Scandal in Copper Lake (8 page)

There were a few joggers out, a few mothers with their children. Giving them a wide berth, Robbie turned north, following the path through the grassy park and along the high bank of the Gullah. It was a slow river, wide and lazy. He’d fished in it, swam in it and raised hell on it with his brothers and his buddies. He’d brought girls to its banks to make out and cracked more than his share of beers in a boat on hot days, and he’d never known that Glory Duquesne and her baby had died in it.

It didn’t take long to reach the place where Glory had been found. The pavement had ended, giving way to a hard-packed dirt trail that ran along the top of the slope above the water. This section was used by mostly joggers; Tommy ran a few miles along the trail every day.

Robbie slowed at the pilings that marked a dock long since rotted away. According to the police report, Glory had been tangled by the gnarled roots of a fallen oak twenty feet north. Much of the tree had rotted away over the years, but the trunk, easily three times his own girth, remained on the shore, unaffected by weather or time.

He stared down at the water’s edge. Had Glory been conscious after her fall? Had she tried to push herself up out of the mud and muck? Had she known her baby was coming? Or had life ended for her when she’d hit her head? Consciousness gone, lights out, unaware that she and the baby were doomed to die.

A shudder worked through him, and he rubbed his arms, bemused by the goose bumps. No doubt, Anamaria—or especially her grandmother, who claimed to talk to the dead—would say something still lingered here from that night. But he wasn’t sensitive to the living; he damn sure wouldn’t feel anything from the dead.

He gazed downriver, then up, to orient himself. The path continued to the north, narrowing, angling away from the river and into the trees. It ended before reaching his uncle Cyrus’s fishing cabin, about a mile and a half upstream. Also between here and there, a short distance to the east, was Easy Street and the Duquesne house.

It was a seven-minute walk at a good pace before the first sign of habitation came into sight: a house, battered and tilting, that would have blended into the surrounding forest if not for the lemon-colored sheets on the clothesline out back. He counted four houses—a roof here, a flash of sun reflected off a window there—before he followed a beaten path through the woods to the street.

Anamaria’s house was thirty feet to the left, her car parked in the driveway. A dog barked down the street, quieted by an admonishing
hush
. The voice was elderly and came from the porch of the nearest house. With rusted screen enclosing the porch and the roof creating deep shade, he couldn’t see the woman who had spoken, but he did hear her next words. “I been telling them kids to quit using that path. Look what’s done stumbled in on it from the river. It’s a Calloway.”

A moment’s silence, expectant, damn near humming in his ears. Then…“It certainly is. Thank you for your time, Miss Beulah.”

The screen door creaked, and Anamaria came down the steps, avoiding the hole in the third one. She crossed the dirt and pine needles that passed for a yard, then stopped in the street a dozen feet in front of him.

“What’s the difference between a dead rat lying in the road and a dead lawyer lying in the road?” She paused only a moment. “There are skid marks in front of the rat.”

When he didn’t smile, she did and began walking lazily toward her house. He forced his feet to move, to walk beside her rather than behind her, where he could watch the sway of her hips.

“Did you decide to take me up on my offer?”

Yes. No. Damned if I know.
Silence was a good choice when you didn’t know what to say, Granddad Calloway had always advised. It was Robbie’s choice as they moved single file past her car, then climbed the steps to the porch. As he reached the top, though, his mouth opened and words came out of their own accord.

“Were you at the river the night your mother died?”

Anamaria’s fingers curled around the screen door so tightly that the nail beds turned white. She turned, forcing him to stop on the last stair, blocking his way. The extra height put her an inch or two above him and allowed her to stare down at him with all the ice she could muster. “What?”

He moved as close as the step would allow, his shirt brushing hers, his face mere inches from hers. “According to the police report, you told your babysitter that your mother was in the water hours before she was found there. Were you there?”

She never retreated. Never. But that afternoon she did, taking a step back, folding her arms protectively over her middle. She tried to look away, but his blue gaze was too intense, tried to walk away, but her body refused to obey.

He closed the distance between them again, standing much too near, intruding on every breath of her personal space. “
Were
you at the river that night? Did you sneak out and follow her, or go looking for her? Were you with her when she fell? Did you know she was dying? Did you leave her there?”

Sensation threatened to overwhelm her: his heat, his scent, his arousal—oh, yes, even though he was questioning her, he was aroused. So were her own emotions. Sweat beaded on her forehead as chill bumps raised on her arms. Over the buzzing in her ears she heard whimpers coming from the front bedroom, felt her five-year-old heart breaking all over again, tasted the fear, the helplessness, the anger that Mama wasn’t there to help her deal with what she couldn’t understand.

She grabbed onto the anger, straightening her spine, wrapping it around her for warmth and strength. “Who the hell do you think you are, coming here demanding answers from me?”

He raised his hand, bringing his fingertips close to her cheek, so close she felt their warmth, so close she imagined their texture, smooth and calloused, against her skin. Every nerve ending was humming, every pleasure sensor on alert, waiting, anticipating, but he stopped before making contact. Stopped. Stared at her. Said quietly, deliberately, “I’m the man you’re going to touch.”

Her heart beat a hundred times before she managed a breath. The whimpers faded back into the dark corner of her memory, and so did the anger. A knot of fear remained, though. The unbridled passion experienced by Duquesne
women was a powerful thing, according to Mama Odette. It would take away her breath, rip out her heart and make a different woman of her, one who understood the exquisite pleasure and pain of desire, love and loss.

It was her destiny. Since she was a little girl, she’d grown up expecting not marriage but a broken heart. She envisioned it. Was resigned to it. Had waited for it all her life.

I’m the man you’re going to touch.

She was. Maybe not this instant. Maybe not today. But soon. When the mere promise of a touch could made her tremble…definitely soon.

And then he would break her heart.

She dragged in another breath, turned away and walked into the house. The windows were open in every room except the front bedroom, and the gentle breeze floating in from the kitchen was scented with cocoa and butter and coconut, ingredients in the cookies she’d made to take to her neighbors. She didn’t need to hear quiet footsteps to know that Robbie followed her. She felt his presence. Felt his gaze on her. Felt his ambivalence toward her.

He knew he would break her heart, too. He preferred his lovers well-bred, educated, sophisticated, elegant. He liked women who blended in at the country club—fair-skinned, blond, blue-eyed—who understood the value of influence, appearances and convention.

But he wanted
her.

At least for sex.

At least for a while.

She went into the kitchen, fixed two glasses of iced tea and set them on the table, then peeled the plastic wrap from a plate of cookies and put it in the middle. She sat in one chair, crossing her legs. After a moment, he sat in the other, and for a long time, that was all they did. Sit. Avoid looking at each
other. Ignore both tea and cookies. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as it should have been. At least, until she spoke.

“No,” she said at last, with a great breath for fortitude. “I wasn’t with my mother that night. I didn’t literally, physically, see her in the river.”

The breath he exhaled was as strong as the one she’d taken in. “Then how did you know?”

“I had a vision. It was as real as if I
was
there. I could hear the rain falling. I could feel the drops stinging my skin. I could smell the mud and the river, and I could see…” Her fingers knotted in her lap. “I called to her. I pleaded with her to open her eyes and come home where she belonged. I screamed at her, but she didn’t hear me. She was already gone.”

The clock on the wall counted the seconds, one for every two beats of her heart. Sixty of them had ticked past when she added, “It was the first vision I ever had.”

Another sixty seconds passed before he met her gaze. He didn’t believe her. That was all right. She knew what she’d seen, knew it was real. His cynicism didn’t change that.

Finally he took a drink from the sweating glass in front of him. Moisture collected on his fingertips, wiped away carelessly on a napkin. “You said you don’t see anything about the futures of people you’re close to.”

“I said rarely. But it wasn’t Mama’s future I was seeing. It was her death.” She gazed out the window, thinking idly that she needed to hire someone to cut back the weeds before they grew over her head, smiling faintly at the thought of a lawn service making routine visits to Easy Street.

Then, feeling Robbie’s gaze, she turned back to him. “Detective Maricci gave you the police report, didn’t he? That’s what was in the envelope.”

He didn’t reply. Protecting his source.

“Can I see it?”

Her request startled him. “Why would you want to?”

“She’s my mother. I want to know how she lived. I want to know how she died.”

“She died alone,” he said flatly. “In the dark. In the rain.”

Anamaria shook her head hard enough to make her hair sway. “She wasn’t alone. My sister was with her, and there were others waiting for her—her grandma Chessie, Chessie’s grandma Moon, Moon’s grandma Florence. And she liked the rain.”

Glory
had
liked the rain, Anamaria realized as soon as she heard the words. They’d gone for walks in the rain, leaving the umbrellas and slickers at home, splashing through every puddle they came across, quacking like ducks and laughing till their faces hurt. She
remembered.

Across from her, Robbie was scowling. “Lydia says you’re here because you’re curious about your mother. Why didn’t you tell me that when I asked?”

Half a smile curved her mouth. “I’d met you all of two minutes before. I didn’t owe you an answer.”

“If you didn’t have anything to hide…”

“If you hadn’t come expecting the worst of me…” She let the smile form fully. He still wasn’t convinced. It was apparent in the way he looked at her, the very air around him. And she still didn’t owe him an answer, but she decided to give him one anyway.

“Your father’s death wasn’t even an inconvenience in your life. My mother’s death changed my entire life. She
was
my life. I lost her. I lost my home.” She brushed her hair back before settling both hands on the tabletop. “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had a great life. Instead of one mother, I had a dozen—Mama Odette, Auntie Lueena and Auntie Charise and their daughters. They taught me everything I needed to know about being a girl, a woman, a Duquesne. They explained the visions to me. They helped me develop my sight.
They were there when I went on my first date, when I graduated from high school, when I had my first client, when I suffered my first broken heart.”

Not that it had been much of a break. She’d been seventeen, left for an older woman of twenty, and for two weeks she’d stayed in her room and cried as if she were vying for the title of drama queen of the universe. Her first day back at work at the diner, a handsome construction worker had flirted with her, and within another two weeks, she’d hardly been able to remember her ex-boyfriend’s face.

“They were great mothers,” she said quietly.

“But they weren’t
your
mother.”

She was touched that he grasped the difference. “I don’t remember much about living here. I know I must have been very happy, because I know how
un
happy I was when I first went to Savannah. Mama and I must have sat at this table for our meals. She must have tucked me into bed at night, and I must have crawled into bed with her when the storms came. We lived our lives in this house, just the two of us, but I don’t remember.”

“What does it matter?”

Spoken like someone who’d never had a doubt about his history, himself.

Silently she nudged the plate of cookies in his direction. When he shook his head, she took it to the kitchen counter, covered it once more with plastic wrap, then glanced at him over her shoulder. “It matters. It matters to me, and it especially matters to Mama Odette.”

Chapter 4

I
n his job, Robbie made a lot of decisions based on whatever sketchy information he had: whether a client was being truthful, whether he could create reasonable doubt in a jury’s minds, whether he could trust the story a witness was telling him. Instinct said Anamaria wasn’t being entirely truthful.

But he didn’t know whether it was real instinct or if, as she’d said, he’d come expecting the worst of her. He was a lawyer. He’d seen the worst of a lot of people. He’d come by his distrust honestly.

Truthfully, though, it didn’t matter whether he believed her. Distrust alone wasn’t going to keep him away from her. It wasn’t going to keep him out of her bed.

She was leaning against the kitchen counter, hands resting on the chipped laminated top. She could go to church or appear in court in that outfit, but it still struck him as damn sexy. The skirt was neither tight nor short, but it made him
focus all too much on the curves underneath it—the flat belly, the rounded hips, the long muscled thighs. The T-shirt was substantial enough to reveal only a hint of the bra underneath, and it fitted no more snugly than the skirt, but it was enticing all the same. Soft, but not as soft as the skin it covered. Concealing, on a body that should be revealed.