In the Midnight Rain (20 page)

It was nearly full day now, the sun peeking over the eastern forest in hazy arrowings of light that stabbed the still-raw ground where slabs of carved granite lay. There were three panels, to be fitted together when they were erected, and Marcus felt a pang as he bent to press the pads of his fingers to the triangular carving of names. James's was among them.

This morning, with a soft wind blowing over his face, it was easy to remember being ten, and fishing on the bank of the Cotton River. James had been raised by his grandmother, a woman as black and unyielding as a cast-iron skillet, and he ran to the freer world of Marcus's life—where there was a mother smelling of Tabu when she could afford it, and a bosomy grandmother who liked singing, and a daddy who took them fishing in the early mornings, and a score of children sleeping hurry-scurry in piles of cots and bunks and the odd double bed, sometimes four deep. No one minded one more child.

Marcus had four brothers and two sisters of his own, and had been raised with a changing array of cousins from his mother's large family. They came to stay on the farm for a month or a season or even for years unending, for a variety of reasons—a troubled marriage, or a job that forced a single parent to work late shifts, or a bit of trouble the child found in cities not as kind to black children as the country.

But from the first, James had been different. Special. Long before he met him, Marcus had felt sorry for the boy he glimpsed at the market or at church, his mouth turned down as his forbidding grandmother pushed or pulled or nagged him along to her bidding. To Marcus, it seemed plain the woman hated him, and he felt sad for any boy who didn't have someone to hug him regular. He couldn't see that prickly crow ever wrapping her arms around that boy.

He knew better now, of course. In her way, Hattie Gordon had loved her grandchild and wanted to spare him the same fate as his father.

Marcus no longer remembered why his mother had begun keeping James on a regular basis. The Crow had probably found work and James needed looking after. In those days, a neighbor had been a logical choice.

And from the first, when they were both five, James and Marcus had been inseparable. They chased crawdads at the river, and lay on the ground in sleeping bags, slapping mosquitoes, staring at the stars. They climbed trees and had pirate adventures in the forest. As they grew older, they talked about girls with a special code, and even when James, with his charisma and golden eyes and pale ocher skin, had proved to be the more popular of the two, Marcus never minded.

In all his life, he'd never known as unsullied a love as he'd known for James Gordon. He also knew, with the certainty of knowing he had a right hand or a big left toe, that James had felt the same way.

On this cool golden morning, having left his wife and his children asleep in the house they shared, Marcus touched the big letter J carved into black granite and felt a sorrow he would never reconcile. He lifted his head, seeing the slope of roofs covering the sleeping windows of the town. He was not alone in his lingering grief for someone lost to that faraway jungle. There was Connie Ewing, and Rosemary, and Blue.

Blue. On clear days, when he was really thinking, Marcus knew one reason he'd found friendship with a white man almost fifteen years his junior was his resemblance to James. Not color or age or background, but a certain blaze in the smile, a note in his laughter. Even the doomed look of his mouth sometimes of a summer twilight, and the lure he held for women.

Standing, he jingled his keys loosely in his fingers and let a small, quiet sense of pride move in him. Because Marcus had not forgotten, because he had worked to make it so, the memorial had come to fruition. Maybe, he thought, whistling as he headed to work, he'd think about getting something erected to remember Mabel Beauvais next. A room or two in one of her old houses, or a retrospective in photos for the library. Rosemary would be more than willing to help, he was sure—and with Ellie's biography coming out next year, it might be a sweet little tourist draw.

He laughed at himself.
Memorials Are Us. We remember so you don't have to.

* * *

Ellie slept like the dead, and only awakened when April put her muzzle on the bed and whined right in her face, urgently. Groggy, Ellie opened one eye, felt the slight edge of headache at the base of her skull, and pulled the pillow over her head. April put her paws on the bed and slid her nose under the edge of the pillow, whining softly again. Ellie stuck out a hand and rubbed her ears, but the dog snuffled deeper, insistent.

"Okay, okay." With a sigh, Ellie got up and tugged her nightshirt down, then padded to the door and let April out to run. It was dark out, the sky hung with low clouds, the air thick with impending rain, and she glanced at the clock. Nearly noon. Amazing she'd slept so long.

Blue.

The single word whispered through her as she washed her face and started the coffeemaker. She leaned sleepily on the counter, her feet bare, her hair unbrushed, her shoulders weary with the long week.

Blue.
Memories danced through her sleep-softened mind—his hair, his hands, his eyelashes, his laugh. And a wordless, sensory wash of mouth-tongue-hands-hair, something richer than the sum of its parts, that moved along her spine, across her scalp, in her thighs.

Blue.

Outside, it began to rain, just a few drips at first, plopping onto the roof of the porch and the dry ground, then more and more, very quickly, until the little cabin was awash with the steady, soothing sound. A sharp, urgent bark sounded from the porch and Ellie chuckled, going to the door to let April in. April hated to get wet.

But with the dog was the man. Ellie, still sleep-muffled, blinked at him for a long moment before she realized she was standing there in her nightshirt, an old Henley printed with cats. It covered her to her knees, sort of, but the fabric was ancient and she was suddenly acutely aware of her skin below it, of her nipples and the line of her underwear across her bottom. She had not brushed her hair.

And he did nothing to ease the situation, only stood there with the rain pouring down behind him, looking like the cover of an album, maybe something smoky and Southern, Allman Brothers with soul, in a pair of jeans and a simple white tank top and his hair loose on his shoulders and his jaw not yet shaved.

She didn't know whether to cross her arms to cover her breasts or smooth her hair back from her face, and without coffee, decisions came slowly, so she did neither, then tried to do both at once, touching the madness of her hair.

"I'm not dressed for visitors," she said finally. "Come back when I've had coffee and maybe I'll have a coherent word."

He didn't take the hint. Instead, he pulled open the screen door to let April in, and stepped inside himself. "You look just like I thought you might look in the mornings," he said, and his voice wasn't the teasing ladies' man tone, but something warmer, deeper. Hungrier.

A jolt of pure lust went through her, and she was more aware of her breasts than ever, but aware now in a good way, in a way that wanted those long-fingered hands on her. The yearning and her disappointment in herself came together, and she moved away, turning, pushing her hands across her forehead, catching her hair back at the nape of her neck. She held it there, out of her face, and felt more in control. "You want some coffee?"

"No, thanks. I want you to see something. Get dressed and I'll fix your coffee for you."

"It's raining."

His eyes glittered. "Yes, it is."

There was something thicker now between them. That kiss. She couldn't help thinking of it when she looked at him, and knew it must be in his head, too, and there was a part of her that wondered why they didn't just get on with it, because it was now perfectly obvious they were going to have sex. Now or later.

His jeweled eyes touched her breasts, her legs. He tucked his hands in his back pockets and inclined his head toward the bedroom. "Go on. Get dressed."

So she did and came back in a pair of jeans and the first T-shirt she'd been able to find, an oversized memento of a trip to Mexico last year. And a bra. Armor.

He was stirring sugar into a cup as she came out catching her hair into a ponytail with a scrunchie. It occurred to her as he put the big mug in her hand that, not counting seduction steaks and bottles of wine, she didn't think a man had ever prepared food for her. Certainly none of them ever fixed her coffee. "Thanks."

A soft smile. "Bit slow this morning?"

Ellie nearly denied it, but found herself smiling ruefully instead. "I guess I am. How do you do it?"

He winked. "Lots of practice. Besides, I let you do my drinking for me last night. Didn't have but three bourbons myself."

"Mmmm." Ellie drank. "I didn't count."

"You ready?"

"For what? Do we really have to go out in the rain?"

"Trust me, you'll be glad. There's an umbrella in here somewhere. You can use that." He opened a closet and took it out. "Come on. You'll like this."

"All right."

And really, the air was lovely outside. Cool and gray and richly scented. Blue held the umbrella up over their heads and made small talk. He led them to the greenhouse. Even through the rain, Ellie saw the splashes of color against the walls, and she remembered something he'd said about orchids. Did she really, in her slightly off-center state, want to go in there with this man? She stopped. "What are you going to show me?"

A knowing shine lit his eyes. "You scared, little girl?"

"Maybe." Rain dampened his shoulders, made his arms slick, which made her think of licking him, which made her take a gulp of coffee. It scalded her throat. Better. "Wary is a better word."

He looked like he might kiss her, but something else came into his face and he only smiled, very softly. "You'll like this. I promise."

"Okay."

He led her to the door and pulled it open, stepping back into the rain so she had the protection of the umbrella. Ellie ducked her head and ran inside.

The smell struck her first—an unearthly, beautiful fragrance, exotic and deliriously sexy. Flowers, but not anything as simple or ordinary as roses or lilacs or even lavender; this was exotic, like rare perfume. In pure reflex, she breathed it deep, nearly tasting it, and found below the rich main note of flowers the earthiness of damp soil and the somehow soothing scent of water.

The smell of Blue's hair.

Then she registered what she saw. "Oh, my God!" she whispered, coffee held up but forgotten as her eyes lifted, higher and higher.

It was not like any greenhouse she'd ever seen. The light this morning was dim with the rain streaking the glass overhead in the giant, long room. Everywhere there were flowers, in a painter's frenzy of colors—white and yellow, red and hot pink, blue and purple and even green. Striped and spotted and fringed. They climbed the wall and bloomed from branches of trees, and clung to what appeared to be the enormous trunks of rain forest-sized trees covered with some kind of bark. "Are these all orchids?" she asked, and her voice was hushed with awe.

"Not all of them. A lot of them are." There was a kind of wonder on his face. "Cool, huh?" He took her hand. "But this isn't it, what I wanted to show you. Come on."

He led her down a graveled path, and she saw he'd kicked off his shoes at the door and now padded barefoot through the wonderland he had created. It was a dense, green world, with hidden treasures—Ellie glimpsed small pools and waterfalls, both small and large. Something flashed, then moved, and Ellie shied away with a little screech as a bird flapped out of its hiding place and landed on the path. "Birds?"

"Yep. They're rescues, mainly. Tropical birds taken out of the forest and sold to tourists who then don't know what to do with them. This guy is a flashy starling, basically."

Drawn by the commotion, another bird waddled out—a white pigeon with a bright red stain on its chest, as if an arrow had pierced it. Despite its exotic look, it waddled with the same aggressive stance as any city pigeon, and cooed loudly. "I guess Piwacket isn't allowed in here," Ellie said, laughing.

"Oh, no." He laughed with her, and drew her on, and now Ellie was genuinely curious. What could be better than just the greenhouse itself?

He ducked under a woven stretch of live plants and straightened, pulling Ellie behind him. "Ta-da!" He gestured with an open palm.

"Oh!" she cried. Looking up into the crotch of a "tree", Ellie saw the biggest, showiest flower she'd ever seen in her life. It was red, and at least fourteen inches across, with a showy lip in a paler shade. It bloomed in exuberance at the end of a long, thick stem. The leaves were plain, even ugly, but that flower was an astonishment. "It's amazing, Blue!"

"Told you." He grinned proudly, admiring the flower himself. "I've known she was going to bloom for several days, and this morning—boom. There she was."

"Incredible." Ellie turned in a slow circle, looking at everything. The pools and waterfalls and trees and vines and flowers and leaves and birds, flashing in and out and making crying noises, and the rain pounding on the roof. A sudden welt of tears rose in her eyes, ridiculous and overwhelming. PMS, she told herself. "It's all amazing," she murmured. "How. . . ?"

"When Annie died," he said quietly, looking upward, "I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't stand to talk to anybody. I had built this greenhouse, and Marcus and I had started some basic propagation experiments, but when Annie died, this is where I came." A sad kind of smile crossed his mouth. "It kept me going."

"Taj Mahal," Ellie said, and it made the tightness in her throat worse.

He lifted a shoulder. "Maybe."

Ellie blinked and moved to look closely at a string of flowers cascading in a graceful arch, red with white spots, and focused on something unemotional. "Do you export them or sell them or what? Why so many?"

"I don't sell them. People have been trying to convince me to, but I'm not a collector, exactly."

"What then?"

"Propagation experiments, mainly. Orchids are one of the most valued flowers in the world, and many of the most important species grow naturally in places we need to preserve—the rain forests, which are also one of the most economically distressed areas of the world." He spread his hands. "No big leap to think about using orchids to both preserve the rain forests and increase the economic base of poor countries. You follow?"