Later the same evening
“Why are you here?” Bleu Laveau said. She knew Roche Savage had come to the parish hall meeting, because she was the one giving the presentation. He couldn’t have any interest in plans to build a new school.
He had come for her.
A tall, rangy man, with curly, almost black hair and the bluest eyes she had ever seen, he was in the business of fixing minds. And from his reputation, he was very successful. She wondered if he could somehow have found out her secret and if she was a challenge to him now.
Only one person in Toussaint was aware of the life she had been trying to outrun, and her cousin, Madge Pollard, wasn’t the gossiping type. That didn’t mean Roche couldn’t track her down some other way.
Why didn’t he say something? Dressed in jeans and an open-necked shirt with its sleeves rolled back over his forearms, he looked casual but Bleu felt his tension. She edged away from him.
His relaxed stance didn’t match the way he stared at her. As if he was planning his next move.
And the instant she saw him, she had just about run away. He didn’t get it.
Bleu’s head pounded. “Please excuse me, “she said. “I have to get home. Tomorrow’s a full day.”
Yesterday, the potential truth about Roche’s interest in her suddenly became clear. She had been looking forward to having dinner with him when she figured it out: She wasn’t his type. He had another reason for wanting to spend time with her—to see if she would make an interesting case study, maybe?
She took the paperwork from him. “Thank you.” Her soft words were difficult to hear in the wind.
Disorientation was dangerous. He had to be in control of himself at all times.
“I heard your presentation,” he told her. And afterward, I stood in the shadow of a wall out here, waiting for you. You and I were meant to be together, Bleu. If someone’s told you I like adventure with my sex—the wilder, the better—they’re more or less right, damn them, but I can be whatever you want me to be. I’m the one in control, not my sex drive. You’ll never be afraid with me.
Now she was babbling. One more symptom for his list.
“Yeah,” he said. “Some of them. Not all.”
“Some of them made it clear they wish I’d go away,” Bleu said.
Roche would have expected her to be tougher. He knew she had been through the same type of process a number of times before. “They’ll come around,” he said. “There are a lot more children in need of a good education than there are folks who play bingo. They’ve got the parish hall for that. Anyway, who could resist you for long?”
That had been the wrong thing to say. She turned away at once. Her breath came in loud, rough gasps.
“Bleu! Damn it, why are you afraid of me?”
She had made a pact with herself that no one would frighten her again. Now the pact was broken.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she lied. “I’ve got to go.”
“Fine. Here, take these and I’ll wish you goodnight.”
“You don’t understand,” she told him.
“No, I don’t. What is it about me that’s suddenly disgusting to you? We’ve had coffee together, and—”
“All Tarted Up was packed that morning,” she shot back. “The only empty seat in the whole café was at my table. You asked if you could sit there.”
He held out the folders. “We enjoyed talking. Can you say that’s a lie?”
“It’s—not a lie.” She inched forward to take her files, then held the whole pile of documents against her chest. “Thank you for picking all these up. I’m…I got rattled in there tonight. That’s all.”
Her excuse didn’t cut it with Roche. “That afternoon when I ran in to you by the bayou, you seemed glad to walk with me. We talked about a lot of things. You’re great to talk to.” But you’re damaged, even if you do try to put up a good front.
“I was interested in the clinic, and your brother Max and the plastic surgery he does. And in your work out there. That’s all. You’re making too much of it.”
The cut didn’t bother him. What he wanted was to figure out the reason for her change in attitude.
Annie was Max’s wife and she managed Pappy’s.
“She’s nice,” Bleu said. “Thank you for introducing us.”
“I’m sorry.” The thin skirt of her dress blew back, gripping her thighs.
“It’s time we did know each other,” he said. He didn’t give her a chance to argue.
He kissed her, and her body tensed.
It had been so long since she had felt like this—invaded. Yet Roche didn’t intend to violate her. Her eyes closed and she tried to relax. With the tip of his tongue he made soft, sleek and persuasive passes until her lips parted. Where they touched, she tingled. Her muscles softened and she leaned closer.
Finally, it had happened. The cold place she had lived with for so long was thawing. She wanted intimacy. The excitement she’d dreamed of but been denied hammered at her. And it was this man who had stirred the feelings she thought she’d never have.
Tightening low in her belly stole her breath and her attention. Downward between her legs it went, sharper and sharper. Then she felt wet.
“Women are weak, they need saving from themselves.”
That voice she thought she had forgotten, the one from her wasted years, sounded so clear that she braced for the shove, the fall to the bed and the punishing pressure of a big man’s body on top of her.
“No.” Bleu jerked her head sideways. “I don’t want this.”
Roche held her firmly, wrapped his arms around her and pressed her face into his shoulder. “Hush,” he said, wishing her damn paperwork wasn’t between them like a shield. For a little while, she had started to respond to him, but she was rigid now.
Careful. Don’t push too far.
He used his thumbs to raise her chin, and he brought his mouth to hers again. Holding her against him with pressure on the back of her head, he emptied her hands and leaned them both sideways to put the pile on the ground.
She kissed him in return, but not like a woman who had done a lot of kissing. With his mouth and tongue, turning her head with his fingers, delving deep, he showed her that this wasn’t about putting one mouth to another. It was a connection, and could be a prelude, a small, erotic promise of a closer joining.
A promise wasn’t enough.
Already hard, he strained against his jeans.
“You’re okay with me,” he whispered, leaning away.
No, she wasn’t entirely, but he had a logical mind and he worked to make it heed him in situations like this one, where lust had taken him over the edge in the past.
His heart thudded. Slowly, gently, he put his hands beneath her arms. Her body was warm, the bodice of her dress made of a silky stuff.
His palms settled on the sides of her breasts.
Again, she stiffened in his arms.
He rested his forehead in the curve of Bleu’s neck. Tonight, he felt leaden, but even that didn’t dampen his need to make love to her. Nothing had ever dampened that need, only kept it in check.
“You feel so good,” he whispered, his lips against the soft skin of Bleu’s neck.
“I don’t…I’m not…”
“I know,” he murmured. “You’re not casual. I like the way you are.” Moving carefully, he nipped her ear then kissed her shoulder—and wasn’t quick enough to avoid the slap that landed on his face.
He flinched and gave a surprised laugh. Her next swipe cut off the laughter.
“You’ve made your point,” he said, ducking number three.
She dropped her arms to her sides. He could hear her hard breathing and see the glimmer of tears on her cheeks. “You’re going too fast for me,” she said. “But I shouldn’t have hit you.” She sounded upset, but not sorry.
“I’ll live,” he said. “I deserved what I got.”
He heard the sound of a door slamming, a muffled sound.
“Where was that?” Bleu said. “The church?”
The church was the closest building to the parish hall.
The window of Bleu’s car was open, and she threw everything but her purse inside.
Together they hurried downhill again and past the church. They met Cyrus just inside the gate to Bonanza Alley. “What are you two doing here?” he said, not sounding like himself. “I thought you’d gone home, Bleu.”
“I had to finish up,” she said. “Roche was seeing me to my car. It’s pretty dark to be on your own out here. Is Madge still at the rectory?” Her cousin, Madge Pollard, was Cyrus’s assistant.
“She left with that…Sam Bush drove her home. He’s our accountant, Roche.” Cyrus stared at Bleu for a moment. “I shouldn’t have left you. I wasn’t thinking.”
Cyrus, Roche thought, often seemed to have a great deal on his mind these days. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have forgotten that Roche already knew Sam Bush and got along with him well. Cyrus might not be so keen on Sam, since the man openly showed his attraction to Madge. Cyrus and Madge were a complicated story, seemingly without hope of a happy ending.
“Did you see Jim Zachary at the meeting, Bleu? I saw him earlier. He always spends a little time in the church. He said he’d be at the meeting, and now I can’t remember if he was.”
“I don’t know him,” Roche said.
Bleu thought about it. “He wasn’t there,” she said slowly. “No, I’m sure he wasn’t. He would have spoken up if he had been. I don’t know why I didn’t miss him at the time.”
“He could have changed his mind,” Roche pointed out.
“No,” Cyrus said, “he couldn’t. Jim does what he says he’ll do. He’s a bachelor, and he and the widow who lives next door keep an eye out for each other. She just called me, because he told her he’d be home around ten and it’s almost eleven.”
“Maybe he went out for dinner. Or for drinks with friends,” Bleu said.
“He’s not the kind to go out to dinner. And he doesn’t drink. He’d tell you himself that he’s a recovering alcoholic.” Cyrus sounded distracted. Abruptly, he let out a breath. “Is his car still here? Maybe he got hung up somewhere. Jim’s always doing things for people. That’s what’s happened.”
“What does he drive?” Roche asked.
Cyrus considered, then said, “A Camry. Black. Fairly old, but they don’t seem to wear out, do they?”
“No,” Roche agreed. “There was a black Camry behind my car when I parked in front. See. I’m facing this way.”
Bleu turned to see. The cream-colored BMW showed up clearly—so did the Camry once all three of them got closer.
“Was he upset about something?” Roche said, visualizing the dark, sluggish bayou beyond the church grounds. How easily a man could slip into those waters.
“I don’t think so,” Cyrus said. “No, he was his usual cheerful self. Mrs. Harper said she tried to call him but he didn’t answer on his cell phone.”
“Would he have his phone on in the church?” Bleu said.
Cyrus shook his head. He pulled a phone from his belt, peered at a piece of paper and pressed numbers. Roche could hear the faint ringing from Cyrus’s phone.
“Nothing,” he said.
“He’s a nice man,” Bleu said. “He’s really behind building a school.”
Roche nodded. “A lot of people will be.” He looked at Cyrus who frowned absently.
“I’d better check inside the church,” the priest said, and started walking toward the vestibule door. “He could have collapsed in there.” He broke into a run.
“He always sits in the same place,” Bleu said. “I’ve noticed.”
They all stood with their hands on their hips. “Does he have any relatives at all?” Bleu asked.
“Not that I know of.” Cyrus turned away.
“Did you hear that?” Bleu said, raising her chin and listening.
Roche had. “Sounded like a little drill.”
“Or a phone set to vibrate,” Bleu said.
Roche caught up with him. “Bastards,” he muttered.
Sideways on the bench, his legs sprawled, one on and one off the seat, his arms twisted above his head, lay an elderly man. His eyes were open—and empty. Clots of congealed blood matted his thick gray hair, spattered his face, the pew and the floor. His lips were drawn back in a grimace, and a rolled piece of paper stuck out of his mouth.
“Jim,” Cyrus said softly. He flipped open his phone and called 911.
Bleu’s long, uneven breath meant she had seen the dead man. “He must have been stabbed so violently.” She shuddered but didn’t glance away. “Whatever it was went right through his neck. It cut his jugular.”
Looking at the body from all angles, Roche went behind the pew and bent over to examine the obvious knife wound in the corpse’s neck.
He was too slow to stop Bleu from pulling the yellow flyer from Jim Zachary’s mouth. “Don’t touch,” he said to her. “They’ll want to dust for fingerprints.”
She puffed up her cheeks and backed away, holding the paper by one top and one bottom corner and unrolling it.
“Bleu,” Roche said. “Don’t.”
“I already have and I’m glad.” She stared at him. “Do you think he brought this with him?”
“He could have. But why would the killer stuff it in his mouth?”
“To make a point,” Bleu said. “This is one of those flyers that got spread all over—the one telling people not to vote for the school.”