Tami Hoag - Cry Wolf

There was never anything less than gentleness in his lovemaking. He was always so careful with her. No hurry. No frantic grappling. No rough urgency. Tenderness. Reverence. As if every time was her first time.

No, she thought, her mouth twisting into a parody of a smile. Her first time had been nothing like that.

"You want me, Savannah. I've seen the way you look at me."

"I don't know what you mean-"

"Liar. You're a little tease, that's what you are."

"I'm not-"

"Well, I'm going to give you what you're asking for, little girl."

"No! I don't want you to touch me. I don't like that."

"Yes, you do. Don't lie to me. Don't lie to yourself. This is what you were made for, Savannah…"

And she had closed her eyes against the first burning pain and damned Ross Leighton to eternal hell.

Lady-killer… Killer… "The only place I kill people is on paper."… Liar… You're a liar, Jack…

He paced the halls of L'Amour, oblivious of the wallpaper that was peeling off the walls, oblivious of the dust, the dank odor of mildew and neglect, oblivious of everything but his own inner torment. It snarled and snaked inside him like a caged beast, and there was nothing he could do about it but stalk the dark halls of the house. He couldn't set the beast loose because it terrified him to think what he might do-go mad, kill himself.

Kill himself. The idea had crossed his mind more than once. But he dismissed it. He didn't deserve the freedom death would offer. It was his punishment to live, knowing he was worthless, knowing he had killed the one person who had seen good in him.

Evie. Her face floated before his mind's eye, soft, pretty, her dark eyes wide and trusting. Trust-that cut at him like a razor. She had trusted him. She was as fragile as fine blown glass, and she had trusted him not to break her. In the end he had destroyed her, shattered her. Killed her.

A wild, indistinguishable cry tore up from the depths of him, and he turned and slammed his fist against the wall, the sounds of agony and impact echoing through the empty house. Empty, like his heart, like his soul, like the bottle of Wild Turkey dangling from the fingers of his left hand. The beast lunged at its barriers, and he whirled and flung the bottle and listened to it smash against a door down the hall.

"Worthless, useless, rotten…"

The image of Blackie Boudreaux rose up from one of the dark corners of his mind to taunt, and he stumbled from the hall, through a dark room, and out onto the upper gallery to escape it.

"Bon à rien, tu, bon à rien…"

The memory came after him like a demon, painfully sharp and so bright, he squeezed his eyes closed against it. He pressed his back against the brick wall, braced himself, held himself rigid until every muscle quivered with the effort, but nothing stopped the memory from coming.

His mother stood doubled over by the kitchen sink, blood running from her nose and lip. Tears swam in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks, but she didn't cry aloud. She knew better. Blackie didn't want to hear caterwauling; it made him meaner. Le bon Dieu knew he was mean enough in the best of times.

Jack clutched at her skirt, frightened, angry, ten years old. Too small to do anything. Worthless, useless, good for nothing. Good for hating. He figured he was an expert at that. He hated his father with every cell of his body, and that hate launched him away from his mother's trembling legs and into Blackie's path as he advanced, arm drawn back for another blow.

A high-pitched scream pierced the air as Marie came running in. Jack didn't glance at his little sister, but yelled for her to get out as he flung himself at their father. He wished he were bigger, stronger, big enough to hit Blackie as hard as Blackie hit Maman, but he wasn't. He was just a puny runt kid, just like Papa always told him.

That didn't mean he wouldn't try.

He balled his fists, meaning to pound his old man as best he could, but Blackie had other ideas. He swung the arm he had pulled back to strike his wife with, instead backhanding Jack across the face, knocking him aside like a doll.

Jack hit the floor, his head spinning and throbbing, tears clouding his vision, hate burning through him like acid.

Then suddenly he wasn't ten anymore. He was a teenager, and he got to his feet and grabbed the iron skillet off the stove and swung it with both hands as hard as he could…

He jerked as his mind slammed the door on the memory.

"The only place I kill people is on paper, sugar…"

From where he stood in the deep shadows of the gallery he could see Belle Rivière. He could see across the darkened courtyard to the back door, where the outside light was still burning. All the windows were dark. Sane people were in bed at this hour. Laurel was in bed.

"And I sit in the still of the night and howl at the moon," he mumbled, sliding down to sit on the weathered floor of the gallery. Huey materialized from the shadows and sat down beside him, a grave look on his face, pendulous lips hanging down.

"You don' know enough to stay away from the like of me, do you, stupid hound?"

Laurel knew enough. She was wary of him.

"And well you should be, mon ange," he murmured, staring across at the black windows of Belle Rivière.

She had let him kiss her, had let him get close, but in the end she had shied away. Just as well for her sake. He was a user and a cad. Lady-killer… killer.

The word simmered in his brain as he pushed himself to his feet and went inside to work.

Savannah took the demise of her Corvette with remarkable good grace. It was news of who had been driving she took exception to.

"Jack?" She arched a brow, stiffening slowly but visibly, her back straightening. She sat on Laurel 's bed, wearing her champagne silk robe open over a black lace teddy, looking like an ad for Victoria 's Secret with her hair mussed and her lips kiss-swollen. "What the hell were you doing out on the bayou road with Jack Boudreaux?"

"A question I asked myself as we hurtled along like some kind of rocket test car on the salt flats," Laurel grumbled as she studied herself with a critical eye in the cheval glass.

The skirt she wore was soft and flowing with a pattern of mauve cabbage roses and deep green leaves on an ivory background. The waist was riding at the top of her hips, and the hem hung nearly to her ankles. Weight loss was hell on the wardrobe. It would have to do. She hadn't brought many good outfits with her. At any rate, the petal pink cotton summer sweater was baggy enough to hide the sagging waist. She heaved a sigh of resignation and looked at her sister via the glass.

"I can't drive a stick. He offered-no, he commandeered," she corrected, irritated all over again with his highhandedness. If he hadn't been so pushy, she never would have ended up kissing him, never would have ended up staring at the ceiling half the night.

Savannah frowned, hit unaware by a jolt of jealousy. Frenchie's was her territory, her little kingdom of men. Jack Boudreaux was a member of her court. She didn't like the idea of his sniffing around her baby sister, especially when he had yet to come sniffing around her. And she didn't like the idea of sharing Laurel, either. Laurel had come home to her big sister for love and comfort, not to Jack Boudreaux.

"He's trouble," she said, rising to come and stand behind Laurel. "Stay away from him."

Laurel shot a curious look over her shoulder as Savannah fussed with the lace collar of her sweater. "Yesterday you seemed charmed enough by him."

"It's one thing for me to be charmed by him. I don't want him charming you, Baby. The man's a cad."

Savannah the great protector. Always watching out for her while no one watched out for Savannah. A cad was good enough for Savannah, or a pool shark ten years her junior, or a married Pulitzer Prize-winner old enough to be her father. Laurel chewed back the urge to say something she knew she would regret. She loved her sister, wanted something better for her than the life Savannah had chosen for herself, but now was not the time to say so. She had enough on her mind thinking of the dinner she had no appetite for.