Luke (2 page)

Unholy amusement shone in the dark depths of his eyes. “You don't know what you're missing.”

Oh, but she did, and it was all there in the wicked curl of his firm lips, the latent strength of his square, competent hands. She said with disdain, “Is that what you call living? A new woman every week, laughing, drinking and copping a few minutes in a strange bed? From where I stand, it looks like another way of avoiding the real business of living.”

“Which you, a sensitive, artistic type living
solely in your mind and your scribbled fantasies, know all about?”

“I know,” she said in stark admission.

“Then why don't you have a permanent man and a house full of kids passing out hugs and heaven?”

His answer proved that he knew, too. She inhaled sharply against the sudden stab of that understanding. Or perhaps it was the prick of old dreams, since she'd once thought her children would look like the man in front of her.

“I did try for that,” she said evenly. “Can you say the same?”

“All but the legal step.”

“I can imagine,” she said in ironic reference to his swinging image. At the same time she remembered hearing that Luke had been serious about some girl from out of town a few years back. When it had come to nothing, she'd figured it had been just a rumor.

“I doubt you have the full picture,” he said.

“The lady hated country life in general and Turn-Coupe in particular. She expected me to sell Chemin-a-Haut and move to New Orleans.”

“Sell a place that's been in your family for nearly two hundred years? And she really thought you might? What a jewel!”

His smile was brief. “Shiny bright and about as hard. I'd have let her keep the engagement ring except she threw it at my head.”

“You got as far as planning a wedding with no idea of what she liked or really wanted?”

He shoved his hands a few inches into the pockets of his jeans as he looked away to follow the flight
of a mockingbird. “I was distracted by other things.”

“Were you really?” The drawled comment was supposed to be in recognition of the driving force behind most of his recent relationships, that of pure sexual attraction. Instead, it sounded sour.

“She reminded me of you.” He swung back to meet her gaze as he spoke. His face was expressionless, but something dark and disturbing lay in the liquid depths of his eyes.

“I expect you had a lucky escape then.” The fast retreat from that personal comment was instinctive. How had they gotten onto the subject of his love life? It was not something she wanted to hear about in detail—or at all.

“Is that how you think of your divorce, an escape?”

“My divorce is something I prefer not to talk about.”

“I've noticed. That bad, huh?”

“That far behind me. Luke—”

“Yeah, yeah, you want me gone. Fine.” He half turned away before swinging back again. “But if you hear from the nut on the phone again, let me or Roan know, will you? It may be nothing, but it could turn out to be something else again.”

Agreeing seemed a small concession if it would send him on his way. “I'll keep it in mind.”

He moved off the porch and into the morning sunshine. The swing of his long legs was free and natural, with the athletic fluidity provided by excellent muscle conditioning. His shoulders were wide and straight before they tapered into the lean lines
of his waist and hips. Like some male animal of the deep woods, he was at ease with his body and sublimely unconscious of its innate power and grace.

Why was it, April wondered, that some men looked as good walking away as they did face-to-face? It was as disturbing as it was unfair. She was paying attention strictly for research purposes, of course. She needed to make mental notes for the next time she described the way the hero walked in her work in progress.

Abruptly Luke turned around. He backed up a couple of quick steps as he stared up at the roof of her house. A frown drew his brows together before he called to her, “You lost a few roof slates in the storm the other night. I noticed when I drove up since I've been replacing the casualties at Chemin-a-Haut. You have any leaks?”

She had a small one in the stair hall and a more drastic one in the back bedroom upstairs. They were none of Luke Benedict's business, however, like the rest of her life. With precision, she said, “Nothing I can't handle.”

“I could take care of it for you. Roofers charge an arm and a leg for patching these big old houses, you know. They get nervous climbing around on anything higher off the ground than a story and a half.”

“You don't, I suppose,” she said dryly.

“I'm used to it after crawling around on top of Chemin-a-Haut all my life.”

The temptation to take him up on his offer was strong. She'd stayed awake for several nights worrying over who to call for the repair job and how
she was going to manage to pay them. Regardless, becoming involved with him in any way wouldn't be smart. In polite rejection, she said, “I'm sure you have better things to do.”

“Doesn't matter. We're neighbors, and out here on the lake neighbors help each other. It's been that way since the days when it was twenty miles into town over rough wagon roads so you learned to count on the man next door.”

“These aren't olden times,” she said shortly. “I can manage.”

He grunted before a frown of dissatisfaction drew his thick brows together. “You should have whoever comes out check the windows, too, make sure the sashes aren't loose in the frames. Your heating and cooling system will work better, not to mention your latches.”

“You see a security problem?” She stepped out onto the porch then moved to join him on the walk. Facing the house, she scanned its wide, graceful facade, her gaze running over its spreading bungalow roof, the massive columns that supported the upper gallery, the mellow peach color of the plastered walls and the graceful arched insets that held the windows and doors.

“I doubt half your window locks would keep out a two-year-old,” he answered.

The glance she gave him was scathing. “You're just saying that to scare me.”

“Think so? You want to go back inside and lock up, then see how long it takes me to get to you?”

“No, thank you!” She couldn't prevent the gooseflesh that pebbled the surface of her skin.
Some of the locks could use a few new screws, now that she thought about it.

He glanced down at her, his gaze measuring. “You're afraid, admit it.”

She shook her head but couldn't quite manage a complete denial.

“I could stick around a while, at least until you're sure your caller isn't going to pay a visit. I wouldn't even have to come inside since I see plenty to do out here. You could forget I was on the place.”

Forget he was there? Not likely. She parted her lips to answer, then stopped as she caught a soft sound. It was a stealthy rustling coming from around the corner of the house. Abruptly, it stopped.

Luke moved at lightning speed to catch her arm and draw her behind him. He faced in the direction of the noise. For long seconds, nothing moved. The only sound was the sigh of a lake breeze through the great mulberry tree that gave Mulberry Point its name and the calls of birds enjoying the warm summer morning.

The dry scratching came again, closer this time. Luke tensed.

Then from around the end of the house stepped a sleek black cat. Its coat shone in the sun like silk and its ears were cocked forward inquiringly. In its mouth, carried like a kitten, was a wriggling peridot green chameleon.

A short, winded laugh escaped April; she couldn't help it. Luke said something under his breath that maligned all felines. The cat gave him a look of disdain before moving forward to deposit his prize at April's feet. The chameleon made a wild dash for
freedom and the cat leaped after it, catching it with a quick pounce. April sprang forward and scooped her pet up in her arms before he could inflict further damage. The heavy swath of her hair slid forward to lie like dark gold silk against the satin of the cat's pelt before she flung it back out of the way behind her shoulders.

“Good boy, Midnight,” she crooned as she cradled him against her chest and rubbed behind his ears. “You're a fine cat and mighty dragon slayer. I'm proud of you.”

“He's a damn nuisance,” Luke said in disgust as he eyed the animal in her arms.

She hid a smile as she brushed the big cat's fur with her cheek. “That's right, you're not a cat lover, are you?”

“Give me a dog any time.”

“It's all right, isn't it, Midnight,” she murmured.

“He just doesn't know you. He has no idea what a fine watch cat you are.”

“Watch cat,” Luke repeated in pained accents.

“He sleeps on the foot of my bed and gives an earsplitting howl whenever anything disturbs him.”

An arrested look appeared in Luke's dark eyes. “Does he now? How does he feel about sharing the covers with a third party?”

“Since the situation hasn't come up, I have no idea.” Her voice cooled by several degrees as she added, “Anyway, he's all the protection I need.”

“Sure,” Luke replied, setting his hands on his hips. “I can see you're nice and safe—if it's a lizard that shows up in the middle of the night. I'd point
out that a cat's no substitute for a man in your bed, but I'm sure I'd be wasting my breath.”

“And my time.” Common sense might have told her to leave it at that but she wasn't listening. “Though I guess preoccupation with what's going on in bed should be expected from a man who has been in and out of every female's in Tunica Parish.”

“Except yours—but who's keeping score? And why should you notice, sweetheart, much less care?”

“Why indeed?” she asked with a twist to her smooth, beautifully formed lips. “I just think it's juvenile, egotistical and far more dangerous these days than my getting a call from a heavy breather.”

A dark scowl drew his brows together. “So it might be, if I deserved half the credit people gave me.”

“Poor, misunderstood Luke-de-la-Nuit. I guess all the women who claim you're hotter than Cajun spice are building up your reputation to make themselves look good.”

“Could be,” he answered, the words scathing. “Don't you wish you knew?”

She inhaled in sharp outrage as she searched for the perfect annihilating remark as a comeback. Before she could find it, Luke turned and stalked toward his Jeep that sat on the circle drive.

“I do know,” she called after him finally. “Or have you forgotten?”

With his hand on the vehicle door, he faced her again. His eyes burned and there was dark color under the deep olive of his skin. “That was a long
time ago,” he said with precision. “Things change. So do people.”

He climbed in the Jeep and turned the key, then pulled away down the drive. He didn't look back.

April stared after him while anger swelled inside her. What an arrogant, presumptuous, stiff-necked know-it-all! She'd die before she'd let him touch a single board or pane of glass at Mulberry Point. She didn't need Luke Benedict, didn't want him, and didn't care beans about his well-earned reputation. How good he might be in bed never crossed her mind.

Well, she might think about it when she wrote a love scene, but that was different. It was a part of her job.

No, she neither wanted nor needed his services, thank you very much. All she required was to be left alone in her house with her cat and her stories. To the devil with the man.

Regardless, she'd gained one bit of information from his visit. It was something she'd wondered about for a long time. The answer was interesting and, as much as she hated to admit it, even satisfying.

Luke
did
remember.

L
uke was several miles away from Mulberry Point before his temper began to cool. He shouldn't let the things April said bother him, but he couldn't help it. She had a positive genius for getting to him. Some of her barbs were like snake bites; he felt the sting when they struck but only minutes afterward did the real poison reach the heart.

Not that she intended it to happen that way, he thought. She didn't realize how thin his skin was these days. Nobody did, and that's the way he liked it.

He hadn't seen a lot of April in the year that she'd been back in the area after buying the old Tully place. Her showing up for his Memorial Day open house earlier in the summer had been a fluke, he'd thought. She'd come with his cousin Kane for moral support when Kane had been in trouble with his red-haired Yankee lady, Regina. Kane and Regina had finally straightened out their problems. Luke wondered how April felt about that, since she and Kane had been thick for a while back in high school and still had a mellow kind of friendship. April would be attending the wedding, he knew, since Regina
had asked her to be maid of honor. That might get interesting since he was Kane's best man.

Jeez, but he'd nearly lost it when he'd heard that jerk on the phone mouthing off to April. He hated that kind of low-down junk anyway. To think of her being subjected to it set his teeth on edge. April hadn't been too happy with him for showing up on her doorstep because of the call, but he was glad he'd gone. He knew now just how upset she'd been about it.

Maybe he could get a tape of the show from the radio station. Roan had some fancy equipment that he might be able to use to analyze the caller's voice or isolate any background noise enough to identify it. As the sheriff, Roan really needed to know about the incident anyway, and Luke intended to see that he did. April might not thank him for looking into the mess for her, but he'd manage to live with that. He'd given up expecting anything from her long ago.

He was passing Chemin-a-Haut again, since April's place was a few miles down the road from his own. He'd been heading to town when her interview came on the radio, and had turned around to check on her. He wouldn't stop at home now, but go on into town.

The sight of his neat green fields stretching row after row toward the distant tree line never failed to lift his heart—even when he frowned over a weed-clogged drainage ditch. He liked farming, enjoyed the smell and feel of the earth. The backbreaking labor in sun and rain and the intrinsic uncertainty didn't bother him; the constant challenge kept him
on his toes. There was no place on earth he'd rather live than on this modern plantation with the lake at the back door of his big, old West Indies style house, and the swamp beyond that crowded right up to the levee of the Mississippi River. Turn-Coupe was right down his alley as well. A sleepy little town dating back to before the Civil War, it was big enough to supply his needs, but not so big that people didn't nod and speak when they met. He fully intended to live out his life here. It still surprised him, however, that April had apparently decided the same thing.

She'd mentioned the wreck. That was amazing. Not that she'd spoken the words, but the subject had been there between them all the same. The twisted metal, the fire, the screams had hovered close, so close that he'd thought for a second that he saw them reflected in her eyes. He wished he knew what it meant after all these years. Understanding that much might make having it thrown up to him again worthwhile.

The need to ask her had been so strong he could taste it. What kept him from it was the same thing that had held him silent back then: pride, sheer stubborn masculine pride. He clung to it now as a last refuge, he thought, since it was all he had left.

April certainly hadn't forgiven him any more than he'd forgiven himself, that much was for damn sure.

A short time later, Luke pulled his truck into a parking place in front of the courthouse. The sheriff's office was located on the lower floor of the old antebellum era building with its graying marble walls and white columns. There had been some at
tempt to modernize the place with safety rails on the granite steps and a wheelchair ramp, but it hadn't helped a lot. It was a relic from the past with an air of solid strength, heavy responsibility, and not a lot to offer in the way of comfort. It was, Luke had often thought, a lot like Turn-Coupe's sheriff himself.

Luke found his cousin in his office. Roan's hair looked like he'd been combing it with a John Deere and a cultivator, and a harassed frown drew his brows together over the bridge of his nose. Seeing Luke, he stacked the papers he'd been reading and laid them aside on one of several neat piles. His lean face creased into smile lines.

“Morning, cousin. Coffee?”

“Black, strong, sweet as an angel and hot as hell.”

“What other kind is there?” Roan pushed to his feet with a lithe movement and sauntered over to the coffee machine that was always going in one corner of the big corner room. Speaking over his shoulder as he reached for cups and sugar packets, he made some comment about the big River Pirate Revel, the town festival coming up at the end of the month. They exchanged views, plans and a couple of funny stories about the arrangements for that shindig. They talked about the price of cotton futures, a concern for Luke since he made his living raising cotton and soybeans, then segued into another passion they shared: bass fishing. Roan glanced at Luke a couple of times as if he suspected something was up, but he didn't press it at once.

Finally, when they were both on their second
cups of coffee, the sheriff leaned back in his chair and crossed one booted ankle over his knee. “So,” he said, “are you just visiting, or you got something on your mind?”

“Both,” Luke replied with a rueful grin.

Roan studied him, his gray eyes alert. “So shoot.”

Luke told him the story of April's radio caller, including his own quick trip by her house to check on her. For the hell of it, he even added his own suspicion that she might have heard from the person before. When he was done, he sipped his coffee and waited.

“April say she'd had other calls?”

“Not in so many words. It was more what she didn't say, if you know what I mean.”

“Did she tell you what she thought it was about? If there was a reason beyond the usual jerk-off session?”

“She doesn't have much to say to me at the best of times. You might get more out of her if you drove out there.”

Roan gave a judicious nod, though his gaze was on the brew in his cup.

“So, what will you ask her? Got any ideas?” The question was abrupt, but Luke made no attempt to soften it.

“A few.” Roan leaned back in his chair as he rattled them off. “What about her ex? Where is he, and what was he doing this morning? Has she made any enemies? Has she had any contact with strange men in the past few weeks such as dates, repairmen, deliverymen, and salesmen? Any new men in her
life and how did she meet them? Have any unusual calls been made to her home that are unconnected to the radio incident? Has she had any visitors out of the ordinary or noticed any activity around her house that strikes her as strange? Things like that.”

Luke signaled his understanding. He wasn't sure how much good any of it would do, but getting the answers would be a start.

“What I was really wondering about is this book she's supposed to be working on,” Roan said with a thoughtful twist to his lips. “The local angle, you know?”

“What book? What local angle?”

“About the Benedicts. She's using the family background for a story or series of stories, according to the tale going around. Seems she talked to Kane's Aunt Vivian last week—which is about like broadcasting the news to the countryside. Don't tell me you haven't heard.”

“I'm not in the thick of things like you.” Luke grimaced. “But why in the world would she want to write about us?”

“Not us, but our great-granddaddies. They were a pretty colorful bunch back in the old days.”

“No more than most around here. Why not pick on her own kin?”

“Too close to see the attraction, I expect.” Roan looked at him over the rim of his coffee cup. “Besides, she might stir up that business about her parents, and that's the last thing she'd want.”

Luke stared at his thumb as he smoothed the handle of his coffee mug. His voice carefully neutral, he said, “Have you ever looked into all that, since
you were elected, I mean? I know it was a long time ago and there's no reason to go into it, but I've always wondered if it happened the way everybody said. Did her dad really shoot her mother while April watched?”

“And then turned the gun on himself. At least that's the gist of it that I got the one time I glanced at the file. You can go through it closer if you want.”

Luke nodded his appreciation for the offer. It was the sort of quiet accommodation often made among relatives and friends in small towns, but it meant a lot. “She was all of what? Five years old, six?”

“Five. She didn't testify at the trial, didn't say a word of any kind for nearly six months—mental trauma, according to the doctor's report. It's all in the file.”

Sick pity flooded Luke, along with rage that no one had been there for her back then and there was nothing he could do about it now. He said tightly, “I think it still bothers her.”

“I wouldn't be surprised. The doctor theorized that she'd retreated into a fantasy world where everything was safe and rosy. Could be she still lives there.”

Luke made a scoffing sound. “I didn't mean that she can't function as a normal person, or anything like that. She's fine on the surface—only it seems as if it still affects her and the things she does. It gives her a different slant on people.”

“You're thinking of that business with the wreck, when that girl was killed,” Roan suggested, his voice deep.

“Yeah.”

“It wasn't the same.”

Luke looked up. “Wasn't it? Mary Ellen Randall ceased to exist one fine summer night thirteen years ago, and I'm to blame.”

“You didn't kill her.”

“She was riding in my car when she shouldn't have been. It ran off the road. She died, screaming, while I stood and did nothing.”

Roan set his cup down and leaned forward in his chair with his hands clasped loosely together on his desk. “There was nothing you could have done. Let it go.”

“Yeah.” Arguing wasn't going to help, Luke knew that only too well. Some things couldn't be understood without having been there. Nor could they be shared. After a moment, he said, “To get back to what you were saying, there are Benedicts who might not want their family trees shook all that hard, either.”

“Such as?” Relief for the return to a neutral topic flashed across the other man's face.

“Granny May, for one. I may think it's a hoot that her granddad earned the money for his first Model T by peddling bootleg booze to half the politicians in town, but she still turns as red as a beet when anybody mentions it. She'd like to forget about the Indian woman in our family tree, too, not to mention the great aunt who ran off from her husband and three kids to become a—what is it Granny May calls her, a floozy?—in the gold camps of Colorado.”

Roan grinned at him as he said, “You should
have a circuit riding preacher in your bloodlines, an upstanding, hell-and-brimstone, hard-shelled Baptist saver of souls who just happened to have three wives in as many states. Your Granny wouldn't know whether to be embarrassed or proud as punch.”

A preacher in the family was usually a big deal in the Bible Belt. One with scandal attached to his coattails was a little hard to place in the normal scheme of things. Luke shook his head as he said, “Your great granddad, wasn't he? I'd about forgotten.”

“Right—and he was a saint compared to some of the other outlaws. But I was wondering if maybe some of the crowd out on the lake might not be getting back at April.”

Luke shook his head. “They're a wild bunch, some of them. But that just means they're even less likely than tamer types to give a damn for how they might appear in a novel. Hell, most of the guys would probably get a kick out of it.”

“Doesn't have to be a guy.”

“No? I didn't know women were big on obscene phone calls.”

“It happens.”

“In a male voice?”

“Ever hear of phones that disguise voices? A lot of women living alone have them to make it sound as if there's a man in the house.”

Luke gave him a look of dry reproach. “Are you suggesting my dear old Granny knows anything about the kind of suggestions that were made to April on the phone?”

“You've got a point,” Roan answered on a dutiful laugh. “I'll look into the situation, but there's not much else I can do without April's cooperation. Even if we manage to run down the perp, a warning is about as far as we can go until he does something besides talk.”

“You could warn him clear out of the country.” Luke meant that exactly as it sounded.

“Suppose I might, depending.”

“On what?”

“Who he is, whether he has a record, how much of a threat he appears to be. In the meantime…”

“In the meantime?” Luke repeated as his cousin paused.

“Somebody should keep an eye on April. I don't like the sound of this guy going public. It's a flag, behavior out of the norm.”

“I already offered. She turned me down flat.”

“So, don't let her know.”

“Fine idea. And who's going to vouch for me when she has me picked up for loitering with intent and assorted other offenses?”

“I will—so long as the offenses don't get committed.”

“Roan, son,” Luke said, “you wound me. Would I do anything like that?”

“In a heartbeat, given provocation.”