By the Bay (6 page)

She could see him leading troops into battle or riding a horse across the plains. He was a man’s man, capable of leadership, but a woman’s man too, able to be gentle and loving enough to last a lifetime.

At that thought Christine’s eyelashes fluttered. “Davis?” she whispered.

“It’s me, Chris. It’s
Florence.”

Her eyes opened wide. “He’s supposed to come for me,
Florence.
Tonight or maybe tomorrow night, he’s coming.”

Anger vanished to be replaced by pity. They had been so in love, Christine and Davis, enough to break your heart when she lost him. Oh, dear Lord, but the world could be an awful place.

“You just sleep until he gets here, dearest,” she whispered.

“You’ll wake me? You’ll see that I don’t waste a minute sleeping once Davis gets here.”

“I promise, honey,”
Florence
whispered and watched while her sister slipped back into slumber.

A few minutes later she heard Jillian come into the house and when she
entered
the room, her face was flushed rosy and her eyes bright.
Florence
hid a smile. She wasn’t so old that she couldn’t tell when a girl had just been kissed a time or two outside on a dark night.

Then the smile faded as a tiny doubt entered her mind. She considered herself an excellent judge of men, but this Philippe had come into their lives rather abruptly and whatever he’d been doing before, he’d been desperate and starving.

It was so hard. She wanted Jillian to be safe and she wanted at the same time for her to have a chance to taste life with all its richness. But nobody live
d
without risk.

Chapter Seven

Philippe was too energized after walking Jillian home to even think about returning to his quarters at the café
to
sleep. His had been a lonely life since leaving home when he was just a boy, his closest companions had been hardened men, the women he’d met in brief encounters never known as equals and companions.

With the man of action’s customary
idealism
he’d already placed the slender girl with her flame hair at an elevated status. She was an angel, above the common run of humanity. To have been permitted a kiss was enough to send his senses reeling.

He would go into battle for her, he would risk his life for her
.
And he was increasingly convinced that danger hovered like a thick fog around her.

Having lived his whole life on the edge of danger, he respected his own instincts. Many a time
being attentive to
such hunches had saved his life.

Now he took up his accustomed pose looking out over the bay and tried to analyze his own feelings. He was out of his depth here unfamiliar with the terrain as he was. If someone came at her with a sword or a gun, he would know what to do. His skills as a fighter were considerable.

But this was something subtle and complicated. And he didn’t know what to do about it.

It was like fighting
in
smoke
as he had
when the ship he’d boarded was on fire. He couldn’t see to strike out a single blow.

The footsteps were muted, but his hearing was keen and he heard them come up behind him.  He’d been aware from the time they left the café that Ramon Moreno was following them. He supposed he’d been sent by
Owen
Lewis to see to his niece’s safety.

Philippe felt no resentment for that lack of trust. He
would
have felt the same protectiveness toward a young woman in his own family and was pleased to think that Jillian had such caring relatives.

The Mexican man who was twice his age and size came up to his side. “Pretty young lady,” he said.

Philippe nodded. “A lady,” he said, knowing the word meant somewhat more to him than it did to Ramon. In his world a lady was something quite specific, a woman above others both by birth and in behavior.
In that world, he was anything but a gentleman.

In New Orleans, that city of
gaiety
and excitement, he would not be invited to the society balls. No, like his countrymen the
Lafitte
brothers, he would instead be in attendance, if he so wished, at the
q
uadroons balls where beautiful girls of mixed heritage were introduced to a different level of society. It had never mattered. The son of a man who had been a poor farmer back in his native France, he had not aspired any higher. No doubt if Jillian Blake had known who he was and truly understood what it was he had done with his life, she would not have allowed those kisses he pressed on her lovely mouth tonight.

But all was different here. The old rules counted for nothing.

“
Owen
thinks highly of her and
Florence
couldn’t be closer if the girl were her own daughter.”

Philippe could see no possible response.

“People around here think a lot of
Owen
and
Florence
. They have been good to us all. Fed us when we were hungry. Gave us a place to sleep when we needed it. Never acted above the poorest, but always they are our friends.”

“They could not have a better commendation,” Philippe said gently. “I have no ill intentions toward Jillian Blake.”

“No, but she is pretty and lonely and you are a
well
looking hombre
, but you do not belong here. Like most that move through here, you will be going on and she would be left more lonely than ever. You got to understand about Jillian. I’ve known her since she was a
baby
and always she has looked after her mother. She has no life and there are no boys here who are right for her. She is like a sweet plum ripe for the picking.”

Philippe felt his anger rising. What business had this man to be giving him advice? He was from an alien power—P
hilippe
considered both the English and the Spanish his enemies, but had not the Spanish been the ones to drive his family from their lands because of the Jewish blood
with which
his grandfather had
been
born
?

He had fallen in with Jean and Pierre
Lafitte
because of their shared anger at the Spanish who had persecuted them
,
and
like them
had accepted letters of marque to prey against their enemies, in his case for retribution as much as for much needed gain. He’d been a homeless and destitute boy with a poverty stricken mother and sisters at home when he’d first gone on board a
Lafitte
ship, working his way up until he’d commanded
the
Belle Fleur.

The Spanish were his enemies. This man spoke with a kind of mongrel Spanish accent to his English. But
Owen
said he was several generations Mexican and since childhood a citizen of the United States.

A most confusing world and he had to remember that Ramon and
Owen
and
Florence
, they all cared about Jillian.

His Jillian. Already he thought of her that way.

             
He looked again at the dark water, then up at turbulent skies that promised stormy weather in the near future.

He did not belong here. Somehow and sometime the powers that had sent him here for good or for evil would set the balance right and he would be drawn back to the world he knew.

He could not, as Ramon warned,
tempt
Jillian to greater loneliness, but in the meantime he would do what he could to relieve her of this danger he sensed.

Even after Ramon left, he remained at the water
front
, considering a life that had been all about survival.

Cast out by the betrayal of a man he’d
once
thought his friend, washed up on an alien shore over a hundred years from where he’d stepped from the island into the bay, he still had trust in his own mind and in the abilities that had taken him successfully through the harshest of lives.

He was a pirate in all but name, his allegiance sworn to a great power, but most of his interest invested in his own prosperity. And now, here he stood, caught by the spirit in blue eyes, sunk so deeply into concern for this woman that he had little thought for his own best good.

A shaft of unexpected light shown suddenly from the sliver of a moon, slanting down to highlight a crew of men rowing a wooden boat across the bay.

By the hunched shoulders of the big man at the
front
of the small boat, he recognized Bloody Mac, his first mate and most loyal crew member. Mac had come back for him, doubtless searching the island for his captain, and now coming toward land as he looked for Philippe.

Philippe closed his eyes, feeling a rush of warmth at such loyalty, a quality rare among the men who shared his hard life.

The glimpse of moonlight quickly vanished, but he knew that somewhere out there they were coming for him, moving across the bay in another time
so
that he had only to call out or wade and swim into the bay to reach them.

He’d already taken a first step forward when he was halted by the sound of a woman’s scream. He whirled about, realizing the sound came from the little cottage half a block away where Jillian lived with her mother.

Without a second thought, his trim, elegant body was in action, running away from the bay and the rescue that was trying to reach him.

By the time he reached the
front
door, the screaming had stopped, but he saw lights coming on at the house next door as though others had heard the sound.

Then a low moaning as of terrible despair began to come through the thin walls of the cottage. Even in that harsh sound, he recognized Jillian’s voice and pounded on the locked door, demanding to be allowed in.

“Jillian!” he called. “It is Philippe. Let me in.”

The wailing grew louder and after frantically pounding on the door for another minute, he heard a sound from behind him. “Break in the door,” an unknown man’s voice urged.

He did it. The wooden door splintered against the weight he drew against it and, conscious that more than one person was following him, ran inside, shouting, “Jillian! Jillian!”

He found her, still dressed, but slumped  in the cushioned chair at her mother’s be
d
side. The splintering of the door hadn’t awakened her, but his continued calling of her name caused her to stir, rubbing her eyes drowsily as she asked, “Philippe, Gene, what are you doing here?”

A middle-aged woman with her hair in a net, rushed past the man who had followed Philippe into the house. “Jillian, dear, are you all right? What’s
wrong
? Is it your mother?”

Jillian’s expressive face contorted. “Mother? Is something
wrong
with Mother?”

She and the woman quickly examined the still sleeping woman, gently so as not to disturb her. In a minute Jillian, her hands trembling, smiled. “She’s fine. Breathing normally, just sound asleep.”

Then she stepped back, looking in bewilderment at the three of them.
             
The woman took it on herself to explain. “We heard the most horrible sounds from in here. Screaming and moaning like it was the end of the world.”

The man nodded agreement. His face was white. “Sounding like someone was murdering the both of you.” He made a sickly attempt at a smile. “Seems we owe you a door. I had this fellow break yours down.”

The couple introduced themselves as Gene and Laura
Stewart
, who were the neighbors to the left of the cottage, the last house before the bay.

Philippe supplied his name and explained that he worked for
Owen
and
Florence
. Together they carefully searched the rest of the house, finding nothing out of the ordinary.

Finally Laura
Stewart
offered what seemed to be the only possible explanation. Patting Jillian’s back, she said, “You must have had a bad dream, honey, and went to screaming and crying in your sleep.”

Jillian looked as though she wanted to argue, but managed a shaky smile instead. Philippe was glad the two neighbors had also heard the sounds coming from the house, otherwise he was sure she would have  thought he’d made up the whole thing.

He didn’t accept the
Stewart
s reasoning however. There was more to this than a
simple
nightmare. Privately he was convinced that it was more of the games time was playing with him. Sick with fear for Jillian and her mother, he felt sure inside himself that what he’d heard coming from inside their cottage was something
that had already happened or was
still to come.