After the Night (17 page)

He should have seen it coming, Gray thought, watching his mother. She was still incredibly lovely, in a cool, classic way that would appeal to Alex’s romanticism. Her dark hair was only lightly grayed, and it was remarkably becoming. Her skin was still smooth and unwrinkled, though somehow there was no mistaking her age. There was no youth in her, no lightness of spirit, and sadness always lurked in the depths of her blue eyes. Looking at his mother, at Monica, at
Alex, Gray savagely damned his father for what he had done.

As Alex seated Noelle, he said to Gray, "I heard a curious rumor today, about one of the Devlins." Monica froze, her anxious gaze darting to Noelle, who had gone still and pale. Alex didn’t see Gray’s sharp, warning motion. "I ran into Ed Morgan, and it seems one of the girls has moved back to town."

Alex straightened, his eyes levelly meeting Gray’s, and Gray realized that Alex had chosen not to see his warning. He had deliberately brought up the subject, forcing Noelle to confront it. He had done that a few times before, talking about Guy when Noelle recoiled from any mention of her husband. Perhaps it was the right thing to do; God knows, Alex had been able to get more response from Noelle than either Gray or Monica had ever managed.

Noelle’s hand fluttered toward her throat. "Moved… back?"

"It’s the youngest daughter, Faith," Gray said, keeping his voice calm. "She’s bought the old Cleburne place and moved into it."

"No." Noelle turned her agonized gaze on her son. "I can’t – I can’t bear it."

"Of course you can," Alex said comfortably, taking his seat. "You don’t go out or talk to any of the townspeople, so you’ll never see her or know anything about her. There’s no reason for you to be upset."

Gray leaned back in his chair, controlling a slight smile. He and Monica tended to handle Noelle with kid gloves; he couldn’t help it, even when she frustrated the hell out of him. Alex had no such compunction. He was relentless in his efforts to completely pry her out of her shell and back into society. Probably he was right to bring the subject into the open, and Gray’s and Monica’s inclinations were too protective.

Noelle shook her head, still looking at Gray. "I don’t want her here," she said, openly pleading. "People will talk… it will all be rehashed again, and I can’t bear it."

"You won’t know anything about it," Alex said.

She shuddered. "I don’t have to hear it to know it’s going on."

No, she probably didn’t. Anyone who had ever lived in a small town would know all too well how gossip was recycled, and nothing was ever forgotten.

"Please," she said to Gray, blue eyes haunted. "Make her leave."

Gray sipped his wine, carefully expressionless. He was getting damn tired of the way people thought he could wave a magic wand and make people disappear. Short of kidnapping or murder, all he could do was make things as uncomfortable for Faith as possible. He had no legal ground this time, no charge of trespass, no family of drunks and thieves the sheriff had been glad to escort out of his parish. What he had was one young woman, stubbornly determined to stand her ground.

"It won’t be easy," he said.

"But you have so much influence… with the sheriff, the bank – "

"She hasn’t opened an account at the bank, and the sheriff can’t do anything unless she breaks a law. So far, she hasn’t." She wouldn’t be opening an account at his bank, either, he realized. She was too smart. She had known exactly what she would be facing when she moved back to Prescott, otherwise she wouldn’t have bought the Cleburne place outright. She had taken steps to limit what moves he could make against her. He had to respect her as an opponent, for her foresight. She had definitely made things more difficult for him. He would check around, use his sources to try to verify that she had indeed paid for the house rather than financing it, but he suspected she had been telling the truth.

"There must be something," Noelle said desperately.

Gray arched his brows. "I draw the line at murder," he drawled.

"Gray!" Shocked, she stared at him. "I wasn’t suggesting anything of the sort!"

"Then we may have to get used to the idea of her living here. I can make things damned inconvenient for her, but
that’s about it. And I don’t want anyone getting any bright ideas about having her physically harassed," he said, giving both Monica and Noelle a hard look, just in case the thought had occurred to either of them. It wasn’t likely, but he didn’t intend to take the chance. "If we can get rid of her my way, fine, but I won’t have her hurt." He didn’t question this odd protectiveness on behalf of a Devlin. Faith had had enough pain and fear in her life, he thought, remembering the terrified girl caught in the glare of a semicircle of headlights.

"As if we’d do anything like that," Monica said, insulted.

"I didn’t think you would, but I didn’t want to leave the matter open to question."

Delfina brought in the first course, a creamy cucumber soup, and by mutual consent the subject was dropped, to Gray’s amusement. There wasn’t anything going on in the house that Oriane and Delfina didn’t know almost as soon as it happened, but Noelle and Monica both adhered to the old stricture against personal conversation in front of the servants. He doubted that anyone who worked for them considered him or herself a "servant," especially Delfina. She had worked there for as long as he could remember, and had whacked his hands with a wooden spoon whenever she’d caught him trying to sneak one of the petit fours she baked for Noelle’s luncheons.

Monica began telling Alex about an interesting documentary she’d seen on television. Gray glanced at Noelle to make a comment, and stilled when he saw the tears gliding silently down her cheeks. She was calmly eating her soup, the spoon dipping and lifting in graceful rhythm, and all the while she was crying.

Alex joined Gray in the study after dinner, and they discussed business for half an hour before Gray said wryly, "Monica and I had decided not to tell Mother about Faith."

Alex grimaced. "I figured as much. I know it isn’t my place to butt in – " Gray snorted, bringing a quick grin to Alex’s face before he resumed. "But she can’t keep hiding from the world forever."

"Can’t she? She’s been giving it a damn good try for the past twelve years."

"If she won’t go to the world, I’ve decided to bring the world to her. Maybe she’ll see that, if she can’t escape it, she might as well join it."

"Good luck," Gray said, and meant it.

Alex gave him a curious look. "Are you really going to make Faith leave?"

Gray leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the desk, lounging like a sleepy panther, relaxed but still dangerous. "I’m damn sure going to try, but I told Mother the truth. Legally, there isn’t a lot I can do."

"Why not leave the girl alone?" Alex asked, and sighed. "I’d say she’s had a rough enough life as it is, without folks deliberately trying to make trouble for her."

"Have you seen her?"

"No, why?"

"She looks enough like Renee to be her twin," Gray said. "Just being a Devlin is bad enough, but looking the way she does…" He shook his head. "She’s going to stir up a lot of memories, and not just in my family. Renee Devlin got
around."

"I still say give her a chance," Alex argued. "If she’s trying to make something of herself, it would be a shame to stand
in her way."

Gray shook his head. "I have to think of Mother and Monica. They’re more important to me than a little piece of white trash trying to make good."

Alex regarded him with disappointment. Gray was a hard man and a dangerous enemy, but he’d always been fair. Guy’s disappearance had thrust him headlong into a situation wherein responsibility for the family’s financial, as well as emotional, well-being had been dumped on his young shoulders. Gray had been a cheerful, happy-go-lucky hell-raiser until then, but overnight he had changed into a much harder, more ruthless man. His sense of humor still bordered on the bawdy and outrageous, when he indulged in humor, but for the most part he was far more serious. Gray was a man who knew the extent of his power, and didn’t shrink from using it. If Guy had been respected in the financial community, Gray was regarded with the awe and caution one would afford a marauder.

"You’re too protective," Alex finally said. "Noelle and Monica won’t collapse if Faith Devlin lives in Prescott. They won’t like it, but they’ll learn to live with it."

Gray shrugged. Maybe – hell, probably – he was too protective, but Alex wasn’t the one who had watched Monica nearly bleed to death, or seen how total Noelle’s emotional collapse had been. By the time Alex had become involved in cajoling Noelle out of her room, at least she’d been talking again, and feeding herself.

"I give up," Alex said, shaking his head. "You’ll do whatever you want, anyway. But think about it, and maybe cut the girl some slack."

Later that night, sitting alone in the study with his feet still propped on the desk in his usual position, while he read a financial report on some stocks he’d bought, Gray found it difficult to concentrate. It wasn’t the Scotch; he had poured himself a drink when he had begun doing paperwork, over two hours before, and most of the liquor was still in the glass. The fact was, he couldn’t get the problem of Faith Devlin out of his mind. Noelle’s silent tears had reached him in a way nothing she could have said would have. If Faith didn’t deserve to be hurt again, neither did his mother or sister. They had been innocent victims too, and Monica had almost died. He couldn’t forget that, and he couldn’t see them upset without trying to do something about it.

And it was a fact that if Faith Hardy stayed in Prescott, Noelle and Monica would be even more hurt and upset than they were now.

Gray stared broodingly at the level of Scotch in the glass. Maybe if he drank it, he could forget how warm and vital Faith had felt under his hands, how that sweet, spicy scent of hers had gone straight to his head and made him dizzy with lust. Maybe if he drank the whole goddamn bottle, he could forget about the urge to plunge his hands into the fire of her hair to see if it burned him, or the hunger to taste the wide, full bloom of her lips. He thought of her skin, so fine-grained and translucent that he marked her with the lightest touch; her breasts, high and round, the peaks of her nipples discernible even beneath her bra. She had
it,
the same indefinable quality Renee had possessed, an effortless sensuality that drew men to her like a lodestone. Faith wasn’t as blatant about it as Renee had been; she had toned it down with better clothes, but the quality had merely been refined, not diluted. What Faith Hardy looked like was a classy lady who loved a long, hard ride in bed, and damn if he didn’t want to give it to her.

If she didn’t leave, it was likely that the residents of Prescott were going to be shocked out of their small-town minds, and Noelle ten times more upset than she was now, by the spectacle of another Rouillard man having a hot and heavy aiFair with a Devlin woman.

Eight

Ed Morgan made a point of meeting Faith at the door as she entered the grocery store. "Sorry," he said, not looking the least bit regretful. "I don’t have anything you need."

Faith stopped, and gave him a cool look. "You don’t know what I need," she pointed out.

"Doesn’t matter." He folded his arms and smirked at her. "Guess you’ll have to shop somewhere else."

Faith controlled her temper. She detected the fine hand of Gray Rouillard in this, and getting into an argument with Mr. Morgan wouldn’t accomplish anything except possibly getting her arrested for causing a public disturbance, which would suit Gray just fine.

He had kept his word about making it difficult for her to live-in the parish. Not ten minutes earlier, the attendant at the service station where she stopped had gleefully told her that they were out of gas, and she’d have to go elsewhere. At the tune, the man at the next pump had been filling his car.

If Gray thought this would send her packing, he had seriously underestimated his opponent. She could sue these people for refusing service, but that wouldn’t make her very popular in town. She intended to live here, so she discarded that option. Besides, the real battle was between her and Gray; everyone else was secondary.

She shrugged as she turned to leave. "Fine. If you can do without my money, I can do without your groceries."

"All the other stores in town are in the same predicament," he called after her, gloating. "Fresh out of whatever
it is you want."

Faith contemplated giving him the finger, but resisted the urge; he might take it as an invitation. She walked calmly back to her car. Obviously she’d have to do her shopping and buy her gasoline somewhere else, but it was only an inconvenience, not an insurmountable problem.

Inconvenient in the short term, that is; long term, she would have to do something about it. And in the
very
shprt term, she was mad as hell.

There was a pay phone on the corner. Faith stalked past her car and down to the open kiosk. This one had a phone book in it, swinging from a stiff metal cord. It would be just like the Rouillards to have an unlisted number, she silently fumed as she opened the thin little book and flipped through the pages until she reached the
Rs.
But no, there it was. She dug a quarter out of her purse and fed it into the slot, then punched in the number.