Devil in Disguise (15 page)

“I wish I had roots like that.” Rachel was a little envious of the tether he had to his past. “I barely remember my father, and I only have a vague connection with his family. Mom has nothing to do with hers, so I don’t really know much about them. Sometimes I feel like I just sprang up out of nowhere.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” His gaze was tender as he pulled her into his arms. “My family is such a part of who I am – the French and the Coushetta – I can’t imagine not having that. I can’t give you a past, but I can promise to do everything in my power to make your future magical.”

“I’m pretty pleased with the present.” Rachel snuggled closer, sliding her hands into his back pockets.

“Are you putting the moves on me, Mrs. Langston?” he flirted.

“Actually, no.”

“That stung a little.”

“Sorry; I’m not taking any chances with the house falling into the bayou.”

Conrad’s bark of laughter escaped before he could stop it, earning him a glare and a whack from his bride.

“I’m sorry,
mon amour
; that just took me by surprise. I can assure you, the building is sound.”

“Have you tested it?”

“For all activities? No. But I’ve spent many, many hours in this
little cabin. I even used to bring Gabrielle here every summer. Back then it had two smaller beds and a couple of chairs, but when
Gabrielle
went to live with her mom, I got rid of the other furniture and got
myself a bed my feet wouldn’t hang off of.”

“Makes sense.” She felt silly for questioning the cabin. “People have been living on this bayou for hundreds of years. Surely if there
were
some great danger to it, someone would have done some sort of
exposé on it by now.”

“As a reporter, I would think you’d want to test it to ensure the building’s safety. I mean, there could be an entire population of Cajuns at risk.” His breath tickled her ear, its warmth sending sparks through her veins.

“Very funny.” She halfheartedly shoved at his chest.

“Only you can save them, Rachel Cooper.” He nibbled at her neck.

“In the interest of journalistic integrity, then…” Her voice trailed off as her mouth found something else to do.

The satellite phone rang, interrupting their passion as effectively as a splash of cold water. Rick had given them the phone so he could reach them if they were in danger or when it was time to move on.

Rachel was on pins and needles throughout the entire
conversation.
Though Conrad tried to reassure her with nonverbal cues, she
couldn’t
tell from his end of the conversation what exactly was going on. He
wasn’t panicked, which she assumed was a good thing, but he didn’t look happy either. When he hung up, she didn’t have to ask; he immediately began to fill her in.

“Julia’s fine. Rick and Veronica want to meet us here by the end of the week. They think they’ll be wrapped up in New Jersey by then, and they said they need to talk to us about next steps.”

“I suppose I should be happy about that. I mean, maybe ‘next steps’ means we’ll get our lives back, right?”

“That’s the hope.” Conrad uttered the words in a way that made Rachel think he held little hope at this point.

If for no other reason than to lighten his mood, Rachel admitted,
“So, is it wrong that I’m a little disappointed they’re coming so
quickly?
After two years apart, I think I was kind of looking forward to
having a couple of weeks to catch up.”

“I’m just glad you were the one to say it out loud. Now I don’t feel so guilty thinking it.”

“I guess we just have to make the next few days count, huh?” she suggested.

He was quick to accept the invitation to pull her back into his arms. “Absolutely.”

“Just one thing.” Rachel placed a finger over his lips when he would have kissed her.

“Yes,
mon amour
?” he asked, maneuvering to pull the tip of her finger into his mouth.

She paused momentarily, closing her eyes and trying to remember whatever had gone flying right out of her brain the
moment tongue touched finger. Finally grabbing hold of the thought, she pulled her hand away and scowled at him.

“You called me Rachel Cooper earlier.”

“That is your name.”

“But you called me Mrs. Langston before that,” she argued.

“I liked the way it sounded.”

“Why the switch?”

“I didn’t want to make any assumptions. Your name is kind of like a brand, right?” he explained.

“The station might ask me to keep the maiden name on air, but I plan to take your name legally. I mean, I guess, if that’s okay with you.”

“That’s more than okay with me. You continue to make me the
happiest man in the world, and I love you.”

“I love you too.” That settled, she let him have her hand back.

They whiled away the day wearing as few clothes as possible, mostly because of the heat, but partly because they just liked the view and they could. They laughed, they talked, and they made love. Conrad caught them fish for dinner, then taught Rachel how to clean and cook
them. She tried to keep the horrified expression off her face, but
Conrad’s
amusement suggested she hadn’t done a very good job at hiding her
thoughts.

The next morning, Rachel made them muffins from the supplies they’d brought. After that, Conrad took her for a ride in his boat. It had taken some cajoling to get her out on the water, but once there she succumbed to the magic of the place. Spanish moss was
draped across the trees, some even hanging so low it touched the water. It added to the mystical air of the bayou. A crane flew by. An alligator slid past their boat without sparing them a second glance. Another heard their approach and dipped beneath the surface of the water.

By the time they returned home for lunch, Rachel had fallen in love with the place. Seeing him there, she began to understand the magic that was him. She began to see why he’d promised to make her own future magical: it’s what he knew, who he was, and she loved him all the more for it.

She was feeling adventuresome, so she even went along when he offered to teach her to fish. She watched intently as he prepared the line and baited the hook, a little in awe of how easily his hands accomplished the task.

“What’s that look?” His eyes sparkled with amusement.

“I’m realizing that the fish back in Arkansas were probably laughing at me.”

“That bad, huh?”

“It’s irritating how much you and your sister know how to do.”

Conrad chuckled, shrugging lightly in embarrassment.
“Growing up poor will do that to you. You learn how to survive.”

“We were dirt poor after Dad died, but I don’t know how to do any of this.”

“That’s because you were stuck in the city, poor thing.”

“I’d like to think it made me resourceful in other ways.” Rachel felt slightly defensive, even if she was the one who’d brought the subject up.

“I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather partner up with.” He
stopped what he was doing to tip her chin up so he could brush her lips with his own.

Rachel sighed, basking in the warmth of his love. “I can’t say I’ll ever be as comfortable here as you are, but I do want to learn.”

“I’ll teach you everything I know.” He kissed her again. This one held more promise than the last and made Rachel wonder if they were still talking about fishing.

“Stop that,” she admonished lightly, resting her head on his
chest while waiting for her heart rate to return to normal. “I want to learn to fish.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

True to his word, he explained everything they did and why.
Rachel caught on quickly and even caught the biggest fish of the day. When Conrad attributed her success to beginner’s luck, she called his claim
sour grapes. But she regretted her saucy reply when he left her to
clean her own catch.

“CONRAD LANGSTON, YOU HAVE LOST YOUR MIND.”
Nervous
laughter accompanied Rachel’s announcement. Even as she told
herself he was bluffing, Conrad stripped his shirt off and dove
cleanly into the
water. Sitting ramrod straight in the middle of the boat, she
instinctively picked his shirt up before it could get too wet and folded it as she scanned the waterline for alligators.

He resurfaced suddenly, water streaming from him as he shook his head like a wet dog and laughed, the sound reverberating across the water.

“Come on,
chère
. The water is good and cool. I promise you it feels much better in here than it does out there.”

She looked at him like he was completely insane. “I am not swimming with alligators.”

“Then you won’t be swimming in Louisiana.”

“Fine. You have fun. I’ll wait right here.”

“Have you ever been swimming in the ocean?” Conrad asked.

“That’s different. Have you seen
Lake Placid
?” She shifted uncomfortably on her seat.

“Have you seen
Jaws
?” he tossed back.

“It’s just that I can’t see anything. It’s so murky.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s murky, exactly. I promise you, the odds of finding any gators bigger than four feet here are pretty small.” He hitched his arms over the side of the boat and looked up at her with imploring eyes.

“You mean four feet long?”

Conrad raised his eyebrows but didn’t answer. Rachel took that to mean he thought her question was a stupid one.

“So there could quite easily be gators under four feet long in this water?” she clarified.

“Probably. But the little ones aren’t going to mess with us.”

“You have fun.” She waved him away from the boat. “I really don’t mind waiting here. I’ll work on my tan.”

“Where’s your spirit of adventure?” He let go of the boat,
swimming
away a few strokes before slipping beneath the surface only to pop up again on the other side of boat, eliciting a surprised yelp from Rachel.

“I’ve had quite enough adventure the past few weeks to last me a lifetime.”

In one fluid motion, Conrad was once again seated next to her in the boat.  “You don’t really mean that, do you?”

Rachel started to protest that he was dripping cold water on her
– then she realized she was rather enjoying the feeling, and he looked kind of fantastic with the sun glistening off his wet skin. Her throat went dry.

“You haven’t answered me,” he reminded her.

“You distracted me,” she admitted.

“So, do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you mean what you said? Have the bastards robbed you of your spirit of adventure? Have they really won?”

She gave a half shrug, uncomfortable with the discussion. “I am ready for some peace and quiet.”

He didn’t answer, not with words anyway. She felt like his dark eyes were studying her so intently that they were penetrating all the way down to the most secret places in her soul. She was frightened, riveted. She couldn’t look away.

Out of nowhere, Conrad cracked a mischievous grin before
letting out a whoop, grabbing Rachel by the waist, and plunging them both into the water. She came up mad and sputtering water, sending him into a fit of laughter. The madder she got, the harder he laughed.

“You beast,” she accused, splashing water in his face, launching an all-out splash fight.

“I’m sorry,
chère
. It just seemed like what you needed at the moment. That and I figured it was the only way to get you in the water.” He tried to pull her into his arms, but she slipped out of his
grasp.

“Nice try. You’re not forgiven yet.”

He gave her his most beseeching look.

Her expression softened only the slightest bit, but he saw his window of opportunity and pulled her to him. He brushed kisses
across her
forehead as he whispered apologies in a blend of Koasati and English. The sun beat down on their shoulders; the cool water lapped at their backs. Rachel’s fears of alligators were a distant
memory.

“Just because I’m forgiving you now doesn’t mean I’ll always be this easy.” She tipped her head up and gave him a saucy smile.

“Babe, no one would ever dream of accusing you of being easy.”

“I’m not sure you meant that as a compliment.”

He grinned in response, swimming out of reach before she could react. Rachel didn’t know how long they played on the water. They called it a day well before evening so they could dock their boat before the alligators roused to feed. Conrad assured her that it was mostly younger alligators in their neck of the woods, and that the younger ones were more afraid of people than vice versa, but he was also smart enough to quit while he was ahead.

By the time their reptile neighbors were patrolling for dinner,
Rachel was in the cabin’s tiny shower, letting the cool water wash away the sun and grit of a day spent in the bayou. Though a little
dismayed to realize she had forgotten a razor, she solved the
problem by using his, which had the added benefit of getting revenge on him for his earlier stunt. Freshly shaved and feeling squeaky clean, Rachel emerged from the shower feeling like a new person. While Conrad got his own shower, she made them a quick dinner.

“I’m okay with losing my razor to the cause,” he informed her as he accepted the bowl she held out. “But I don’t want any complaints from you when I grow a beard out because that was my only razor.”

“Fair enough.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Besides, it’ll go with the unruly hair you’ve got kicking.”

“My hair is not unruly.”

“It hasn’t been cut in a month at least. You are definitely
sporting the tousled look now, my love. Don’t worry; it’s a good thing.”