ball, the matched sets of horses prancing as they entered the drive, the ladies and gentlemen in their best party clothes.”

“The lane would be lined with lanterns,” Kerry added, continuing the tale. “A hundred or more candles would brighten the house.”

“You would be the belle of the ball,” he told her, and he could almost see her in a beautiful gown. Who would be her escort? he wondered.

Not him, came the answer from deep within.

“There,” Kerry said. “There, among the trees. I can see a house. The remains of a house,” she corrected.

“This may be Cordon Rouge.”

He followed the broad curve of the road until they came upon a circular driveway. It led to the ruins of what had obviously been an impressive plantation house.

Chimneys and a crumbling brick foundation were visible amid a mad tangle of vines. Three corners of the house still stood and most of a porch. In places, remains of balconies supported by columns still
covered the porch below. Although the roof was long gone, the foundation defined the perimeter of a mansion. It was more than twice as big as the farmhouse where Patti had lived.

“There were porches with balconies on the front and two sides,” Matt pointed out. “Probably in the back as well.”

Oaks, draped in Spanish moss, curved around the circular carriageway and along a wide path that disappeared behind the building. In fact, brick paths were visible all around the grounds.

Beyond the house ruins, he could see a bayou, its banks lush with reeds and wild rice. Bayou Rouge. He wondered how it had gotten its name. It wasn’t red, as rouge implied, but brown, thanks to the release of tannin from decaying plants.

“Even though it’s been untended for seventy years, it’s easy to imagine what the place once looked like,” he said to Kerry. “It must have been impressive.”

She nodded. “Let’s go around to the back. I don’t see a flower garden from here.” She pointed to one side. “That appears to have been a shrub garden. Some of the bushes are still there, but everything’s way overgrown.”

Matt retrieved the urn and gave it to her. Bringing it to her chest, she held it with both hands and started through the weeds.

“Let’s use the porch,” he suggested.

They went up brick steps that were at least eight feet
wide—“to have room for those hoop skirts,” Kerry suggested, giving him a smile for the first time since they’d arrived—and went to the back of the mansion.

He held her arm as they carefully picked out the firm planks and avoided those that were broken. The porch wrapped around all sides, he saw.

“There’s the garden,” Kerry said.

The area was perhaps a quarter of an acre, surrounded by a low rock wall and located halfway between the house and bayou. Tall, graceful pine trees marked each corner. A sidewalk led from the back steps down through the middle of the enclosure. A jardiniere on a pedestal in the middle of a large basin formed the center of the garden and was the focal point from the house.

“That was once a fountain,” Kerry said. “Don’t you think so?”

“Yes.” Holding Kerry’s arm, he led the way along the walk and stopped before the dry basin.

The sunlight caught her eyes as she glanced up at him, then around the enclosure. “This was once a
parterre
or patterned formal garden. You can still see the layout from the brick paths although the flowers and shrubs are gone now. Look, a wild rose has invaded that corner.”

Matt glanced where she pointed. Pale pink flowers grew on the wall near one of the pine trees that stood like a sentinel at the garden’s corner.

“That would be a good place to sprinkle her ashes, wouldn’t it?” he asked, ushering her toward the spot.

Odd, but he felt the need to get Kerry away from the old plantation, which was gradually returning to the marsh. The place felt eerie, as if it would suck the soul out of someone as sensitive as she was.

“Yes,” she said. “I think we should scatter them along the four sides of the garden.” Her voice was low, subdued, as if she was hesitant to disturb any spirits that lingered in this forlorn place.

Unable to dispel his illogical worry, Matt followed Kerry as she sprinkled the ashes down each fence line.

“To the gentle spirit of the east wind,” she said at the end of the path leading to the stone wall in that direction. A rusted wrought-iron bench was discernible through a mound of vines. She opened the urn and sprinkled the ashes in the space between the wall and the brick path.

They returned to the middle of the garden, then walked to the north wall, where the path continued to the house. “To the restless spirit of the north wind,” she said and left a trail of ashes. “To the adventurous spirit of the west wind,” she intoned at that wall, and finally, “To the wise spirit of the south wind.”

He breathed a sigh of relief when the job was done and the urn was empty.

“I suppose we’d better head back,” he said.

She nodded, but didn’t move. “There’s a niche in the pedestal holding the big vase. We can put the urn there.”

Returning to the center of the garden, he held her
hand while she stepped over the shell-shaped edge of the basin and set the carved urn into the narrow recess, which seemed as if it had been made for this purpose.

“There were statues in these niches, I think,” Kerry said, clasping his hand to climb out. “Someone must have taken them, but you can see where the round bases were attached once upon a time.”

Her last words lingered in his mind.
Once upon a time.

Fairy-tale words. Once upon a time, a child and her parents lived on a magical plantation surrounded by pines and oaks and a bayou where crayfish and dragonflies played all day. Life was perfect.

But of course it hadn’t been.

He wondered if he and this petite, caring woman would look back on this week as a time out of their lives, that had drawn them close for a few days before they’d resumed their real lives. Kerry had made it pretty clear that was what she wanted.

“The sidewalk goes to the bayou,” she said. “Let’s walk out there.”

Still holding hands, they made their way around the old fountain, following the walkway to the water. He noted the slant of the shadows on the stream. The sun was still fairly high above the stand of cypress trees west of them, where the bayou curved out of sight. At night, this place would be spooky with the moss swaying from the trees and the wind moaning through the grasses.

He thought of ghosts and vengeful spirits. Although he didn’t believe in such things, he wouldn’t want to be caught back here in the swampland after dark. The road had been hard enough to follow during daylight hours, and he wanted Kerry safely back in the city long before the sun went down.

“We should leave soon,” he reminded her.

She nodded and let go of his hand, her eyes on the darkly flowing ribbon of water as if drawn to it by forces she couldn’t resist.

At the end of the sidewalk, he saw posts that indicated a pier had once stood there to welcome visitors by boat. Only a skeleton of broken planks remained. Kerry, he noted, was fingering the bracelet on her left arm, moving from one charm to the next like a nun saying her rosary.

Again he felt uneasy, though he couldn’t say why.

“There’s a house over there,” she said. “A car is going up the driveway.”

Matt followed her line of vision across the bayou. The sun glinted off a windshield, then another and another.

“More than one,” he said.

“Maybe they’re having a party, a grand afternoon tea. Do people still do those?”

A smile touched her lips, now bare of lipstick, but lush and pink nevertheless. Matt suppressed the hunger that was never far from the surface when he was with Kerry.

“I think it’s called bridge club these days,” Matt teased.

Across the tall grasses that waved in the slight breeze, they could hear voices calling greetings to each other. Again it seemed as if they’d stepped into another era—one of carriages and tea parties and fancy balls.

After the guests went inside the mansion, all was quiet. Kerry turned to him. “Patti’s aunt and uncle live there. My sister found the address for me. I saw the name scrolled in wrought iron over a driveway before we made the last turn coming here.” She turned back to the grand country house across the bayou. “That’s where she lived as an orphan.”

He saw Kerry touch the bracelet again. She was so pensive he slipped an arm around her and held her close to him, the protective urge so strong he couldn’t deny it. There was something fragile about her, as if she might shatter if touched too roughly.

“Atta said Patti was unhappy there.” Kerry nodded toward the house, her hand enclosing the bracelet.

“Yes,” he said.

“But I think she was happy here.”

As if released from an enchantment, they turned as one and surveyed the old plantation house. Kerry smiled up at him. “This was the right thing to do. I can feel it.” She held up her arm so he could see the charm bracelet. “We have done good
Ju-Ju
today. All the roaming spirits are now at rest here.”