CRAVE - BAD BOY ROMANCE (8 page)

“Please,” she said. “Just wear it and
return it later, if you're too proud to take a gift from me. It isn't just for
you, you know. If your Grandmother sees you at the funeral in that thing you
walked in here wearing, she'd haunt my dreams for the next six years...” her
voice trailed off when she realized the insult she'd just paid my fashion
sense, and smiled weakly.

“Fine,” I said with a sigh. “I'll
wear it to the funeral and return it to you when we meet up tomorrow. Thank
you.”

“No,” Jessica said. “Thank
you
.”

She stepped out of the way and I
grabbed my poorly spoken of sun dress and made my way out of the change room,
only to discover the reason there wasn't anyone else in the store. Cade was standing
guard at the door, looking like he'd kill whoever drummed up the nerve to reach
for the handle and try to enter the shop.

“Everything okay?” he asked when I
approached.

“Fine,” I muttered, certain that the
only way Jessica had any inkling of who I was would have been because he'd have
told her.

“Nice dress,” he said, the twist of a
smile tugging at one side of his lips.

“It is, though I feel bad about
taking it. Now let’s go say goodbye to my Grandmother before she strikes me
down for profiting from her death, shall we?”

CHAPTER
TWELVE

The
funeral itself was a confusing blur of movement and noise. There was music.
There were crosses. Women sang and everyone danced in the pews and it was like
a crazy, Catholic-laced and Voodoo-fueled dream. What surprised me the most was
how many people were there. Hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds, and each of them
eager to find me in the crowd that followed the ceremony. They shook my hand or
kissed my cheek or pressed oddly folded dollar bills into my purse until it was
overflowing, despite my best efforts not to let them.

Grandma's casket was closed, and the
picture they'd chosen to loom large above it must have been taken almost fifty
years ago. She looked like an angel, her hair a gentle cloud around a face so
bright and luminous that the features seemed to linger on your retina once you
glanced away.

I was struck once more by how little
I knew her, and even before everyone told me how much I looked like here, I
could see it.

Eventually, once the festivities were
winding down and I was reaching the limit of my endurance, Cade's reassuring
bulk appeared by magic as if I'd summoned him. I realized that he'd most likely
been watching me the entire time, gauging my reaction to the grief and the
forced joyfulness of the festivities that threatened to swirl around me for the
rest of night.

He handed me a cool drink with a
steady hand, and I took it from him gratefully. “What's this?” I asked.

He grinned and sloshed the one he had
in his hand at me, an identical liquid in a glass that ran with perspiration. “Mint
Julep. Thought you should be drinking like the locals, especially tonight.”

I took a hesitant sip, and the smile
that I felt spread across my face was the first genuine one I’d worn in too long
a time.

It was exactly what I needed. The
liquor burned a slow, almost sensual line of gentle fire down my throat as the
sweetness slid along behind to soothe my parched lips. All of a sudden I felt
like royalty, like a woman bathed in a life of decadence, sitting on a porch
watching the last of the sunlight splash across the fields and the grass, no
sound in my ears other than the lilting songs of evening birds and the clink of
melting ice cubes shifting in their glass.

“It's delicious,” I told him, and
when he swapped my empty glass for his full one, I wasn't about to protest.
After all, the funeral had become a wake, and if one isn't allowed to live a
little when celebrating the dead, what was the point of being alive at all?

Cade held out his arm to me and I
took it. “I had a feeling you'd approve.” The crowd parted before us as he led
me to the bar in the back, and those sitting on the stools got up and dipped
their gazes at me out of respect when they left us to ourselves.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” I leaned
in and asked, hearing a coyness in my voice I hadn't really intended. I wasn't
really a drinker, and the warm glow of the drinks I'd already consumed weren't
taking long to loosen up a few of my inhibitions.

“Nope. Just giving you a breather. You
don’t have to stay the whole time, but there’s every chance that this thing is
going to go well past midnight, whether you like it or not.”

I nodded, suddenly realizing we were
sitting at a bar. In a church...

“I know,” he said. “Crazy, huh? This
close to the swamp, it's a whole different world.”

I was beginning to see that. I put my
purse on the stool beside me and reached inside. “How much are the Mint Juleps?”
I asked, fishing around for something to pay the bartender with. I certainly
wasn't drunk, but my fingers weren't fully cooperating, either. All I could
manage to do was grab a few of the folded dollar bills that people had been
sneaking in there all night.

The fire that blazed in Cade's eyes
when he saw what I was doing pulled me up short. “Are you crazy?”

“Huh?”

“Put those away.” He scooped them up
and pushed them back into my purse. “Don't fuck with what you don't understand,
okay?”

“Settle down,” I told him, wondering
what I'd done to earn his anger. “Relax, Cade. I'm not trying to disrespect
anybody.”

He shook his head, his jaw tight. “You
know, I've spent the last three hours with people coming up to me, begging for
an appointment with you. I've got a list as long as my arm of your
Grandmother's former clients, all of whom want a chance to sit across the
coffee table in the living room and let you stare into their eyes.”

“Cade…”

But he wasn’t finished, not by a long
shot. “I told them you didn't believe. I told them you didn't give a shit. And
you know what?”

“What?”

“They didn't give a shit. Not one of
them. They think you'll come around, and they're desperate enough that a few of
them have even convinced themselves that your Grandmother will work through
you, even if you don't want her to.”

Whatever good feelings the alcohol
had inspired were gone, instantly washed away in a cold wave of anger. “If you already
knew I didn't go in for all this Voodoo crap, why did you send Jessica in to
talk to me?”

“Who, the owner of that dress shop?
She came up to me and asked who you were. I told her. When she wanted to know
if you had the gift as well, I made it crystal clear that the power had died
with Marie. She didn't believe me. Jessica was no different than the long line
of people bending my ear tonight, hoping against hope that I was wrong about
you.”

I bit my lip, stopping myself from
saying whatever I'd been about to say. My blood was pumping, and I could feel
both of the Mint Juleps I'd had working against me, urging me on to rip him a
new one with some witty, wicked remark. Instead, I sucked in a long, slow breath
and said, “But you're not wrong about me.”

That was it. I was watching him
closely enough to see the exact moment in his handsome face that he gave up on
me. I saw now that he'd been hoping that the others were right. He didn't want
to watch whatever magic he believed in end with Marie, but that's exactly what
he was seeing now.

I stared past him, picking a spot
just above and beyond the leather jacket on his muscled shoulder. I couldn't
stand to meet his gaze, not when there was so much disappointment locked into
his expression. “Listen...”

“No. There's nothing left to say. You
aren't going to carry on her work, which means you're going to have to put the
house up for sale.”

I felt my body flinch as if I'd just
been slapped. “How the hell do you already know that? That information is supposed
to be private. It's meant to stay between the lawyer you took me to this
morning and myself. You've got no right to-”

“Enough of your bullshit, Rachel,” he
growled, slicing through my words. “You didn't think Marie would have let me
know the conditions of her will? I was off getting the new documents certified
when she got killed, remember? She was hoping you'd stay, and if you wanted to
she needed you to know that it would be your job to hold the community
together, same as she had for so long. So leave. Sell the house. Take your
money and go back to Detroit.”

“But...”

“We were fine before you showed up,
and we'll be fine once you go.” His voice, filled with passion and brimming
with anger, was loud enough now that the people nearest to us stopped their
reminiscing and cast worried glances in our direction.

I didn't know where to look, so
instead of risking the sea of faces I stared at the few folded dollar bills
still sitting on the top of the bar. There beautiful, really. Intricately folded
and twisted in upon themselves, like little works of art. Origami meets
religion, I suppose.

“Cade...”

His big hand covered mine, and the
tension in him instantly sobered me up. Something was wrong. I shot my gaze up
to his face, only to see him staring off across the room, the muscles in his
forearms bulging.

That was when I heard it. The clink
of glasses, the murmur of conversation, the snippets of jazz and Spanish guitar
that had filled the air ever since the funeral began were gone, wiped away as
cleanly as chalk from a slate.

“What's wrong?”

“Stay here,” he said, and there
wasn't an ounce of softness or compassion in his voice. He sounded like a
killer. “Don't leave this spot, whatever happens.”

I craned my neck in the direction he
was looking. Something was happening over near the door of the church, and
people were reacting in waves that emanated away from it. Whatever sort of
ruckus was kicking off, most people didn't want anything to do with it.

Except Cade. The crowd parted before
him instinctively, and I saw him pat his jacket with the palm of his hand,
probably checking his gun to make sure it was still in place, ready for use
should it be called into play. He strode into the growing chaos like he owned
the place, and as people moved aside they also cleared my line of sight to the
door, letting me see exactly what sort of trouble he was getting about to get
involved in.

Three men stood just outside the
church with killer eyes and leather jackets. They practically bristled with
aggression. Everything about them, from the way they carried themselves to the
fact that long, dark tattoos striped their hands told me they were looking for a
fight.

I got up out of my seat, but someone
grabbed my arm and pulled me back. I spun toward the interloper, only to
recognize Jessica from the dress store. “What are you doing here?” I asked,
surprised to see her.

“I called in one of the other girls
to cover the shop. After you agreed to help me, I had to be here to say goodbye
to your Grandmother. But don't worry about that, right now. You better stay
here with me.”

“Who are those guys?”

She glanced past me, and her face
spoke volumes. “They're trouble, that's what they are.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“The kind that comes into my shop
twice a month and puts their hands in the register if I don’t want the place
burnt down.”

“The mob?” I turned back to watch
them, worried for Cade. Two of the three newcomers were hanging back, and the
guy that appeared to be in charge of them was speaking with Cade in rough
tones, posturing all the while. I could tell they were moments away from coming
to blows, or worse.

I heard Jessica sigh. “Nothing so glamorous
as the mob, I'm afraid. They're not much more than a gang of thugs, but around
here that's enough to run the place.”

“Why are they here?”

She let go of me and I relaxed. If
there was going to be a fight on the steps of the church, I didn’t see how I
could be of much use. If anything, I'd get in the way, maybe even do something disastrous
like distract Cade at some vital moment. I had a feeling he could handle
himself in most situations, though I didn't want to have to find out.

Not like this.

I reached into my purse for my phone
to call the police, and when Jessica saw what I had in my hand she shook her
head. “They won't help. These guys are here to show your Grandmother's friends
that they're still here and she's gone. Whatever protection they had because of
her, it’s gone now.”

I scowled, resolving to ignore her
and call the cops anyway. Even though I'd had far more than my share of
dealings with the police over the course of my life, from the night of my
parents’ car accident on to living and working in Detroit, there was a chance
that law enforcement was different here. But it didn't take me more than a
second to see that my phone was finally out of charge. I still hadn't had a
chance to charge it, since Cade had swapped my car for the motorcycle.

No help there, then...

The guy arguing with Cade, a lean blond
with a scar across his face that reached all the way down to his upper lip,
tried to get into the church. No luck. Cade was bigger and clearly stronger. As
soon as he worked out that wasn't going to happen, Scarface raised his arm and
pointed at me. “This one can't save any of you,” he shouted, his voice booming
off the walls of the church. “She's not the one to end the Union!”

“Take your boys and turn around,
Thrace,” Cade warned. “There's too many witnesses here for any of your usual
shit. I think we both know I could cut your throat right now, and the only
people who'd testify that it happened are the two bitches you brought along
today.”

Thrace glared at him, then made a
swift, cutting motion at me. His voice went low, but the room was quiet enough
that his words made it all the way to me. “Is she yours, Cade? Is that it?”

“Damn right,” he said, without
hesitation. “And you better remember that the next time you think it's a good
idea to try and shove your way into something as private as this.”

Thrace looked like he was going to
say something else, but in the end he gave the crowd a wave and a bow,
plastered a none-of-you-can-touch-me smirk on his face and left, taking his
cronies with him.

“Hey, is that true?” Jessica asked
me, her voice hurried as Cade turned around and made his way back to us. A few
people he passed whispered their thanks or reached out and lay a hand on his
leather jacket, and he took it all in stride.