A Christmas Kiss (21 page)

They had moved the bed closer to the fireplace, and Joey sat at her side. She could hear his occasional low murmur, spoken in French, as he tried to comfort his sister.

A flash outside the window of the cabin made her start. The loud boom of thunder followed. The fact that it was going to rain gave her grim satisfaction.

"They'll be drenched," she said. "And miserable. Maybe they'll freeze."

Joey put a fresh compress on Laurette's forehead. "Can you manage Laurette for a little while?"

Instantly she was afraid. "What are you going to do?"

"With the lightning, I may be able to spot them."

"How? Where? They could be anywhere. They won't be within sight of the cabin. And if they were, you could see them better from the window here."

"I've always been a strong swimmer. Maybe they're just around one of the turns. It would help us to know."

"Maybe the alligators will eat you, or you'll die of hypothermia in the cold water. No, Joey! You're the only chance Laurette has. If anything happens to you, they'll swarm up here and kill both of us without batting an eye."

Joey knew she was right about the last part, but he also knew he could no longer sit and wait for his sister's fever to rise, for the inevitable end that would come then. Or wait for the sound of the boat motor as they came to attack. He was almost out of ammunition. Laurette could no longer shoot. He had to take the initiative. He'd always been taught to attack when defending wasn't feasible.

"I have to do this," Joey said. "It's our only hope."

"If you go, you take my only hope with you." Cori turned back to the stove to hide the fear on her face. If Joey left, she would be alone with Laurette—and her own guilt.

"I'll be back, Cori." He walked to her, pulling her stiff body into his arms. "I have to do this. I can't sit here and wait."

She understood that. And from deep within her she found the strength she needed. "Be careful, Joey. I'll be waiting here for you. Me and Laurette." She kissed him, holding tight to him for a moment, trying to use her strong memory to imprint every nuance of him, every smell, every sensation, into her mind.

"I will be back," he promised her as he slipped through the door and into the night.

Cori walked to the window and watched him. A flash of lightning, a jagged fork of pure light, illuminated the dock. She watched as Joey zigzagged across the bit of dry land that sustained the cabin and headed toward the black and deadly water.

Cori pulled the old rocking chair so that she was beside the window, yet close enough to Laurette so that she could hear the slightest murmur. The shotgun was across her lap, the rifle at her feet. Joey's departure had taken much of her hope for survival. What kept her sitting in the chair, guns at the ready, was the determination to survive as long as possible—and to make them pay dearly for victory.

Outside, the storm had built to a pyrotechnic wonder. Lightning sizzled over the swamp. In two instances it had struck cypress trees, creating Roman candles against the blackness of the water.

She prayed that Joey was still alive. With the water temperature, she couldn't help but worry. During the day he'd almost frozen. At night it would only be colder. But he was a very strong swimmer, a man in terrific physical shape. She had to think positively.

Laurette's murmur drew her forward in the chair. The fever seemed to have leveled. It had not gone down, as far as she could tell, but it no longer seemed to be climbing. Although she knew it was painful, Cori had mixed table salt and warm water and gently soaked the wound. It was the best she could do to fight infection.

She had also managed to spoon half a cup of broth from the soup into Laurette. Cori had not been able to eat.

The rain started with a burst of noise like bullets assaulting the cabin. At first startled, Cori quickly became entranced by the loud and droning patter of the drops. In a way, it was soothing. She'd always liked rain, especially the gentle afternoon showers of New Orleans. During the summer, it often rained every afternoon, leaving the streets a wash of hues. Corals, reds, browns, traces of the sky picked up in a pale blue. Those rainy streets and the reflection in the puddles of old bricks that made up so many of the French Quarter buildings had been among her favorite subjects to paint.

She had not used watercolors since she'd left New Orleans. Houston had not provided the same inspiration. She had put her talent on hold just like the rest of her life, and Cori felt a sudden, intense regret that she had not painted more. How right Joey had been when he warned her against bartering her talents away. She had done worse, she had squandered her gift.

If she ever got out of this mess, she would not be so quick to let her abilities languish. She would use every minute to its utmost. Make every day count. She vowed to herself that she would face life squarely

—head on. No more dodging and weaving; instead, a frontal attack.

She got up and checked on Laurette. Joey's sister had gone into a deeper sleep. Maybe the worst, for Laurette, had been reached. That was, of course, assuming that no one appeared at the cabin to kill them.

Cori returned to the rocker and pushed it back for a better view out the window. There was only rain. More rain. Thick rain, and the continued dazzle of the lightning.

In the quick flashes she could make out the dock, the water, the cypress trees near the dock, the...

Kit's face loomed in the window, his eyes staring hard into her own.

A scream caught in Cori's throat, a lump of fear so large she couldn't let it out.

She swung the gun up to the window, her finger on the trigger and ready. In the next burst of lightning, there was nothing. Just the dock and the trees.

Cori felt her heart pumping. Her hand unsteady, she lowered the shotgun to the floor. Virtually paralyzed by fear, she leaned back in the chair, pushing the floor with her feet until her face was almost pressed against the window. Two minutes passed before the lightning came again, revealing only the old familiar scene. There was no one staring in at her. She had imagined it.

It had to be her guilty conscience. Kit was dead. He could not have been standing there, staring in at her, weeds in his wet hair and on the shoulders of his coat.

"Kit is dead." She whispered the words aloud. "Kit is dead."

The fury of the rain escalated until it was a deafening drum on the tin roof of the cabin. Cori buried herself in the sound, hid in the excess of noise. She chanced a look or two out the window, but the rain was so heavy she couldn't even see the dock. She was isolated in the cabin with Laurette, who slept on.

The hypnotic sound of the rain finally lulled her into a light daze. While her eyes focused on the place where the dock should be, her mind drifted among memories of the past, days centered around Kit and his once-powerful influence in her life. There were snippets of past events, split seconds of time blended with other seconds, a jumbled home movie of her last year in New Orleans.

Lightning smashed into the cypress closest to the dock, and the resounding noise and flare of white-hot illumination made her nearly jump out of her chair. Turning to survey the damage, she again looked straight into the eyes of Kit Wells. He stood on the other side of the glass, drenched and holding a gun directly at her face.

His left hand came up slowly, as if it were being pulled by strings. He motioned to her. "Follow me,"

the gesture said, while the face was expressionless. A thin line of blood seeped from a wound in his temple.

Heart pounding, Cori didn't move. Kit looked less than alive. Like Frankenstein's monster, the lightning had brought him back to life. He
was
a monster, a member of the walking dead. And he was after her. Cori swallowed the scream and forced her mind back to a more rational track. She had to wait for the next bolt of lightning. She'd imagined him before. Maybe she had been dozing and made up his image in the window, the blank stare in his pale eyes.

Bright light burst outside the window, and Cori stared into Kit's gaze. She couldn't tell if he comprehended what he saw, or if he had any notion of who was on the other side of the window.

"Kit!" Cori could not move. "Kit!" Her whisper was harsh.

She could not hear him, but she could see his mouth form one word.
Goodbye.
He looked directly at her.

Joey counted the strokes as he made his way along the route he knew by heart. The water was freezing, but he thought his body had adjusted. Maybe he was kidding himself. Maybe he was slowly numbing and had simply lost the ability to feel the cold creeping up on him. It didn't matter. He could only swim. He had no choice, since Laurette's boat was gone. They'd either taken it or cut it loose to drift away on the slow current.

There was land throughout the swamps. Not dry land, but land only knee deep in water. During the winter, before the spring floods and summer rains, there were areas where a person could set up a camp.

He and Aaron and several other friends had explored the region thoroughly. Even in the blinding rain he could not get lost. His concern wasn't direction, it was endurance and his ability to effect a change in the situation.

He had not told Con that he suspected the men were camping close by because he didn't want her to panic. The fact that he was storming the enemy alone would make her desperate with worrying—and guilt. Cori was a very complex person, and he recognized that guilt had played a large role in her quest to find Kit alive.

And, by damn, she'd been right. He could only hope he was as right that Aaron had taken the men to some dry land and established a camp. It would be the sensible thing to do. And Aaron was sensible.

And smart. He would be thinking of ways to escape, and the only possible route was to get the men out of the boat.

Using a breast stroke, Joey surveyed the dark horizon, looking for the trace of grass that signaled shallower water. In the darkness he was almost on it before he could see it. He slowed his movement, not wanting to disturb the vegetation—or alert any nocturnal creatures that he was bait on the edge of the marsh. Now he would have to be careful.

He'd brought his gun, not certain what good it would do after such a thorough soaking. He hoped he didn't have to rely on it, but at least it
looked
effective. It was a sad state of affairs, but he was down to counting on appearances for help.

He made his way through the darkness to the spot he knew would be solid enough for a boat to pull up onto dry land. As he recalled, there was a slight depression in the center of the island, a good place to shelter from the wind.

In the darkness he almost bumped into the boat before he saw it. Hands braced along the wooden side, he eased toward land and the low murmur of men talking. He could only pray that Aaron was still safe.

Joey felt a lump of affection for his childhood friend. Aaron was willing to risk his own life to protect Joey and the woman he was sworn to keep safe. Joey had to make sure his friend didn't suffer too cruelly for his big heart and loyalty. At the sound of voices he ducked lower in the water.

"Hey, it's going to rain."

The voice came to Joey clearly. The men were exactly where he thought they'd be. The accent was from New Orleans.

"You ain't sugar. You won't melt." The guy sounded mean.

"I ain't no Boy Scout, either. I didn't come here to camp out and sing around the camp fire. I came here to kill the witness. I say we do it and get back to New Orleans. I've got other business to take care of."

"Kit may have taken care of her for us."

"Yeah, and Santa Claus is a real person. Get a grip on reality. If Kit was coming back with her, he'da been back. They got Kit. I guess that little witness was surprised when she found her bridegroom was alive and kickin'." He laughed. "I hear she was determined to find him. She still believed he was alive."

"I told the boss that she was trouble. We shoulda popped her before the first trial."

"You woulda thought," the first man agreed. "Nobody listens to us, though. They wait until things come to a head and then send us in to clean up the mess."

Joey eased forward, taking care not to disturb the grass that fringed the land. He had to find out where Aaron was before he launched his attack. If at all possible, he wanted to make sure his friend had a chance to duck for cover.

lightning popped and he flattened himself on the ground, but not before he saw the campsite. There was no fire. Either the knoll had not offered any burnable fuel, or the men were being more cautious than they sounded. Joey inched forward in a crawl. He had to spot Aaron—without getting spotted himself.

The men were twenty feet from him, ringed together. One smoked, and though he tried, Joey couldn't identify him in the glow of the ash. These men were hired guns. They could be anyone. He only knew they were local by the way they talked—that strange blend of Brooklyn and Louisiana that sounded European at times, and yet always Southern.

"When are we going in?"

"Just before dawn. There's only Tio and the witness. We hit the other woman and she's down. Tio will have to stay up all night standing guard. He's already tired. He won't be a problem."

"I wish we didn't have to kill a marshal. A lotta crap's going to rain down on us for that. The boss won't be pleased."

"The boss will send us to Mexico for a little vacation. It'll blow over, like always. Our man has got the right connections."

"I still say Kit should have killed her."

"Kit should have done it when he was paid to do it." This was the voice of the third man, the one who had not spoken yet.

"Yeah, well, spilled milk is a mess, but whining about it won't fix it."

There was laughter from the other two men. "Bailey, you couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel."

A flash of lightning gave Joey the brief glimpse he needed. The three men were dressed in dark clothing, their bodies illuminated only a moment. They were lean, young hired killers. Aaron was sitting to the left, his arms behind his back and his legs in front of him. Not a comfortable position, but then the killers weren't necessarily concerned about their victim's comfort.