Dead End (40 page)

His door cracked open a few inches and he almost choked on his own excitement. Closing his eyes, he forced himself to lie absolutely still. Reb was warm and lovely, and sexy. She was also a woman who could take the initiative. Marc loved it when Reb showed she wanted him.

A snuffle followed a light thump on the bed.

Mark opened his eyes and glowered at the ceiling. Either he’d made more of a buddy than planned with his doggy delight cuisine, or he was about to get his throat ripped out.

Gaston flopped down close to his side and yawned, then made sounds like a cow chewing her cud.

Gently, Marc pushed the dog to the edge of the bed. The animal didn’t get up even when he was propelled into space. He landed on the carpet with a sound like a melon rolling from a stall.

Gaston didn’t cry.

Marc waited, listening hard. Geez, what if AP had fallen on his fuzzy topknot and cracked his teeny scull?

The intruder landed on the mattress again and crawled on his belly to rest his head on Marc’s chest. That meant his sharp little front claws and pointy leg joints were digging into Marc’s ribs.

Almost immediately Gaston’s breathing settled into a peaceful rhythm, interrupted from time to time by a tiny whimper. He snuggled closer and gave Marc one small, loving lick.

Darn it, anyway. If the critter didn’t look like an orange floozy, Marc might even like him.

Gaston would make a good hot-water bottle. His body was a miniature furnace, his wool unbearably irritating to overheated skin.

What could you do? Kick out a helpless, pint-size creature who trusted you?

Lightning came closer and closer and rolled in long, spitting sheets. The thunder that followed was never fast enough to ease the stifling atmosphere.

Raindrops hit the windows. Fat drops coming at an angle that threw them like pebbles against the glass. Faster and faster they came, and thicker. The rain hammered at the panes.

Marc sighed with relief but figured it wouldn’t last long.

Gaston’s body had reached boiling point.

He couldn’t stand it. Holding the poodle against him, he slid from the bed and did his best to navigate the old hardwood floors outside his bedroom without making any noise. He was too heavy to get away with it and each step brought a creak.

Reb’s door stood open a little. Keeping a hand on his collar, Marc put Gaston on the floor and gave him a careful push.

Gaston uttered one of his heart-wrenching whimpers and sat down. Evidently he didn’t feel like pushing through a small space, so Marc shifted the door inward a couple more inches and patted Gaston’s rear. He felt like the Grinch disposing of Cindy Lou Who on Christmas Eve.

He sighed with relief. The dog had continued inside.

Reb’s light snapped on. “Don’t you dare creep away without a word. What kind of a man are you, anyway?”

Marc realized he’d been hunched over and stood up straight. “Sorry. Thought you were asleep. I was just bringing Gaston back.”

“Upsetting me,” she muttered. “You know I’m lonely, but you’re not doing anything about it. I’m so hot, and I don’t like storms. Listen to it out there. Storms like this frighten me.”

“May I come in, Reb?”

“Oh no, absolutely not. I don’t force myself on people. Go back to bed. I’m going downstairs to watch television.”

He glanced down at his faintly shiny skin and white boxer shorts. “You’ve got a television in your room if that’s what you want.”

“My room is too close to your room. I’m only human, dam it.”

He was confused, and who could blame him. She suggested she wanted him with her, then said she didn’t. Round in circles. And she couldn’t watch TV in her room because her room was too close to his room?

She was only human?

What did she think he was—an alien? “Reb, listen to me.”

“Go away.”

“You want to make love, don’t you?” He winced and waited for the onslaught. She didn’t say a word.

“I’ll take that as a yes. I’m coming in.”

The door flew open hard enough to bang the wall inside the room. Reb, her long red curls looking as if they belonged on an electrocuted cartoon character, rushed past him and headed for the stairs. Her yellow silk sleepshirt barely covered her rear, and with each step she showed matching panties.

Down she went, pounding each step.

Marc thought briefly, then went in pursuit. He jumped down three stairs at the time, but Reb was moving like a woman powered by the best batteries. She took off across the foyer and into the dining room.

“Stop,” he called. “You’re going to fall over something and hurt yourself. That’ll be my fault, too, I suppose, only you won’t get any sympathy.” But he was already excited and had the evidence to prove it.

Marc kept following but slowed down enough to make sure she could imagine she was keeping herself out of his reach. He heard her laugh and his body pulsed. She wanted the chase, but she also wanted to be caught. Reb had a wild side, and it drove him the kind of crazy that made him strong.

Reb had reached the conservatory and flitted along a pathway between the tall palms. A blue-black sheen penetrated the darkness enough to show the way. Her nightshirt became luminous in there. She paused, hiding behind a big ceramic urn. He heard her pant from exertion. He also heard rain buffeting a hundred panes of glass.

“C’mon,” she said with laughter in her voice. “Or did I tire you out, old friend?”

“Keep on goading me, cher,” he told her and set out walking the path with measured steps. “Better be careful where you step. You could damage yourself.”

“That’s okay. I’m a doctor.”

He laughed aloud. “What’s gotten into you?”

“You,” she said. “Meet me on that lovely tiled bench of yours.” His gut contracted so tight he could hardly take a whole breath. He throbbed in all his parts, and his rigid thighs trembled.

“Come on, Marc.”

He saw her moving through the shadows, saw the nightshirt float to the ground when she took it off. If this was going to be anything but a thirty-second wonder, he had to slow down. Rather than take the shortcut to meet her, he continued on around the loop, and jumped when he saw her.

Reb stood on the bench, her feet spread, hands on hips, her breasts on his eye level.

Everything within him broke loose. He wanted her. Now.

Arriving in front of her, he grasped her waist and made to lift her down. Reb resisted. She braced her weight on his shoulders and brought her breasts to his face. And when he did what he had to and used his tongue and lips on her nipples, she wriggled and swayed and clutched at him.

His shorts went the way of her nightshirt, but he didn’t bother to remove the panties. They came together when he knelt on the bench and pulled her feet from beneath her.

It was harsh and it was sweet—and too soon over.

“Did I break anything,” she murmured against his neck.

“How would you do that when I have perfect aim?” He wanted to tell her he loved her, and he would, but not while they were panting and hanging together in the aftermath of sex.

“Oops,” she said, and hustled from his lap. “The rain’s too loud in here.”

And off she ran again. He saw her go through the door to the dining room and bent over to catch his breath. “You are going to regret this,” he said softly, and followed her. He wished he felt as sure as he sounded. Reb was a powerhouse tonight.

He gave a fleeting thought to their discarded clothes, but didn’t care enough to go back for them. Naked felt good in an atmosphere that ought to steam.

“Hurry up,” Reb called out. “Or are you all tuckered out, sweets? Better get you to bed if you are.”

She waited for him on the stairs. Halfway up the stairs, and as soon as she sighted him, she pretended to start mounting the bannister. “I always wondered what it would be like to make love sliding down one of these.”

He groaned and pretended to stagger. “It might be painful, cher.”

“Well decide. Quickly. I need your help.”

With a mock howl, Marc leaped up the stairs until he could grab her and settle her knees on a stair. She braced her weight on a higher step and looked at him over her shoulder.

“Face forward—
way
,” Marc said. “And trust me.”

She giggled at that, but did as she was told.

He gripped one of her thighs in each hand and bent over her. She squealed, and he went where he wanted to be.

“Straighten up and sit on me.”

She did, and he’d never felt anything like it. He covered her breasts and pulled her against him. Reb screamed. He was too busy keeping everything together to say a word. Later he might have time to yell.

From Cyrus’s windows, he and Madge saw Oribel coming. Swathed in a hooded yellow poncho with a bill above her eyes, she stood on the pedals of her bike as she often did when in a hurry, shot down Bonanza Alley, careened through the open gate to the rectory grounds, and screeched to a stop outside the front door.

Within seconds, the soles of her wet sneakers sucked at the hall floor and she arrived outside Cyrus’s office breathing hard enough to be heard through the door.

“More trouble,” Madge said. She looked tired. The past days had been hard on everyone.

Cyrus opened the door to admit Oribel, who darted in saying, “We don’t have much time. May Lynn’s coming.”

A break, he thought. At last the break the four of them had expected but had no way to force. He went to the window. “Where is she?”

“It won’t be long,” Oribel said, unsnapping the skins that made her resemble a bathtub duck. “She talked to that Oiseau, or whatever her name is supposed to be, and when the woman told her she needed to
lighten her spirit,
May Lynn said a lot of stuff and was told to see you.”

Madge said, “How do you know? From May Lynn?”

“From Oiseau de Nuit, of course...” her voice trailed away and she turned pink. “I was over at Chauncey’s. I dropped something off is all. Just happened to run into the medium.”

“I see,” Cyrus said, and he was afraid he saw too well. Oiseau de Nuit was the latest fad in Toussaint. He thought it unusual that the woman would tell someone to come to him.

“You don’t want to see that May Lynn,” Oribel said. “She’s hysterical. I can’t imagine what she wants with you. How much weight can a girl like that have on her spirit?” She turned to Madge. “We’ve got to look out for Father. He’s always been too kind to these no-good women who hang around. He’s too innocent to see he’s a challenge to them. He needs saving from himself.”

Stunned by her outburst, Cyrus said, “I’m sure you didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I hope you didn’t.”

A shriek came from the direction of the kitchen where Lil Dupre had been banging pots and pans from the moment she arrived.

“I’ll go,” Madge said, sounding grateful for the diversion.

Oribel calmly sat herself down in one of Cyrus’s chairs. “Good idea. I’ll stay just in case that May Lynn needs quieting down.”

“I think I’ll call Reb,” Madge said. “Just in case May Lynn’s in a bad way.” She winked to let Cyrus know she didn’t take Oribel seriously.

Cyrus decided something might need to be taken very seriously today. “Please do that,” he said, but Madge was already out of sight on her way to the kitchen.

“That Lil Dupre’s a menace,” Oribel said, whipping a tissue from the box on Cyrus’s desk. She blew her nose roundly.

Madge returned at a trot. “Come out here. Now.” She didn’t wait for Cyrus to catch up. He walked swiftly after her with Oribel at his heels. “I had a quick word with Reb, and she’ll be over,” Madge told him.

Pots on the stove bubbled, sending up clouds of steam. The kitchen was an oven all on its own, and continuous rainfall didn’t lighten the atmosphere. If anything, Cyrus thought he could see even more steam through the windows, rising from earth that was rapidly becoming waterlogged.

With her mouth gaping, Lil pointed outside.

Madge wouldn’t meet his eyes, but Oribel hurried to stand beside Lil. “Ooh, ya-ya, Lil, you are so excitable. Calm down or you’ll upset us all.”

Lil shook a forefinger in Oribel’s face. “You the one who upset us with your nonsense. If Father wasn’t the good man he is, he’d have told you what he think about that thing out there for real.”

Cyrus all but moaned. He didn’t have to stand near the window to figure out that something was amiss with the Fuglies.

“You are jealous,” Oribel said. She raised her hand as if to slap Lil, but collected herself. “You’re talking about a fine piece of primitive art. Father likes it, don’t you? And Madge?”

Cyrus and Madge nodded emphatically.

“And just what are you screamin’ about, anyways? You’ve been lookin’ at those joyful creatures a time now. Why start screechin’ about them today?”

“Look.” Lil pointed again, and all four of them stood there, clearing circles on the sweating windows with their hands.

“Bit of a problem,” Madge said.

After one look, Cyrus went to the door and out into the sopping morning. He enjoyed an excuse to get wet. At least it felt good for a few minutes. Oribel’s “joyful creatures” had developed a list to star-board—or port—depending on what one decided was the front. Not a minor list, either. On the right side facing the bayou, the figures were ankle-deep in mud that already covered the concrete base at that point.

Madge—who had put on a raincoat—joined him. They surveyed the situation in silence.

“You can’t trust anyone to do a good job,” Oribel said when she reached them. She glanced to where the bayou was flooding its banks. “I told William to be careful on account of the water troubles, but he insisted there’s no problem right here.”

“There shouldn’t be,” Cyrus told her. “This spot’s higher than most. But putting the sculpture in could leave a lot of softened soil behind, then the rain came—and who would figure for it to go on like this for so long and be so heavy?”

“I’m sorry, Father Cyrus,” Oribel said.

“Don’t be. William will be over at the church. Give him a call and ask him to take a look. He and those brothers of his can stabilize this until we decide what to do permanently.” God worked in mysterious ways indeed. Each day more complaints about the sculpture arrived on his desk. Now he was getting a chance to move it without hurting Oribel’s feelings.