In Your Wildest Dreams (13 page)

She plodded quickly, her low heels clicking on the pavement as she wove through the decadent crowd, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she turned a corner to find a cab sitting curbside. She opened the door and slid in, then grabbed for the door handle, only to find Jake's imposing body in the way.

Utterly shocked, she flinched. She'd been walking so fast that she hadn't even realized he'd followed her.

"Where we going, miss?" the elderly driver asked in his rearview mirror.

'The LaRue, on Esplanade."

"I'll do some more work on locatin' your sister,
chère,"
Jake said, still leaning in the open door. "I'll call you at the LaRue."

She blinked, gazing up at him. "You're still going to help me find Tina?"

"I said I would, didn't I?"

She simply nodded, amazed. Somehow she'd been sure his help was over—because he'd tried with no luck, and because she'd just let him kiss her senseless before haring away from him like a madwoman. "Thank you."

"Nothin' to thank me for yet. You can thank me when we find her. And
beb
..”

"What?"

"Don't do anything stupid like go lookin' on your own again. Wait to hear from me."

She drew in her breath, tempted to argue, but then remembered the ugly scene on the balcony at Sophia's. "All right."

With a short nod, he closed the door tight and stepped away from the cab. As the car started up the narrow street, she found herself peering out at him until he faded into the darkness of the French Quarter.

It was like a replay of two nights ago. She lay in bed, aching for Jake Broussard's touch. She was an idiot to have denied herself the pleasure she knew he could bring her.

She was thirty years old, old enough for a night of casual sex if that's what she wanted. And yet, as things had grown more heated, as she'd grown more lost to his hands, his
lips
, the hard planes of his body, something unexpected had risen within her. Apprehension.

It was akin to what had made her push him away in the red room, but at least then, she'd had a reason—he'd thought she was a prostitute.

Now, though, there were no misconceptions or lies standing between them. And she'd been sure she would give in if they got close again. Yet as she'd gotten dangerously near to saying yes to all he had to offer, something had injected that irrational fear into her head. What was she so afraid of?

Was it him? This sexy Cajun ex-cop who wouldn't tell her why he wasn't a cop anymore? There might not be lies between them now, but secrets still existed, and maybe that was a good reason to worry. The possibility still existed that he'd done something wrong and been kicked off the force—maybe he'd even committed a crime. Underneath his gruffness, he seemed like a decent man, but what if that was just one part of him? Hadn't she just been telling herself people had more than one side to their personalities? What if Jake had a
dark
side? What if he was capable of doing something truly wrong?
Maybe your instincts are holding you back; maybe some sixth sense is telling you he
isn't
a good man.

All of that made sense as she lay in the darkness, watching the shadows of thick tree branches dip ominously through the pale moonlight shining in the window. And even as frustrations continued to rack her, it made her glad she'd had the strength to resist him.

Except that one other possibility hung in the back of her mind, and she couldn't not ask herself the question:
what if you're just afraid of the things he makes you feel?

In the beginning, he'd been a stranger. But now she knew him better and she trusted him more. She kept telling herself she barely knew him, but here in the darkness, she realized that was only a wall she was erecting between them, a reason to say no. If he was the good man her heart told her he was, well
...
it would be more than just two strangers grappling around in his bed. It might not be meaningful and lasting, but he was no longer just "the bartender." So why did it feel as if having sex with a man she deeply desired would be some sort of betrayal to herself?

What are you running from, Stephanie?

* * *

Jake headed south on 56 through the heart of Terrebonne Parish behind the wheel of the old pickup his father had driven when Jake was a boy. Amazing the beat-up Ford still ran, but despite all its clunks and rattles, it got him where he was going. After Becky was gone, he'd traded in the new Camry they'd bought together, leaving the old truck—which had been parked behind his mother's little shotgun house—for him to get around in. It was enougli— other than heading to the bayou, he didn't go anyplace that required a vehicle.

He flipped on the radio to hear a static-filled version of Matchbox Twenty's "Bright Lights" asking him who would save him from all he was up against in this world? Unlike the girl in the song, though, Becky couldn't come home. The sad strains added to his general melancholy, which had grown worse over the last couple of hours.

He could still smell Stephanie Grant's soft floral perfume, still feel the softness of her breast in his hand. The memory made his fingers itch and he curled them tighter around the steering wheel. He'd wanted her—badly. And he still wasn't sure why she'd said no. Of bigger concern to him, though, was why it had bothered him so much, actually leaving him with hurt feelings and a sense of rejection he hadn't felt in a long time.

So he'd walked home, changed clothes, and started toward the old house. He needed to get away, even if just for the night. He'd planned to spend his days off there like he did every week, but if he didn't come back tomorrow, Stephanie would surely get herself into trouble and he couldn't risk that.

There you go again, trying to save somebody, even when the song on the radio just reminded you
—you
need saving as bad as anyone.
He hated himself for giving a shit about the woman or what happened to her, but maybe that just showed how truly weak he was.
Can't even quit caring about women you don't even know.

Yet there was something about
this
woman, he thought as he turned onto a gravel side road. She was so different from him—so prim, and yet so haphazard when it came to finding her sister. And something about her kept calling him back for more.

Although she could wait a day while he unwound a little and got his bearings back. That's what the bayou house gave him.

It was the only place where he felt truly safe, from everything, and when he thought he couldn't survive one more day, he came here, and listened to the sounds, and let the moss-covered trees close around him—and he survived. Just enough to make himself go back to the city and survive a little longer there, too.

The end of the winding road appeared, the dark bayou waters ahead glinting in the moonlight. He parked the truck and walked toward the lean-to where he and a few other locals kept pirogues. Slipping a key in a lock so flimsy that anyone with a notion could break through, he dragged his boat down to the water's edge, overhung with ancient willows.

Pushing off into the water, he let the soothing qualities of the bayou fill him. Becky had always thought the bayou was "creepy," and as he drifted along the dark surface, he supposed he could understand what she'd meant. But since she'd been gone, it had become exactly what he needed—a place to close himself off from everything.

By the time he'd traveled a quarter of a mile downstream and paddled the pirogue into an even narrower tributary, he already felt a little better, a little
...
emptier. For Jake, empty was good. Empty meant emotions were held at bay. Empty meant feeling as close to nothing as possible. The dark water calmed him, made him feel almost as if he were easing down into it, letting it swallow him in its blackness.

A few minutes later, the old house came into view on the bank, flanked by clusters of enormous cypress on both sides. The back porch served as a dock, where he tied off the boat.

Stepping inside, he didn't bother turning on any lights. Didn't want to disturb the sweet, consuming darkness that made it feel like he was in a dream. Well, he amended with a wry chuckle, not the kind of dreams he'd been having lately, all fiery heat and sizzling sex—but the vague dreams that came with good sleep.

"You're beginning to heal, Jake," Tony had said when Jake had told him the dreams were better—no more nightmares—and the sleep was getting more restful.

Yet Jake had only laughed. If this was healing, it was a hell of a weak remedy. Better than nightmares and nagging, gnawing despair—but he hardly felt like his old self. He could barely remember that person, in fact— could only see him in shades and shadows of memory, in old photos it hurt to look at. He didn't think he'd
ever
heal. The way he saw it, he was just doing his time for another thirty, forty years, until they buried him, too.

Despite the lack of light, he could make out the under-construction state of the kitchen—the counters currently torn out, the new one leaning against the back wall. Beneath him, the new subfloor he'd started putting in a couple of weeks ago. Maybe he'd devote a couple of hours to it before heading back to the city tomorrow. Stephanie could wait that long.

Stephanie. Writhing against him. Pushing that softest spot of her against his hardest.

Quit thinking about her.

It was easier out here, in his private world. He succeeded in forcing thoughts of her away, even if he remained half stiff behind his zipper.

He looked around the room, wondering for the hundredth time why he was bothering to rebuild the place. To save this one safe haven from his childhood? Or just because pounding nails into boards took his head away from real life, gave him something simple and solid to concentrate on?

"You build somethin' wid your hands, boy," his father had once told him, "and you got somethin' to hold on to, somethin' that lasts. You can look at it, say, 'I made dat. Widout me, dat wouldn't be here.' "

On that particularly steamy summer day, it had been the back porch, built out over the water on thick pilings to keep it from sinking into the soft, volatile earth beneath the bayou. Back when this, his grandmother's house, had just been a place to visit on the weekend; back before he'd come to live here. But even on the weekends, it had felt like home. A place you didn't knock on the door, you just walked in, said,
"Manière,
I'm here," and she'd come scuttling from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish-towel, smelling like herbs and bayou water and all things warm. She'd laugh and say, "You done growed a foot since I saw you, Boo," even if she'd seen him just a few days before. "Come on, den, and look what I made," she'd say, dragging him in the kitchen to show him something dark, ground up in a glass bottle or jar. "Dis wild bark take away de toothache," or "Dis some grigery for Mr. Dulac's sore hands."

Jake found himself wondering, had she been alive after what happened with Becky, if his grandmother could have mixed him up something to make him feel better, feel alive again. Yet he smiled sardonically, since he could almost hear her answering, "Ah, now, you need to see de voodoo lady for dat, Boo—I can't fix no heart."

Nobody could.

Sighing, he grabbed a beer from the antique refrigerator and walked out on the back porch he'd rebuilt a time or two since his father had first constructed it, settled in the old glider, and looked out into the darkness, trying to quiet his thoughts.
Just drink your beer. And feel home.

When he felt himself drifting off into blessed sleep a few minutes later, he didn't bother getting up and heading for bed. A little trick he'd learned: sometimes moving killed it, that sweet, feel-nothing drift into sleep, so he'd taught himself to just stay put where he was and let it steal him away. Setting his beer on the wood below him, he leaned back his head and closed his eyes.

The red
room feels even more red, more lush, than usual, like someone has put red bulbs in the lamps. But the one thing you see clearly is her. She stands naked, her back to you, her body a collection of pale curves that beckon in silent temptation.

You entered quietly, yet you know she feels you there, wanting her. Without acknowledging your presence, she drops to her knees and bends across a red velvet chair, her liquid movements a blunt invitation.

Drawing closer, a moth to aflame, you study the arch of her back, the roundness of her ass, adorned with a tiny tattoo of a simple flower, yellow center, five red petals.

"Come to me, lover," she says, her voice a husky whisper.

You 're just as impatient, but as you kneel behind her, you can't help running your hands over her satin skin. Starting at her shoulders, you smooth your palms downward, molding them to her slender waist, then over her rear and down her outer thighs. You bend to deliver a soft kiss to her tattoo, which makes her sigh.