Night Moves: Dream Man/After the Night (11 page)

God, he was no better than his father. Give him a whiff of a Devlin woman and he was like a wild buck in rut, hard and ready. Monica had nearly died today because of Renee Devlin, and here he was watching Renee’s daughter with his cock twitching in his britches.

She walked toward him, carrying a pile of clothes. No, not toward him, but toward the truck behind him. Her green cat eyes flickered at him, the expression in them hooded and
mysterious. His pulse leaped, and the look of her broke his tenuous hold on his temper. The events of the day piled up on him and he lashed out with devastating fierceness, wanting the Devlins to suffer as he had suffered.

“You’re trash,” he said in a deep, harsh voice as the girl drew even with him. She halted, frozen to the spot, with the kid still clinging to her legs. She didn’t look at Gray, just stared straight ahead, and the stark, pure outline of her face enraged him even more. “Your whole family is trash. Your mother is a whore and your father is a thieving drunk. Get out of this parish and don’t ever come back.”

Six

T
welve years later, Faith Devlin Hardy returned to Prescott, Louisiana.

Curiosity had been her companion on the drive up from Baton Rouge, and she hadn’t thought much beyond her reason for going back. Nothing about the road was familiar, because when she had lived in Prescott she’d seldom ventured farther than the small town, so no memories rose to link the past with the present, the girl with the woman.

But when she passed the Prescott city limit sign, when houses became closer together, forming actual streets and neighborhoods, when the tall pine and hardwood forests gave way to service stations and convenience stores, she felt an aching tension begin to grow in her. It increased when she reached the town square, with the redbrick courthouse looking exactly as it had in her memory. Cars still parked at angles all around the square, and park benches were still situated one to each side, for the old men to gather there on hot summer days, sheltering beneath the dense shade of the immense oak trees that grew on the square.

Some things had changed, of course. Some of the buildings were newer, while a few of the older ones were no longer there. Flower beds had been added to each corner of the courthouse square, no doubt by the enterprising Ladies’
Club, and pansies nodded their purple funny faces to passersby.

For the most part, though, things were the same, and the small differences only made the familiar stand out. The ache in her chest swelled until she could barely breathe, and her hands shook on the steering wheel. A piercing sense of sweetness went through her.
Home.

It was so sharp that she had to stop the car, easing it into a parking slot in front of the courthouse. Her heart was pounding wildly, and she took deep breaths to steady herself. She hadn’t expected this, hadn’t expected the tug of roots she thought had been severed a dozen years before. It shook her, it exhilarated her. She had been led here by nothing more than puzzlement, wanting to know for certain what had happened after the Devlins had been forcibly escorted out of the parish, but this burgeoning sense of belonging pushed curiosity aside.

But she didn’t belong here, she told herself. Even when she had lived here, she had never really
belonged
, only been tolerated. Whenever she had gone into any store in town, she had been watched like a hawk, because everyone knew a Devlin would steal anything that wasn’t nailed down. That wasn’t acceptance.

Knowing that, however, had no effect on her heart. Her instincts, her senses, recognized this as home. The rich, colorful scents that were like nowhere else on earth, the sights that had been imprinted on her brain from birth, the subtle influences of latitude and longitude that were recognized by every cell in her body, said that this was home. She had been born here, grown up here. Her memories of Prescott were bitter, but still it pulled at her with invisible strings she hadn’t even known existed. She hadn’t wanted this. She had wanted only to satisfy her curiosity, gain a sense of closure, so she could completely let go of the past and build her future.

It hadn’t been easy, coming back. Gray Rouillard’s words still burned in her memory as if it had been yesterday he’d said them rather than twelve years before. Sometimes she went for days without thinking of him, but the pain was always there—under control, but there, a permanent companion.
Coming back made the memories more immediate, and she heard his voice echoing in her mind:
You’re trash.

She drew in a deep, shaking breath, and inhaled the sweet green scent so bound up in memories of her childhood. Steadying herself, she made a more leisurely examination of the square, familiarizing herself once again with what had once been as well known as her own hand.

Some of the old businesses lining the square had been spruced up; the hardware store had a rock and cedar front now, and rustic double doors. A McDonald’s occupied the space where the Dairy Dip had been. A new bank had been built, and she’d bet money that it belonged to the Rouillards.

People walked by, glancing curiously at her as small-town people did at strangers, but no one recognized her. She hadn’t expected them to; twelve years had changed her from child into woman, and she had changed herself from helpless to capable, from poor to prosperous. In her tailored creamy business suit, with her heavy red hair tucked into a sophisticated twist and her eyes protected by sunglasses, there was nothing about her to remind people of Renee Devlin.

It was ironic, Faith supposed; Renee had been guilty as sin of most of the charges laid at her door, but she had been innocent of the one that had finally gotten the Devlins run out of town. She hadn’t run away with Guy Rouillard.

It was curiosity about exactly what Guy had done that had brought Faith back to Prescott after all these years. Had he been shacked up with a new girlfriend, and turned up a day or so later astonished at the uproar he’d caused? Had he been on a drinking spree, or maybe even a marathon poker game? Faith wanted to know. She wanted to come face-to-face with him, look him in the eye, and tell him what his irresponsibility had cost her.

She stared sightlessly at the courthouse square, memories washing over her. Her family had splintered after that dreadful night. They had driven as far as Baton Rouge before stopping for the night, sleeping in their vehicles. Amos had been alone in his truck, Russ and Nicky in their truck, with Jodie following in her old rattletrap of a car.
Faith and Scottie had been in the car with Jodie, Scottie asleep on Faith’s lap.

Looking back, most of what she remembered was terror and shame. Certain memories were frozen, crystal-clear in her mind: the blinding lights of the patrol cars, that moment of sheer terror when she had been dragged out of bed and pushed through the door onto the ground, Scottie’s shrieks. Sometimes she could even feel the way his hands had clung to her, feel the terrified pressure of his little body against her legs. The most acute memory, though, the one that echoed in her mind with painful clarity, was Gray looking at her with that paralyzing contempt.

She remembered desperately trying to gather their pitiful possessions. She remembered the long drive through the darkness; it hadn’t been that long, but had seemed to take forever, each second expanded so that a minute took an hour to pass. She didn’t remember sleeping, even after they got to Baton Rouge; she had sat stiffly, staring with burning eyes into nothing, cradling Scottie’s warm weight on her lap.

Barely after dawn, a cop had run them off from the city park where they had stopped, and the shabby little caravan had started out again. They made it to Beaumont, Texas, before stopping again. Amos rented a motel room in the worst part of town, and the six of them crowded into it. At least it was a roof over their heads.

A week later, they got up one morning to find Amos gone, just as Renee had left, though Amos did at least take his clothes. Nicky and Russ handled the crisis by spending the meager remains of their cash on beer, and getting roaring drunk. Not long after that, Russ left, too.

Nicky tried. To his credit, he tried. He was only eighteen, but when suddenly faced with the care of his three younger siblings, he took what odd jobs he could. Jodie helped out by working at fast-food restaurants, but even with her help, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t long before the social workers came around, and Jodie, Faith, and Scottie were taken into the custody of the state. Nicky made a few noises of protest, but Faith could tell that he was mostly relieved. She never saw him again.

Adoption wasn’t an option; Jodie and Faith were too old,
and no one wanted Scottie. The best they could hope for was to be in the same foster home, where Faith could take care of Scottie. The best wasn’t what they got, but the alternative was workable, at least for Faith. Jodie went to one foster home, while Faith and Scottie went to another. All of Scottie’s care fell on her shoulders, but since she had been taking care of him since his birth anyway, that wasn’t a burden to her. That had been the condition under which they had been able to stay together, so she worked hard to fulfill her promise.

Jodie didn’t stay long at any one foster home, but was moved twice. Faith counted herself lucky in her foster home; the Greshams hadn’t had much, but they had been willing to share what they did have with foster kids. For the first time in her life, Faith saw how respectable people lived, and she soaked up the life like a sponge. It was an unfailing delight to her to come home from school to a clean house, to the smells of supper cooking. Her clothes, though inexpensive, were neat and as stylish as the Greshams could afford on the money they were given for her upkeep. At school, no one called her “a trashy Devlin.” She learned what it was like to live in a house where the adults loved and respected each other, and her hungry heart reveled in the wonder of it.

Scottie was petted, and they bought new toys for him, though it wasn’t long before he began failing drastically. For Faith, the kindness that surrounded Scottie for the short time left of his life had been worth everything. For a little while, he had been happy. That first Christmas after Renee left had made him delirious with joy. He had sat for hours, too tired to play but content to stare at the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. He had died in January, easing away in his sleep. Faith had known that the time was near and had started spending the nights in a chair by his bed. Something, perhaps the change in his breathing, had awakened her. So she took his stubby little hand in hers, and held it while his indrawn breaths came further and further apart, and finally, gently, ceased altogether. She had continued to hold his hand until she felt the growing coolness of his flesh, and only then did she wake the Greshams.

She had spent almost four full years with the kindly
Greshams. Jodie finished high school, got married right away, and left for the bright lights of Houston. Faith was totally alone, all of her real family gone. She concentrated on school, ignoring the boys who continually pestered her for dates. She had been too numb, too traumatized by the upheaval in her life, to throw herself into the giddy teenage social whirl. The Greshams had shown her how good stability and respectability could be, how sweet, and that was what she wanted for herself. To that end, she focused all of her energy on building something out of the ashes to which her life had been reduced. After endless hours of study, she made valedictorian, and won a scholarship to a small college. Leaving the Greshams wasn’t easy, but with the state no longer paying for her upkeep, she had to move on. She worked two part-time jobs to support herself while going to school, but Faith didn’t mind hard work, having known little else for most of her life.

Her senior year in college, she fell in love with a graduate student, Kyle Hardy. They dated for six months, and got married the week after Faith was graduated. For a short while she had been almost dizzy with happiness, certain that dreams did come true, after all. The dream hadn’t lasted long, not even as long as her brief marriage. Faith had envisioned settling down, furnishing a cute little apartment, and saving for the future, which included kids, a nice house, and two cars. It hadn’t worked out that way. Despite the responsibilities of his new job, Kyle had continued to enjoy the heavy-drinking, freewheeling life he had enjoyed as a student. It had gotten the best of him one night, coming home from a bar, when his car went off a bridge. No other cars were involved, which was a blessing; when an autopsy was performed, it was found that his blood alcohol level was twice what was legal.