Unbreakable (29 page)

“You mad at me now?” Luke questions. He
grabs my arm and swings me around before we walk out the door. He
puts one hand on my face and traces my jaw with the tip of his
thumb. He is looking down at me and I can’t help but give him a
smile. He’s so cute, and with his sad I’m sorry puppy dog eyes, how
could I be mad. I take fistfuls of his shirt and tug while I rest
my forehead on his hard chest. He takes my shoulders in his hands
and pushes me back. He takes his fingers and hooks it in my shirt
at the top. He peeks down my shirt. I have on a white lacy push up
bra that just barely covers my nipples and Luke inhales a sharp
breath.

“You are incredibly sexy you know,” he says
and leans down to kiss my neck.

“Are we going?” Emma yells from the garage
as Luke straightens up. I notice that he is excited when I see the
bulge in his loose fitting khaki shorts.

“You better walk in front of me,” he smirks.
He turns me around and wraps his arms around mine pinning them to
my side. He picks me up and I can feel his erection push against
me. He carries me into the garage with my legs dangling and I can’t
help but start giggling.

“You think this is funny do you?” Luke says
in my ear and then starts to nibble on it. It makes me laugh even
harder. He sets me down in front of a large black SUV with tinted
windows. I was so distracted by Luke that I never noticed it till
now.

“Where’d this come from?” I ask. The front
passenger side door opens and Jacob is in the driver seat. I see
Emma in the back behind him looking impatient.

“It is your new mode of transportation. It
is bullet proof and state of the art just like the president has,”
Jacob answers me with pride as he rubs the dashboard of his new
toy. I turn to Luke and just like with the clothes I’m not going to
argue. He opens the rear passenger side door for me and I slide in
next to Emma. After Luke gets in the front passenger side seat,
Jacob picks up a small walkie-talkie type device. “M.S.L.F. is
secure and on the move,” he speaks into it and starts to back out
of the garage. I hear some chatter coming from the device that I
can’t make out and Jacob responds, “Over,” then puts the device in
the console between Luke and him.

I turn to Emma for some answers to what just
happened and she shrugs giving me an I don’t have any idea
look.

“What just happened, and what is M.S.L.F?” I
question them scooting up in my seat and placing my head between
Jacob and Luke.

“M.S.L.F. is your code name and all the
security are supposed to know where you are at all times,” Jacob
answers like it is just standard everyday procedure.

“What does it mean?” I’m puzzled at the
random set of letters.

“No idea, you’ll have to ask Luke. He gave
it to you,” Jacob states looking at me in the review mirror
shrugging.

I turn towards Luke, who has his head facing
me smiling down at me with that sexy wicked little grin.

“If you think about it, you’ll figure it
out,” is all he says and I can tell by the way he says it that he
is not going to tell me. I sit back in my seat and I start to think
about the letters when a smile comes across my face as I figure it
out.

“By George! I think she’s got it,” Emma says
when she notices the expression on my face. “So are you going to
share?” she says, and I see Jacob looking at me in the rear view
mirror anxiously waiting for an explanation to what the letters
mean. Luke turns in his seat and glances back to me. I see him
shoot me a quick wink before he straightens back in his seat.

“No, I’m not going to share,” I tell them
knowing what the letters mean, My Sweet Lilly Flower. I want that
to remain between Luke and I.

Chapter 34

When we arrive in New Orleans and find a
parking spot, we make our way through the crowded streets of the
French Quarter. Luke keeps me on the storefront side of him and
Jacob walks directly behind me, both of them on high alert. When a
teenage boy bumps into me coming out of a store, Jacob grabs the
poor kid by the shoulders and Luke instantly wraps me in a
protective embrace. They see the look of fear in the kid’s eyes and
Jacob lets him go telling him he’s sorry. The kid takes off in a
fast jog down the street.

“Geez, you boys need to relax a bit,” I tell
them embarrassed by what just happened. The pedestrians are slowing
down and staring at us.

“Sorry, Lil’, just a little jumpy,” Jacob
says taking his place behind me again as we start to walk toward
Bon Dieu’s.

When we reach the store and enter, I make a
straight dash for the beaded curtains that lead to the back of the
store. Emma and Luke are on my heels not sure what to expect. Right
before I go through the beads, Luke grabs my arm and pulls me
back.

“What exactly are you looking for here?”
Luke asks looking around the store apprehensively and then to the
beaded curtains. “What’s back there?” He asks nervously.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.
That woman came out of there,” I say pointing to the curtains. I
give Luke a reassuring smile then part the beads and step through.
It is poorly lit and the hallway is long and narrow. As I walk, I
feel like I’m going downhill. It is a ramp. At the end of the
hallway is a large opening that looks similar to the front of the
store, except darker. All of the windows are blackened out just
like the front, and there are shelves full of vials with small
jars, but most of them I can’t read because they look like they are
labeled in another language.

I walk around the shelves and see a small
counter at the side of the room. Behind it is large black woman
with all her long hair piled on top of her head wrapped in a scarf.
She is reading a really old looking book and doesn’t look up. I am
not sure if she even knows we’re here. There are a few candles lit
and a dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

“God help us,” Jacob says as he steps into
the room after Emma. This gets the lady’s attention and she looks
up from her book. She looks old, but I almost think she is not as
old as she looks. Her face has deep wrinkles and her eyes are deep
set and tired. As she stares at us not saying a word, she takes a
cigarette case off the counter and pulls out a long skinny brown
cigarette. It looks like a cigar, but way too skinny. Lighting it
and inhaling a long drag, she finally speaks.

“
Ou pafèpatiisit la,” she says to us smoke billowing out with
every word. I turn to Emma to see if she can translate.

“What did she say?” I ask her after a couple
of seconds of her staring dumbfounded. She finally gets what I want
her to do and she fumbles with her phone to get the
translation.

“She said you don’t belong here,” Emma says
as I am watching the woman’s reaction. She seems amused by us and
takes another drag off her cigarette, the smoke wafts around her.
She grins just enough that I can see her teeth are stained
yellow.

“Why do you say that?” I ask the woman and
the grin disappears from her face. She flicks her cigarette, the
ashes landing on the floor.

“Sa ovule,” she says in Haitian. I know she
understands what I have said by the look on her face. My eyes never
leave hers as I wait for Emma to translate.

“She said what do you want?” Emma finally
answers.

“I want to know who Samantha James was,” I
blurt out staring straight into the woman’s dark eyes that now look
like she is getting angry. Luke comes up behind me and grabs my
shoulders.

“Let’s go Lilly,” he pleads with me sensing
the tension rising in the room.

“Ou pa ta dwepozekesyon de bagayou pa
konprannkounye a kite magazenmwen,” the woman says angrily now
standing and staring right at me. Her eyes feel like they are
boring holes in my head.

I step closer to the woman wriggling out of
Luke’s grip and stare back. I am not going to let her intimidate
me. I want answers and I want them now.

“She said we should not ask questions we
don’t understand and that we need to get out of her store,” Emma
translates. My face burns red and I am instantly mad. How am I
supposed to understand if I can’t find the answers?

I slam my hand down on the counter and lean
in so I am close to the woman’s face. “Tell me what happened to my
mother?” I shout at her and she takes a step closer so she is
against the counter, her face angrier. Luke grabs my waist and
guides me back a couple of steps away from the large angry
woman.

“Foolish child,” the woman shakes her head
and speaks English in a heavy Haitian accent. This makes us all
step back in shock. “Her was not your mother,” she says clear as
day. “Now leave, this is not place for you.” She waves her hands
motioning for the door dismissing us.

I’m frozen, what does she mean she was not
my mother? “Come on, Lil,” Emma says as Luke and her start
escorting me toward the beaded curtain where Jacob still
stands.

They’re finally able to get me outside in
the bright sun, my eyes squint. Luke and Emma let go of my arms
after pulling me out of the store.

“I want to know what she meant,” I say
turning to go back in the shop. Emma and Luke grab my arms and
Jacob steps in front of the store entrance.

“Come on!” I shout, “She knows something.” I
whimper and I just want to sit down and start crying.

“Lilly, stop it. I’m sorry that I got you
started on this, but she was not going to give us answers,” Emma
says grabbing my shoulders. “Look, we may never know and someone
has gone to a lot of trouble to make sure no one knows,” she says
staring into my eyes. I feel Luke come up behind me and he puts his
hands on my waist.

“Lilly, let’s just take this one step at a
time,” Luke consoles. “Another clue and we will find more and
eventually we will piece it all together,” he says leaning down
kissing me on the top of the head.

“Sorry guys, but I think we need to keep
moving,” Jacob instructs standing nervously and motions for us to
walk. The horde of us starts to walk down the street and I feel
defeated.

“Let’s get something to eat,” Emma suggests
and we walk in to a small restaurant on the corner. The hostess
seats us at a half moon booth and we scoot in around it, first
Luke, Emma, me, and then Jacob.

We look at the menus and decide what we want
to eat. We wait on the waitress to take our orders.

“I need to go back there. She knows who
Samantha was and she said she’s not my mother. So does she know who
my mother is?” I ask chewing on my thumbnail not able to stop
thinking about it. I never got to ask her about the article. “It’s
like she knew who I was as soon as she saw me,” I tell them.
Something about the way she looked at me.

“I agree. She knows something, which is why
we needed to leave. Something horrible happened and she obviously
was not going to tell us. It’s like a loyalty they have. They don’t
talk about things they know with outsiders,” Emma interjects,
“We’ll just keep looking. I think we need to go back to Cypress
Grove and see what’s in all those books. We are sure to find some
answers in there,” she says consoling.

“I think you need to just forget the whole
thing. I think you have more than enough on your plate,” Jacob
speaks up. “I mean, did you see the stuff in that room? Some of
those jars had body parts in them. Some of them, I don’t know what
the hell they were, and I don’t want to know,” Jacob says his face
distorted into a disgusted look.

“Lilly, come to the bathroom with me,” Emma
says pushing on Jacob to let us out.

“Where is it?” Luke says nervously not
wanting me out of his sight.

“It’s just over there by the bar,” Emma
points out as we slide out of the booth. “I won’t let her out of my
sight,” she says to the boys to reassure them. We scoot out of the
booth and walk into the bathroom. Emma starts to check her makeup
in the mirror while I go into one of the stalls. Emma is freshening
up her lip gloss when I walk out of the stall.

“You know we’ll figure it out,” Emma says as
I wash my hands. She offers me her lip-gloss as she rubs her lips
together and I put on a little.

“I know. It is what it is I guess. It’s all
in the past, not like it will change my future, right,” I tell her
as we walk out of the ladies room trying to make myself feel
better.

“Hey gorgeous, come here and let me buy you
a drink,” a man at the bar says to me. I ignore him and keep
walking. Before I even comprehend what’s happening, the man grabs
my wrist and pulls me to him so hard that I slam into his chest. I
immediately start hitting at his chest to let me go, but his arm is
now around my waist. He has me pinned to him. He smells heavily of
whiskey and is very drunk. Within seconds, Luke and Jacob are in my
sight. Jacob has his hand on the man’s shoulder and Luke is freeing
me from his grasp. He pulls me off to the side and turns back to
the man.

“You just messed with the wrong guy’s girl,”
Luke says in a tone that I have never heard before, his fist tight.
I think he is about ready to haul off and hit him, but Jacob and
Luke exchange a look. The man looks like he is about to wet his
pants he’s so scared. Jacob grabs the guy’s arm and starts to
escort him outside. All the while, the man is pleading he’s sorry
and didn’t mean me any harm. When they reach the door, I see Jacob
nod to two men sitting at a small table near the entrance. They
acknowledge him and get up to follow Jacob out of the
restaurant

“You all right?” Luke asks as I stand there
stunned, Emma next to me just as stunned.

“Yeah, I’m fine. What’s Jacob going to do
with him? Who were those men?” I shoot questions at Luke who
ignores me and guides us back to the booth. Luke is clearly shaken
and I reassure him that I’m fine. I knew the guy was drunk but Luke
and Jacob were near so I was in no real danger. I lightly touch his
arm and it feels tense with all his muscles bulging. “Are you
okay?” I ask him as I see his temple pulsate and his jaw tense.