What She Doesn't Know (12 page)

She went down to the kitchen. On the table was a note, in that bold handwriting she recognized from Christopher’s business card saying that he’d gone out to get them something for dinner.

She wandered around the parlor taking in the objects that spoke of a long devotion to this party called Mardi Gras. A glass case was neatly arranged with origami invitations to masquerade balls, tiny jewel boxes, pins, purple and gold coins engraved with different years and insignias. In one enlarged photo a man sat high in his perch, wearing robes and a mask. A brass frame announced him as the king of Xanadu, 1972. That mask was sealed in the glass case. A gold coin set apart from the rest was engraved with a woman’s face and beneath it,
Iris Deveraux, Queen of Rex, 1960.
 
A glittering pair of gold shoes perched on a stand.
 

Atop the marble mantelpiece sat several family portraits. It didn’t take an expert in psychology to see that Brian was the favored son, always standing closer to his parents than Christopher, who stood apart. Their parents usually had a hand on Brian’s shoulder. Christopher looked indifferent.

So many women she had worked with over the years still dealt with the ravages of their parents’ abuse and neglect. She felt the familiar anger engulf her, anger at the power parents wielded over their children’s sense of self and value. In college her thesis had been a feasibility study of requiring parents to take a course on parenting. Not just on how to take care of babies, but how to love and nurture their children throughout their lives. She had published articles on the subject as well.

“How much do you know about Brian’s past?”

Christopher’s voice startled her, making her whirl around and rushing the blood to her face. Was this being careful, letting him sneak up on her like this?
 

She caught her breath and tried to act calm. “He didn’t say much about his childhood or his family. Only that his parents had passed on and sometimes he seemed worried that he was letting them down somehow. Come to think of it, whenever I asked if he had siblings he changed the subject.” She looked back at the pictures, not able to meet Christopher’s probing eyes.
 

“You said he regretted telling me no one wanted me at the funeral. How do you figure that?”

“I told you that when he touched me, I saw images of his life, like maybe what we see when our life flashes in front of our eyes. It’s like a slideshow on hyper speed. I was able to hold onto a couple of the images, and those images come with his feelings—what he was feeling at the time. I saw a funeral, heard words about the prodigal son returning. And I felt his regret.”

He absorbed that for a moment. “What else did you see?”
 

Blood. A flash of a blade. Where did that fit in? “Someone wearing a mask rushing up to him at the end.” Her voice dropped. “And he was afraid.”
 

He seemed caught up in those last words. She could see in his eyes that he didn’t believe—or didn’t want to believe. “Dinner’s ready.” He walked to the kitchen and unwrapped two enormous round sandwiches. Two Dixie Jazz beers thumped on the table as he set them down, and she wondered if he had anything else to drink besides beer. Tonic. Hmph. He could make fun of her accent with his?

She investigated her sandwich. “What is this thing, anyway?”

He took a big bite, talking around his food. “Looking for traces of cyanide?”

“Cayenne.”

His laugh was restrained. “It’s a muffaletta.” His accent thickened, as it did occasionally. “That’s a big, round sandwich to you an’ me.” He leaned forward, and she tried to ignore the brush of his knees against hers beneath the table. “I’d stay away from those cherry-looking things. Hot stuff.”

Hot stuff indeed. She wanted to eat one of the peppers just to show him—no, to show herself. She wasn’t about to let him taunt her. He’d already gotten her with the gumbo.

She was getting hot just thinking about it.

So hot, in fact, that as soon as they finished dinner, she stepped through the door to the courtyard before thinking about Brian and the concrete deck.
Don’t look there, don’t picture it.
Still, her gaze went to the roof. The railing was only about three feet high, certainly not high enough for current building codes. Not high enough to keep Brian from going over. She forced her gaze back to ground level. Flowers bloomed here and there, though she could only identify the pansies. It seemed odd that New Orleans had an ordinary flower like that, as though it were some magical place different from any other.

The house was L-shaped, and the courtyard filled out the square. The air outside was cool, but the breeze didn’t reach down into the courtyard. It rustled the tops of the tall trees that bordered the back of the property. The deck, made up of two-foot squares of concrete, was gray with dirt. Between those squares moss protruded like green grout.

“Get any vibes out here?”

She closed her eyes to his sarcastic voice for a second before turning to him. The dying afternoon light enhanced the angles of his face, making him look harsher.

“I don’t get
vibes.
You think I’m some psychic melodramatic?”

Somehow she’d invited his scrutiny, because he took a long moment to assess her. “Don’t know what you are.”

But he knew who she was. “How did you find out where I worked?”

“You’d be surprised at what information is out there.”

 
To keep her gaze from straying to the roof deck, she wandered to the other side of the courtyard. She leaned against one of the sculpted white columns that supported the second floor balcony. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I know your driver’s license number, your social security number, that you have two bank accounts at Boston National, that you just bought a 2003 Volvo S60…” As he’d spoken, he’d walked closer. He stopped a foot away, and his voice lowered. “Don’t look so shocked. I don’t know all your secrets.”

 
“What are you, some kind of hacker?”

“If I need to be.” He moved closer still, and she wondered if he could hear the thumping of her heartbeat.
 

“What else do you know about me?” She felt the grooves of the column pressing into her back. Felt the heat emanating from his body, only inches from hers.

“I know you’re afraid.”

She met his eyes, could not look away from them. Why couldn’t he be fair and lighter, like Brian? Why did he have to look like…Christopher?

“I’m not afraid.”

“But I don’t know what you’re afraid of,” he continued as though she’d never contradicted him. “Losing Brian? The person you think tried to run you down? Me?”

She tried one of her old tricks: imagining him looking vulnerable in his underwear. Unfortunately, he didn’t look vulnerable. He looked…sexy, sexy, sexy, she thought with Tammy’s emphasis. It was better to imagine the boy in the pictures. Standing apart, always apart, his own island. She felt his hands slide up her arms, felt his fingers tighten on her skin.

“Are you afraid I might find out who you really are inside?”

No, he would never find that insecure girl who lurked inside her, the one who ached to know why she wasn’t worthy of her parents’ love. The woman who was still trying to patch up the holes in her insecurities.
 

“I’m not afraid,” she said.

“I don’t believe you.”

He had pinned her arms against the column, his body barely touching hers. Was he still that boy deep inside? He wasn’t a hurting boy, he was a man. A large, muscular man who was arguing with her in a low, sensual voice that drugged her instincts.

“Tell me the truth, Rita.”

The truth was she needed to put distance between them, tell him that she didn’t appreciate his using sexual intimidation. She did not like gumbo, she liked chicken broth. Her body, evidently, liked gumbo. Heat snaked up from where his hands touched her arms and swirled up to her neck and face.

“I told you everything.”

Except that she’d never felt this hot, spicy heat that made her eyes feel heavy and her tongue tingle.

“I think you’re holding something back.”

What was he asking her? She’d forgotten what they were even talking about. Was he asking for her deepest secrets? Should she tell him about those dreams, how she woke in a hot sweat, her body throbbing and toes curled?

He opened his mouth to say something, but leaned forward and covered her mouth instead. The tip of his tongue against her lips electrified her, making her body stiffen, filling her chest with air. Her breasts pressed against the hardness of his chest, and he moved closer yet, so that their bodies touched more intimately. Her fingers stretched out but made no attempt to form fists to push him away. His mouth softened, and hers opened in some instinctual response she didn’t know she even had. He deepened the kiss, and every stroke of his tongue sent warmth deeper into her body.

He’d drugged her. That had to be why she was kissing this man—and enjoying it, dammit. She even thought she heard music and could feel every stroke of the piano’s keys. Were the words about fever?

Images sprang into her mind. Not a sensual feast, but an image of a younger, leaner Christopher brandishing a sword, aiming the tip at her, thrusting, parrying. Not his words, but Brian’s taunting, biting voice
….Come on, is that all you got? You’re getting pretty good for the loser…but you can never win, Christopher.
 

She was seeing the scene through Brian’s eyes.
He danced in front of Christopher, feinting left and right. Every word stabbed Christopher, stiffening his body, reddening his face, until he lunged forward. Brian lost his footing and instead of swinging to the right, stumbled to the left. Christopher’s sword struck him. Brian screamed.
Blood. Rage.
The sword hit the ground with a thud.

“What the hell? You’re bleeding.”

Rita jerked out of the scene to discover Christopher had said those last words and was now staring at her with a mixture of concern and horror. She’d missed the tingling. He leaned forward and ran his thumb across her upper lip. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the blood on his thumb, not wanting to think about what they’d been doing.

She pinched her nose as she ran into the house. How many times had she made this cowardly run?

She reached the bathroom that linked her room and the one at the end of the hall, leaning over the sink and washing away the blood. Catching her breath, she wiped her face with tissues and met her familiar, humiliated reflection. This time that expression was more than humbled; it was shocked.

What had she been
doing
? Her mind obligingly recalled the kiss, throwing in details such as the way his chest had felt against her breasts, soft against hard, how his hands had felt trailing over her body…

She shook her head. What was she
doing
? Had she gone mad for a few moments? And that scene with the swords and the blood. She leaned against the counter. That hadn’t been her imagination. It was one of the images Brian had shown her in the gray place.
 

After a few minutes, she dared to look at her reflection. The bleeding had stopped, as it usually did once she removed herself from the threatening situation. Her lips looked fuller than usual. She ran her fingers through her mussed hair, pinched color into her cheeks, then told herself it didn’t matter what she looked like. The reflection she saw in the mirror wasn’t beautiful even when she tried.

Then why did he kiss you?

He was just trying to intimidate me, she told herself.

Exactly what kind of information do you think he intended to obtain with your mouth otherwise occupied?

With a sigh of exasperation, she flipped off the light and walked out.

Christopher sat at the wrought iron table in the courtyard, his leg moving to the lounge music that drifted through the trees. He hated these situations where he didn’t know what to do. All right, kissing her was unexpected, and he shouldn’t have done it. He hadn’t meant to. After all, she was a woman his brother had feelings for. She’d looked into his eyes as though she was warring with herself, wanting him and hating him at the same time. He wanted to wipe out the hate part. He’d probably only strengthened it. Deservedly so.

The nosebleed thing, that was weird. Just like at her office. Maybe she had some medical condition. He’d followed her into the house, but let her go on. What was he supposed to do? He could remember from his younger days, guys would sometimes hold a girl’s hair out of the way if she’d had too much to drink and started puking. Then she’d get all embarrassed because he’d seen her in that most undignified position. So what did a man do about a woman with a nosebleed?

Let her go, that’s what, even if he had inadvertently caused it to happen. He’d turned on the courtyard lights, grabbed a Dixie Jazz, and settled back into the haze of soft lights and dancing shadows outside.

He liked evenings the best—here, Atlanta, anywhere—when the sun had just faded and trees cast their shadows across the lawn. He always took a few minutes to sit out on the porch of the fixer-upper he was crazy enough to buy in one of the suburban Atlanta neighborhoods. There was something satisfying about working with his hands.

He took a long swallow of beer. He’d forgotten Dixie Jazz. The music and courtyards. He’d forgotten a lot about New Orleans. How quickly it all rushed back to engulf him. So did other memories. In his mind, he saw the bulky stone table and benches his mother had been so fond of. How the bloodstain wouldn’t come out no matter how hard she’d tried to bleach it. The look of hatred when she’d had to sell it, along with several other valuable pieces of furniture. Hatred aimed at him.

His mental gears shifted when he heard Rita walk out the kitchen door. He faced away from the house, his foot anchored on the edge of the table. He felt awkwardness seize him as he wondered what he was supposed to do. Apologize? He hadn’t meant to kiss her, but she sure as heck wasn’t an unwilling participant.