A Cry at Midnight (38 page)

"There's no such thing as traveling through sketches into another time."

"You don't think it will work?"

"Randi, love, I don't even believe you're from another time. How can I believe you can return there?"

He closed his eyes against her hurt expression. He wanted nothing more than to curl up into his soft, comfortable bed with Randi and fall into a deep, drugging sleep. He could do nothing else tonight to save the levee. In the end, all he might have left were Randi, Rose, a waterlogged house and flooded fields.

"Randi, I'm sorry I can't believe your story."

"I'm sorry too," she whispered.

He felt her rise from the floor. Rose whimpered. "I'm going to take her up to bed."

"Come back," he said, opening his eyes to see his sleepy daughter snuggle next to Randi. "Come and stay with me. Nothing more."

He watched the confusion in her eyes before she turned and walked toward the door. "I'll come back," she said before she went out of the room.

Jackson closed his eyes again and let his head fall back against the chair. Randi was right about one thing; he couldn't let that puff-headed idiot Thomas Crowder gain control of Black Willow Grove or Rose. Jackson vowed he'd make other provisions. Just in case . . .

#

Randi slipped back into Jackson's room after taking Rose up to Suzette. The conversation had been unsettling, to say the least. Suzette had overheard enough of an earlier conversation with Lebeau to pique her curiosity. She wanted to know if Randi knew powerful chants or carried strong magic in her bag. When she'd tried to explain that she didn't know how she'd arrived at Black Willow Grove, Suzette had looked skeptical. Randi had come away from the nursery with a feeling of unease, as though Suzette expected more answers than were available to any of them.

Randi didn't believe for a minute that Suzette would not give Rose the best care. She just seemed more interested in Randi's answers than the rest of the people here. Maybe she was more willing to believe because she needed some salvation in her life. Whatever the reason for Suzette's persistent questions about what was going to happen to all of them, she was not going to be easily convinced that Randi didn't have all the answers.

She closed the door, her eyes focusing on Jackson, still sitting in his chair by the fireplace, sound asleep. She walked toward him, hoping he'd wake naturally. He didn't.

"Jackson," she said after she knelt beside him. "You need to go to bed now."

He stirred, half opening one eye. "Randi?"

"Yes."

"For just a moment, you sounded like my mother. Then I realized she wouldn't have called me Jackson."

"Why?" she asked, smoothing a lock of hair back from his eyes. "What would she have called you?"

"Jacques," he answered in a sleepy voice before closing his eye.

Randi frowned, resting her bottom on her heels. Jacques? He'd said the name so naturally, with a slightly French inflection. Was that his mother's nickname for him? Perhaps she'd been French.

"Come on," Randi coaxed, lifting one of his arms. "Let's get you in bed."

"That's a nice offer," he mumbled, helping her by pushing out of the chair. He stumbled toward the bed with her support under one of his shoulders.

"I don't remember ever being this tired."

"You ought to be tired. You worked at least ten hours for two days, then around the clock this last day. Did you eat?"

"Yes," he said, sitting heavily on the mattress. He smiled slightly in a strange way that made Randi think of the word "goofy." "Violet brought me some sweet potato biscuits and slivered ham on a little silver tray."

"Violet! You're supposed to be out working your buns off to save this plantation and
Violet
brings you sweet potato biscuits?" Randi knew she was nearly yelling, but couldn't stop the rush of red-hot anger that the bimbette's name evoked.

Jackson turned his head and looked up at her while he reached for his shoe. "You're jealous."

"I'm furious, that's what I am," she said with a huff. "I don't understand what you men see in women like her."

"I never said I saw anything about her that I liked. As a matter of fact, I thought this conversation about Miss Crowder was closed long ago." He pulled off the other shoe, then his socks.

"Believe me, she doesn't think the issue is closed if she braved the rain and mud to bring you dainty little biscuits on a silver tray."

"Randi," he said, reaching for her waist, pulling her between his spread knees. "I have no interest in Violet. I didn't love Pansy, and I sure don't love her little sister."

"Lebeau said you needed to marry someone from your class."

"Lebeau was telling you what he thought I wanted you to hear." Jackson sighed, resting his head against her stomach and pulling her closer. "And he knows better than anyone that in truth, the Crowders are as far removed from me in class as he is from the President of the United States."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm so tired. Will you lie down with me and let me tell you a story of a boy who wanted very much to become wealthy and respected?"

"Jackson, what--"

He reached for the hooks at the back of her dress. "Just lie down with me and let me tell you. Then you'll understand why saving Black Willow Grove is so important to me."

With only the single candle burning on the mantle, she could barely see his face in the shadows of his canopied bed, his cheek pressed against her stomach. But she felt his warm fingers, steadily unfastening each hook, and she felt the cool air that eased into the opening when he separated the fabric.

When he finished with her dress, she pushed the robe and shirt from his shoulders, then pulled them from his arms. Silently, he unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down his hips. She watched with greedy eyes, noticing at once that despite his exhaustion and the cool night air, he was moderately aroused.

So much for just lying there and talking . . . not that she had any complaints.

Quickly, becoming chilled in the damp air, she finished undressing and slid beneath the covers. If they were going to lie side by side, they might as well be comfortable. And if she only had a short time with Jackson, she didn't want to spend it fighting over some woman Randi knew in her heart didn't have a chance with Jackson. He really was too smart to fall for Violet's transparent charms.

"You're cold," he said, slipping beneath the blankets behind her. He curled them together, spoon style, with her bottom fitting very nicely against his hips and thighs.

"You'd better start talking to me soon, Jackson, or you're going to be a lot more tired than you were when you entered this bedroom."

He chucked, the poof of air stirring the hair on her neck and sending shivers down her spine. "I'll talk. You need to understand that I've never told anyone about my past."

"I thought you said Lebeau knew."

"He does, but mostly because of where we met."

"Is that where the story starts?"

"Not really. I suppose the beginning of Jackson Durant occurred when a young boy was spit upon and thrown into the mud because he wasn't good enough to play with the children of the wealthy planters who passed through town on their way to church or market."

"You were poor."

"More than poor. We lived in a shack not far from the river, just out of New Orleans. My father worked, when he could, at the docks. He wasn't a healthy man, though, and his cure for his indisposition was rum."

"He was an alcoholic."

"If that means he loved to drink, then you're right. My mother, God rest her soul, took in laundry and raised me and my brother with nothing but hand-me-downs and hope."

"She did a good job, then. You've succeeded."

Randi felt Jackson draw in a deep breath, his head restless on the pillow behind hers. "She never knew," he whispered. "I left home at the age of fourteen to make my fortune. She begged me not to go, but I told her I was going to make enough money to take all of them out of our shack and into a fine home. I promised her she'd have servants to do her laundry, and she'd never have to wash other people's clothes again."

"What happened?" Randi whispered.

"Less than a year after I left, a fire raged through the shacks. My family was killed, still lying in their beds as dry tinder and greased paper and oiled cloth burned around them."

"Oh, Jackson, I'm so sorry." She turned in his arms, smoothing her hands over his face, urging him to take whatever comfort he could find in her arms.

A shudder passed through his body as she held him. Then he was quiet and still, his breath warm on her neck.

"What did you do then?" she finally asked.

"I took the money I'd earned working along the river, from New Orleans to Louisville, and I learned to gamble."

"Gamble? You mean you were one of those slick riverboat gamblers like Brett Maverick?"

"Who?"

"Never mind. Go ahead with your story."

"I learned how to take money from dock workers with monte, then I perfected my skill with chuck-a-luck on spectators to horse races. I shot craps with patrons of boxing matches. Before long, I was playing poker with deck passengers around the steamboats on the Mississippi. That's where I met Lebeau."

"He was a passenger?"

Jackson shifted, lying on his back and pulling Randi close to his side. "No, he was working at the docks in Baton Rouge. I was not yet twenty, but still a good-sized man. One of the players took offense at my card-playing abilities."

"He accused you of cheating," she clarified.

"Yes, he did. As he weighed considerably more than me and was at least ten years older, I was reluctant to test my luck in a fight. We were negotiating the terms of a rematch at cards when he became enraged and threw me off the ship. Lebeau happened to be the man I flattened in my fall."

"What a way to meet."

"Lebeau said something similar, only more colorful. When he discovered I'd been thrown into him and the other man was itching for a fight, he decided to help me out. He could have walked away, or defended himself with a length of chain, but he challenged the man himself."

"At cards?"

"No, at head butting."

"What in the world is that?"

"Two men square off, then run at each other. The one with the thickest skull and strongest neck usually wins."

"That's barbaric!"

"Lebeau was very good at the sport."

"Why would he . . . Oh, never mind. That's probably a different story."

"Yes, it is. He can tell you some time if he'd like."

Randi seriously doubted she would be here to learn Lebeau's secrets, but she didn't want to remind Jackson of that. "Then what happened?"

"After Lebeau knocked the man out, we were asked to leave the docks. I didn't have anywhere else to go, since my clothes and personal items were aboard the ship, so I ended up camping with him at a shack not too different from where I'd grown up."

"That must have brought back memories."

"Ones I didn't welcome. Once Lebeau told me his story, I realized that I'd let the tragedy of my family's death harden me to life. Other people had overcome far more serious hurdles and succeeded. Lebeau and I decided to team up. He'd been raised as a house servant on a large, wealthy plantation, but had no use for the manners and taste he'd acquired. I'd grown up poor, but wanted to learn everything he knew. With his skills and the color of my skin, we did very well."

"What do you mean?"

"I played cards. He helped me buy clothes and personal items to make me look more the gentleman. He helped me with my speech, and reminded me of the importance of being well read--something my mother had also preached. In short, Lebeau turned me into Jackson Durant."

"You say that like you were a different person before."

"I was. You see, a poor Cajun has no chance to become a wealthy landowner who can mix freely with the white planters. I found that out after I acquired my first plantation, a smaller place near Monroe, Louisiana."

"What happened?"

"Although I had enough money to improve the land, refurbish the house, and bring in good crops, none of the planters wanted their daughters to associate with a Cajun who had pulled himself up by his bootstraps. In short, despite all the trappings of wealth, I lacked the one thing that they wanted: respectability."

"See, that's exactly the kind of prejudice I was talking about earlier." She stiffened, the turned on her side to face him. "But you understood that all along. Every time I said something about your past or made some assumption, you could have told me the truth."

"I didn't know you well enough to speak of my secrets."

"You could have at least told me you understood."

"Randi, if I had said those words, you would have asked me how I understood. I've found at times it's best to remain silent around you."

"That sounds pretty manipulative," she said as she relaxed he head on his shoulder. "I'm not mad, though. I understand how this must have been hard for you. You've been keeping the same kind of secret that I have."