The Sleeping Night (37 page)

“Because,” the man said, cocking his head a bit ironically, “she’s as dangerous as a faithless and beautiful woman.” He spied the popcorn and pointed. “You mind?”

“Help yourself.” Celia ladled up a handful for herself. “Pretty sexist. Why isn’t she like a faithless man?”

A slow grin spread over his face. “Because no man alive can outsmart a wise and evil woman—and the old-timers knew it.”

His voice, low and husky, acted like moonshine on her spine, easing the muscles all the way down. She straightened. “What makes you think she’s acting up?”

“I’ve seen her do it.” He glanced toward the window, as though the river was a banshee about to scream through the night. “Unless it stops raining right now, she’s coming.”

Celia frowned and crossed to the window. It was dark—inky dark. The pond in the hollow had crept up another four or five inches, and she thought she could see a fine film of water all over the saturated ground. “It’s been flooding for weeks,” she said. “Everyone says that happens every year.”

“They like to forget about old Jezebel.” He shifted. “Legends aside, this is a flood plain, and the river runs in cycles. She’s gonna flood and you’d best be on high ground when she does.”

“There’s an attic here if I need it.”

He scooped up another big handful of popcorn. “Is it stocked?”

She shrugged. “Sort of.” She pursed her lips. “Do you think the river’s going to overflow tonight?”

He wandered to the window, and as he stood next to her, looking out at the rain, Celia realized he was much, much larger than she. What if all this talk of a flood was just a way to get her up into the attic to ravish her or something? She crossed her arms over her chest, smelling whiskey and something deeper, a scent of hot nights that she tried to ignore. There was no law that said serial killers were ugly and hard to get along with. In fact, how did any of them get close to their victims unless they possessed a certain—well, animal magnetism that promised erotic rewards in return for trust?

But his voice was so very grim when he spoke again that Celia had no doubt that he was telling the truth. “She’s coming,” he said, the dread in his voice unmistakable.

Suddenly, from the depths of childhood came a memory. Celia had awakened thirsty and padded into the bathroom for a drink of water. On her way back to her room, she heard her father in his office, shouting into the phone. Curious and alarmed, she had paused by the door.

Her father had been a big man, as big as a grizzly, he liked to tell her. That night he hunched in the swivel chair by his desk, with his hair wild and his face buried in his hands. “What’s wrong, Daddy?” Celia asked.

He turned in his chair and gestured for her to come sit in his lap. Then, because it had been his policy to tell Celia the truth, he said, “There’s a flood back in Texas and I can’t get through to make sure Grandma’s all right.”

Celia didn’t really understand anything else about the incident, but obviously, Grandma had been fine. She’d only died last year—in her sleep.

Thinking of it now, though, she realized the river had probably flooded then. “Okay,” she said, taking a breath. “Jezebel’s going to flood. Since you’re here, you can help me lug things up to the attic.” She crossed the room, taking the candle with her, and opened the oak cupboard by the sink.

“What happened to the old woman, Mrs. Moon, who used to live here?” the stranger asked as Celia took cans and boxes from the shelf.

“She died last year.” Celia flashed him a grin out of proportion to his statement. Relief made her sigh. If he had known her grandmother, he wasn’t likely to be a serial killer.

“Are you kin?”

“I’m her granddaughter. She left me the house.”

He nodded, chewing popcorn. “What’s your name, granddaughter?”

“Celia.” She glanced at the nearly empty bowl. “You made short work of that popcorn. Are you hungry?”

“Celia Moon.” His drawl and the ragged edge of his voice made her name sound beautiful. “I’m Eric Putman and I’m starving.”

She tossed him a box of crackers and found the peanut butter. “That’ll have to do for a little while.” His name sounded vaguely familiar, but when she couldn’t place it, she let it go. There weren’t many names she hadn’t heard on her grandmother’s lips at one time or another. For a nice old woman, she’d been the world’s champion gossip—not mean, for there was always an undercurrent of understanding in the way she told her stories, even when the preacher of the Methodist church fell in love with the choir director, who was then only seventeen, and ran off to Louisiana with her. “You must be from around here,” Celia commented.

“Born and raised.”

A harsh undernote told her he’d been glad to escape. A common attitude. She was the only one who’d run to Gideon instead of away. And the funny thing was, they were running to the very places she had left behind, places whose very names promised glamour. “You’ve been gone awhile,” she said.

“Yep.” He dropped the peanut butter and crackers into the box with the other food. “You have any other candles? I can get some blankets and stuff if you’ll tell me where to look.”

She dug in a drawer, and just as she was about to light the candle, a massive flash of lightning shimmered over the sky, a pale electric blue that seemed to hang for minutes in the darkness. On its heels came a crack of thunder so loud, it rattled the dishes.

As if a hole had been cut in the sky by the violent thunder, the noise of the rain suddenly doubled, then tripled. Celia gasped. “I didn’t think it could rain any harder!” She went to the window and looked out, laughing lightly. “It looks like there’s a thousand garden hoses going at once.”

Eric grabbed the candle. “Where are those blankets?” His voice was gruff.

“Under the stairs.” She pointed vaguely. Her attention was focused on the deluge. It excited her. A part of her wanted to run outside into that beating, pounding rain, just to feel it and taste it. Nature run amok, she thought. Humans were helpless in the face of it. A savage kind of joy raced through her at the thought.

“Come on, woman,” Eric growled. “Won’t take Jezebel long to flash her eyes now.”

Of course, she probably wanted to
live
through whatever was coming. Time enough to observe the drama when everything was safely prepared.

Celia tried to ignore the ripple of excitement that passed through her at the thought of observing the drama with Eric Putman nearby.

This book was a very long time in gestation, as some books just seem to need. It was born one hot afternoon in St. Louis, when James Samuel, a black man in his seventies, began to tell me about his experiences in Italy in World War II. Until he told me, I had no idea that the United States fought Hitler with a segregated army. It seemed so astonishing, so hypocritical, I found myself inhaling every detail I could dig up about the subject. Ultimately, I found my story in the moment the American army became DE-segregated, at the Battle of the Bulge, a moment that led irrevocably to the desegregation of the South. Isaiah’s story is only one possible journey—there are many thousands of others, and they are well worth reading. One book I found invaluable for tone and progress was Fighting in the Jim Crow Army, by Maggie M. Morehouse.Many other people played a part in the gestation and writing. Sharon Lynn High Williams for early reads and encouragement, Barbara Keiler for another critical read later, and Deb Smith, my editor at BelleBooks, for believing in a romance novel like this one. I also want to thank my Samuel relatives, who were heavily in my thoughts as I wrote, especially James and Lurelean, whose stories helped flesh out my understanding of the south in the 30’s and 40’s. Their values of honor, truth, and hard work shaped my life and that of their grandchildren, my sons Ian and Miles. We would all be lesser humans without your influence.Finally, thanks to my readers, who so willingly follow me wherever my imagination decides to go, from the middle ages to WWII to the current day. You have no idea how grateful I am for each one of you, and I love to hear from you. Please send me email at [email protected], or friend me on Facebook:

facebook.com/BarbaraSamuelONeal.

Barbara Samuel is a multiple award-winning author with more than 38 books to her credit in a variety of genres. She has written historical and contemporary romances, a number of fantasy novellas with the likes of Susan Wiggs, Jo Beverley and Mary Jo Putney. She now writes women’s fiction about families, dogs, and food as Barbara O’Neal.

Her work has captured a plethora of awards, including six RITAs; the Colorado Center for the Book Award (twice); Favorite Book of the Year from Romance Writers of America, and the Library Journal’s list of Best Genre Fiction of the year, among many others.