In Dreams

The longer she waited, the colder her feet would get about reporting the crime. And the closer she would come to psychic dreams she had no intention of fulfilling despite the fact that the man central to those dreams was so tempting.

“At least come back to the fishing camp so I can change the dressing.”

“Why not just do it here?”

“I don’t want to alarm Mama and Tante Jeanette.”

“They already saw the bandage and asked me about it.”

“What did you say?”

“I didn’t tell them I’d been shot if that’s what you’re worried about. But I didn’t exactly lie, either. I just said that it happened when my car went off the road and you patched me up.”

“Quick thinking, chère.”

Without warning, Justin palmed her bare flesh between the crop top and pants and cupped the area around the bandage with his hand.

Her body immediately responding, Lucy sucked in her breath. “What are you doing?”

“Feeling for heat that would indicate the wound is infected.”

His touch was making her flesh curl with anticipation that had nothing to do with the wound. Her mouth went dry and her pulse raced.

She whispered, “I barely know the wound is there.”

But touching her like that, Justin was making her hot, reminding her of the dreams. Every detail. She ought to step back, away from him, but somehow she couldn’t. The heat spread randomly from where he still touched her to every other part of her body.

And he was feeling it, too. She could see it in his expression that went from relaxed to taut in a matter of seconds. And in the way he was looking at her….

Justin’s face seemed to draw closer and closer. Unless she was mistaken, he was thinking of kissing her. And then he seemed to think better, caught himself and pulled away.

Lucy felt her body sag with the relief of tension. She wrapped her arms around herself as if by doing so, she could protect herself against a renewal of sensation.

He was saying, “I don’t think you ought to head back to New Orleans, just yet,” when Stephen appeared in the doorway.

“Out front,” he said.

Justin rushed to the front window, but held out a hand indicating Lucy should stay where she was. “Two strangers on foot casing the area. It might be them.”

“The men who tried to kill me last night?”

He nodded. “What did they look like?”

“Stocky. Expensively dressed. One had thinning light hair, the other salt-and-pepper.”

“That’s them. Stephen, take Lucy upstairs and away from the windows.”

As if someone had to tell her to stay out of sight! Lucy bit back a retort and told herself to be grateful that Justin was trying to help her. Obviously, his brothers, too. She guessed he’d gotten them up to speed when they went to fetch her car.

“What’s going on?” Marie asked from the kitchen as Stephen guided her to the stairs.

“We’re taking care of it, Mama,” Stephen told her. “Just remember you don’t know anything about any Lucy Ryan.”

Marie’s expression darkened and she murmured, “Oh, dear,” as she shooed them up the stairs.

4

STEPHEN OPENED a door to a room that faced the street and said, “Justin’s room, when he visits.”

In spite of the danger lurking outside, Lucy felt a distinct tingle when she stepped into the room filled with memorabilia of Justin’s youth. She shook the feeling away, and wondering what was going on outside, trying not to let her imagination get the best of her.

In a lowered voice so no one outside could hear, she said, “I thought the boat was simply the family fishing camp.”

“It is. We all use it.”

“So Justin lives…?”

“In New Orleans,” Stephen said.

Which came as a knee-weakening surprise. The idea that Justin lived in the city—her city—where she could run into him at any time shot a thrill of anticipation through Lucy.

“What about you, Stephen?” she asked. “Do you live here? In this house, I mean.”

He was standing in the doorway. Filling it actually. The Guidry boys were not small men.

“Across the hall,” he said. “Well, most of the time. I make a lot of trips to New Orleans for work. I hate hotels, so I keep a small apartment there, too.”

“You never wanted to live in New Orleans full-time?”

“I never took to it, but that might be my fault for taking responsibility so seriously. It makes change difficult.”

Lucy wondered what he meant by that. Did he mean taking care of his mother? Somehow she didn’t think Marie needed anyone to take of her, and she certainly didn’t seem to be the type to ask even if she did. Besides, Marie Guidry was probably only in her early fifties—the prime of life according to women’s magazines.

It must be a Stephen thing, she decided.

“So does Marcus live here, too?”

Stephen laughed. “Nope. Too confining. In case you didn’t guess, Marcus is the free-wheeling type. He has a shack down the road a piece, though he’s here visiting often enough. At least a couple of times a week, actually. Nothing like home cooking, and Marcus takes advantage.”

The small talk kept Lucy’s nerves from stretching taut. What was going on downstairs? Though she heard muffled male voices, she couldn’t make out what was being said.

She drifted closer to the window.

“Hey, stop,” Stephen ordered.

She put a finger to her lips, pressed against the wall so that she wouldn’t be seen through the glass. Then she managed to curl a finger under the sash and lift it slowly but surely until the voices drifted into the room.

“I told you, we haven’t seen her.”

“And if you had, you probably wouldn’t say, right?”

Lucy recognized the voice as belonging to the guy who’d lost a shoe in the swamp.

“What is it you want with this…Lucy is it?” Marcus asked.

“That ain’t none of your business.”

Then Justin said, “You boys don’t have any business here in LeBaux, so I suggest you take yourself back to New Orleans where you belong.”

“We never said we were from New Orleans.”

Lucy’s stomach knotted at the mistake. Now they were going to know…

“You didn’t have to say,” Justin went on. “No one from bayou country wears shoes like those.”

“They’re Italian!”

“And useless. City shoes.”

“He’s criticizing my shoes!” the guy obsessed with his footwear complained.

“Forget the damn shoes!” his companion groused.

Justin mildly added, “I was merely making an observation.”

Marcus didn’t say anything to that. No one did.

Lucy drifted closer to the window and chanced a peek out. The four men below were squared off as if gearing up for a fight. Heart hammering, Lucy prayed there wouldn’t be trouble. Dear Lord, she hadn’t meant to bring trouble to anyone. These men were killers!

“Marcus, Justin!” came a female voice from below. “I thought you boys wanted some of my crawfish étouffée. Get in here now, before it gets cold!”

Marie! Lucy winced, then saw Marie’s ploy worked. Marcus and Justin relaxed as if preparing to go inside, and the men backed off and headed for town.

Lucy paced, while Stephen merely waited patiently, quietly, so unlike his rowdier brothers.

A few minutes later, Justin opened the door to his old bedroom. “Go after them and see what they’re up to,” he told Stephen. “We’ll stay here until they leave town.”

“I’m on it.”

The moment Stephen left the room, Lucy asked, “What if they decide to stay over?”

“Then you’re stuck in this room with me for the duration.”

“You like to give orders, don’t you?”

“I like people to listen when I tell them to do something for their own good.”

She got the feeling this was a criticism. Of her? “People listen,” she muttered.

“Except when they can’t stay away from a window.”

“You couldn’t have seen me.”

“That’s your opinion. If one of them saw you…” He shook his head.

“All right, stop trying to scare me.”

Justin stepped close enough that his potent maleness seared her. “Are you scared, Lucy Ryan?”

“No,” she lied, and sat herself in a creaky old chair near a makeshift desk and away from him.

Of course she was scared.

Scared, tired and sore.

The wound was making itself known once more and she wasn’t feeling so good. As a matter of fact, her head felt a little woozy. Maybe she’d overdone it. Or maybe the adrenaline of the morning had simply worn off and exhaustion was finally overtaking her.

If she expected Justin to continue the discussion, she was disappointed. He remained at the window until a few minutes later Stephen’s voice snaked up the stairs.

“All clear! You can come down now.”

FLEETING SOUNDS of a mournful saxophone followed her as she sloshed through the rain. People were still coming in and out of restaurants. Even a torrent wouldn’t stop those revelers—they would still hop from bar to bar, determined to make every moment count.

Angry and upset as she made her way home, she forced herself to hold together…. Crying could wait until she got to the privacy of her own bedroom.

A block from the town house, she heard a splash behind her, but when she turned to look, she saw nothing but a puddle in the sidewalk. Even so, her flesh crawled and she practically raced down the wet street.

Laughter echoed from one doorway…moans from another. She pressed her hands to her ears and ran. By the time she got to the courtyard, the rain had intensified just like her pulse. Her heart was pumping like she was in the midst of an aerobic workout.

Then she saw him waiting for her, rivulets of wet sheening his face. For a moment, she faltered and stared.

Then, when tears threatened again, she demanded, “What are you doing here?” and pushed by him, keys in hand.

But before he could answer, the quiet of the courtyard was split by a sharp blast and she turned in time to see him jerk and crumple to the wet flagstone….

Lucy awoke with a gasp.

Blinking, she looked around into the shadowy corners and realized she was back on the houseboat.

The rains had started again. A waterfall was drumming against the roof. She concentrated on the sound…closed her eyes for a moment…no, that was a mistake, she realized as remnants of the dream tried to claim her.

The psychic dream that was another warning like the one that had come to her before the woman had been killed!

Only this one had been about Justin being shot.

No…not again!

She steeled herself against giving into the emotion of what she’d envisioned. Instead she focused on how she’d ended up in Justin’s bed again.

She remembered following Justin downstairs to face his mother and aunt. They’d had to tell the women everything, after all. Marie Guidry had listened with an open mind, had wrapped her arms around Lucy in sympathy afterward, and declared her too warm. She’d demanded Justin take Lucy to a doctor for proper care.

Lucy had refused.

Justin had somehow gotten her to agree that she would come back to the houseboat with him to rest first before going back to New Orleans. He’d tended to her wound with an antibiotic salve and had threatened her with a visit to the emergency room if her fever spiked.

And then she had slept.

But though she was wet now—as if she’d really been rained on as in the dream—her body felt cooler than it had earlier. The fever seemed to have dissipated while she was sleeping.

“Feeling better?”

She gazed toward the doorway where Justin stood, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched her. Her heart began to thud with a distinct warning. Had he been standing there while she’d been trying to escape danger? While she’d seen him shot in front of her eyes?

“How long have you been there?” she demanded.

“Long enough to know you’re awake, is all. You’ve slept half the day away.”

Shaking away the remnants of the dream, she pushed herself up out of the bed and told herself it was up to her to change the future. “I need to get back to New Orleans.”

“Not today.”

With images of him shot in that courtyard haunting her, she said, “Yes, today.”

“You need watching.”

“I need to get into town as soon as possible!” she snapped. “So I can tell the authorities about the murder.”

So she could get away from LeBaux before she put Justin’s life in danger, before he could become another victim because of her.

“No, not yet.”

She heard the steel in his voice and wondered at the contrast between this Justin and the one who cajoled smiles from her. His expression brooked no argument. There was something dark and determined and a little scary about him when he was like this.

“Y-you’re keeping me prisoner?”

“I’m keeping you safe. Just until morning,” Justin said. “You’re in no shape to take care of yourself yet, chère. If you want to get out of here now, you’ll have to swim to your car.”

“A challenge?”

“No.” He sighed. “I just hoped you could be reasonable is all.”

Reasonable?

What was reasonable about being stranded with a man who invaded her dreams? Who threatened her peace of mind? Who was going to become even further embroiled in her mess and maybe die for it if she didn’t do something to stop what was already set in motion?

But one look at Justin told her his mind was made up. And it wasn’t like she could just leave on her own.

Surely she could resist him for another twelve hours. She’d never actually managed to change fate before—she certainly hadn’t with the murder of that poor woman—still, how did she know she couldn’t manage it?

Besides, the sun had already set and she wasn’t about to go wandering around the bayou alone at night. Obviously Justin wasn’t going to take her back to her car until he was good and ready. Until morning broke.

Twelve hours was a piece of cake, she told herself, even knowing it was a lie. Twelve minutes near him was enough to make her weak-kneed and all soft inside.

In the midst of her distress, she was distracted by a wonderful smell wafting into the room, making her stomach rumble. “What is that?”

“Mama’s crawfish étouffée. Remember, she gave me enough for supper. You must be hungry.”

“Starving,” she admitted.

“Come and eat then.”

He moved away from the door and she followed. Maybe food would give her the fuel to resist the man who occupied her dreams.

Maybe…

Once more she sat at his table, while he fetched the food. No matter that he hadn’t cooked it himself, he seemed to wield pots and utensils like an expert, the same way he had that morning when he’d made her breakfast.

If she concentrated on the details, on the now, she didn’t have to deal with the future yet. She didn’t have to worry about psychic dreams that she maybe could or couldn’t change.

“I’m not used to a man feeding me,” she murmured as he filled her plate.

“What are you used to?”

“Having my dates take me to restaurants.”

“You must eat in lots of restaurants.”

“Only on occasion. Not serious eating, though,” she assured him. “Just experimenting to see what’s to my taste.”

She’d never met a man she’d wanted to date more than a few times. And there hadn’t been all that many of those, either. But she didn’t mind. She liked having men as friends. Better than their trying to hook up with her when she didn’t feel the vibe. She felt the vibe with Justin, all right.

A surreptitious look at him made her wonder what hooking up with him would be like.

Would reality have anything on her dreams? she wondered.

Or was Justin too good to be true?

She waited until they were both halfway through with their étouffée before she asked, “So what is it you do when you’re not fishing?”

He arched his eyebrows and asked, “How do you know that’s not the way I support myself?”

“Haven’t seen any fish around here.”

“Maybe I’m taking a few days off. It has been raining, in case you didn’t notice.”

“I noticed.” She poked her fork into a piece of crawfish. “So, you’re telling me you fish when you’re in New Orleans, too? And don’t try to deny you live there. Stephen told me you’re just visiting LeBaux.”

Justin’s smile drifted off. “Stephen ought to keep his mouth shut about what doesn’t concern him. At the moment, I haven’t decided if I’m going back to New Orleans or not. My time there didn’t prove to be all I had hoped for.”

Frustrated that he wouldn’t give her a straight answer, Lucy nevertheless decided to be satisfied with that. She didn’t want to keep probing if it would hit another nerve as she’d so obviously done. She was never going to see Justin again once she left here, after all. The dreams were still in the realm of fantasy. They couldn’t come true if she refused to have anything to do with Justin…the only way she could keep him safe.

Still, she was curious about just what Justin was doing out here alone in the bayou.

Hiding?

He certainly was complex.

He behaved as if taking care of a wounded woman was an everyday occurrence for him. He was gorgeous and entertaining, but beneath the charming facade, she sensed something different…something deeper and darker…something to which she responded to despite herself. Not that she liked being pushed around, even if it was for her own good. But that thread of steel in his veins when he wanted things his way had certainly surprised her.

Lucy remembered Justin saying something about the bayou hiding secrets. What secrets was the bayou hiding for him?

SOMETHING ABOUT Lucy Ryan got to Justin in a big way. No doubt it was the fact that she was a lady in distress and his natural proclivities were to help her. Especially now. He needed to feel right again.

But he wasn’t ready to go back to New Orleans.

He watched her clean her plate like she’d been starving. A woman with appetites, he thought, wondering about other things she might hunger for.

“There’s more on the stove.”

“I would be eating with my eyes rather than with my stomach.”

She had beautiful eyes. Large and gray and for the most part sincere so he could practically look right down to her soul. Rather he could, if he believed in souls. He wasn’t sure what he believed in anymore. Certainly not in himself.

He rose and started to clear.

“No, I’ll do it,” she insisted, making contact with his hand as she reached for the same plate.

He thought she might pull her hand back—she’d been a bit jumpy—but she stood still, staring at him, eyes wide open. His pulse shuddered as he read desire in them. And fear.

She was afraid of him.

He let go of the dish.

“All right. It’s all yours.”

Sitting back at the table, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her as she scraped plates into the garbage, then took them to the sink where a pan of soapy water awaited. He watched every movement of her hands—artist’s hands, smooth with long fingers and neat dark red nails—and wondered what they would feel like washing him. His instant erection told him he would like to find out.

Not that he could. Or would. He was no good to her. No good to anyone, not even himself. The way his life was going, he could get them both killed.

The knowledge didn’t stop him from fantasizing…from wanting to know every dip and curve of her body…from wanting to forget by losing himself inside her.

Justin shook himself. He was an idiot. He wasn’t going to solve anything with sex. What he needed was a therapist and a couple of years on the couch. And a new profession, one that didn’t get people killed.

“Done,” she said, moving toward him and drying her hands with a dish towel. “You don’t mind if I let the plates drain for a few minutes before drying them?”

“You’re supposed to dry dishes?” he asked lightly, as if that were news to him.

Lucy came closer. “You yanking my chain?”

He’d like to yank her chain and anything else he could get hold of.

Instead he said, “This place is casual. The only reason I don’t use paper plates is that it would give Mama a heart attack if she found ’em. She swears paper ruins good food.”

She cocked her head. “Do you always do what your mother expects of you?”

“Not always. A man has to have some say of his own. But I have to give her the plate issue, because I think she has a point.”

She reached over to wipe down the table and she was too close for Justin to ignore. He was filled with her woman’s smell, her disturbing presence. And he was weak, after all. A mere man. He reached out and circled her wrist.

Leaning over the table, Lucy stopped what she was doing and met his gaze. Justin saw something in her features that reflected what he himself was feeling. Hunger for something more than food. The emotions were stronger than the fear he’d sensed earlier.

With the sound of rain tap-tap-tapping overhead, he pulled her to him. She didn’t resist. A slight tug and she was cradled in his lap. They stared at each other for a moment more, a moment in which every fiber of his body stirred and responded to hers.

He wanted her, and unless he was out of his mind, she wanted him with equal craving.

“Oh, Lu-u-cille,” he murmured before hooking a hand behind her neck and pulling her face to his.

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