What She Doesn't Know (18 page)

The floats were fanciful things, mythical creatures with mysterious masked riders who dangled beads as though they were made of real gold. They might as well have been, for the way people begged. Occasionally a marching band separated the floats, and everyone got caught up in the music.

Five floats and two marching bands into the parade, she could feel the magic Emmagee mentioned. She wanted to catch just one necklace. So when the sea creature rolled by, she waved her hands like everyone else. A green necklace went flying overhead, but someone more zealous snagged it out of the air. The woman already had at least twenty necklaces strung around her neck.

The next float was a huge octopus, and once again Rita lifted her hands. One of the masked riders nodded at her and tossed a purple necklace her way. She grabbed for it, caught it and held it close to her chest until she was sure no one else was trying to grab for it. Then she smiled at the rider who had tossed it to her, as though he’d bestowed real jewels upon her. She slipped it over her head and turned to catch the next float. Being a spectator was usually more comfortable, but oddly enough, being part of the crowd now made her feel special.

Only after the parade had gone onto the crowds up the street did she remember that Velda’s house fronted St. Charles. She wasn’t sure why she was so curious about the old stripper, but she was. Rita weaved her way through the departing crowds to the house she guessed was Velda’s, with the pink paint, lace curtains in the windows, and a white picket fence around the front yard. Most of the yards were filled with families set up to party, but Velda’s house was dark and the yard weedy and empty. It wasn’t until she saw movement that she realized someone was standing at the window. She couldn’t see a face, only a shadow.

She averted her gaze, pretending to look beyond to Brian’s house–and her heart stopped. She could see Christopher standing on the steep part of the roof. What was he doing up there? Planning to jump like he thought his brother had done?
 

She made herself into a battering ram, jockeying through the crowd, leaving behind a string of apologies. The crowd became an obstacle course, blocking her way, moving in front of her just as she tried to dart around them. “Move, move,” she muttered, pushing around shoulders, bumping arms. Cold air stung her nostrils and seared her lungs. The block-long sidewalk stretched to infinity in her desperate eyes, jammed with thousands of people. Nobody moved for her, nobody even noticed her. They were caught up in their triumphs while she was consumed with fear.
 

She nearly tripped over a little girl who suddenly decided to reach for a necklace lying on the sidewalk. Rita jumped, dodged, all the while darting glances toward the house. It was obscured now by the houses in between. Cutting across the lawn of the corner house, she tromped on a bush and found herself apologizing to it without even thinking.

It was like a dream, no, a nightmare, running against time, her legs thick and heavy. It was taking too long, people died in the time she was taking, people married, women gave birth. Too late, too late, the words chanted in her head between her breaths. He was up there, and she was still so far away, yards, miles, too long, too far away.

Then she was at the house, her legs shaky as she ran up the walkway and the front steps, her hands cold and stiff as they grabbed at the doorknob. The carpet swallowed her steps, the staircase looked a mile high, but she clutched at the railing and pushed herself onward.

Her door was slightly open, a savings of one second, and she tore through her room and fumbled with the lock to the French doors and then shoved them open. She wanted to scream out his name, but she couldn’t breathe. All she could do was look over the railing, for a second, and thank God he wasn’t sprawled there the way she imagined Brian had lain.

She was gasping for breath as she reached the end of the balcony and then swung around to the back where she found a spiral staircase going up. All she could think about was Emmagee’s words about the life not being in his eyes anymore.
 

CHAPTER 11

Christopher heard a door slam open, then the creak of the spiral staircase. What the hell, he thought, as heavy breathing preceded Rita before she leaped onto the deck.

“Don’t jump!” she said in one long breath, coming to a stop in front of the railing. He slid down the steep roofline and climbed over the railing in front of her.

At first he thought she was kidding, but he saw the anxiety in her eyes and knew she wasn’t. The dim lights on the deck washed over the curves of her nose and mouth. She looked over the railing before meeting his eyes again. “I didn’t…wasn’t sure…whatareyoudoinguphere?” she said at last, holding the railing to catch her breath.

“I was thinking. What are
you
doing up here?”

“I thought you were going to jump.”

He could see the apprehension in her face. She had nearly killed herself to get to him. He wanted to laugh at her assumption, but a lump formed in his throat instead. The laugh became a smile as he reached out and grazed her cheek before catching himself.
 

How long had it been since someone had been concerned about him? She didn’t know him, probably didn’t like him. Yet she was afraid for him. He wanted to tell her how much that meant to him, how it made his chest hurt with something he could not define. He turned and looked down into the lit courtyard so she wouldn’t see that he wanted to know what she’d been thinking as she’d run to the house, how fast she’d run, every detail.

“Well?” she demanded. She was still concerned about his state of mind, and all he could think of doing was to slip inside that coat of hers and bury his face in her hair. Maybe that would warm him from the inside out.

“I wasn’t going to jump. I wouldn’t let the world off that easily.”

Relief relaxed her face. She fingered a strand of beads. “I saw you from the sidewalk.” She smiled faintly. “I guess I overreacted.”

“I was trying to put myself in Brian’s mind.” He’d been wondering why, of all places, he would choose the roof from which to jump. Why that one place?

“From over there?” When he only shrugged in answer, she leaned against the railing next to him. “Whew, I feel dizzy. I…I guess I’ve got to start working out.”

The sentence invited his appraisal of her body. Not thin and feline like Emmagee’s, but soft and curvy and much more interesting. Rita started fingering her beads again, then lifted one of the strands over her head. He could not move as she slipped the gold strand around his neck.

“What’s this for?” He touched the curved beads as he looked at blue eyes filled with something he didn’t dare identify.

“Magic.” She swallowed hard. “Emmagee said Carnival is magic, and sometimes that magic can heal people.”

Why was she doing this to him? He did not like the way this exchange was going, didn’t like the destination his mind was taking him to. “I don’t need healing.” He lifted off the beads and handed them back to her.

She shook her head. “You keep them. I know you think the beads and everything are silly; I did, too, until I watched the parade go by. It is magic, if you believe.” She took the gold beads only to put them back over his head. “Let yourself believe, just for a few minutes. Forget those tableaux and your father’s krewe and all of that. Pretend this is your first Mardi Gras.”

“Rita…” He looked away from her, wishing he were still alone sinking in his dark thoughts than faced with this beautiful woman offering him magic. “I’m no good at pretend anymore.”

“Sure you are. I’ll bet if you tried hard, you could pretend you want to kiss me again.”

He turned at those words. Didn’t she see that he wouldn’t have to pretend? No, maybe she didn’t. That glitter was gone from her eyes. Her breathing was getting heavier again, as though she were trying to draw strength from a reservoir deep within. Her fingers were working one of the purple beads, betraying her nervousness.

“What are you doing, Rita?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I want you to kiss me.”

“Why?” His voice had gone soft. The real question was, why was he bothering to ask? Why didn’t he just take her right there, kiss her until her knees went weak, then take her down to his room? But he couldn’t. She had touched those tender spots inside him, and if he made love to her, he’d have to open them even more. Besides, she was Brian’s girl, and he wasn’t going to take anything away from his brother.

Hurt shadowed her eyes at his hesitance. He hated hurting her, but it was better than opening doors best left closed.

“I want to see if…I want to see if I can kiss you without my nose bleeding.” She shored up her shoulders, pride edging in. “That’s all.”

He moved closer, without his shield of intimidation and purpose. He could smell her sweat, faint and sweet and womanly. Sweat she’d expelled for him. His chest suddenly felt tighter. He pushed the waves of her hair back from her damp face but did not lean down to meet her mouth. He’d put that question in her eyes, but it was for the best.

“Why does your nose bleed?”

She let out a soft breath, and its warmth caressed his throat. She glanced away, as if to gather strength, then looked at him. “It’s silly.”

“You don’t think so.”

She parted her lips to dispute him, paused. “No, it’s not silly to me.” He waited, giving her time. Finally she pushed out the words. “I have a great life. I have a nice apartment, I’m saving up to buy a little brick house in a neighborhood I pass every day. Nothing fancy or trendy, mind you, but a home of my own. I love my job, helping women overcome debilitating psychological hang ups. All my ducks are lined up, except for this one tiny problem. I get a nosebleed whenever I get into an intimate situation with a man. Intimate emotionally. Especially with a man like you.”

He traced the edge of her chin with his finger. Soft skin, cool to the touch. “Why a man like me?”

She let out another one of those soft, warm breaths. He wished he were making her do that by kissing her crazy, not by making her weigh how much to tell him.

“A man surrounded by a wall and a moat filled with alligators.”

“And why is that, Rita Brooks? Who did you fight alligators and try to scale walls for?”
 

“My father.” She stared hard at a place to the right of him, someplace and no place at all. “I tried everything: telling jokes, singing and dancing, getting good grades, getting bad grades…nothing worked.” She looked at him again. “Why am I telling you this? All you had to do was tell me you didn’t want to kiss me and be done with it.”

She started to turn away, but he caught her arm and swung her back to face him. “You don’t want to kiss me. You want to prove something to yourself.”

She opened her mouth to argue but closed it again. “Maybe that’s all it was. Maybe I just wanted to use you.” She squared her shoulders, and he found her strength so endearing he wanted to pull her close again. But her words chipped away at that softness, saving him from doing something he’d later regret. Something she would surely regret.
 

“Kissing me was a test, to see if you could kiss Brian when he comes out.” He hated the idea of that, so he embraced it.

“I won’t have trouble kissing Brian.”

“How do you know?”

“Brian was gentle, poetic. We eased into our friendship. I was ready—am ready—to embark on a relationship with him.”
 

Christopher hoped Brian deserved her faith and love. Of course, he hadn’t missed the comparison between him and Brian, even if she hadn’t meant to do it.
 

She took a step back. “The beads…they were for you. I meant what I said about magic. There’s something about you that makes me want to build a bridge over the moat.”

He had seen that compassion in her eyes before. Ironically, he’d felt jealous when she’d aimed it at Brian. Now that she was aiming it at him, he hated the way it made him feel–as needy as the boy he’d once been.

He had to seal it, so he pushed himself to say, “I don’t have alligators in my moat; I have sea monsters with fangs and talons.” He flexed his fingers to demonstrate.

She searched his expression, perhaps looking for a sign of sarcasm or jest. He trained his face to betray none of the commotion inside him.
 

She lowered her head, turned and walked toward the spiral staircase. He hated himself for her slumped shoulders and the hurt he’d seen cross her face. It only proved again that he was a bastard. He knew that well enough, but he had to get it across to her so she wouldn’t think she could save his soul.

She stopped by the first step and turned back to him. “I answered your question about why my nose bleeds. Now it’s your turn. Why did you kiss me?”

The cold words he wanted to use failed him. “Because I wanted to.”
 

He ran his fingers back through his hair as he ducked his head for a second. That kiss was already haunting him like a voodoo spell. When he looked up at her sudden intake of air, she was staring hard at the railing Brian had gone over. Her eyes were wide, as though she were seeing something. But nothing was there. A few moments passed before she blinked and looked at him.

“The images Brian showed me—the significant events of his life—have been replaying through my mind. Like when I saw the sword fight, sometimes they go slow enough for me to see them clearly. Just now I saw what happened in the moments before Brian fell. He followed someone up here. He felt panicky and afraid, but angry, too.” She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m pretty sure it was a woman; I could see the curves of small breasts beneath her black bodysuit. She was wearing a mask, the same one I saw in Boston.” Several expressions crossed her face as she struggled to remember the details of her strange vision. “She was saying something about Xanadu.”

“Xanadu hasn’t been around for twelve years. It fell apart when my father died. And women weren’t allowed in anyway.”

She was ignoring him, chewing the tip of her finger in thought. “Earlier I remembered the word
Sira.
I looked around in Brian’s stuff but couldn’t find anything about a Sira person, place, or thing. Was there a rival krewe named Sira?”