Knight Errant Page 12

  Yeah, right.

  “I can’t,” he said quietly, to Lainie, not Karen. She held his gaze a moment longer, then looked down again at the food on her plate. Through the rest of the meal, she didn’t look at him or speak to him.

  When dinner was finished, Jamey took Sean to the bar and Nicholas and Reid returned two of the tables to their original places out front while the women cleaned up. Nicholas came around the corner in time to see Lainie disappear up the stairs. Instead of following her, he retreated, taking a seat on a stool at the bar.

  “Aren’t women wonderful?”

  Nicholas scowled at his friend. “I’ve never understood them.”

  “Son, you don’t have to understand them to appreciate them.”

  He supposed that was true. He certainly didn’t have Jamey’s experience to know. He’d had only two real relationships, and he had completely understood both women. Jolie had been just like him—ambitious, hungry, driven to get out and make a better life for herself—and Rena had been everything he’d thought he wanted to be. Average, normal, happy with the simple things. In Baton Rouge, she had wanted a job that she didn’t hate, a little of his time during the day and to sleep beside him at night. Her plans for the future had included a small wedding back home in the family church, a house and eventually kids with whom she could stay home while he worked and paid the bills. If they could have managed those small dreams, she would have been blissfully happy.

  Instead she had stayed at a job she’d hated, because he had needed the money. She had wanted to quit, and he had persuaded her to stay another few months, just until the semester was over, just until summer came and he could get a job to take up the slack. But the semester had never ended and summer had never come, not for Rena. One rainy March night the job had killed her. Jimmy Falcone had killed her.

  Nicholas had killed her.

  Hating the morose mood creeping over him, he forced his thoughts back to the real subject: Lainie. He didn’t understand her at all. What was in her past that she thought so horrible that he, the biggest loser in Serenity history, would be put off by it? And why did she care whether he played lawyer for free for Karen’s clients? She wasn’t one of the women in need of legal advice. If she were, she must know he would help her.

  Maybe she thought he was selfish. Maybe she’d convinced herself that, in spite of all his failings and flaws, he had at least one decent quality. Maybe she’d thought he was a more generous man than he really was. Maybe, for her, he could be...if the idea didn’t repulse him so damn much.

  “What’s between you two?”

  Nicholas waited as Reid and Cassie said their goodbyes, then headed out the door, holding hands as if they couldn’t bear not touching. Newlyweds, Jamey and Karen often joked with a chagrined shake of their heads, but they were no better, and they were much older and past the one-year mark in their own marriage. “Remember when we were that young?”

  Jamey grinned. “We were never that young.” Almost immediately he sobered. “I know you helped Reid out a number of times when he was in trouble. Ever since you came back, I’ve been meaning to thank you for it.”

  “Jimmy got the kid into trouble. Paying me to get him out seemed only fair.” He had hated like hell to see his old friend’s only son get tied up with Falcone—had even tried to talk him onto the straight and narrow a time or two—but the boy had been bitter, angry and unwilling to listen. He’d needed to make his own mistakes, to set his own priorities. If respect, family, friends and living past the age of twenty were important, there were choices to be made. Nicholas had been half surprised to hear that Reid had made the right ones.

  “So... what’s between you and Lainie?”

  It was a simple enough question that Nicholas couldn’t begin to answer. He was no more sure what was drawing them together—besides sex, of course—than he was of what was keeping them apart. With a bewildered shake of his head, he gave the only answer he could offer. “Damned if I know.”

  But he intended to find out.

  Chapter 5

  Lainie stayed in bed Saturday morning hours after she ordinarily would have been up and about, lying on her side, staring out the window at the rain that darkened the sky and washed clean the glass and screen. Like most Southerners, she usually tolerated rain as the price to pay for living in the South. Some rains, like the gentle spring showers that her mother had always anticipated for the health and well-being of her garden, depressed her. Others, like the endless heavy rains that accompanied distant hurricanes, wearied her. Some, on hot summer days, she actually enjoyed, putting on shorts and old sneakers and going for a walk, splashing through puddles, getting herself good and soaked before heading home.

  Though there was nothing gentle about this morning’s rain and it was months past spring, it was depressing.

  With a sigh, she slid out of bed, shoved her feet into a pair of canvas sneakers, grabbed an armful of clothes from the closet and left the apartment. Nicholas’s door was closed, his apartment quiet—always quiet. The bathroom door at the end of the hall was open. The air was warm, damp, just short of steamy, and smelled of soap and shaving cream. Wherever he was now, he’d recently been in the shower, which was an image she didn’t need this morning.

  Scowling at herself, she brushed her teeth and washed her face before getting dressed. After finger-combing her hair, she deemed herself as ready to face the day as she was ever going to be, hung her nightshirt on the back of the door and headed downstairs for breakfast. Halfway down the stairs, she became aware of the music—low, mournful, so perfectly fitting to the gray skies and the downpour of rain. -

  She stopped in the kitchen and found a pot of coffee, freshly brewed and fragrant. After pouring herself a cup, she started back to her apartment, but somehow her feet turned left out of the kitchen instead of right. Somehow they moved totally against her will down the short hall, around the scarred wooden counter and into the bar.

  The television on the wall was tuned to a twenty-four-hour blues channel—no commercials, no distractions, just uninterrupted music. The lights were off, the ceiling fans running, the four sets of French doors open to admit the sound and the sweet, clean scent of the rain. Straddling a chair at a table in front of one door was Nicholas, a cup of coffee, a plate of beignets and an ashtray in front of him. Smoke rose from the ashtray in a thin wispy trail, pulled one way by the nearest fan, pushed another by the gentle breeze through the door.

  For a long time she remained where she was, far enough away to escape his attention, near enough to the hall to slip upstairs. That was what she should do—run, not walk, down the hall and up the stairs, where she could lock herself in her apartment and not come out again. There she might be safe. But she wouldn’t count on it. There she could escape Nicholas, but not herself. Not her thoughts of him. Not her desire for him.

  It wasn’t fair. Back in Atlanta, through her job, neighbors and helpful friends, she’d met plenty of suitable men and hadn’t been the slightest bit interested in any one of them. No, she had to go and fall for Nicholas, the most unsuitable of them all. It just wasn’t fair.

  But life wasn’t fair, her mother had always told her. It certainly hadn’t been fair to Elaine Ravenel. She hadn’t wanted so much—a good marriage, a happy family, a comfortable home and a lovely garden. The marriage had never been good, the only happiness the family had ever found had been when Frank was away, and the beautiful old house had been filled with fear, tension and despair. In the end, even the garden had let Elaine down. Like her, it had withered and died.

  Lainie wished this attraction to Nicholas would wither and die, but woman’s intuition warned her that it wasn’t going to happen. Things were going to get much worse before they got better.

  Over by the doors Nicholas picked up the cigarette and took a deep drag. She smelled the smoke on the breeze, a faint, pleasant aroma. It drew her away from the bar, across the room and around the empty tables to his table. She chose the chair against the wall, facin
g him with the thick brick wall at her back. She set her coffee on the table and sat down, drawing her feet onto the seat, watching him watch the scene outside.

  His hair was damp, slicked back from his face, and the legs of his jeans were turned deep indigo by rain. A dripping jacket hung over the back of a nearby chair, and waterlogged tennis shoes had been kicked underneath it. He’d gone to the Café du Monde for breakfast, bringing the hot beignets back to cool into greasy lumps on a bed of powdered sugar. If he had knocked at her door and asked her to go with him, she would have. She would have enjoyed such a start to a dreary Saturday morning.

  He pushed the plate toward her in silent offering, and she chose one of the beignets. She ate it, scattering sugar all across her shirt, and licked her fingers clean before finally speaking. “Appropriate music for the weather.”

  “I like rain,” he said in a tone that indicated the opposite.

  “I had hoped for sunshine on my day off.”

  He dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “The sun will come out soon enough. What did you have planned that you can’t do in the rain?”

  “Nothing.” She hadn’t really made any plans. She had thought she might spend the day away from Serenity, playing tourist and seeing all the sights. She needed to buy some groceries, do a load or two of laundry and maybe mail a few postcards to friends back in Atlanta. Truth be told, she needed to do anything that would keep her mind off her job. Off Nicholas.

  So why was she sitting here across from him?

  “How’s your dresser?”

  “It’s coming along.” After dinner Wednesday evening, she had stayed up late into the night, sanding the wood until it was as smooth as glass, taking out her frustrations on the flat surfaces of the dresser. She’d saved all the intricate curlicues for the next night when she was calmer, when there wasn’t such a risk of sanding the curves right off. It had been hard work and good therapy—for as long as she’d done it But it hadn’t stopped the frustration from returning once she’d quit. It hadn’t ensured restful, dreamless nights. It hadn’t done a damn thing for her desire.

  “If you asked nicely, you could probably persuade me to help with it.”

  Though there was nothing the least bit provocative in his voice or his manner, she couldn’t help but remember Wednesday evening, when he’d sat on his bed wearing jeans and nothing else and had made a similar suggestion. Why don’t you come over here and persuade me? Did he have any idea how powerfully he’d tempted her? Did he even suspect how desperately she’d wanted to do just that—persuade him. Entice him. Seduce him. She still wanted... But nothing had changed. She was an FBI agent. He was her job. Anything personal between them would be grounds for losing that job.

  Her voice was too husky for the teasing tone she was striving for when she replied. “There’s just no limit to the things you might do if a person asked you nicely, is there? Except, of course, what you’re trained to do—offer legal advice.”

  He ignored the last part. “Not a person, Lainie. You.”

  His gaze was dark and unwavering. It made her body hot and achy, caused her hand to tremble when she reached for her coffee and made her throat tighten so the lukewarm brew was difficult to swallow. She needed to step outside and let the rain wash away this fever, but if she did, no doubt she would sizzle. Besides, it wouldn’t ease this need. Nothing would but the one thing she couldn’t have from the one man she shouldn’t want.

  Through sheer will, she broke free of his gaze and turned to stare out the door. Water had pooled in the street, rushing and eddying with no place to go. The yard at Kathy’s House was under several inches of water, which poured in miniature waterfalls all along the curb into the street. “Does O’Shea’s ever flood?”

  “It has before. Every place on Serenity has flooded except the cottage.”

  “The cottage?”

  “At the end of the street. It’s a Creole cottage.”

  Mention of the house provided a vivid reminder of how different they were. They had stood side by side Wednesday evening and looked at the same house, but where she had seen a house that could be a home, he had seen a place deserving only of destruction. Less than an hour later in his bedroom, they had looked at each other, and he had seen an affair worth pursuing, while she had seen the ruination of the career that was the one constant, the one thing of importance, in her life. Her family was gone, her marriage fallen apart, her relationships with men on what seemed like permanent hold, but her job was always there. It filled all the empty spaces—well, most of them. It satisfied her.

  At least, it always had. Until she had come here.

  Across the street, a slender figure wearing a trench coat and huddled under a sunny yellow umbrella hurried toward Decatur. On the veranda at Kathy’s House, Karen’s dog Jethro lay stretched out in front of the door, his chin resting on his paws, his tail occasionally swishing through the air. Otherwise, the street was quiet and still. Everyone who could remain dry inside was doing so.

  She wanted very much to go out.

  “Want to take a walk?”

  Her gaze jerked back to Nicholas. Had he read her restlessness? Did he share it? She should tell him no—should come up with some excuse, someplace she needed to go. She should work on the dresser or the two tables she’d bought. She should do anything besides go out all alone in the rain with him.

  No, she should do anything besides stay in all alone with him.

  “Let me get my slicker.” It took her only a moment to retrieve the slicker, bright pink with a pink and yellow plaid lining, from the closet upstairs. It took him only the same moment to close and lock three sets of doors and put on his shoes. He was waiting, jacket in hand, by the open doors when she returned.

  Before they’d gone half a block, every place on her body that wasn’t covered by the slicker was soaked. She combed her hair back and let it drip down her neck rather than pull the hood forward. It restricted visibility and distorted the sounds around her. Besides, this morning she wanted to be wet. It felt good. Fresh. Clean.

  “You ever miss Atlanta?”

  She blinked back raindrops to look at him. He was as wet as she was—wetter, actually, since he wore jeans while she was in shorts—but while she felt like a drowned rat, he looked incredibly handsome. Sexy. Dangerous. She couldn’t forget that this was one case where appearances weren’t the least bit deceiving. He was dangerous—to her career, her future, her heart.

  “No,” she replied, not happy to realize it was the truth. In the weeks she’d been in New Orleans, particularly the last one, she hadn’t missed a single thing about Atlanta. Not her routine eight-to-five days in the office. Not her quiet, air-conditioned, high-security apartment. Not her neighbors or her friends, her unvarying schedule week in and week out, her money, her car, her higher standard of living, nothing. She didn’t miss Atlanta at all, and she wasn’t looking forward to her return.

  But, of course, she would go back. When she finished this job, there would be nothing left for her in New Orleans. Nicholas would hate her or he would be dead.

  She smiled thinly. She’d never before found herself wishing that someone she cared about would live to hate her, but she hoped Nicholas did.

  “So you plan to stay here. You’re happy here.”

  “You sound skeptical. In all your years on Serenity, were you never happy?”

  “I was happy with my mother.”

  “But not since then?”

  He shrugged. “At times, I suppose.”

  Times with Jamey, Lainie suspected, and, of course, with Jolie Wade. Did the U.S. Attorney’s wife know what a feat she had accomplished in making Nicholas Carlucci happy? Would she even care, or was he a long-ago-and-best-forgotten part of her life? Nicky, the punk, the bad boy, every parent’s nightmare and every teenage girl’s fantasy. She had harbored a few such fantasies when she was a kid, but they had never been more than wishful dreaming. In thirty-nine years her only fantasy come true had been the one where she escaped her fa
ther and the lovely old house on the square.

  Nicholas could be the second.

  They reached the end of the street and turned toward Divinity. Its five blocks held more houses, more abandoned storefronts and three churches, all boarded up and forgotten. The first, according to the crooked fading sign, was the A.M.E. Zion church, where most of Serenity’s black residents had worshiped. It was a simple building, its wooden planks once painted white. The paint was mostly gone now, the wood faded to a silvery gray, and only jagged shards of the colored glass windows remained. The second church was brick and had housed the Baptist congregation. Its windows were shattered, too, and the inside had been gutted by fire. Only the charred remains of pews and a tall cross remained. Both buildings looked even more forlorn in the rain.

  The last was St. Jude’s.

  Nicholas stopped on the sidewalk in front of the gate and stared at the building. Beside him, with water dripping from her nose and chin, Lainie gave the church grounds the same intense study. The walled compound was stucco over soft red brick, with only two entrances—this gate for foot traffic and a wider gate at the opposite end for cars. The church itself was straight ahead, a tall building with high arched windows depicting biblical scenes in stained glass. Wire grates protected the glass from hurled rocks or bottles, keeping it mostly intact, and the massive, ornately carved double doors were too sturdy for vandals to do much harm. Obscenities and gang slogans had been sprayed on the walls, and the yard was barren, but for the most part, St. Jude’s had survived its abandonment in better shape than its neighbors.

  Nicholas pushed the gate open, disrupting the steady flow of water down the sloping sidewalk to the street. When he walked inside, she followed, looking around at the cobblestone walkways, the rectory in the distant corner and the empty fountain with a statue in its middle. In the dirt halfway between the gate and the rectory was a memorial—a small white cross, plastic flowers bleached of color by the sun and a bow that had lost its shape and dragged limply in the mud.