Scandal in Copper Lake (12 page)

Would she spend it alone?

Officer DeLong came onto the porch, the screen door banging behind her, and gave her report: The bricks were like a million other bricks in the county; there were no footprints; and the trail through the tall grass disappeared into the woods. “Probably kids,” she said. “Sneaked in from the woods.”

Anamaria knew she was wrong about the first part. Whoever had paid her a visit probably had come from the woods, but the senseless innocence of kids playing vandal didn’t hover in the air. Still, she thanked Officer DeLong before Tommy sent her on her way.

When he showed no inclination to leave, Anamaria asked, “What do you know about my mother’s death?”

“Only what’s in the file.”

“The file you gave Robbie?”

He didn’t flush, look away or show any other signs of guilt. “Yeah.”

“The officer who found my mother—is he still around?”

He shook his head. “It was a guy fishing who actually discovered her. He died probably ten years ago. The officer who got the call moved away while I was still in high school, and
the detective who caught the case is gone, too. Retired eight, nine years ago, and left town.”

She stopped rocking, crossed her legs and folded her arms over her middle. “What about the baby? Is there any chance…”

“That she survived? That somebody pulled her from the water and decided to keep her?” He shook his head. “You don’t just keep kids you find. People notice. They ask questions, especially when a baby that’s disappeared is in the news.”

Anamaria nodded in agreement. Mama Odette had never sensed anything one way or the other about the baby, and Glory didn’t know, either. There were some who believed babies had no spiritual connection to the living until their births, that those who died at the time of birth returned to heaven unknowing of their family on earth. Mama Odette believed the trauma of death, leaving the world at the same time her baby came into it, had kept Glory from knowing Charlotte’s fate.

Anamaria didn’t know
what
she believed.

An approaching vehicle drew her attention to the street. A pickup truck pulled to the side behind Tommy’s police car, and a rotund man in a sweat-stained T-shirt climbed out. He took a toolbox from the bed of the truck before starting toward the house.

“That’s one of Russ’s guys,” Tommy said. “He’s going to replace those windows.”

“I appreciate it.”

He met the workman outside and disappeared around the corner with him. When he returned alone a few minutes later, he came no farther than the top of the steps. “If anything else happens, call me. And if you need a friendly ear, you know where to find me.”

She smiled at the echo of her words to him the day before. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Robbie left the Eleanor Calloway Public Library shortly after three with a list of names, courtesy of the city directory from twenty-three years ago: every family that had lived on Easy Street, Tillman Avenue and the surrounding streets. Some he recognized as still living in the local area; others were unfamiliar to him. It shouldn’t take long to find them on the Internet—or, easier still, to turn them over to Tommy and let the police department do the looking.

He’d just unlocked the Vette when a ’72 mint-condition Chevy pickup stopped behind him. Wearing a Calloway Construction cap and looking hot and grimy, Russ raised one hand in greeting. “Don’t you ever go to the office?”

Robbie walked back to the truck. “Not if I can help it. Don’t you ever stay in the office?”

“Not if I can help it.” Russ gestured toward the brick building. “Haven’t you heard? The Internet has made the library obsolete.”

“Not entirely. Where are you headed?”

“To the Hobson site. Gotta fill in for one of my guys. He’s doing some work over at Anamaria Duquesne’s house. Apparently, someone used her windows as targets.”

Robbie’s muscles tightened. Why would anyone break her windows? And why had his brother found out before he had? Hell, even if she’d called the police first, she should have called him second, and Tommy should have called him, too.

Oblivious to Robbie’s silence, Russ went on. “Hey, you want to come to dinner Saturday night? Mom’s coming, and Rick and Amanda will be in from Atlanta. You can even bring a date if you can get one.”

Anamaria’s image formed much too quickly, and so did a picture of his family. Even though he couldn’t think of another woman he wanted to spend an evening with, he just couldn’t merge the two images into one. “I don’t know. I’ll see.”

“Yeah, well, let us know or just show up. There’s always plenty of food.” Russ shifted into gear and, with a nod, drove away.

Robbie remained where he stood for a moment. He believed in looking ahead and being prepared. He wasn’t prepared to fall in love with a woman so different from himself. He wasn’t prepared to be part of a relationship that came with all the usual problems and then some.

He wasn’t prepared to deal with prejudice that would affect any children he had.

Did that make him prejudiced as well?

Or just weak?

Frowning, he walked back the few feet to his car. He had intended to go by the office next, but instead he headed for Easy Street. As soon as he drew close, he identified the white Calloway Construction pickup parked on the street. Then he saw Anamaria, standing at the end of the driveway, talking with Lenny Parker. He eased his foot off the gas, slowing to little more than a crawl, and watched as she extended her hand and Lenny took it.

Annoyance rumbled through him. When was the last time he’d been jealous over a woman? He couldn’t recall. He didn’t want to be now. Didn’t want to give a damn who she touched or that she didn’t touch him.

But he did.

She let go of Parker, and he got into the truck, waving as he pulled away. He repeated the gesture a moment later as he passed Robbie.

By the time he’d parked behind her car, she’d climbed to the top of the steps. She still wore the black-and-pink dress that fitted like a second skin and made him think about nothing but taking it off her. Her hair swayed in the breeze as it freshened, bringing with it the lush scents of the woods, the
muddiness of the river and distant rain, and her gaze remained on him, steady and calm.

“Why doesn’t a rat bite a lawyer?” she asked, waiting a beat before answering, “Professional courtesy.”

He took the steps one at a time, stopping on the second, so close that only the faintest breath of muggy air separated them. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I called the police.”

“Why didn’t you call
me?
”

She hesitated before replying, “I would have told you.” Not necessarily today, maybe not even tomorrow, but at some time she would have mentioned it to him.

A good enough answer…but not the one he wanted.

He stared at her, and she stared back. It was hot and sunny, and he swore the hairs on his arms stood on end, as if the very air were charged with energy and arousal. He moved to close the inch between them, and she took a backward step onto the porch. He followed. She retreated. Across the porch. Into the house.

She backed away until the living room door frame was at her back and he stood so close at her front that their clothing brushed with each breath, hers shallow, his ragged. He rested one hand, just inches from her head, on smooth wood, the other on papered wall, and leaned in until he could feel the soft puffs of her breath, could see the rapid beat of her heart, could smell the nearly faded fragrance that floated around her. “Why—” his voice was barely audible above the thudding of his own heart “—didn’t you call me?”

She stared at him, her eyes big enough, dark enough, intense enough, to get lost in. Then she answered softly. “I knew you would come anyway.”

Wind blew through the open windows, cooling his skin, making him realize that he burned hot from the inside out. Heat radiated from her, too, her skin gleaming and damp, tiny
strands of hair clinging to her forehead. Thunder vibrated through the house, and the lightning that followed fed the sparks that arced around them.

“You wanted me to come,” he said, his gaze locking with hers.

A tiny nod, then the words, “I needed you to.”

Needed.
He hadn’t needed a woman since he was twenty, and that hadn’t been need so much as immaturity, possessiveness, familiarity, expectations. He didn’t need now. He could leave. Could put space between them. Could walk out the door, get in his car and drive away as if nothing had ever happened. As if it might not kill him.

He didn’t
need
to stay.

But he wanted to.

Another gust of wind rustled through the house, stirring his hair. She raised her hand as if to brush it back but hesitated, her fingers unsteady between them. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t look at anything but her fingers, couldn’t want anything but her fingers on him. Stroking him, holding him, arousing him.

And finally, finally, she touched him. Her fingertips brushed through his hair, something his mother and grandmother had done dozens of times since he was a child, simple, innocent.

And so damn intimate that he hurt with it.

She smoothed his hair back, then slid her hand along his cheek, his jaw, his throat, so lightly that he might have imagined it. Abruptly, her fingers curled up a handful of his shirt, and her other hand was there, as well, pulling him hard against her as she rose onto her toes and kissed him.

Anamaria couldn’t say she’d given much thought to their first kiss—who would initiate it, how the other would receive it, whether it would be sweet and gentle, or hello or good-night or goodbye. All she’d known was it would come sooner or later. Be welcomed, sooner or later.

It scorched her head to toe, sensitized her skin and revved her heart into a thundering rush. Every breath was hot and hungry and smelled of Robbie. She was absorbing him through her skin, her pores, the very air that seeped into her lungs. In the course of that one sweet, greedy kiss, tongues entwining, bodies pressing together, fever rising, she recognized him as the real reason fate had brought her to Copper Lake.

He was her destiny. Her broken heart.

But as he slid his hands around to cup her bottom, to lift her against his erection, she didn’t care. Broken hearts healed. She could try to protect herself by sending him away, but he would come back and she would welcome him. And she would survive, as Glory had survived. As all Duquesne women survived.

She was only vaguely aware of moving along the hallway, of stepping out of her shoes, of pulling his shirt free of his trousers. His belt gave way with a tug; his zipper slid open with a yank. They bumped into something—the doorway, she thought dimly—and then they were in her bedroom, bright with sunshine and cooled by the breeze coming in the open windows.

Less than seventy-two hours,
a voice whispered in her head. That was how long—how little—she’d known him. Less than three days. Too soon to be kissing him like this. Too soon to be intimate.

Destiny doesn’t care about time.
That voice was Glory’s, filled with laughter and life and always, always hope.

And Mama Odette’s:
When it’s time for somethin’, it’s time. You can’t hurry it along, no more than you can stop it flat-out. That’s just the way it is, chile.

Her and Robbie. Right now. Just the way it was.

He drew back, taking a breath, and she did the same. They were both barefooted, their breathing loud and uneven in the quiet room. His pants hung low on his narrow hips, and her
dress was unbuttoned to the waist. His lids were heavy, his dark eyes hazed, and tension knotted his muscles, giving him a deliciously aroused aura. She sensed that hers was the same.

Deliberately she undid the remaining buttons on her dress, shrugged and let it slide off her shoulders. She pulled his shirt off next, ruffling his hair, then gave his trousers the nudge they needed to fall to the floor. He kicked them aside and stood there in nothing but boxers, tented over his erection, his muscles long and lean and taut, his skin practically quivering with need.

The room darkened as the approaching storm blocked out the sun. The breeze was cool, stirred by the ceiling fan, and the air was heavy and close with anticipation. It crawled along her skin and made her hands unsteady as she opened the front clasp of her bra, then slid it loose, as she guided her beribboned cotton panties over her hips and let them fall.

His gaze dropped from hers, skimming over her body, leaving tingling in its wake, and he swallowed convulsively. His features were sharp, his control nearly gone, but he didn’t reach for her.

“It’s not too late,” she said. “You can walk away.” But, of course, he couldn’t, not today. Someday, he would. He would finish with her, and in a few months, maybe a year, he would fall in love with a woman of his own social class, his own race, and they would marry and have children and live a conventional wealthy, white Southerner life. But first, for at least a time—a few weeks, a few days or maybe just this hour or two—he would be Anamaria’s.

He swallowed again, and a shudder rippled along his muscles, then he stripped off his boxers. “The only walking I intend to do is to that bed. I’ve waited too long…”

Less than seventy-two hours. Though
her
seventy-two hours had really been a lifetime. Destiny.

She crossed to the nightstand, to the few items she’d unpacked there when she’d arrived, and pulled out a box of condoms. Her grandmothers and aunties taught their girls to be prepared, but it rarely seemed to matter. Duquesne women used every kind of birth control known to man and still conceived.
When it’s time, it’s time.
Powers greater than pharmaceuticals and barriers decreed when a Duquesne should be born. Still, telling Robbie now that condoms were no likelier to prevent pregnancy in her than the impending rain didn’t seem a good idea.

As she tore open the box, he moved to stand close behind her, his hands settling on her shoulders like feathers drifting onto grass. His fingers squeezed lightly, a gentle massage, and she closed her eyes, head tilted to one side, a soft satisfied groan escaping her.