Kiss Them Goodbye (19 page)

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good. I’ll let you go then.” Cyrus’s breathing was audible. “There has been one new development. Wazoo’s got herself a job at Rosebank and she’ll be living out there.”

Spike pinched the bridge of his nose. He and Vivian
had been out of town a few hours and things were turning upside down. “A job at Rosebank,” he said. “Does Charlotte think they all need their palms read daily?”

Cyrus chuckled. “Evidently Wazoo has a lot of skills we didn’t know about, including fixing equipment.” He cleared his throat. “I was going to lose my nerve about saying this, but Charlotte’s pretty upset. Susan Hurst went over there and said she and her husband refuse to accept the idea of a hotel next door so they want to make Charlotte an offer she can’t refuse—for Rosebank.”

At last Spike hung up and made his way back to the table. His meal had to be cold and his beer too warm. He sat down and drank the beer anyway. “News from home. Bonine’s been trying to poke around in my office files. He’s not getting away with it. Half the town is getting ready to work on your place and get you started in business.” He held his bottom lip between his teeth. “But this afternoon’s bulletin is that you and I are expected on a riverboat that belongs to Cyrus’s sister and her husband, and Susan Hurst wants to buy Rosebank to stop you from turning it into a hotel.”

“I
’m not sure I can tell you much of anythin’ you don’t already know,” Jack Charbonnet said. “Maybe we should go to our private quarters. We can be sure of not being interrupted there.”

They sat, drinking champagne, in an intimate lounge on the second deck of the
Lucky Lady.
The ping and chime of slots, screams of excitement and groans of despair rang out steadily from the lower deck. Waitresses in short, fringed skirts and low-cut tops ran up and down wide stairs to load trays with drinks at the bar in the lounge.

“I like it here,” Vivian said. She’d already come to terms with being in casual clothes while the rest of their company wore evening dress. “I’ve never been on a riverboat before, or in a casino.” Nearby, patrons played keno with the aid of television screens and Vivian noted that some of them made her feel overdressed.

Jack’s wife, Cyrus’s sister, Celina, wrinkled her nose. “My husband knows this isn’t my favorite place but he gets such a charge out of it I don’t complain much.” She
had short, red curls and navy-blue eyes, and the kind of figure that turned men’s heads. There was something of Cyrus in her eyes and they shared the same straightforward approach. She leaned closer to Vivian and said, “Jack’s a hermit at heart. Don’t you think people are attracted to opposites—from their own natures, I mean? Sometimes, anyway?”

“I think so,” Vivian said.

“It’s a good idea to keep an eye on who comes and goes here,” Jack said, absolutely serious. He must have overheard Celina. “I’m the best one to do that. Not even the staff knows when I’ll show up. That makes it tough on anyone who wants to take a personal interest in things while I’m not around. Some would like to skim the cream from the operation. I make sure they never get anything they can use against me.”

“That’s code for, we don’t pay protection because of Jack’s connections and what he knows,” Celina said, and laughed. “I make him sound like a member of the family—think Sopranos—but he’s the gentlest man around.” She slid closer to her husband on the banquette and he bent over her to kiss her quickly. The way his eyes lingered on Celina’s made Vivian glance at Spike. He looked straight back and didn’t hide the sexy hooding of his eyes.

“A friend of ours is joining us,” Jack said. “He couldn’t stand to be left out. We might as well give him a few minutes to get here or we’ll have to start from the beginning.”

Jack’s Cajun background was very nice on him. His short, black hair curled the slightest bit and he had the kind of lean face and long, muscularly spare body guaranteed to please. He had eyes that hazel color, more green than hazel really, and he had a way of not blinking when he concentrated on someone. Vivian had seen him come from the outer deck and hold his beautiful
wife’s hand when she stepped over the raised threshold. Tall, broad-shouldered and lithe, he moved with languid grace Vivian decided was a cover for someone capable of speed and even deadly action if necessary.

Spike held her hand under the table. He spread her fingers on his thigh, surprising her, then turning her legs to water when her small finger encountered the bulge in his pants. He wasn’t taking his eyes off her.

She smiled at him.

Spike watched her mouth and unconsciously curled his tongue over his upper lip.

If there was a way, they would be in each other’s arms tonight. She contracted in pleasurable ways and in pleasurable places. The thoughts of darkness and skin on skin came too often now. She actually felt him inside her and sat upright with a start.

They hadn’t made love, but still she imagined the smooth, moist stroke of his flesh within hers.

“Amelia wanted to be here,” Celina said, startling Vivian. “She asked me to give you her regards. Her words, not mine. Comes of thinking she’s an adult. She’s eight and madly in love with her uncle Cyrus. I think she’s convinced he’s here and we’re keeping him from her.”

“Everyone loves Cyrus.” Vivian smiled at the other woman. “Spike has a daughter, Wendy, she’s five and sweet, but very grown up, too.”

She felt Spike staring at her and glanced at him. His expression revealed nothing but made her uncomfortable.

“We can usually appease Amelia by saying she has to stay to help Tilly, that’s our housekeeper, with her little brother but it almost didn’t work tonight.”

Spike liked meeting Cyrus’s sister and Jack Charbon-net, who had the kind of worldliness about him that raised flags. They didn’t have to be bad flags. Whatever the man’s story might be, he’d lived, and seen more than
most, Spike would bet money on that. He also figured they were circling, avoiding the real reason for this meeting.

A commotion rustled up from the lower decks. A man’s voice gradually grew louder, and so did his laughter, until a full head of blond curls appeared. Compact, beautifully dressed in evening clothes, the whole package arrived—a man who exuded life and expected all eyes to turn in his direction. They did.

“This is Dwayne LeChat,” Jack said quietly. And more loudly, “He and his partner own a successful…club. It’s on Bourbon. Dwayne? Quit grandstanding and get over here. We’ve got folks for you to meet.”

A pianist broke into a chorus of “Careless Love,” and Dwayne flung back his head to laugh before bowing to the musician and going to put a bill in a brandy snifter. “He’s playin’ our song,” he said, laughing over his shoulder at the rest of them. “Everyone in town knows Jean-Claude plays this for me.”

He rushed over and kissed Celina soundly. She kissed and hugged him back before he took Jack in a bear hug.

“Vivian Patin and Spike Devol,” Jack said, indicating his guests. “Good friends of Cyrus’s from Toussaint.”

“Cyrus?” Dwayne frowned a little and his intelligent brown eyes showed something other than the jovial clown he hid behind. “That sweet man. How is he? It’s been too long since he came to see all of us and we worry. He’s too good, you know, too vulnerable in a nasty world.”

“He may be,” Spike said, surprising himself. “He’s a hard act to follow.”

Dwayne shook his hand firmly and reached for Vivian’s, which he took to his mouth for a brief kiss. He raised his brows.

“Vivian and her mother own Rosebank, a beautiful old home just over the line in Iberia—spitting distance
from St. Martin,” Spike said. “I’m the Deputy Sheriff in Toussaint—here as Vivian’s friend,” he added quickly.

Dwayne sat down. “And you’ve got trouble.”

Vivian’s lips parted but she didn’t speak.

“We’ve got trouble,” Spike agreed. “And you folks probably can’t do a thing to help us but Cyrus thought you might have an idea about a couple of people who could be involved.”

“Might, could,” Jack said, not rudely but speculatively. He checked around and beckoned to a heavyset man, also in evening dress. What Jack said to the bouncer or bodyguard or whatever wasn’t audible but the man stationed himself at the top of the stairs. “The Martin brothers,” Jack said.

Spike didn’t like this. Jack Charbonnet was a stranger to him, even if he’d married Cyrus’s sister, but he’d already been briefed on why Spike and Vivian were in New Orleans. “Cyrus told you about the Martins?”

Jack regarded him without saying a word.

“Yes, the Martins,” Vivian whispered, louder than if she’d spoken normally. “They’re twins and—”

“I know all about them,” Jack said. “You met them today. Tell me how that went, word for word.”

“Did Cyrus tell you?” Spike asked with an eerie sensation that there was too much he didn’t know about here. “He couldn’t have told you about our meeting with the Martins. I…” No, the phone conversation they’d shared hadn’t touched on any details of the visit to Louis’s offices.

“Cyrus told me you were coming,” Jack said. “He mentioned where you were going today and why—in general terms. I can’t share sources with you, but my brother-in-law would tell you I can be trusted. Unless you’re not comfortable with that, in which case let’s enjoy the company. Have you eaten?”

Spike considered what the man had said, and what
he had not said, and the possible ramifications of dealing with him. Jack Charbonnet hadn’t asked to be involved and Spike would trust Cyrus with anyone’s life any day of the week. He raised his brows at Vivian, who nodded. She read his mind; he could almost feel her understanding him.

“I’m comfortable,” he told Jack. “Thanks for the food offer. You hungry, Vivian?” When she shook her head no, he said, “Neither am I. But thanks.”

While Celina and Dwayne looked on, both of them apparently uncomfortable, Vivian let Spike fill Jack in on what had happened when they went to see Gary.

“Louis Martin was okay,” Jack said after thinking awhile. “Lonely, I think. Although there were rumors about a woman in his life. He bought jewelry from a friend of mine. I read about his death—murder. A bad thing. One thing you can be sure of, his sons don’t soil their hands. If they had anything to do with it, the talent was hired.” He signaled the bartender. “If it was a hit, it doesn’t sound like anything the Martins would sanction, though. Too messy. Too personal. But it’s no secret they were waiting for their old man to pop off. Those two have holes in their pockets and a lot of expensive habits.”

“We heard about the woman you mentioned,” Spike said, watching Charbonnet’s face carefully. “I understand she’s in the will and the Martins want her out.”

Jack said, “If she is, it’s probably just as well no one knows who she is. She’d better keep it that way until the will’s public. Harder for the Martin boys to interfere that way—if you understand what I mean by
interfere.
”

Spike understood. What he didn’t understand was where in hell Charbonnet could be getting his information.

“The sons know this person’s probably getting a big bequest,” Vivian said. “I heard them say something about it.”

“But they didn’t give her name, did they?” Jack asked.

Vivian frowned at Spike and shook her head slowly. “But Gary must know.”

“He doesn’t. No one does. Maybe it’s time to find out.”

“I may be able to help,” Dwayne said. He tapped the fingernails of one hand on the table before speaking to Jack. “You know the connection,” he told him. “Meanwhile, would I be out of line suggestin’ this sexy couple stay away from the Martin brothers?”

Spike absorbed the implications at the same time as he saw Vivian redden and take a big slug of her champagne.

“Spike,” Jack said, “Dwayne and I go back a long way. We understand the way things go in New Orleans. If you’re willin’ to take advice, listen to our friend. The Martins could be bad news.”

T
he late hour troubled Vivian. Her mother could get panicky. Vivian fished her cell from her purse and said, “I’m calling home to say we’re okay. Mama’s a worrier.”

Spike didn’t comment. He was driving the gray van he and Homer used for business pickups and deliveries.

Vivian didn’t get past explaining where they were before Charlotte said, with too much satisfaction, “Why, you two young things just take your time. Best to come slowly when it’s dark. It’s gonna rain, too.” She added a little tale, first about hiring Wazoo—which they would discuss later—then about Homer Devol stopping by with Wendy. When Vivian hung up, she couldn’t quit smiling, or feeling warm inside.

Spike glanced at her, and glanced at her again. Just as Charlotte had said, it was dark and raindrops had indeed started slanting across the windshield. They were on U.S. 90 and vehicles ahead trailed shuddery pink ribbons from their taillights on the slick road. In those same lights she could see the rain bounce.

“What’s funny?” Spike asked, his profile sharp in the
glow from the dash. He turned her way again, briefly, and smiled.

She couldn’t look away from him. “My mother,” she told him. “She’s funny. Told us to drive slowly because it’s dark and she’d heard it’s going to rain.”

“That’s funny?”

Men could be so literal. “Cute. Maybe I should have said cute.”

He grunted.

She enjoyed the way the blond tips of his hair showed up in the darkness, and the shadowed grooves beside his mouth. Ooh, there were too many things about him that gave her sexy notions.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” she said and waited for another sidelong glance. “Guess who visited my mother today?”

He hummed and squinted as if in deep concentration.

Vivian looked at his right thigh and the way it flexed as he drove. Strong legs. Why was she so hooked on that? And the way his pants ruckled at the groin, and the fly didn’t lay at all flat. She hid her smile this time. Spike wasn’t only thinking about driving. Put that fly in the right perspective and you could test-drive off-road vehicles over it.

“Errol Bonine,” he said suddenly.

“What d’you mean, Errol…Oh, you’re guessing who visited Mama.” Then she felt stupid. “Wrong.”

“Couldn’t have been Gary. We know where he was.
Cyrus
?”

“He did, but that’s not who I’m talking about.”

“Susan Hurst?”

“You’re out of guesses,” she said. “Homer and Wendy.”

She’d give him points for neither hitting the breaks nor swerving. He also controlled his expression. “That right?” he said. “Why would he do a thing like that?”

“To be nice,” Vivian said. “And neighborly.”

“We aren’t neighbors.”

She frowned at him and leaned closer until she could tweak his ear and take satisfaction in a loud “Ouch! Whaddayado that for?”

“Loosen up, Devol. Quit seein’ ulterior motives where there aren’t any. Homer volunteered to help out at Rose-bank. He said he’s good at carpentry and he’ll be glad to do some jobs to help us open up as soon as possible. I don’t like accepting favors, but when folks are being nice they make me feel good, welcome, I guess.”

“My dad said he was good at carpentry.” It was a statement. “He said that to your mother. Cyrus told me he’d offered, but not directly to Charlotte. The old fraud was great at it but he hasn’t lifted a saw in ten years or more. Used to reckon he’d forgotten how when it served his purpose.”

Vivian was still close enough to see him blink, swallow, pull in his bottom lip. “What purpose would that be?”

“Forget it,” he said. “I gotta concentrate on the road.”

She felt cross, and disappointed at his reactions. Without another word she crossed her arms and moved closer to the door, where she could look out into the darkness. They’d be passing the turnoff for Raceland soon. Still a long way from home.

Spike, suddenly taking a small off-ramp, pressed Vivian against the door, then tossed her the other way until he straightened the van out on a black road evidently from nowhere to nowhere. “Sorry about that,” he said.

The rain fell harder.

“Where are we going?” she asked him. “Is this a shortcut?”

“Depends on where you’re headed,” he said. “It could be a shortcut to somewhere we can sit, uninterrupted,
and talk a few things through. Since you seem determined to make conversation, let’s get serious about it. Real serious.”

She doubted if his tough words were intended to excite her, at least not in the way they were. Vivian kept quiet.

“Aren’t you going to tell me you want to get along home? Tell me to quit frightening you?”

Did he want to frighten her? Well, that wasn’t going to happen. “Why would I be frightened? I won’t be frightened anywhere if I’m there with you.” Let him think about what she meant.

“You ought to be smarter than that.”

“What does that mean?” Sometimes she thought he spoke for effect.

“It means that I told the truth when I said I wanted us to talk alone.”

Once more he made an abrupt turn, this time crossing the center of the road to make a left turn through dripping cypress trees and bumping over rough terrain until she saw the sheen of a bayou.

“This should be far enough for privacy,” she said, hating to acknowledge a pinch of anxiety in her stomach.

“Soon will be. The other thing I thought we might get to is what’s on top of your mind, and mine. I want to make love to you.”

Vivian gasped. “Just like that? No finesse, no wooing, just
I want to make love to you.
Very romantic.”

“Maybe not too romantic, but does the idea turn you on?”

Only enough to make her nipples stinging hard and her panties damp. “We’ll have to see,” she said, pressing her arms over her sensitive breasts. “Maybe you’ll make me want to, maybe you won’t.”
Please make me want to. Revise that, I want to, I want to, but not like we’re scratching some itch.

His laughter didn’t calm Vivian’s jumpy nerves or stop goose bumps from racing over her skin.

The spirit she was known for made it difficult to keep her mouth shut for more than moments at a time. “This isn’t like you. You’re out of character—your character. Talking rough like you turned off the gentle side. Is that like gettin’ courage out of a bottle for you? Kinda like bein’ too drunk to watch your mouth?”

“Could be, or it could be I’m dealin’ with unfamiliar feelings. Laugh if you like, but I’ve wanted women before, just never the way I want you. Seems to disconnect my brain from my mouth.”

“I won’t say too much about talkin’ with your…” What the hell, he was doing his best to shock her, this was her turn. ”
Dick
,” she finished with a flourish before she wished she could disappear.

“Say it if that’s what you think.” Her language hadn’t fazed him. “You’d be partly right, but only partly.” He drove to the banks of Bayou Lafourche, stopped close enough to the edge for Vivian to look straight down at slow-running, rain-pocked waters. “This looks like a good place.”

Carpets of water weeds slunk around worn-down cypress knees and, as she always did, Vivian wondered if alligators, in the company of a cottonmouth snake or two, skulked in the shadows. “How do you know your way around here so well?” she asked.

“I don’t. Just lucky when it comes to finding beauty spots, I reckon.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t stop,” she said. “It is pretty late.”

“Say the word and we’ll go.”

“You’re not fair.”

He rested his head back and clicked his tongue. “You want me to beg you to stay? Would that make you feel better about wanting to be here anyway?”

The tears that sprang to her eyes annoyed Vivian. She didn’t understand why he talked of making love, then turned cold on her.

“Hey.” He cupped her chin and turned her face toward him. “Are those tears I see shining there?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m sorry. When I’m unsure of myself I compensate with tough talk. It’s often not pretty—like just then. I don’t want to go. If you say you want to leave I’m gonna be one disappointed guy—and not only because I want to be inside you.”

”
Don’t.
”

“Why not? It’s true, I’m not sure I can get close enough to you to suit me.”

Vivian kept her eyelids lowered and Spike didn’t remove his hand from her face. “More tough talk,” she said in a whisper. “Even if you do soften it up.”

“It wasn’t meant to be an insult.” He stroked her cheek and rested his thumb at the corner of her mouth. “I like being with you, lovely Vivian. If I’m not with you, I’m figuring out how to get us together. Pretty talk doesn’t come easy to me, but with you I could be going somewhere I never want to leave.”

Pretty enough for me.
“You wanted to discuss something.”

“Yeah. The things that scare me.”

She caught at his hand and kissed the backs of his fingers. “Nothing scares you.”

“The hell it doesn’t,” he said.

“Tell me about it.”

It was too easy for him to reverse the tables on her and do the finger kissing. She shuddered.

Seeing his face wasn’t easy, but his eyes glinted, and so did his teeth, and she heard his breathing grow heavier.

“I’m fighting what you do to me,” he said. “Since you
showed up I haven’t been the same. I can’t afford to allow any woman to stir up what you do. You mess with my mind.”

Without any warning, Spike opened his mouth against her neck.

“Don’t do me any favors.”

He stopped her from pulling away and only got more forceful when she pushed at his shoulders. “And don’t you play hard to get. I know you don’t mean it.”

His breath turned hot, or was it her body?

“C’mon, give it up. This isn’t a surprise for either of us. We came close before. If you don’t want to relax, don’t. I kind of like you fired up.”

Tickling her skin with warm breath, he dragged his tongue to her ear and blew softly, nibbled the lobe, and resumed the trailing to the hollow of her throat. He kissed her there, softly, but his restraint didn’t fool Vivian. His breaths got shorter and harder.

She made fists on his shoulders and tried her best not to respond.
Some hope.
With her fingers in his hair and her mouth on his forehead, she closed her eyes and tried to calm down. Holding him against her while he pressed his lips into the vale between her breasts wouldn’t help. She took her own deep breath and knew she shouldn’t have. Spike wasted no time before using his mouth on the swell of her breasts.

Talk first…and if something happened afterward it would be because they both wanted it to.
“Spike, my mother’s given Wazoo a job at Rosebank.”

He stilled, turned a cheek to her breasts and rested his head there. “What did you just say?”

“I think you heard,” she told him, smiling into the darkness while her heartbeat pummeled her eardrums.

“But you only said it to get my attention. Like you didn’t already have it. Maybe you think your timing’s cute. I think it stinks. Anyway, Cyrus already mentioned this.”

“Well, you didn’t tell me about it. You could be right about my timing, though. I just don’t want to forget the stuff I’m sure you’d want to know. If Cyrus told you on the phone when we were at lunch, he didn’t have time to give you all the details. Wazoo went to Mama and said she’d do anything. She can’t afford to live at the Majestic anymore and she’s not making enough money. She’s going to live at Rosebank free and draw a small additional salary. If she works hard—and works out—that’s win-win.”

“Live at Rosebank?” His pseudoweak voice didn’t fool Vivian. “
Work
? You’ve lost your minds, both of you. Cyrus mentioned the live-in bit, too.”

He made her just plain mad. “Then why keep actin’ as if you’re hearin’ all this for the first time Anyhow, sometimes, when you give people a chance, they change.”

“I don’t give…I don’t want to talk about anything but bein’ here with you.” He looked at her face, pressed his cheek to hers. “I can’t get enough of the feel of you.”

“I thought you didn’t do sweet talk.”

“I don’t.” He drew back a little. “That was an accident.”

“Talk, Spike. That’s the main reason we’re here.”

“Oh, no, darlin’, not the main reason, or not from what I’m feeling.”

But he turned from her and sat straight in his seat. He sighed and clasped his hands behind his neck. “We’ve got to talk fast. This is killin’ me.”

Vivian sat on her hands. She wasn’t sure she could keep them away from him if she didn’t.

“I think hirin’ Wazoo on is nuts and I should have told Cyrus as much,” he said, “but we’ll get to that later. Much later. You didn’t tell the Charbonnets you’d like to meet their children.”

Vivian blinked a few times. “No, I didn’t. Neither did you. Why would I?”

“This is about you, not me. I wasn’t going to suggest it to them unless you showed some interest.”

She started to shake her head as if she could clear it, but sank into her seat instead and rested her knees on the dashboard. He was cooling her off and she missed the heat already.

“You don’t show any interest in Wendy.”

“What are you talkin’ about?” She pushed out of her slouch and turned to face him. “Just what are you sayin’? The Charbonnet children were at home. It was gettin’ late. Even if I’d thought of it, which I didn’t, it wouldn’t have been appropriate.”

He wrinkled his nose and wouldn’t look at her.

“And I have shown an interest in Wendy. I…she…
Why
am I defending myself about this? You’re being irrational.” She thought a moment. “If you’re lookin’ for a reason to end it with me, why did you come on to me just now?”

“Oh, no. Don’t you go there, you,” he said. “I told you before there were things we needed to discuss. Could be I should have said things I need to know about you.”

“Let’s go,” she said. “Now. Before any real harm’s done.”

“I don’t think so. Grown-ups look right at their issues.”

“I don’t have issues,” Vivian told him. “You do.”

“You’re not keen on kids,” he announced. “You’ve got your dog and you dote on it.”

”
Her
,” Vivian said.

“Yeah. Kids are important to me.”