In the Midnight Rain (9 page)

He moved into the pool of light coming through the screen, and it caught on the slash of skin showing between the flaps of his shirt. Supple skin, tanned dark even so early in the year. "Would you like to come see them, the greenhouses?"

He went down the steps, and paused. Ellie found her eyes on his lower belly, a vulnerable place on a man, where the skin curved downward. She wanted, suddenly and sharply, to put her mouth there.

She raised her eyes. "I'd love to see them, but not tonight, thank you."

"See you in the morning, then." He melted into the darkness, and Ellie caught sight of him again a few moments later, a shadow moving against the lights by the house.

Big trouble. She crossed her arms over her stomach, but didn't move right away, her eyes on the dark silhouette of him against the light.

If she were another sort of woman, Blue Reynard could have been a nice diversion. There were probably lots of women who could take a nice long sip of that sexy heat and walk away, and she had no doubt he'd happily put on his charming self to please Ellie if she showed the slightest inclination toward getting laid.

But she'd learned the hard way that she just didn't operate like that. She would start off telling herself it was just for play, the natural response of two adults who found each other attractive. She would almost certainly enjoy herself. In his cheerful moods, he'd be fun in bed.

Unfortunately, Ellie knew she wouldn't be satisfied with that. She'd start wanting to find out what made him tick. She'd feel resentful about being a notch on his belt. She'd start looking for ways to bind him to her—and then he'd bolt.

She thought of him tonight, looking crazy and lost and hungry. That was what she'd end up wanting—the heart and soul of him—and the wanting would make her crazy.

With a sigh, she went back inside. A man like that was nothing but trouble, and she was well past the age where trouble seemed romantic. Give her steady and practical any day.

But the cottage seemed very quiet now. The music had clicked off. Her notes were scattered over the desk, and she realized she'd worked for more than twelve hours today. It had left her faintly keyed up, restless, and she didn't want to plunge back into it.

For a moment, she thought of signing on to the Internet. It was her usual method of unwinding. But knowing Blue wouldn't be there, that there would be no notes waiting for her, took some of the pleasure out of it. For months, they'd exchanged dally notes—sometimes long, sometimes just a line or two, and it was slightly disturbing to realize now that she'd come to depend on them. He'd become a steady spot in her world, with his wit and wild asides and flashes of genuine brilliance.

She was deeply tempted to follow him up to the greenhouse, to see what that place revealed about him. Instead, she fastened her hair on top of her head and headed for the shower, realizing only when she stepped under the spray that she was humming the soundtrack to her life again. Janis Joplin, wailing, "I need a man to love me..."

Corny. Very corny. She laughed and put her face under the water, washing away temptation.

* * *

Because she'd gone to bed so early, Ellie was up well before the sun even broke above the woods to the east. She ate some toast spread with home-canned strawberry preserves and drank coffee, sitting at the small oak table to rearrange her note cards, looking for some clue that might shed some light on Mabel's disappearance. There was nothing. On the surface, her life looked like a classic American rags-to-riches story: a young woman from a small town who had only her talent and determination, on the road to stardom. Mabel had never married, never had children, had poured everything she had and everything she was into her dream.

And made it—finally landed that contract that would have meant fame and real money.

Then disappeared off the face of the planet.

Ellie scowled and glanced outside. The sun was beginning to rise, lending the world beyond the cabin a rosy wash. Birds twittered in the trees. She listened, smiling, thinking of her grandmother shelling peas and calling out the names of birds: redbird, lark, robin, blue jay, wren, crow. Ellie could pick out the lovely sound of a blackbird, and a warbling sparrow, and the ever-present harshness of a magpie. Another made a series of high sounds that was almost like a dog whining. She didn't know what it was.

She glanced at the clock. Only 5:15. Blue wouldn't be picking her up for more than an hour. "Come on, April," she said, and grabbed her leash.

The dog's ears pointed straight up, and when she heard the rattle of the leash, she barked, once, sharply, and danced for a moment on her back paws. Ellie grinned and stepped out on the porch, closing the front door behind her.

The air was still cool, and laden with moisture that felt good on her face. A mist rose from the ground and made the bank of wild roses along the road look like a floating pink smear against their dark green leaves. The morning smelled of damp earth and water.

A path led from the drive in front of the cabin, branching out in three directions. One led to the house, another toward the road Ellie had driven down when she first arrived. The third led south, into a tunnel of trees, and Ellie opted to explore it.

Mindful of Blue's warning of snakes, she wore her boots and kept to the road so that April wouldn't inadvertently stumble into a nest. It was a narrow dirt road, divided by a line of grass, so it was used by some kind of vehicle, but Ellie would never have guessed from the landscape. Thickets of bushes and trees crowded right up to the edge of the dirt, and Ellie couldn't help but think of spiderwebs. She hated that trail of web over neck or arm or mouth. It wasn't so much the webs themselves as the thought of where the dislodged spider might have gone—like into her hair.

It was quiet and deserted, though once she glimpsed the roof of a structure through a break in the trees, with a line of smoke coming out of the tin chimney, but saw no visible access and assumed there must be another way in.

As Blue had promised, the path led to the banks of the river. It was a wide, slow-moving body of water, dark green in the early light. A figure sat in a chair on the bank about ten yards upstream, a man in a fishing hat with a line in the water. Out of respect, Ellie didn't let April off her leash as she'd planned. Instead, she simply led the dog to the edge of the river and held tight to the leash, letting the cool, mossy scent of water and forest and pine touch tiny, dry places on her soul and fill them. Birds sang joyously.

Abruptly, Ellie wished her grandmother were here. She thought of her chopping rhubarb for tarts, wearing a faded apron of the style that covered a woman's entire chest and shoulders and skirt front. No little froufrou aprons for Grandma.

It was the river and the early morning that brought it on this time. They'd always risen very early, like country people the world over, and often Ellie and her grandmother had left the house before sunup to pick berries or take a walk through the woods. Ellie learned to love the embrace of morning and nature, the uncomplicated peace of sitting on a riverbank, listening to the water and the birds. Her grandpa had liked fishing, but only rarely let Ellie trail along. With a fond smile, she crouched on the bank and watched the figure in the chair cast and reel with a deft, expert hand. As the light came up, she saw the figure was not male, as she assumed, but a slim, elderly black woman.

The woman caught sight of her and waved in friendly acknowledgment, then gestured for Ellie to come over. "Good morning," the woman said, tilting her head to look through the distance part of her bifocals. "You must be Blue's houseguest."

"Ellie Connor," she said.

"Nice to meet you. Gwen Laisser. Blue's daddy sold me that little bit of land you saw back there—oh, forty years ago, I guess."

Ellie nodded politely. "Fish biting this morning?"

"Not doing too bad. Got some bluegills for my supper, I guess, but I'm after a cat. You like catfish?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am, I do. Fried in cornmeal?"

"That's right." The voice was smooth and husky, tinged with a long, lazy drawl, soft on the s sounds.

April tugged at the leash, straining to smell something in a dip in the earth, and Ellie took a step to allow it. "My grandpa used to let me tag along with him every now and then when he went fishing," she volunteered. "I haven't done it in years."

"In my experience, folks have to get a little age on them before they remember what a pleasure it is."

Ellie chuckled. "Maybe so." She watched the water, watched the woman cast and reel, taking pleasure in the calm rhythm of it, and the soft, breathy humming that came from her, some kind of old gospel tune Ellie couldn't quite catch.

"I hear you're doing a biography on Mabel Beauvais," the old woman said.

"Yes. Did you know her?"

"A little." She looked up through glasses so thick they distorted her eyes comically. "How come you settled on Mabel? Not too many folks remember her anymore."

Ellie laughed softly. "Exactly what my editor said." She shook her head a little, and looked out at the moving water. "Truth is, I have no idea. Something in her face called to me, that's all. It just happens that way sometimes—some little thing snags your heart and you don't really have any choice but to follow."

"Is that right." Mrs. Laisser nodded. "I reckon I've felt that, once or twice." She grinned. "I will say old Mabel stirred this old town up good. She was really something, that girl."

A shiver moved on Ellie's shoulders. "Can you tell me about her?"

"I'll tell you what I remember. She was beautiful, but you already know that. What you can't see from the pictures is that she burned for her music. It was the only thing she cared anything at all about, from the time she was just a little bitty girl."

"Did you go to school with her?"

"I did. She sang all the time, too. We were jealous of her, you know, 'cause she got so much attention. And her daddy was a pretty well-to-do farmer, so she had better clothes than some of the rest, and a real haughty attitude."

Ellie laughed, wishing she had her notebook with her. "Mrs. Laisser, I'm used to writing things down, and I don't want to miss any of this. Would you mind if I came back another time with my notebook?"

"Not at all, child. Any time."

"How about going into Tyler for an Engish tea?" She smiled. "I met a woman in town, getting her hair done yesterday, who said she could be persuaded if I'd take her to tea. I'd drive."

"Who was it? You remember?"

Ellie couldn't think of the woman's name, but she described her. Mrs. Laisser shook her head. "No, I don't think so."

"All right, then. How about tomorrow morning, same time, same place? Do you fish every day?"

'"Less my knees are giving me trouble, I do. But I'm off to Dallas tomorrow for a little vacation. Be back next week early. How 'bout I stop by and let you know when I'm back?"

Ellie stuck out her hand. "That would be great. I'll look forward to it."

The woman put out a hand that had once been long and elegant but was now knotted with arthritis. "I'll leave you to it," Ellie said. "Good luck on getting some cat."

"Be careful around that man, now," she said with a wink. "He's plumb irresistible."

"Oh, we're just friends."

The old woman's eyes twinkled behind her thick glasses. "I reckon you aren't one of his girls just yet. But there can't be a woman born who can resist all that sad beauty."

Ellie chuckled. "Well, he's a charmer. But I'm immune."

The woman nodded cheerfully. "Bring a line some morning. I wouldn't mind it."

"Thank you. I will."

One of his girls.
Ellie thought of him standing there last night, so oddly winded, thought of his gleaming flesh and the way he'd paused on the threshold, his hand against her thigh. Of course he had a horde of women. He probably couldn't help it. What else would a poor little rich boy do but drink and chase women?

He was sitting on her porch steps when she came back up the path, and before she could brace herself, a jolt of surprised lust shot through her. The morning sun brought out streaks of gold in the unruly length of his hair and gilded the hair on his tanned, strong forearms, and he looked, Ellie thought, imminently
climbable.

"Hey," he said. "Brought you some coffee."

"I know I didn't spend an hour down there—have you been waiting long?" She took the offered mug, noting he'd doctored it with milk. She sipped it and found he'd also paid attention when she added too much sugar to her cup at Dome's Cafe. "This is perfect."

"I aim to please, ma'am."

"Am I late or are you early?" she asked again.

"I'm early." He dropped his head, examined a board on the steps. "Wanted to tell you I'm sorry about last night." He lifted his face, and sun struck the bright blue irises. "You must've thought I was ten kinds of weird, standing in the yard, spying on you like that."

Ellie lifted her eyebrows. "Well, maybe five kinds."

He grinned ruefully. "Anyway, I'm not dangerous. I don't want you to think you have to run off and find some other room in town. I won't bother you like that again."

"I didn't mind," she said, and hesitated. "But you know what? I can see there's this—" She closed her mouth, then started again. "You have a reputation, you know, being a ladies' man and all that, and God knows you have the gift, but I don't want anything like that from you. I like talking to you. I think we have a lot in common. But the last thing in the world I can do right now is get mixed up with some heartbreaker who makes me miss my deadline."

He inclined his head, a wicked smile showing those rich-boy teeth. "I have the gift, you say?"

She rolled her eyes. "Come on, Blue. Don't be that way with me. I don't need to flirt with you."

"Oh, we all need to flirt, now and again."

"Maybe you do. I don't."

He chuckled. "How about this, Miz Connor? Asking a leopard to change his spots is impossible, so you'll likely just have to put up with me flirting." His mouth sobered as he paused, and the gaze was straight and honest. "But I like your brain, and I like your company, and I really hate to ruin a perfectly good friendship with sex, being as sex is easy to find and friends aren't, so we'll keep it at that. You're free to roll your eyes and tell me I'm full of hot air, but I'm just not capable of talking to a female without sweet-talking her now and again, so you'll have to live with it." His eyes glittered. "Deal?"