Sins of the Storm (17 page)

She swallowed against the emotion crowding her throat. “You never made me any promises—”

“But then you walked away,” he pressed on, and now his eyes looked lit from the inside out. “And broke my heart even more.”

That stopped her. That…floored her. She stepped back and looked up at him, felt what was left of her heart break into thousands of little pieces. “I don’t understand…”

“Neither did I,” he said. “Not until you came back. All these years—Christ. I’ve been frozen inside, holding on so damn tight, afraid to let go, afraid if I let so much as one variable spin away from me—”

She put a finger to his mouth—and smiled. “You never were too fond of dragons.”

But slowly he shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong,
’tite chat.
I craved those dragons. I craved—” He bit the words off as the lines of his face tightened. “They made me feel alive,” he said. “
You
made me feel alive.”

She realized it then, realized what he’d been fighting for so long. Not her, but himself. And his determination to never let obsession guide him, as it had guided his father. To never bow to it, to never bend. Break.

To never be weak.

“And then you were gone,” he said, “and it was like going through the motions.”

“Jack…”

“No one’s ever come back before.”

She stilled. “What?”

“No one’s ever come back before—but then there you were,” he pressed, and his hands were still on her face, his fingers spread wide. “At Whispering Oaks. And it all started to unravel.”

She scraped her finger along the line of his jaw. “I thought I could come back,” she said. “I thought I could come back and close all those doors….”

His fingers slid against her hair, and tangled. “That’s why I pushed you away.” He paused, lowered his voice. “That’s why I lied to you about the map—to prove that I was still in control.”

The truth whispered through her, and the dream, the one she’d smothered all those years ago, breathed again. “It wasn’t the lie, Jack. That’s not why I walked away—it was me.” She could see it now, what she’d not let herself see before. “I latched onto the lie because it was easier, it was nice and tidy. But it was me…the fact that I’d done it again, that I hadn’t closed a single door…that I was still just as vulnerable to you as I’d always been.”

That’s why she’d walked away.

“But I was wrong,” she said. “I know that now. I don’t want to close doors, Jack. I want to walk through them—with you.”

His smile was slow, languorous, so pure classic Jacques Savoie that her heart ached. He stepped back from her and took her hand, urged her toward the door leading from the study. And opened it. “Then what do you say we get started?”

“D
ad said it was like stepping into a Monet painting.”

Jack looked from the rugged field of ancient monoliths to the quaint chapel tucked at the bottom of the French hillside. “Guess we know where your flare for drama came from.”

Grinning, Camille took a long sip from her water bottle before returning it to her backpack. The planning was over. Tonight they would move forward.

“He liked the colors,” she said, glancing to the west, where the remains of the sun put on a show. Located in far Northwest France, Brittany was an odd mix of coastline and ancient towns and inland woods. “Said it was like walking through a picture book.”

Jack picked up his binoculars and studied the chapel. The last visitor had left thirty minutes before. “You ready?” he asked.

Kneeling there in the vivid green grass, she slid a hand to the knapsack beside her. “Not yet.”

For almost a week they’d been observing the chapel, monitoring who came and who went, whether any security was in place. And like clockwork, a grounds-keeper locked up with the sunset and the old church sat quiet until morning came.

The first day they’d gone inside—and seen the window. It was just one of many, a complete reproduction of the stained glass windows that had once adorned the chapel, back before the days of the French Revolution, when any symbol of Christianity had been methodically destroyed.

The chapel, in Camille’s family for hundreds of years, had survived. Only the windows had been destroyed.

They’d stood there while several older women had kneeled at the altar and prayed, and a young boy had played pick-up-sticks. They’d compared the image mounted six feet off the ground with the pictures they’d taken of the original—and they knew no one would ever suspect.

Only a handful knew. Camille and Jack, Saura and D’Ambrosia, Gabe and his fiancée, Evangeline. Jack’s father. They knew. Marcel did, too, but he was dead. And Russ…Russ had no idea of the significance or the legend…no idea the stained glass was what Lambert had coveted all along.

What Camille’s father had wanted—what Jack’s father had wanted.

Returning it to Brittany had been Camille’s idea, and it felt right. Too many lives had been destroyed. Too much blood shed. There was no point making their discovery public.

“Look, there it is,” she said, and he turned toward the east, where a near-full moon hovered low on the horizon.

But it wasn’t the moon that had Jack sliding his hand into his pocket, his fingers curling around the small velvet box. They’d spent two days in Paris. And while Camille had strolled through a small boutique, Jack had made a detour.

Now he watched her, and all those loose ends quietly fell together. Twenty years had passed since he’d last seen that glow in her eyes. The warmth and contentment and—peace. She’d been a girl then. She’d worn pigtails and cutoffs and had foolishly hung curtains in his tree-fort. And he’d spent his time playing baseball and listening to records, helping out his grandmother and loving…Camille. Like a sister, he’d always told himself.

Like a sister.

She was a woman now, with sleek blond hair and hip-hugging jeans, a career as a bestselling true crime writer. She’d finished her book. It would come out with the new year.

And he was sheriff. He had a town to take care of. And a home. A family—and a father. It would take time, but when Jack looked in the mirror and saw the dark brown of his eyes, he no longer looked away.

They could never go back to before, not any of them.

But they could go forward.

“Come here,” he said hoarsely.

She glanced back at him and damn near slayed him with the glow in her eyes. “Why?”

“Maybe I have a surprise.”

The wind blew hair against her face. “We’ve got all night,” she said. “What’s the hurry?”

Against the box, his fingers tightened. “Come on over and I’ll show you.”

Her smile was slow, easy. “That sounds an awful lot like an invitation,” she said, stretching just so, settling down with her head propped on her hand—and the curve of her body sprawled against the grass.

She was right. They had all night. The summer solstice was the shortest of the year, that was true. But there was still plenty of time—and not a soul in sight. “Tryin’ to torture me,
’tite chat?
”

“Torture?” she asked, sliding her pinkie along her lower lip. “What happened to Mr. Nice-and-Slow-Is-Best?”

He put the binoculars down. And stood. “You,” he said. “You happened.” Then he went to her.

And showed her what she’d showed him—just how good a little chaos could be.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-0579-0

SINS OF THE STORM

Copyright © 2007 by Jennifer Miller

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