Dancing on the Wind (35 page)

He forced one eye open and gave her a jaundiced look. “You’re assuming I’ve got

more left in me,
myneeast caillagh
.” He groaned. “I’m not sure I do.”

“All you have to do is lie there while I drain you dry,” she said. “Think you can do

that, lineman?”

A long, heartfelt sigh came from his chest. “If I have to, I suppose I can.”

“You have to because God only knows when we’ll be able to do this again.”

He yawned. “On the plane,” he stated. “Again.” Then released his tight hold on her.

“And in the car alongside the road somewhere.” He stood and held out his hand to help

her up. “Again.”

“You trying to wear me out, Fallon?” she asked as he pulled her to her feet.

He laughed and climbed out of the tub, drawing her in his wake. He bent over,

plucked up the towels, unfolded one and wrapped it around her then cocooned himself

in the other as she leaned down to retrieve their clothing.

“The floor’s a mess,” he said as she started out of the door. “Shouldn’t we mop it

up?”

“Leave it,” she ordered.

After one last amused look at the mess they’d made in Lily’s bathroom, he

shrugged, grinned and followed his lady back to her room.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Keenan was still sleeping when Fallon slipped out of her room around six the next

morning and padded barefoot down the stairs and into the kitchen. The funeral wasn’t

until 10:30 so he had plenty of time to kill before he drove her to the church.

“I gave Peaches the morning off to attend the funeral so if you want coffee you’ll

have to pour it yourself then join me.”

Glancing around, he saw the French doors from the kitchen to the patio were

standing open and Keenan’s mother was sitting on the patio.

“Did you make it?” he called out.

“You see anyone else lurking about?” she countered.

After pouring himself a cup of coffee, he took it outside. “Did you put a few drops

of cyanide in it for flavoring?”

She made an unladylike sound. “Poisoning would be too easy a death for a man

like you,” she quipped.

Keenan had not been exaggerating about the view from the patio. It was stunning

and in the early morning sun, light filtered through the trees to settle upon a small pond

over which a curved wooden bridge had been built.

“You have a very lovely home,” he said as he sat in one of the thickly upholstered

wrought iron chairs.

“My husband provided quite well for us,” she said. Clothed in a gaily patterned silk

caftan with gold sandals on her manicured feet, she was wearing a pair of dark

sunglasses—no doubt to hide the effects of a late night with her lover. “Kiki never

wanted for anything when she was growing up. Everything was given to her.” She

lifted her china coffee cup to her lips. “That’s why she is such a spoiled brat now.”

“Oh, I don’t think she’s spoiled at all,” Fallon said. “She has a very level head on

her shoulders.”

Lily turned her face toward him. “Did you enjoy fucking my daughter in my

bathtub, Mr. Fallon?”

Fallon crossed one leg over the other and settled back comfortably in the chair. He

hadn’t gotten over how much her voice sounded like Keenan’s. “I don’t fuck your

daughter, Lil. I make love to her, but maybe you aren’t familiar with the nuances of love

play.”

“I know a ruthless bounder when I see one,” she said.

“Is that what you think I am?”

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She reached up to lower the sunglasses so he could see her frosty eyes. “Perhaps

bounder is too generous a word. I know all about men like you, Fallon.”

He smiled nastily. “And what it is you think you know about me?”

“I know you are a crude, vulgar, grasping cad. You see this house and think of

yourself as its master one day.” She leaned forward. “Well, baby, I’m here to tell you

that you’ll never get your greedy hands on it or my daughter!”

Fallon didn’t respond to her taunt. He held her angry glare for a moment then took

a long drink of his coffee, gazing at her over the rim of the delicate cup. Surprised at the

excellent flavor of the brew, he complimented her by raising the cup in salute.

“Did you hear what I said?” she snapped.

“Why don’t you let your daughter run her own life?” he countered.

“Because my daughter cannot be trusted to do the right thing!” she said. “All her

life she’s had this fixation with the downtrodden, the outcasts and the dregs of society

no one else would give the time of day. She befriended the most inappropriate children

when she was growing up, dragging those bumpkins and white-trash children home to

play with her, insisting I invite them to her birthday parties.”

“And did you?”

Keenan’s mother’s lip crooked upward. “What do you think?”

“I think you underestimated Keenan’s capacity to love when she was a child and

you’re underestimating it now. She looks past what’s in a person’s bank account to that

person’s real worth—if they have any—and makes her decision based on how she

perceives them. I don’t think designer clothes and half-million dollar automobiles have

much value to her.”

Lily regarded him at length with a steady, unblinking glower of pure,

unadulterated revulsion, but if she thought the stare would unnerve him, intimidate

him and make him turn away, Fallon knew she was going to be in for a major

disappointment. He held the bristling scowl aiming daggers at him and politely smiled.

“You fucking conceited prick,” she exploded, eyes flashing. “I’ll see you six feet

under before I let you have my daughter! She belongs with Zack Breslin!”

The smile slipped from Fallon’s face to be replaced with a brutal visage that made

Lily McCullough pull back.

“And that’s one man I’ll put six feet under if he so much as lays one hand on

Keenan,” he snarled. “What the hell kind of mother are you that you would want a man

you spread your whoring legs for to screw your only child?”

“Zack loves her and he’ll be a good father to her child,” she declared.

“He isn’t going to get the chance. I’ll neuter him first!”

“The plans have all been made, and I can promise you Keenan and Zack will be

married before the year is out even if I have to force the marriage on her!”

Fallon stared at with his brows drawn together in a savage scowl. “You’re a sick,

twisted bitch who should have been drowned at birth.”

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“And you’re a dead man,” Lily spat, shooting up from her chair so violently it

tipped over. Without another look his way, she stormed off across the immaculately

trimmed backyard.

“Get me out of this house.”

Fallon snapped his head around to see Keenan standing in her bathrobe, tears

streaking down her cheeks.

“Now, Fallon!” she pleaded.

He was out of his chair and at her side in an instant, sweeping her up in his arms.

“You got it, babe,” he said, carrying her through the kitchen and up the stairs.

* * * * *

As soon as the funeral was over and the reception line began forming, Keenan

excused herself from the padded chairs in the front row under the dark green tent and

took Fallon’s hand. She’d already spoken to her remaining aunts and Marjorie’s

grieving husband—making her excuses for why she would not be at the luncheon

afterward, saying her goodbyes, expressing her love for her family—but she had no

intention of prolonging her visit on the chance her mother would cause an additional

scene.

Once in the car, she broke down and cried miserably all the way to the airport.

Fallon didn’t try to comfort her for he knew her anguish and misery had as much to do

with the loss of her beloved aunt as it did the death of whatever love she might have

still held for her mother. There was no relief for that, no consoling and no placation. Her

pain would have to play itself out and only time would cure the depression.

“I hate her,” she’d said on the way to the church that morning. “I hate her so much I

can’t stand it, Fallon.”

He understood her despair as well as her fury. His feelings for his stepfather

weren’t much different than those she held for her mother.

The Lear was waiting for them and took off only moments after they settled

onboard. Keenan sat beside Fallon with her head on his shoulder, their hands locked

together.

There was no quick trip to the restroom on the flight up to Memphis. At the airfield

there, the young woman who had driven Bolivar’s car to Regis Cove was waiting for

them. Keenan got into the backseat and lay down with her back to the front.

“Mate of the hound, I am sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Keenan said softly. “I have asked you to call me Keenan.”

“Keenan,”
the beast whispered then cleared its throat as though embarrassed
.

“Hound? I will be leaving shortly for my world. Take care of your lady while I am gone.”

“I will.”

“I will ask my masters about this creature you are trying to find. Though I have tried to

track it, I have had no success.”

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“Tell them its name means Spirit of the Night.”

“Aye, that I will.”
The presence drew back as silently as it had come.

“You okay back there?” Fallon asked.

“Let’s go, lineman,” she said. “Every minute I’m here cuts like a knife.”

He knew she was having a crisis but there was nothing he could do. He would

leave her alone, knowing when she was ready to discuss it, she’d come to him. He also

knew there would be no stopping along the road on the way to Louisiana, no chance to

love her.

There would, however, be a stop for gas, a trip to the restroom to remove all traces

of the smeared makeup on her face and a change back into a dowdier, looser-fitting

dress as better suited the young woman known as Tandy Lynch.

Back in Albany—after the last mourner had departed her home and she had wearily

climbed the stairs to her bedroom, Lily McCullough walked to the door of her garden

tub room and stared at the carpet that was still sopping wet from the evening before.

She stood there for a long time and when she finally shook herself free of the

murderous rage she felt, she went to the phone on her bedside table and dialed a

number in Atlanta.

“Royce?” she said when the call went through. “I have another job for you.”

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Bolivar called out for Fallon to come on in. She was in the bedroom with Keenan—

had been for several hours—for this was the night Tandy Lynch would make her

ministry debut in Metairie, Louisiana, to a packed tent.

“We’ll be ready in a minute!” Bolivar said.

“Take your time,” Fallon mumbled. He knew that excuse all too well and plopped

down in the chair, swiping a magazine off the coffee table. Idly thumbing through it, he

found an article that looked interesting and started reading—anything to keep his mind

off Keenan and the need that was growing with leaps and bounds inside his body. He

heard rustling but didn’t look up.

“Well, what do you think?”

Frowning, he stuck his thumb in the magazine to mark his place, lifted his head and

froze.

“Well?” Bolivar prompted.

Without any other conscious thought in his mind save touching the beautiful vision

standing before him, he slowly rose to his feet, so mesmerized he simply dropped the

magazine to the floor. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. His heart was pounding

so fiercely in his chest he thought he might well pass out for his blood was racing hot

and thick through his veins. All he could do was stare at the magnificent creature across

from him even though what he really wanted to do was kneel at her feet and offer her

all that was his.

“Robbie, honestly!” Boliver snapped. “Say something!”

“She…” He had to clear his throat. “She looks nice,” he managed to say.

“Nice?” Bolivar gasped with disbelief. “She looks nice?”

“Yeah,” he said, flinging out a hand. “She looks nice.”

Keenan’s hazel eyes were locked on his.

“Oh for the love of God, Robbie,” Bolivar snarled. “Shut your mouth. You look like

a beached carp!” She reached out to adjust a soft brown curl that dangled over Keenan’s

left shoulder. “I take it you have been struck dumb by the beauty I have brought out in

this sweet girl.”

“Do I look all right, Mr. Robbie?” Keenan asked, her eyes twinkling.

“You know you do,” he heard himself say, and had to shake his head to clear it of

the urge to rush to her and drag her into his arms.

“Then I would like you to escort her to the tent tonight,” Bolivar said. “I’ll be in

front with the old cadre surrounding me. People will be rubbernecking trying to see

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Tandy and figure out who she is. Don’t you let some rube touch this gown, do you hear

me?”

The gown in which Keenan was dressed had to be the most beautiful creation in the

world. He’d never seen its like and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it had cost

Bolivar a small fortune.

Made of shimmering copper-colored taffeta, the gown had an empire waistline and

a flowing hankie-hem skirt. The edges of the hem and the bodice had been sewn with