The Road to Bayou Bridge

Something slammed him for a second time. Raw desire. The kind with hooks that latched tight and refused any rational thought. Damn. She tasted so good. Like Louisiana spice. Like all things good, sweet and bitter. She tasted like home and he couldn’t get enough of her.

“Mmm,” he groaned as he slid his free hand up to cup her jaw, angling her head so he could draw in more of her essence, more of some elixir he couldn’t name but was so good it made him forget the man he’d become.

Renny’s hand fisted in his shirt and she gave as good as she got. He felt her hand relax and then the brush of her fingertips on his jaw and something more ignited in him. He wanted her beneath him, naked, open to him. He wanted—

She broke the kiss. “Stop. This is—”

Her eyes closed and she shook her head, sliding to the side, tugging her injured hand from his grasp. Her shallow breaths accompanied his as he inwardly shook himself.

What had he done?

Never should have gone down that path. Her taste had struck a match in him, undoing what years of repression had given him—some kind of closure or peace with how they’d left things.

All that had been destroyed with one little kiss.

Her eyes opened and her gaze met his. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, we shouldn’t have,” he said, moving away from her, resting his backside against her oven range. “Guess old feelings came back and I got carried away. Won’t happen again.”

Something flickered in her eyes, but he didn’t want to acknowledge exactly what that was. He wasn’t living in the past. He was very much in the future with a new path set out before him. A path that included a prestigious law firm, rain-soaked Saturdays in out-of-the-way cafés, and a teacher with soft blond hair and a weakness for chocolate.

Not a golden-skinned biologist with hair the color of café au lait and kisses addictive as caramel candy. Not Louisiana with its curling bayous, graceful oaks and soulful vibrations wrapping around him like the roots hidden beneath the fertile soils. He was done with Renny and Louisiana.

Something he needed to remember before he went planting his lips where they didn’t belong.

“Good,” she said, dragging her wrist across her lips as if she could wipe the taste of him away. He didn’t fail to notice her hands trembled. She’d been more affected than she wanted to admit.

But so had he.

“So what do we do now?” Her words were cold water down his back.

“About the kiss?”

She shook her head. “No. This crazy marriage.”

“Oh,” he pushed off from the stove. “I’m working on that. Put in a call to Baton Rouge to check on the filing, and I’ve already talked to Sid Platt. He’ll draw up papers so we can proceed with a divorce and bring by the petition by the end of next week. It’ll be filed ASAP.”

She nodded. “Anything I need to do?”

“We haven’t lived together and neither one of us has any issues with division of community property since we’ve had none together. If you’re willing to waive papers being served, then we can shorten it even further.”

“So it should be cut-and-dried.”

“Should. Six months at tops.”

“I still can’t believe this.” She scooped up the cat that had started yowling in displeasure, opened the back door and deposited it on the back stoop—all with one hand.

“Yeah, it’s a little hard to wrap the mind around.”

Renny held up her injured finger. “I need to put something on this and grab a bandage. Are we through?”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

She cocked her head. “Is there something else left to say?”

Wasn’t there? Perhaps he should ignore the unanswered questions, but he’d wondered for so long why Renny had given up on them. “Maybe. Yeah. There are some things.”

Her mouth thinned. “You’re talking about the accident?”

“I’m talking about what happened after the accident. About why you wanted to skewer me when you first saw me this afternoon.”

Renny pushed back her hair. “Okay, but can I deal with my finger first? I don’t want blood all over my furniture. Make yourself useful—put on some coffee—and we’ll try to get that closure you seem to need.” She turned and disappeared.

“So you don’t need closure?” he called as he searched the white-tiled counters for the coffeepot.

“No. I got past us a long time ago,” she yelled from the back of the house.

“Yeah? Well, I don’t think so,” he muttered as he pulled out the carafe and walked to the sink. “You think you’re over me, but your body didn’t get the memo, sweetheart.”

And obviously neither had his.

Which could end up being a big problem if he wasn’t careful.

* * *

RENNY TRIED TO CONTROL her trembling hands as she pulled the backing off the bandage. Shaking was becoming a habit ever since Darby had stalked across that rice field and back into her life. Her body felt not her own. Obviously. She’d just about tossed her clothes to the floor of the kitchen and climbed on top of Darby moments ago. Yeah, control might be an issue.

Her words to her mother earlier that afternoon rang in her ears. Okay, she hadn’t actually jumped his bones upon first sight. Did second sight count?

“Coffee’s ready,” Darby called, his voice echoing through her bedroom into her restored turn-of-the-twentieth-century bathroom. She closed the mirrored cabinet and glanced at herself.

Good gravy. Her lips were swollen from his kiss. And her hair swirled around her wantonly, making her look like some sexed-up wild woman. She grabbed a ponytail holder and a brush. After taming her hair and tucking her T-shirt into her well-worn jeans, she felt stronger. She even shoved her bare feet into the sheepskin mules sitting beside her closet.

There.

Ready for closure.

She walked back into the living room and found Darby sitting on her pink sofa stroking Chauncey. Something about his very masculine hands stroking the back of her cat made her mouth grow dry.

“He was meowing, so I let him in,” he said, crossing his legs casually and picking up a steaming mug of coffee. “I fixed yours the way you like it. One sweetener and a dollop of cream.”

“I drink it black now.”

Darby gave her a smile that would make a less stable gal drop her panties. “Grown-up girl, aren’t you?”

“Mmm,” Renny said, scooping Chauncey up for the second time and carrying him toward the door. “He’s spoiled, but he’s going outside no matter how much he cries.”

“Not just grown-up, but tough.”

She turned around, closing the door with a definitive click. “You have no idea.”

He stared at her as she walked back, picking up the mug from the old trunk that served as her coffee table. For a few seconds, neither of them said anything.

“I didn’t leave you, you know.”

Renny averted her gaze and took a sip. Sweet and creamy. A cup of coffee for a naive girl—the girl she’d once been. “Well, I thought you had. When I woke up, you weren’t there. You were in Virginia.”

“Not by choice.”

“It didn’t feel that way, Darby,” she said, all those old feelings flooding back, hurting her all over again. “Come on. We were in our senior year. You were eighteen. A man. You had the choice to stay with me, but you didn’t. When the going got tough, you got going...in the wrong direction.”

“So you would think, but that’s not what happened. Not when faced with my father’s wrath. Not when faced with an ultimatum.”

She sank into the reupholstered armchair that wasn’t so much comfortable as it was beautiful. “Ultimatum?”

“After the doctor released me from the emergency room, the sheriff put me in his car and took me to the parish jail where my father waited. He’d already made some kind of deal with Ed Bergeron, the D.A. Dad dragged me to the car, took me home and told me to pack my camp trunk. He said one way or the other I was leaving Beau Soleil.”

“He kicked you out?”

“Not exactly. He gave me the choice—hit the streets with nothing but the clothes on my back or go to Winston Prep in Virginia where he’d already bought me late admission.”

Renny took another sip, accustoming herself to the taste of the sweeter brew. Martin Dufrene had always been something of a bastard. Hard-nosed businessman who controlled all aspects of his life with an iron fist. When the one thing he couldn’t control spiraled away from him—the kidnapping and presumed murder of his daughter—he’d become even more intolerable. His crushing dictates and forcing of his will on his remaining children had had varied effects. In Darby it had manifested itself as rebellion. Darby had been as wild as the creatures that crept along the bayous and prowled the Louisiana woods. And he had taken her along for the ride.

“So you just did what he wanted?”

Darby frowned. “I didn’t see it that way. I thought of it as buying us some time. If I went to Virginia, graduated and saved enough money, I could find us a place in Baton Rouge. I wrote all of that in the letters I sent. I thought you’d understand I went to Virginia because it would be better for us in the long run.”

“I never got any letters.”

“I mailed one a day for a month and a half.” His words sounded almost accusatory, as if he thought she lied.

She didn’t say anything because her mind reeled, trying to pull out fact from the fiction painted so long ago. She was married. Darby hadn’t abandoned her. Her mother had lied. Her brain was at full capacity on what it could deal with and Renny felt on the verge of hysteria.

She took a deep breath and exhaled. “So you’re saying you didn’t ‘leave’ me. Just went to Virginia to buy time? You’re saying everything I believed was a lie? And you’re saying our parents sabotaged us? But you didn’t know this until...?”

“Tonight?” His steady gaze said it all, and she knew it was so. Betrayal stabbed, an echo of the cut to her finger. “Honestly.”

Silence crouched between them as the past came winging back, knocking down grudges held for too long. She’d sat with this man so many times. Knew what it meant when he stroked his chin, when he rotated his ankles, cracking them in the silence. Relief tinged her uncertainty.

He’d not abandoned her.

Darby folded his arms across his chest and stretched his legs. “I didn’t realize you thought I’d abandoned you. All these years I believed you hated me because I had hurt you. It sounded pretty damn convincing when you told me you never wanted to see me again, and it felt pretty damn final when you chose something other than us.”

“What?” Renny shook her head. “I don’t—”

“You do remember the last time you spoke to me?”

Closing her eyes, Renny wished she didn’t remember her cold words, the pain that spurred her to tell him to leave her the hell alone. Forever.

“I called the hospital every chance I got, and finally, your mother let me talk to you. You said those words.”

She wanted to tell him she’d never meant it, but that would be another lie, and it seemed fairly obvious there were far too many lies to deal with at present. “I was hurt and angry. Two months had gone by without word from you.”

He arched an eyebrow and it made him even more handsome.

She leaned forward onto her knees. “Okay, I know. You sent letters, but I never received even one of them. The only certainty I knew was the four gray striped walls of my hospital room and the unceasing pain in my leg and head. I knew only what my mother told me. What your parents told me. You were gone and not coming back for me, and it felt like the worst betrayal.”

“Renny, why would you think that? You knew me. You knew what we had was real. Am I right? Was I the only one who wanted us on a forever kind of basis?”

His words made her bleed. She had thought what they had was real but hadn’t held on to that conviction. She could blame the drugs and her mother, but maybe her love for Darby hadn’t been strong enough to weather what happened. Perhaps, he’d been the one to face the world, chin out, daring someone to separate them...and Renny had been the one to fold.

Or maybe she’d folded because she’d believe his father’s words when he’d come to see her.

Darby wanted to marry you because it defied me. You understand this, don’t you, Renny? It wouldn’t have worked out, because that boy has never faced any person or thing he couldn’t have or manipulate...including you.

And there had been truth in Martin Dufrene’s words.

Whether she’d given up or had her love ripped from her, her dream of being with Darby had died. And either way, she knew they wouldn’t have lasted. With Darby, she’d always felt like the other shoe was about to drop.

She’d never been good enough for a Dufrene.

Her voice sounded froglike when she said, “I thought I wanted forever. I did. But things were so skewed...so backwards. I needed to be strong, but my body and my heart were broken. You weren’t there. It was easy to believe you’d abandoned me and moved on. It was easy to believe our running away was another way for you to poke sticks at your father. I always felt I was into you way more than you were into me.”

He raked a hand through his honey hair, making it stick up, and his Paul Newman blue eyes met her gaze. “You know, I could ask why you thought that, but I already know the answer.”

She wished he would tell her. She didn’t know why she’d believed everyone else rather than her own heart. Why she hadn’t had faith in Darby. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Maybe there isn’t anything left to say now,” he said, leaning forward, pressing his elbows to his knees, a mirror pose to hers. His shoulders were much broader, the jaw bristled with golden scruff was more pronounced, the hands clasped were no longer a boy’s.

Even though tears seemed precariously close, her internal thermometer rose a few degrees, but she couldn’t give credence to desire. She’d already made that mistake in the kitchen moments ago. “Maybe not, but we still have to deal with our future.”

“When I get the paperwork, I’ll come by.” He rose and looked around her house. “I’m sorry to disrupt the life you’ve built, Ren. Seems like a nice one. We’ll get through this. Now go on back to your Friday night.”

She followed his gaze about her room. She had built a nice life for herself, even if it was a bit lonely. At that moment, she really wished she were dating someone if only so she didn’t look quite so pathetic with her cat and polished antiques. Maybe she should call Carrie and go out. Pick up a dude to try and forget the trouble that had landed on her door. But would that make her an adulterer? Dear Lord. She couldn’t believe she was married. “Yeah, it was a little disruptive—helluva curve ball.”

“So let’s turn on it and hit it out of the park,” Darby smiled, moving toward the door. His demeanor had shifted again and he was back to being light and charming. How could he accomplish that so quickly? She felt pressed down by an unbearable weight with the news he’d delivered, with the falsehoods uncovered. She needed time to process. Time to grieve. Time to confront. Time to...drink enough wine to forget what had transpired over the course of the past two hours.

“Yeah, hit it out of the park,” she echoed, following him to the door, trying not to wince at the ache in her leg. It was always worse at the end of the week, which was another reason she usually spent Friday nights with Chauncey, a glass of white and three hours of Lifetime TV.

Darby opened the door and Chauncey shot inside. “He seems pretty attached to you.”

“Or his food bowl.”

He turned and brushed a lock of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear. “I think it’s you. You have a way of growing on people...and cats.”

Her heart flopped over at his touch. At his words. “God, Darby, you say things that make me want to—”

“Kiss me?”

She shook her head and smiled. “Make me want to forgive you.”

“And you have to forgive me for...what? Loving you once?”

“I really don’t know.”

CHAPTER FIVE

DARBY WATCHED ANNIE ROLL a ball across the hardwood floor to Paxton, who immediately picked it up and shoved it in his mouth.

“No, Pax. Dirty,” Annie said, wrestling the soft ball from her ten-month-old son’s mouth. The kid cranked up like a siren.

“Get used to women denying you, kid,” Darby said, clinking a beer bottle to the one in his brother’s hand. They sat in double recliners centered in front of a big-screen in Nate’s den. For the first time since he’d hit land in New Orleans, Darby felt at home. Odd, since he’d never even glimpsed the new house Nate had built nor met the tenacious Annie.

“Yeah, Nate’s living a hard life sitting back in that leather recliner drinking Abita. Denial is the man’s middle name.” Annie scooped up the wailing kid and plopped a pacifier in his mouth. Pax’s super-suction made the car or train or whatever was on the end of it bob like a cork on a fishing line, but it appeased. Darby wished he had one of those for hard times, then he looked at the amber bottle in his hand. Guess he kind of had a little something to soothe him.

Nate belched. “Yeah, life’s tough.”

Annie rolled her eyes, settled the kid on her hip and regarded her husband. “It’s your turn to change Pax.”

“Come on, hon, I’m hanging with my little brother.”

“And that gives you reason to shirk your duty? This is an equal partnership, bud.” Annie’s gray eyes were sort of shardlike. He could see former FBI agent written all over her.

Darby struggled up from the depths of the recliner. “Give him here. I’ll do it. Been wanting to spend some time with my nephew anyway.”

His new sister-in-law raised her eyebrows. “You know this is a poopy diaper, don’t you? Might ruin the relationship before it’s out of the gate.”

Darby set his beer on the table. “How hard can it be? I’ve had plenty of practice.”

Nate’s bark of laughter startled Pax, who started fussing again. “On who?”

“Myself.”

Nate rose and shook his head. “Totally not the same thing. Trust me.”

His brother held out his hands and Pax sort of fell into them with a drooling grin behind his enormous pacifier...and that’s when Darby got a whiff.

Dear God.

His nephew smelled dead.

“Um, on second thought, I’ll keep Annie company. Haven’t had the opportunity to spend much time with her, either.”

His brother frowned but dropped a kiss atop the baby’s head. Yeah, Nate knew when he’d been suckered, but he didn’t say anything more as he left the den, noxious fumes trailing behind him.

“You’re good.” Annie smiled as she sank onto the couch adjacent from the recliners and propped her bare feet on the ottoman. “Almost as good as me.”

Darby shrugged. “I’m the baby of the family—we’re born knowing how to manipulate the oldest.”

“So does the wife. It wasn’t even his turn to change the baby.”

Darby laughed. He liked this new addition to the Dufrene clan. Spunky might have been Annie’s middle name, something she’d need when up against his headstrong, set-in-his-ways brother. “Nate’s happy finally.”

Her eyes darkened. “Yeah, so am I.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come to the wedding.” Darby had felt guilty about missing his brother tie the knot, but could do nothing except send a nice gift since he hadn’t had enough leave to head stateside.

“He missed having you there, but he understands. That’s the good thing about Nate. He’s reasonable, otherwise, he wouldn’t be here at Beau Soleil.”

“Mother?”

Annie laughed. “She’s hard to live next door to at times, but we love her. She’s a good mother even if a bit, um, managing.”

“You mean Attila the Hun tries to control your life?” Darby shook his head. “Give her an inch of rope, she’ll take a mile, truss you up and drag you screaming and kicking behind her.”

“She’s not that bad. Just always at war with herself. She professes to allow life to take its course, but like those engineers who control the Mississippi River levee, she wears herself out trying to steer it to come out the way she wishes.”

Darby shifted in the recliner and took another slug of beer. His brother’s wife had Picou pegged, but she seemed remarkably tolerant of the interfering woman. He glanced at his sister-in-law and she stared back, an almost odd probing in her gaze. She shoved a brown curl behind her ear and sighed. “You’re her logjam in that river.”

“Huh?”

Annie shook her head. “Nothing. Never mind. Tell me about Spain. Did you enjoy living there?”

He didn’t want to talk about Spain. He wanted to talk about what Annie meant, but she’d closed that chapter. Something told him not to try and go backward with this woman. So he didn’t. Instead he chatted about the country he’d left behind—the food, the culture, the really bad drivers.

Nate walked back into the room during a story about getting lost when out on his motorcycle. He was Pax-free.

“Where’s the kid?” Annie interrupted.

“Left him in his crib gumming that toy you bought him. Turned on music to stimulate him.”

“Classical?”

Nate smiled. “Classic rock.”

Darby vaguely heard Eddie Van Halen’s infamous guitar licks coming from the hallway. “Nice.”

“We want a well-rounded kid,” Annie said, patting the spot next to her. Like a spaniel, Nate went to her. Bet she scratched his belly regularly. Of course, Darby understood the appeal of belly-scratching from a woman who had a vibe like Annie—that sort of vibe would have a man happily doing as bidden.

It made him think of Renny.

She had that vibe. Or she had at one time. Beautiful golden skin, tumbling caramel hair and a soft laugh that made a man twitch thinking about her hands on him. But she’d changed. Her laugh wasn’t easy, her disposition more guarded...even if some remnant of the past lurked in her eyes, in her voice. It was like a promised resurgence.

He wanted to make her laugh again. To watch her glow in the light of the sun sinking over the Atchafalaya. To tangle his hands in that hair and make love to her under the full moon just as he’d done so many times.

Hunger clawed at him.

“Darby?”

He blinked. “Huh?”

“Want another beer?”

“Sure.”

Nate stared blankly at him. “Grab me one, too, when you come back.”

Checkmate. Older brothers always had the last laugh. Darby huffed and got to his feet, heading toward the kitchen. “Annie?”

“Me, too.” She nodded. Nate hooked her around her neck and kissed the side of her mouth. Darby made a face but smiled as he turned toward the kitchen. Seeing his brother happy satisfied him on a lot of levels. Nate had suffered through so much guilt regarding Della and had shouldered much of the burden of dealing with the estate and their mother that Darby figured the man deserved some peace with his woman.

The kitchen was clean and modern with the smell of rich wood and laundry soap, and it had a specialty fridge built in for beer and wine. He grabbed three Abita Turbodogs and started back toward the den, wondering if he should confide in Annie and Nate about his strange marriage and ensuing divorce.

Nice to share a burden, but did he want the drama?

Because Picou would find out.

Maybe.

If he could keep it under wraps that would be best. Picou wanted a reason to keep him in Louisiana under her thumb. What better way to chain him here than to encourage some sort of romance between him and Renny?

He knew that’s what she’d do.

And there was a tiny part of him that wanted it, too.

But the grown-up part of him knew he needed to forget his past and move toward a future. In Seattle. With Shelby.

Damn it.

He couldn’t summon Shelby’s face. She had blond hair, a nice pair of blue eyes to match a nice pair of breasts that filled out tight sweaters, but her face escaped him at the moment. His thoughts were full of sun-kissed skin and golden-flecked eyes. God, he had to stop thinking of her.

“Lucille said you went to see Renny. Did you get to have that talk you wanted to have?” Nate held out an expectant hand.