Wade (16 page)

“Janna's at the house, too, with Lainey,” Clay added. “School started this week, but we decided to keep her out. No use in taking chances.”

The protective concern in the faces of his two brothers got to Wade, somehow. He must be more tired than he realized. Clearing his throat a little, he asked, “Tory? Regina?”

“At Grand Point, since that's where Roan and Kane are at the moment,” Adam said, since Clay now had his mouth full. “April was off on some book tour, but cut it short. Luke should be picking her up at the Monroe airport about now.”

That accounted for his close cousins and their wives. There were more, since the woods around Turn-Coupe were full of Benedicts, but these five, with their families, were the most likely targets after Chloe and himself. They were peace-loving men,
slow to anger but formidable when roused. Ahmad didn't know what he'd done by threatening them.

The doctor arrived as they were finishing the last of the wine that had been brought as a welcoming gift by the tall black majordomo who seemed to run the place. Wade was led into the smaller bedroom for a thorough and somewhat painful inspection of his wound. The doctor announced that it was healing well except for a small pocket of infection around one stitch, something Wade could have told him if asked. But at least the medic was reasonable enough to allow him a hot shower before he scrubbed the area with peroxide, steeped it in Betadine, then applied a considerably less bulky bandage. There followed a quick injection of antibiotics before Wade was permitted to pull on a new pair of jeans and T-shirt. The doctor then left a handful of antibiotic samples to be taken later by mouth, accepted his fee with an awkwardness that suggested handling payment in cash was a rare occurrence, then left as quickly as he had come.

Not long afterward, Adam and Clay began to talk of everything that was being done at Grand Point or that needed to be done. It was a fair indication of their thoughts and a prelude to departure. Their mother gathered paper plates and cups and packed away what was left of the food. Hugs, handshakes and back slaps were exchanged all around. Clay offered to stay and stand guard in the small parlor outside the room, though it was plain to see that he was torn between that and a strong urge to check on his
family. Adam mentioned a friend of his on the New Orleans police force who wouldn't mind a little off-duty security work. Their mother informed them both that the hotel had its own security, on top of which, the idea was to avoid attracting attention. They were still arguing as they went down the outside stairs.

Finally they were gone. Wade closed and locked the door. He stood staring at the mechanism that was as antique as the rest of the place, thinking that it probably wouldn't stop a six-year-old determined to get inside. Then he turned to face Chloe.

She was watching him with her arms clasped around her and her eyes dark blue with distress and exhaustion. “You have a nice family,” she said, her voice so soft he could barely hear her. “I'm sorry they had to be dragged into this.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. You didn't do it.” He prowled to the back window where he stood to one side, staring out through the lace curtain.

“It wouldn't have happened if my father hadn't sent you after me.”

“And he wouldn't have sent me if you weren't in trouble. Does that make it your fault? Some things can't be avoided. You have to make the best of them.” As she made no reply, he glanced back but didn't know what to make of her odd half smile. “I mean it.”

“I know you do. I was just thinking that for someone who seems so intense on the surface, you're very comfortable to be around.”

Comfortable. He could feel one corner of his mouth turn down. “Thanks. I think.”

Her smile flashed a bare second then was gone again. “It's a bad situation that your family is facing. I hope they understand how terrible it can be.”

“They have a fair idea.”

“Ahmad blames us for Treena's death, I'm sure, and not himself. His regret over it will add to his fervor. He needs to hurt somebody, hurt us so we understand and share his pain, then wipe out the images in his mind by erasing all trace of proof that we lived. He will remove the Benedict clan from the face of the earth, if he can.”

“It won't be easy, I promise.”

“He'll stop at nothing, not even his own death.”

The fatalistic sound of her voice made the hair rise on the back of Wade's neck, though he refused to acknowledge it. “That can be arranged.”

“The question is just how many of your brothers and cousins, their wives and children, he will eliminate first.”

The thought wasn't pleasant. To head off this disaster by fighting shoulder to shoulder with those of his blood and heritage was an ancient yet immediate instinct. He could feel it pouring through his bloodstream, coalescing around his heart. It went against the grain to remain here, even when he knew he'd be more useful after he'd had a chance to rest and recover. “I don't know a lot about how fanatic Ahmad and those he has with him can be, but I'll tell you
this much,” he said in hard tones. “If he harms a hair on any Benedict, particularly any Benedict woman or child, his life won't be worth Jack shit.”

Chloe gave a small shake of her head. “That won't bring anyone back or make the pain of loss any less. I can't stand to think about it. And I can't imagine how it will end.”

Wade, deep in thought, made no answer. He was aware of the moment when she turned away, however, knew that she picked up the bags holding her new clothing and toiletries and moved in the direction of the bathroom. He heard the door close and, after a moment, the sound of running water.

He stood still a minute or two, staring at nothing. Then, driven by restlessness and a strong sense of unease, sick of being penned up, he swung abruptly and scooped the key from the desktop. He let himself out of the room, locking the door carefully behind him.

To his left was the cottage's front parlor, to his right a pair of double doors at the end of the hall that led onto a back veranda. He turned toward the rear exit, then crossed to run lightly down the wide stairs to the ground. Directly in front of him was a small lagoonlike pool with a statue on a mound in the center. He moved off in that direction.

The air was warm and incredibly humid against his skin. It felt right and natural, unlike the harsh, dry atmosphere of Hazaristan. He figured that people were formed and tempered by the climate of the place
where they were born, that it entered their genes and their personalities in some fashion. Not that this accounted for the extreme attitudes and ideology of men like Ahmad. Parents, teachers and the sum of their experiences also helped create them. It wasn't often that Wade gave much thought to the kind of home he'd come from, other than its problems. But he had to admit that it had been safe, and its values solid and unchanging. He'd had the freedom to roam the woods, the lake and the swamp, to test himself against these things and against the elements. Though his parents couldn't manage to get along together, there had never been any real doubt about where he belonged or the fact that he was loved in spite of his faults. It made a difference.

Alert and on the lookout even in his reverie, Wade drifted around the perimeter of the pool and what had once been part of a carriage house without getting too far from the overseer's cottage. Seeing nothing unusual, he struck out at an angle that took him closer to the main house. He circled toward the front, reconnoitering and exploring at the same time, glancing up at the welcoming arms entrance stairs railed in wrought iron, the many windows that overlooked the landscaped lawn, passing the gift shop and the garden that fronted the restaurant. Following the walk, he prowled under huge banana trees and past other tropical flowers to where he could see the overseer's cottage once more. A tour group was just leaving after viewing the main house, the last few stragglers dis
appearing into the gift shop. Nothing else moved. Not even the majordomo or a custodian was in evidence, though a lawn mower sat near the walkway and an impulse sprinkler played water over the grass with a noise that was like a theme song for a late summer afternoon.

Intending to give Chloe plenty of time for her bath, he ambled between the cottage and the
garçonnière,
making toward the iron bench that he'd noticed in the shade of one of the great live oaks that dotted the rear lawn. He dropped down on it and leaned back.

The house that towered above him was a masterpiece of its kind, a majestic yet comfortable mingling of neoclassical, Georgian and Italianate elements. Its rounded balconies and deep porches behind square columns and voluptuously carved ironwork had been designed to make the climate more bearable before the invention of air-conditioning. The huge magnolia and oak trees that spread their branches around it had lent their cool shade through countless afternoons, and still provided a pleasant relief from the heat. Behind the latticed wall that fronted the house, Wade could hear an occasional car passing on the old river road that wound between it and the high embankment of the Mississippi River levee.

Grand Point was older than Nottoway, and not nearly as majestic, but the atmosphere was much the same. Birds called, and a pair of squirrels played chase along the railing of an upper balcony on the
house. A breeze brought the mind-drugging scents of ginger lilies and newly mown grass.

Turning on the bench, Wade lay down with his neck resting on the arm and one leg trailing to the ground. It was so peaceful that he couldn't resist closing his eyes to savor the feeling.

He awoke to the soft shadows of dusk and the final glow of a red, chemical-tinted sunset slanting in low under the trees. Sitting up, he glanced around with narrowed eyes. Everything looked the same; nothing had changed except that he felt at least a hundred percent better. Even the cut in his side was less stiff and sore. Guilt and anxiety brought him up off the bench, however, and turned him in the direction of the cottage.

No light came from under the door. It took him several seconds longer than it should have to fit the key in the lock. Stepping inside, he stood listening while he allowed his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

Nothing moved. There was no sound. The front room with its big bed was empty.

Chloe was gone.

I
t was then that he heard a rustling sound in the connecting room, as if someone had shifted in sleep. He stepped to one side, until he could see the single bed where he'd sat while the doctor examined him. A svelte shape lay there outlined by the sheet and bedspread.

Wade breathed again, a winded rush that was loud in the stillness. Moving with care, he walked to the door between the two rooms and leaned on the frame. Chloe lay asleep with one arm angled above her head and her hair spread out in a silken flow that spilled across the pillow and halfway down to the floor. Its long strands had been brushed smooth, but still looked a little damp. Her lashes rested on her pale cheeks, and her breasts, unconfined under the soft cotton of the T-shirt she wore, rose and fell in a deep and steady rhythm.

Need hit him like a blindside tackle. The urge to climb into the bed and gather her close was so strong that suppressing it made cold sweat pop out across his forehead and upper lip. He wanted to feel her hair against his face, to breathe its fragrance, to smooth
his hands over her and fill them with her yielding flesh, and to bury himself in her for an eon or two, or at least until morning. It was a primal urge, he knew, the body's natural response to passing danger and propinquity, and yet there was an ache to it that was like homesickness. To remain where he stood felt unnatural, as though he was being denied his rightful place.

He couldn't stand it. He had to get away before he did something really stupid.

The room key was still in his hand, held so tightly that it almost cut into his palm. He looked down at the key ring that was one of the pair they'd been given. Two keys were actually on it, the second for the back door of the main house. A major privilege of being a guest at Nottoway, so he'd been told, was private access when tours had ended for the day. That should have been an hour ago, at least.

It was a place to go, a way to remove himself from temptation.

The back door of the huge old mansion opened under his hand. To just walk into such a monument to pre-Civil War glory felt strange, but no one showed up to stop him. He was in a long entrance hall, with stairs rising above him from against the wall on his left. A reception desk stood at its end, but no one was behind it. He thought he could hear movement in the kitchen area that lay beyond, though he couldn't be sure. Special guest suites were somewhere upstairs, he knew, but they were apparently not in use just
now, and the other guests were either out exploring the countryside still or having dinner. He seemed to be alone in this white castle.

Wade peered into the long room that was once the bowling alley, and used now for the breakfast room. After checking out an exhibit or two that lined it, he returned to the foyer area where he made his way up the mahogany stairs. With his footsteps alternately echoing on hardwood floors and deadened by rugs, he wandered through sitting and dining rooms, a smoking parlor where men had gathered long ago to enjoy their cigars and cards, and a music room where a harp sat as a ghostly reminder of past entertainment. He ran a hand over a marble surface here or a tabletop with glasslike polish there, since he had an appreciation for fine woods and antiques gained from years of living with them. Many of the furnishings here were particularly fine, the Sevres china, the ornate coal grates in the fireplaces, the hand-painted china doorknobs and silver call-bell handles. Still, they had a melancholy air somehow, as if they had outlived their usefulness.

The grand ballroom was something Grand Point was missing. He thought it must be over sixty feet long, with a multitude of tall windows that opened to a height near six feet for air and so dancers could move back and forth from the dance floor to the outside balcony. The marble fireplace mantel was white, as were the walls, the floor, and the ceiling with its
ornate plaster cornice and medallions centered by sparkling chandeliers.

A piano sat to one side. It was a fine instrument with a great sound, as he discovered from touching a key or two. Since lessons had been a part of his life for a couple of years before his mother moved out, he sat down and played the few bars of a waltz that had been a practice piece.

Some slight sound or possibly a moving current of air jerked at his attention. He swung around on the piano bench.

“Don't stop,” Chloe said as she moved from where she stood in the rear doorway. “It suits the house.”

“I was just…fooling around.” He could feel a guilty flush across the back of his neck, like a kid caught meddling in other people's closets and dresser drawers.

“I'd never have guessed that you'd enjoy this sort of thing.” She walked toward him, brushing his shoulder lightly as she passed, then running her fingers over the top of the piano. “It's fascinating, isn't it?”

“Wait until you see Grand Point. It has even more history than this pile.” She seemed to go with the house, he thought, his appraising gaze on white peasant blouse that she'd put on in place of the T-shirt she'd worn earlier, and the ankle-length, broomstick-pleated skirt in some lightweight pastel fabric paired with it.

“Really?”

With an effort he looked away from the sway of her hips and the silky swing of her hair, which trailed down her back in a long ponytail held by an equally long ribbon. “I used to pretend sometimes, on rainy afternoons, that I lived back in the old days.”

“As what?” She turned to face him as he stood and moved after her. “A pirate? Or maybe a soldier going off to fight in some war?”

“Or holding what my brothers and I called a fort, though it was actually an old Indian mound with a root cellar dug into its side. But I also thought it would have been great to be a gentleman of leisure, nothing to do except eat, drink, ride horses and court the ladies. I was about sixteen, maybe seventeen by that time.” He took her hand and swept her a bow, then placed her fingers on his shoulder and drew her into a classical dance position since the location seemed to call for it.

She gazed up at him with an odd, almost bemused expression on her face. “You liked the idea of that last part?”

“It had its appeal. Of course I saw myself as Joe Cool, super smooth, with all the right moves.” He eased gently into the first steps of a waltz.

“Bowing, paying pretty compliments?”

“Instead of being tongue-tied and awkward as in real life,” he agreed with a wry smile.

She gave a low laugh. “I can't believe you were ever that.”

“Believe it. That was a long time ago, of course.” He swung her into a turn, drawing her closer at the same time. The feel of her brushing against him, her skirt around his feet, her hair against his hand at her waist, her body against his, was so tantalizing that he knew he was in serious danger of making a fool of himself. He didn't intend to stop, however, at least not yet.

“I can't dance,” she said abruptly.

“You're doing fine so far.”

“I never learned how, not really, though my mother used to show me some of the steps in secret.”

“I could teach you if you really want to learn.” It was an excuse if he'd ever heard one, a reason to stay around her.

“You know something besides the waltz?” she asked.

“Whatever you want.” Acting as an extra man at embassy parties had made good duty cover during high-alert occasions. Dancing had been a prerequisite for the job.

“Slow dancing?”

“Definitely.”

“Latin dances?”

He was a little shakier there. “Within reason.”

“Western swing?”

“Texas two-step, anyway.”

“Rock and roll?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Maybe a couple of moves so you can fake it like everybody else. Also the Cajun
waltz, a different thing entirely from what we're doing now.”

“Amazing.”

“I aim to please.” He gave her a reckless grin as he whirled her into another turn.

“Could you teach me how to make love?”

He stumbled to a jarring halt. His heart kicked him in the throat, so he nearly choked as he demanded, “What did you say?”

“I said I would like for you to teach…”

“Yes, all right, I've got you. But you don't actually mean it, not the way it sounds?” It was too convenient for acceptance, far too much like having his fevered daydreams come true.

“I do,” she said, her gaze unnerving in its clarity, though color rode high on her cheekbones. “I've thought about it a lot in the past two days.”

She'd thought about it. Wade wasn't quite sure how that made him feel, knowing that when she'd sat quietly next to him on the long flight home, she'd been considering making love to him. Shock took all finesse from him, leaving only a single blunt question in his mind. “Why?”

“It's seems best.”

“Best for what?”

“To fit in here, to be accepted.” She tilted her head, watching him expectantly.

“I don't get it.”

“I've been isolated, almost imprisoned, for well over a decade. You're the first man I've been near
who wasn't a family member of one kind or another. I'm too old to be a virgin, and I feel like a freak. I want to be like other women my age.”

Wade cleared his throat. “I don't think,” he said with firm emphasis, “that inviting men to make love to you is going to do that for you.”

“Not men in the plural. Just you.”

“Why me? I didn't think you liked me more than about half. In fact, I thought you laid most of your problems at my door.” He must be crazy, arguing against something that the very idea of made his heart swell like a bullfrog about to croak. It was just that he had to be absolutely straight about what was going on.

“You're an attractive man who has seen something of the world, so you probably have a certain amount of experience.”

“Not with virgins,” he said with exactness.

“Maybe not, but I trust you to understand the difference.”

It was an accolade he wasn't sure he deserved. Or wanted. “Look,” he began.

“Please, Wade. I need to be accepted as a free American woman trying to help my sisters in Hazaristan, not seen as some kind of extremist who doesn't like men or an oddity with an ax to grind. Anyone can tell that I'm different. It's in the way I move, the way I look, or maybe don't look, at men. It's a thousand things, but each one important.”

“Clothes,” he said, grasping at straws. “Clothes
and makeup can go a long way toward making you look like everybody else. Though I think it would be a shame to take it too far.”

“You're saying you'd rather I didn't change?”

“Not exactly.”

“Maybe you would prefer that I be subservient and obedient, and never go out in public?”

It was a fantasy entertained by most men from time to time, he thought, a woman totally dependent and available to them alone. He wasn't crazy enough to admit that, however, and knew beyond a doubt that the reality would soon bore him senseless. “The idea never crossed my mind.”

A frown appeared between her eyes. “You don't want me then?”

“It not that,” he said in harassed tones, since he was uncomfortably aware of his body's rampant response to the mere idea. “It's just that it isn't as simple as it may sound.”

“You aren't HIV positive?”

“God, no.”

“Or have some other sexual disease?”

“No! Though I can't believe you're asking. I thought you'd just come from a country where women never talked to men, much less got so personal.”

“I thought American women discussed these things up-front?”

“Some do, some don't but should. They just aren't so brassy about it.”

“Oh. What should I have said?”

“Never mind.” The idea of her boning up on how to ask sexual questions gave him cold chills. “The point is that there could be other problems. Like pregnancy, for instance. I'm not exactly equipped for this situation, and I'll be really surprised if you are.”

“No.” Her expression was not happy.

“It's not a possibility I take lightly. If it happens, there will be consequences for both of us. I'm not sure you want to risk having to marry me after barely escaping it with Ahmad.”

A frown pleated the space between her brows. “You'd really do that. You'd marry me.”

“In a heartbeat. Benedicts don't run out on their own.”

“I see. We wouldn't have to go that far then, if you'd rather not. Far enough for pregnancy, I mean. It would be your choice.”

“Chloe…”

He stopped, at a loss for words. One part of him clamored for surrender, immediate and unconditional, while the other insisted that there was something fundamentally wrong with taking her innocence simply because she offered it.

“There's also Ahmad. He's controlled everything I do for so long, has seen to it that I have no possible contact with any man. If he has his way I'll either die a virgin or be taken by force to show his control. I don't…I can't stand…”

“I get it.”

“Do you?” She gave him a doubtful look. “It's not just to spite him, and it isn't really about making love because we could both die.”

“I know. You think that being with another man will make you unfit in his eyes, that he won't touch you afterward because it would be a pollution for him.”

Relief bloomed across her face. “You do understand.”

“I think he's fanatic enough that it would give him one more reason to kill you. For the sake of his precious family honor.” The last words had a savage edge, even in his own ears.

She lifted her chin. “I'd as soon not have him defile me first.”

“Given his code,” Wade said distinctly, “he probably feels that you've already done more than enough to be beyond his touch.”

“It's better to make sure of it.”

“And what of mine?”

“Your touch?” She met his gaze, her eyes darkly blue in the soft light of the ballroom. “What may be a defilement from one man can be a benediction from another.”