Night Moves: Dream Man/After the Night (17 page)

She jerked her chin away from him. “What will you do, burn me out?” she goaded. “I’m not a helpless fourteen-year-old anymore, and you’ll find that it isn’t as easy to bully me now. I’m here, and I’m staying.”

“We’ll see about that, won’t we?” His hooded gaze dropped to her breasts again, and suddenly he grinned. “You’re right about one thing: You’re not fourteen anymore.”

He walked out then, leaving Faith staring after him, her
fists clenched with impotent anger, and panic clenching her stomach. She didn’t want him to notice her as a woman, didn’t want him to turn that hot, hooded gaze on her, because she wasn’t certain of her ability to resist him. She felt sick at the thought of being like her mother, of being what he had taunted her with being, a whore for a Rouillard.

•  •  •

“Was it Renee?” Monica asked quietly, though she was drawn so tight that the tension was almost visible. She had called Gray from Morgan’s grocery store, more upset than he had heard her in years, since the day he’d had to tell her that their father had left them for Renee Devlin, in fact. Monica had come a long way since then, but the haunted look in her eyes told Gray that the pain was still too close to the surface for her to be objective about it.

“No, but it was definitely a Devlin.” He poured himself a finger of Scotch and tossed it back, then poured another finger, feeling that he needed it after another encounter with Faith Devlin. Faith Devlin
Hardy
, that is. A widow. A young, lovely, red-haired widow with so much fire in her that he’d wanted to check his hands for singe marks after touching her. He had disconcerted her a couple of times, but for the most part she exhibited a maddeningly cool confidence. She hadn’t been the least bit worried by his threats, though she had to know he wasn’t bluffing.

They were in the study, enjoying a before-dinner drink, at least Gray was. Alex was coming to dinner, and Noelle would be down soon, so Gray and Monica had gone into the study to have a few minutes of privacy for their discussion.

Monica looked blank. “It wasn’t Renee? It looked just like her, as if she hadn’t aged at all. She even looked younger. Oh—I see.” Comprehension dawned. “It was one of the girls, wasn’t it?”

“The youngest one. Faith. She always looked more like Renee than any of the others.”

“What’s she doing here?”

“She says she’s come back to stay.”

Horror filled Monica’s dark eyes. “She can’t! Mother couldn’t bear it! Alex has gotten her to come out of her shell a little, but if she hears any of the Devlins are back in town,
there’s no telling how far it will set her back. You’ll have to get rid of her again, Gray.”

Wryly he considered his Scotch, and finished it with one gulp. The whole town knew the story about him running the Devlin family out of the parish. It wasn’t something he was particularly proud of, but neither did he regret it, and the incident had become enshrined as a sort of local legend. Monica hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen the ugliness; she knew only the results, not the process. She didn’t have the memory seared into her brain. It was always with him: Faith’s terror, the little boy’s hysterical shrieks and pitiful attempts to cling to her, her desperate struggle to gather up their belongings . . . and the potent, uncomfortable lust with which the men had watched her, the night shadows concealing her youth and revealing only her resemblance to her mother.

With a sharp little pang he realized that that night was a link between them, him and Faith, a bond forged by a common memory that couldn’t be broken short of death. He had never really known her, and twelve years lay between then and now, and yet . . . he hadn’t thought of her or treated her as a stranger. It was as if they had resumed an acquaintance of long standing. They weren’t strangers; there was that night between them.

“Getting rid of her may be harder this time,” he said abruptly. “She’s bought the Cleburne place, and as she pointed out to me, I can’t kick her off her own property.”

“If she’s buying it, there has to be some way to interfere with the mortgage—”

“I didn’t say she’s buying it, I said she’s bought it. There’s a difference.”

Monica frowned. “Where would a Devlin get that kind of money?”

“Probably life insurance. She’s a widow. Her last name is Hardy now.”

“How convenient for her,” Monica said sarcastically.

“No, from what I gather, it wasn’t,” Gray said, seeing in his mind how pale Faith had gone when he had said much the same thing. He heard the doorbell ring, and Alex’s voice as Oriane opened the door to him. Discussion time was
over. He patted Monica’s shoulder as they moved to the door. “I’ll do what I can to make her leave, but it isn’t a foregone conclusion. She isn’t a typical Devlin.”

No, not typical in any way. Even when she’d been a teenager, looking at her had been enough to get him hard. That hadn’t changed. But she was also a more capable opponent than any of the rest of her family ever could have been. She was poised and intelligent, and seemed to have pulled herself, by whatever means, out of the gutters where her family had always lived. He respected her for that, but it didn’t make any difference; she had to go. Monica was worried about what her presence would do to Noelle, but he was worried about what it would do to Monica as well.

They went out into the foyer as Noelle came gracefully down the stairs to greet Alex, offering her cheek for his kiss, allowing him to tuck her hand into the crook of his arm, small touches that she had seldom allowed her husband. Alex’s devotion had been good for Noelle, soothing a bit the pain of her shattered self-confidence, but Gray wasn’t so sure it had been good for Alex. His wife had died fifteen years before and he should have remarried; he’d been only forty-one at the time of her death. Perhaps he would have, in time, but then Guy had left, and Alex, good friend that he was, had devoted himself to helping the Rouillards through the crisis. Even after receiving the letter of proxy, it had taken Gray a good two years to consolidate his position, and Alex had been right there, sitting up through all-night strategy sessions, becoming a sort of surrogate father to Monica, gradually cajoling Noelle out of her total depression. He had fallen painfully in love with Noelle, a fact to which she seemed oblivious.

He should have seen it coming, Gray thought, watching his mother. She was still incredibly lovely, in a cool, classic way that would appeal to Alex’s romanticism. Her dark hair was only lightly grayed, and it was remarkably becoming. Her skin was still smooth and unwrinkled, though somehow there was no mistaking her age. There was no youth in her, no lightness of spirit, and sadness always lurked in the depths of her blue eyes. Looking at his mother, at Monica, at
Alex, Gray savagely damned his father for what he had done.

As Alex seated Noelle, he said to Gray, “I heard a curious rumor today, about one of the Devlins.” Monica froze, her anxious gaze darting to Noelle, who had gone still and pale. Alex didn’t see Gray’s sharp, warning motion. “I ran into Ed Morgan, and it seems one of the girls has moved back to town.”

Alex straightened, his eyes levelly meeting Gray’s, and Gray realized that Alex had chosen not to see his warning. He had deliberately brought up the subject, forcing Noelle to confront it. He had done that a few times before, talking about Guy when Noelle recoiled from any mention of her husband. Perhaps it was the right thing to do; God knows, Alex had been able to get more response from Noelle than either Gray or Monica had ever managed.

Noelle’s hand fluttered toward her throat. “Moved . . . back?”

“It’s the youngest daughter, Faith,” Gray said, keeping his voice calm. “She’s bought the old Cleburne place and moved into it.”

“No.” Noelle turned her agonized gaze on her son. “I can’t—I can’t bear it.”

“Of course you can,” Alex said comfortably, taking his seat. “You don’t go out or talk to any of the townspeople, so you’ll never see her or know anything about her. There’s no reason for you to be upset.”

Gray leaned back in his chair, controlling a slight smile. He and Monica tended to handle Noelle with kid gloves; he couldn’t help it, even when she frustrated the hell out of him. Alex had no such compunction. He was relentless in his efforts to completely pry her out of her shell and back into society. Probably he was right to bring the subject into the open, and Gray’s and Monica’s inclinations were too protective.

Noelle shook her head, still looking at Gray. “I don’t want her here,” she said, openly pleading. “People will talk . . . it will all be rehashed again, and I can’t bear it.”

“You won’t know anything about it,” Alex said.

She shuddered. “I don’t have to hear it to know it’s going on.”

No, she probably didn’t. Anyone who had ever lived in a small town would know all too well how gossip was recycled, and nothing was ever forgotten.

“Please,” she said to Gray, blue eyes haunted. “Make her leave.”

Gray sipped his wine, carefully expressionless. He was getting damn tired of the way people thought he could wave a magic wand and make people disappear. Short of kidnapping or murder, all he could do was make things as uncomfortable for Faith as possible. He had no legal ground this time, no charge of trespass, no family of drunks and thieves the sheriff had been glad to escort out of his parish. What he had was one young woman, stubbornly determined to stand her ground.

“It won’t be easy,” he said.

“But you have so much influence . . . with the sheriff, the bank—”

“She hasn’t opened an account at the bank, and the sheriff can’t do anything unless she breaks a law. So far, she hasn’t.” She wouldn’t be opening an account at his bank, either, he realized. She was too smart. She had known exactly what she would be facing when she moved back to Prescott, otherwise she wouldn’t have bought the Cleburne place outright. She had taken steps to limit what moves he could make against her. He had to respect her as an opponent, for her foresight. She had definitely made things more difficult for him. He would check around, use his sources to try to verify that she had indeed paid for the house rather than financing it, but he suspected she had been telling the truth.

“There must be something,” Noelle said desperately.

Gray arched his brows. “I draw the line at murder,” he drawled.

“Gray!” Shocked, she stared at him. “I wasn’t suggesting anything of the sort!”

“Then we may have to get used to the idea of her living here. I can make things damned inconvenient for her, but
that’s about it. And I don’t want anyone getting any bright ideas about having her physically harassed,” he said, giving both Monica and Noelle a hard look, just in case the thought had occurred to either of them. It wasn’t likely, but he didn’t intend to take the chance. “If we can get rid of her my way, fine, but I won’t have her hurt.” He didn’t question this odd protectiveness on behalf of a Devlin. Faith had had enough pain and fear in her life, he thought, remembering the terrified girl caught in the glare of a semicircle of headlights.

“As if we’d do anything like that,” Monica said, insulted.

“I didn’t think you would, but I didn’t want to leave the matter open to question.”

Delfina brought in the first course, a creamy cucumber soup, and by mutual consent the subject was dropped, to Gray’s amusement. There wasn’t anything going on in the house that Oriane and Delfina didn’t know almost as soon as it happened, but Noelle and Monica both adhered to the old stricture against personal conversation in front of the servants. He doubted that anyone who worked for them considered him or herself a “servant,” especially Delfina. She had worked there for as long as he could remember, and had whacked his hands with a wooden spoon whenever she’d caught him trying to sneak one of the petit fours she baked for Noelle’s luncheons.

Monica began telling Alex about an interesting documentary she’d seen on television. Gray glanced at Noelle to make a comment, and stilled when he saw the tears gliding silently down her cheeks. She was calmly eating her soup, the spoon dipping and lifting in graceful rhythm, and all the while she was crying.

Alex joined Gray in the study after dinner, and they discussed business for half an hour before Gray said wryly, “Monica and I had decided not to tell Mother about Faith.”

Alex grimaced. “I figured as much. I know it isn’t my place to butt in—” Gray snorted, bringing a quick grin to Alex’s face before he resumed. “But she can’t keep hiding from the world forever.”

“Can’t she? She’s been giving it a damn good try for the past twelve years.”

“If she won’t go to the world, I’ve decided to bring the world to her. Maybe she’ll see that, if she can’t escape it, she might as well join it.”

“Good luck,” Gray said, and meant it.

Alex gave him a curious look. “Are you really going to make Faith leave?”

Gray leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the desk, lounging like a sleepy panther, relaxed but still dangerous. “I’m damn sure going to try, but I told Mother the truth. Legally, there isn’t a lot I can do.”

“Why not leave the girl alone?” Alex asked, and sighed. “I’d say she’s had a rough enough life as it is, without folks deliberately trying to make trouble for her.”

“Have you seen her?”

“No, why?”

“She looks enough like Renee to be her twin,” Gray said. “Just being a Devlin is bad enough, but looking the way she does . . .” He shook his head. “She’s going to stir up a lot of memories, and not just in my family. Renee Devlin got around.”

“I still say give her a chance,” Alex argued. “If she’s trying to make something of herself, it would be a shame to stand in her way.”

Gray shook his head. “I have to think of Mother and Monica. They’re more important to me than a little piece of white trash trying to make good.”

Alex regarded him with disappointment. Gray was a hard man and a dangerous enemy, but he’d always been fair. Guy’s disappearance had thrust him headlong into a situation wherein responsibility for the family’s financial, as well as emotional, well-being had been dumped on his young shoulders. Gray had been a cheerful, happy-go-lucky hell-raiser until then, but overnight he had changed into a much harder, more ruthless man. His sense of humor still bordered on the bawdy and outrageous, when he indulged in humor, but for the most part he was far more serious. Gray was a man who knew the extent of his power, and didn’t shrink from using it. If Guy had been respected in the financial community, Gray was regarded with the awe and caution one would afford a marauder.