Luke (12 page)

He stopped, listening intently. It wasn't mechanical, but was some kind of animal. It came again, and yet again, gathering in volume with each cry. Easing to his feet, he moved to the balcony railing and leaned over to search the tangle of honeysuckle vines and briar roses that edged the wood beyond the old side garden.

Something black and low to the ground caught his attention. It was heading toward the house, yowling in high dudgeon as it came. As it crossed a clearing, a slow grin spread over Luke's face.

Pushing from the railing, he crossed to the nearest French door and opened it to stick his head inside
the house. “April,” he called. “Can you come out here?”

It was a few seconds before she joined him. As she stepped to his side, she said, “This had better be good, because I was just…”

She trailed off as Midnight squalled again. She whirled away to stare down at the cat, then her eyes met Luke's again as the pupils widened into pools of amazement. She spun around and ran back into the house. He heard her quick steps on the stairs.

A moment later, she emerged below. Luke stayed where he was long enough to watch the delight that shone in her face as the cat sprang from the ground to land in her arms. He picked up his tools then, and went down to join her.

“Look at this,” she demanded as she thrust the ragged end of a worn nylon leash toward him. “It's been bitten through, as if someone had Midnight tied up. Who would do a thing like that?”

She was blinking, as if trying to get rid of the tears that welled in her eyes, he thought. He pretended not to see as he said, “Kids who found him roaming around? Another cat lover?”

The look she gave him was scathing. “Oh, come on.”

“You'd rather believe it was somebody out to hurt you?” He reached to scratch behind the cat's ears as he waited for her answer.

“I prefer to face facts when they're staring me in the face,” she returned, watching as Midnight offered his jaw to be scratched. “Oh, I suppose it could be a coincidence that somebody chose to tie him up now, but he's been roaming around here for
over a year without any problem. Doesn't that mean anything to you?”

“It means trouble has a way of piling up on people.”

She made a sound of annoyance. “Yes, and I suppose you've been working on my door locks because you were in the mood.”

“It just seemed like a sensible precaution.” He didn't know why he was so reluctant to admit her cat might have been kidnapped, except that he hated the idea of her worrying about it.

She was silent a moment, her gaze still on Midnight who was stretching his neck to allow it to be rubbed, half falling out of April's arms as he tried to push under Luke's hard hand. Abruptly, she said, “He likes you. Ordinarily, he doesn't care for men.”

“His neck's irritated from the leash, that's all,” Luke answered.

“Is it?” she asked, and lifted her questioning gaze to his. “Or has he gotten used to you? Maybe in the last week or so?”

He should be used to that kind of slap in the face, but somehow he never expected it. What kind of answer he would have made this time, he had no idea. He was saved from the necessity by a passing car.

The vehicle, a sporty compact, slowed as it rounded the big curve where the road from town passed in front of Mulberry Point. The driver's head swiveled as he stared at Luke and April standing there so close together in the front yard. The guy continued to stare, in spite of the bend in the road.
Then as he saw them looking, he snapped his head around and gunned the car. In seconds, he was out of sight.

“Well, of all the…” April began, then stopped. “Who was that?”

“You don't recognize your old boyfriend?” Luke took his hand away from the cat and thrust it into the pocket of his jeans. As she turned a frown in his direction, he added. “Frank Randall?”

“Oh.”

It was not a very eloquent comment, considering that Mary Ellen Randall had been Frank's sister. Frank had been a big, burley loner with little to say for himself. He'd joined the air force a couple of months after his sister died. There'd been a couple of weeks during which he and April had hung around together. Luke thought there'd been nothing much to it other than April feeling sorry for Frank, but he'd never been sure. Mary Ellen's brother had shipped out to basic training and that had been that. Now he said, “Frank's been back in town a while, seems to have decided that he didn't want to be a career serviceman after all. You haven't seen him around?”

She shook her head. “Someone, maybe Betsy down at the motel, mentioned that he'd left the service. So, what's he doing now?”

“He's trying to start a guide service for fishing and swamp tours. The trailer he and Mary Ellen were brought up in isn't far off the lake, so he knows the backwaters pretty well.”

“A guide service? You think he'll do anything with that?”

“Use it as a fine excuse to fish, hunt or whatever he wants,” Luke returned with a crooked smile.

“I might have known you'd make a joke of it,” she said, and turned away from him.

Luke hadn't been joking. It seemed as good a time as any to call it a day.

 

April watched Luke drive off while she rocked Midnight back and forth in her arms like a baby. When he was out of sight, she buried her face in the cat's fur for a long moment, in need of a brand of comfort that she couldn't give a name. Then she sighed and lifted her head. She shouldn't let the man upset her, but how could she help it? He was there every time she looked up. He could get to her in ways no one else had ever tried, much less managed. He made her say things she regretted. He turned her into some kind of harridan full of suspicion, then managed to make her feel guilty for it.

He also made her feel safe while he was around, and that was frightening. She didn't need a man to feel secure, didn't want one. Even now, in the short time that he'd been gone, she felt exposed and vulnerable here outside her house. It was all she could do to force herself to make her way slowly back inside with her cat instead of running for the door and locking it behind her.

Her hand was not quite steady as she smoothed the silkiness of Midnight's coat while she carried him down the hall. She was desperately glad to have him back again. She'd been afraid, so afraid, that he was gone for good, even dead. She hadn't realized how much she cared until she nearly lost him.
It had been all she could do not to let Luke see her cry.

How long had it been since she'd come so close to tears? She was relieved in a way to know that it was possible. That she could still feel something, love something to the point of tears, even if it was only Midnight, was good to know.

In the kitchen, the cat wound in and out around her legs as she opened a can of food for him and raked it into his dish. Watching him eat as if it were his first meal in days, she tightened her lips. Luke hadn't wanted to admit that someone might have taken her pet. Why was that, unless he knew more than he was telling?

She wrapped her arms around her in the air-conditioned chill of the room. It was disorienting to think that about him one moment while she was lusting after his body the next. That was all it was, of course; she wouldn't dignify whatever it was that she'd felt as she stared up at Luke on the roof earlier with a less crass description. It was an automatic response now, she supposed, a natural female reaction to male power and grace so handsomely displayed against a summer sky. She had sensed the intense current of life that flowed through him and longed to reach out to touch it and be touched by it. It had been a brief impulse, almost like a daydream. He'd laugh himself silly if he ever knew.

The thought had also flashed through her mind that maybe Julianne was right, maybe it might be possible to allow him back into her life on a purely physical level. Surely she could manage an affair with no attachment, no future to cause complica
tions. All those advantages Julianne had mentioned would be present. She might get over her sensitivity where he was concerned, as well.

She'd almost had a heart attack when she realized he'd seen the photos she had posted above her computer. She shuddered even now, just thinking about it. How she'd managed to pass it off, she wasn't quite sure, but brazening it out had seemed the only way. Luke seemed to accept what she said, but she didn't make the mistake of thinking that was the end of it. No doubt he would bring it up again, and might even try to use it to get to her. The surprise was that he hadn't turned such a damning piece of evidence to his own advantage at once.

Not that anything she'd claimed had been false, of course.

It was odd, but her book had been going well before Luke had interrupted with the news of Midnight's return. Describing him exactly as he'd looked up there on the roof, how the sight of such a man had made her heroine feel, had been the catalyst for a torrent of words. They'd come so fast, in such an endless stream of good, solid sentences that she couldn't keep up with them, couldn't hit the computer keys quickly enough. Even now, she couldn't wait to get back to her story. As soon as Midnight finished, the two of them would go straight to her office.

It was much later when April finally hit the Save key on her keyboard, backed up her day's work on a disk, then turned off her computer. She stretched tiredly, crossing her arms behind her head, then rose from her chair. The long summer evening had given
her several more hours of working time. She'd finished a whole chapter, which was nearly twice her average day's work. It felt great. More importantly, it gave her hope that she might finally be coming out of her slump.

The room was dark since she hadn't bothered to turn on a light as darkness fell, working only by the glow of her computer screen. She made for the door with firm steps, since she knew exactly how the room was arranged. Behind her, Midnight leaped down from where he'd been sprawled across her desk and padded along at her heels.

April was into the central hall when she heard the vehicle. It was coming at breakneck speed, its brakes squealing as it rounded the curve beyond her drive. She paused near the parlor doorway as the blinding flash of headlights stabbed through the sidelights around the great entrance door, then traveled across the scenic wallpaper of the hallway. She watched that wild swing even as she reached for the light switch beside the parlor door.

Abruptly there was a cracking report. The glass sidelight next to the door crashed inward with a shudder of its lace curtain and the tinkling rain of glass. A sharp cry scraped April's throat. She dropped to a crouch. Midnight hissed and fled. Tires squealed as rubber peeled away with the vehicle's sudden acceleration.

The streaking headlight beams vanished. The night settled and all was quiet and dark once more.

“Y
ou called Roan, but didn't call me? You didn't think I might be interested in hearing that somebody was using you for target practice?”

April looked up at that rough question. Luke was walking toward her across the restaurant's back room. “Roan is the sheriff,” she answered after a second. “What were you going to do after the fact, anyway? Come hold my hand?”

“If that's what you needed.”

She hadn't needed it, but it might have been nice. Though she was not about to tell him that. As she returned to unloading her briefcase onto the conference-size table between them, she said, “What I needed was someone to find out who might have done it.”

“And Roan managed that?”

“It was just a drive-by shooting, might even have been an accident.”

“An accident.” His tone told her exactly what he thought of that idea.

“Probably a stray bullet from some idiot shooting at a highway sign.”

“I don't remember any road signs near your house.”

“There's one for the curve.”

“Too far away and the wrong angle.”

“Maybe,” she returned in clipped agreement, “but the principle is the same.”

“It wasn't a principle that shot at you. Did Roan recover the lead?”

She nodded. “It was in the wall. He seemed to think it came from a .270 Remington.”

“The deer rifle of choice for half the men in Tunica Parish.” Luke shook his head in disgust. “It figures.”

“So Roan said.” She closed her briefcase and set it beside her chair, then sat down. “I suppose he told you about the shooting?”

“After I'd heard it from three other people.”

“I might have known,” she said in dry recognition of the speed and accuracy of the Turn-Coupe grapevine. Since half the people in town were either Benedicts or related to the family, news of accidents and disasters sped from the courthouse and hospital to the far corners of the parish faster than a computer network. “So, what are you doing here?”

“I'm on this committee, too.” His smile held grim pleasure, even as he looked away to nod at the other members straggling into the room, taking their seats up and down the long table.

“Since when? You've never shown up for a meeting before.” April heard the suspicion in her voice but couldn't help it.

“Since this morning. Betsy always brings in a few strong backs as the festival date rolls around.”

Luke's cousin, Betsy North, was the owner of the local motel, and a very likable woman who got
things done and took no nonsense from anyone while doing it. She was also chairperson for the River Pirate Revel so Luke's appointment made a weird kind of sense. The coincidence was too much for April's logical mind, however, and the look she gave him said so.

“I swear,” he said as he held up his hand in pledge of scout's honor. “I'm also on the kidnapping committee.”

“And who's elected this year besides the mayor and sheriff?”

He gave her a wicked grin. “Can't tell, but I promise they won't like it.”

“I can imagine.”

A feature of the festival was the invasion of Turn-Coupe by gun-toting, knife-wielding pirates. They swarmed from the river two miles away to take over the town for a day as these river rats were said to have done in the early nineteenth century. For twenty-four hours, all law and order was suspended. Town officials were captured and held to ransom to benefit charity. Prominent businesspeople and other citizens were also fair game for the costumed desperadoes, and pretty girls were swept up as prisoners with many a mock ferocious or lustful threat. The theatrics were all in good fun, though things could sometimes get out of hand due to high liquor consumption.

“Are you going with the spirit of things this year, or are you too high-hat for that?” Luke asked, lowering his voice and dropping into the chair across from her as the other committee members talked back and forth around them.

She gave him an incredulous stare. “You want to know if I'll be wearing a costume? And I'm supposed to tell you, knowing you'll be looking for captives? Fat chance!”

“Come on. You can afford to be held hostage.”

“It's not the money that worries me,” she said shortly.

“What does?” His lips curved in a slow smile as he studied the expression on her face. “Being in my power? Is that it? Hey, you might discover untold advantages.”

She didn't much care for the look in his eyes or for the sensation it caused in the pit of her stomach. “Yes, and you might have a surprise or two yourself.”

“Can't wait.”

His voice was a deep and suggestive purr. He was doing it to rattle her, she knew. The annoying thing was how well it worked. “I'll consider myself warned. You'll have to find me first.”

“No problem,” he said with velvet promise in his eyes.

She believed him, and she hated that. She made no answer, however. At that moment, Betsy, resplendent in a pantsuit in a bright turquoise-and-purple print that looked striking rather than outrageous on her large form, strode to the head of the table and banged on her iced tea glass with a spoon in a nerve-jarring clatter for attention. The festival committee was directed to go pick up their plate lunches so they could all get to work.

A number of issues needed to be discussed and voted upon. These were taken care of with dispatch
under Betsy's able direction. The last item on the agenda was the vending and craft booths that would line the square in front of the courthouse. It occasioned a scintillating discussion of the rival merits of smoked turkey legs, roasted corn in the shuck, and funnel cakes versus pine needle baskets, crocheted doilies and bear statues hacked out with chain saws. With matters settled to everyone's satisfaction, they adjourned.

The mayor, who had shown up at the last minute, collared Luke with a question about the kidnappings. April used that bit of luck to round up her comparison sheets on various drink booths and head for her car. She made it to the parking lot before she heard a call behind her. It was only Betsy, however, and she turned to face her with a silent sigh of relief.

“Where are you off to so fast, hon?” Betsy asked as she came closer. “I wanted to invite you to a little houseboat party as a kickoff for this shindig.”

“Oh, I don't know…” April began doubtfully.

“Now don't be that way. It's not going to kill you to have a drink and talk to a few people. You're the only claim to fame this town's got, and the least you can do is let us show you off.”

“I didn't know you had a houseboat.”

“Not mine, doll. Belongs to a couple of friends from down around Ferriday way. They're bringing it up the Mississippi just for the festival. It'll be anchored at the marina over on the river where the river pirates will be coming in, so they'll have a great view of all the abducting and other shenanigans. I told them I might talk you into coming for
their welcoming party, maybe even spending the night on board later. How 'bout it? Come on. Live a little.”

April's mouth curved in a wry smile. “That's the second time today I've been as good as accused of being a stick-in-the-mud.”

“Well, you're not exactly a party girl, now are you? I remember a time when you weren't so standoffish. You and Luke could always be depended on to be in the thick of things.”

So they could, April thought, but was she really more outgoing back then or had it been Luke's influence? Was she a natural introvert or had she only become one as a part of her vocation and her retreat from all the things she and Luke had enjoyed together?

She really didn't know. In a sudden urge to find out, she said, “Tell your friend I'll be there.”

“That's great! She's a big fan of yours, and will be so excited.”

April only smiled since she never quite knew what to say to that kind of comment. Standing there, she felt a prickling at the back of her neck, as if she were being watched. She glanced around but saw no one except Luke heading toward her and Betsy.

“Excited about what?” he asked as if he had a perfect right to know.

“April agreeing to the party you thought she should attend,” Betsy told him in triumph.

“You got her to agree? You're the greatest,” he said, and gave her a quick hug.

April, watching them, said with an edge in her voice, “Nothing was said about Luke.”

“Oh, didn't I mention he'd be dropping in?” Betsy tipped her head, her glance roguish as she looked from April to the laughing, dark-haired man.

“You know you didn't.”

“Sue me,” she said in cheerful unconcern. “We'll have a great time, just you wait and see.” With a wave of her hand, she strode away in the direction of her car.

Neither April nor Luke spoke as they watched Betsy drive off. Finally, April asked, “Why are you masterminding my life? And when are you going to stop?”

“I don't know that I'd call it masterminding, exactly.” Luke rubbed a finger along his jaw in a meditative gesture.

“Does
interfering
strike you as any better? Or maybe
meddling?
What is it with you? What do you want?”

“Do I have to want something?”

“Most people do,” she answered, then pressed her lips together as she wished she could take that back.

“Do they?” He paused, then added, “Yes, I can see how they might. All right, then, I'm just as bad. I want you, just you. How's that?”

She turned her head slowly to search his face. “You don't give up, do you? I told you…”

“So resist, already. That's your part, isn't it?”

It was what she had vowed, the traditional role of women. Why, then, was it so unsatisfactory?

“Suppose I don't,” she said in tight tones. “Where do you think we could possibly go from this hot encounter you seem so set on having?”

“God, April…”

“I asked you a question.” He was not, she thought, the most introspective of men. It was entirely possible he'd never thought beyond the bedroom, though she couldn't be sure of that.

He stared at her a second longer, then he nodded. “All right, so I don't know where we'll go. It all depends on how we feel. Or rather, it depends on how you feel since it's usually the lady's call.”

“No, it isn't,” she said in swift contradiction. “It takes two to make a relationship.”

“You're really thinking about this?” he demanded, his eyes searching.

“We're discussing it, aren't we?” She refused to meet his gaze more than an instant.

“Are we? It sounds to me as if you're discussing a clinical experiment.”

Maybe he was sharper than she'd imagined, or else it was sheer self-protection to think of him as insensitive. “You'd prefer to just jump in without knowing what it's all about?”

“I'd prefer more heart and less brain power.”

“I didn't know hearts came into it at all. I rather thought different anatomical parts altogether were involved.”

He laughed, a winded sound, before he asked, “What happened to you, love? When did you get to be such a cynic?”

“Pain turns you that way,” she answered shortly.

“I don't want to be hurt any more.”

“So, what exactly are you suggesting?”

“I don't know that I'm suggesting anything. I'm
only trying to see what I'd be setting myself up for, whether a casual affair or an intense one.”

“And you'd prefer the first.” His voice was hard as he made that guess.

She wasn't sure, but she didn't mean to let him know it. “What if I would?”

He was silent as his gaze moved over her face and down the curve of her neck to the quick rise and fall of her breasts under her shirt. Abruptly, he said, “Why? Is it because that's all you're capable of giving? Or only that you think I have nothing else to offer?”

He was definitely more attuned to what was happening than she wanted to consider. “Neither,” she answered. “It just isn't worth any greater risk.”

“What would the greatest risk be, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice tight. “Falling in love maybe? It's a pretty high price to pay, all right, but any game has some risk.”

“So it is just a game to you. I thought so.”

“I don't know that it is, but I do know it's not an experiment.”

She made a small sound that was not quite a laugh. The mix of pain and humor she felt was compounded by something more that she thought might be relief. It seemed she couldn't make up her mind what she wanted from Luke, so why should she be surprised that he was ambivalent? “I'll keep that in mind” she said, “for when my interest becomes something more than academic.”

“April,” he began, dissatisfaction hovering in his face as he watched her.

“Never mind. It doesn't matter.”

“It should, even if you were only—testing.”

“Yes, well, and maybe it does after all, but I suppose we'll never know.”

He didn't answer, but neither did he try to stop her as she turned and walked away.

The next two days limped past with paralyzing slowness. April's short burst of productivity faded and she couldn't get her book going again. Every time she managed to pull a few paragraphs together, some phone call or fax connected with the festival scattered her concentration all to Hades. Midnight didn't help matters, either. He was such a bundle of nerves that he started at every sound and hounded her footsteps as if reluctant to be out of her sight.

When the phone rang yet again late on the second night, she answered with exasperation, expecting it to be Betsy with another crisis. Her adrenaline spiked to record heights as she heard the raspy whisper of the man from the phone-in interview.

“'Evening, honey pot. Are you alone?”

The determination to find out something, anything, that would give her a clue to what was going on congealed inside April. Hanging on to the receiver with a death grip, she demanded, “What do you want? Why are you doing this?”