She could jump over the gates, of course, but why would Fontenot have his home fenced in? She noted an old flatbed with the wheels off one side and a broken-down pickup, just inside the fence, but nothing else. Certainly nothing to warrant a fence. Unless . . . She reached out with her mind and found the dogs. Hunting dogs if she wasn't mistaken, already becoming aware of her presence. Before they could send out a chorus of warnings, she stopped them.
Of course he'd have dogs. Careless mistake. "And all because I lost my temper. See, Flame. That's what happens when you get all bent out of shape. It's not personal. Don't take it personally." Like hell it wasn't personal. It didn't get any more personal than someone stealing her motorcycle. Her fingers itched to wring his neck. She went over the fence, landing lightly, waiting to make certain the dogs stayed quiet and no sound gave her presence away.
There were two large buildings. The main house was dark and silent. The dogs moved restlessly in a nearby kennel. The second building, obviously the garage, was set slightly back from the house and had locks on the pull-down double door and the smaller, single entrance. Flame circled closer, wary of the entire setup.
She knew better than to get in a hurry. She cased the place first, checking on the enemy, determining how much room she'd have for escape, how long it would take her and mentally mapping out several routes if she ran into trouble.
Flame knew she could be walking into a trap, but she wasn't leaving her bike behind. First rule: Never treasure anything so much you can't leave it behind on a moment's notice. "Damn you to hell, Whitney. I won't live like that. You can't rule my life." But he did. He would always rule her life until he had her killed. He played her like a puppet. She knew not to go into the garage. Whitney had taught her that. And he knew her inside and out, knew she detested his authority. Refused his authority.
The ground beneath her feet shifted and the trees swayed ominously. The dogs in the kennel whined. Flame leaned against the broad base of a tree and forced air through her lungs. Her head was killing her. She'd used too much psychic energy tonight and she was already paying for it. That was a bad sign. And she absolutely had to stay under control.
Gritting her teeth, she approached the garage. It wasn't all that difficult to dispense with the locks and there wasn't an alarm anywhere, so she gained entrance quickly. No motorcycle. Her precious baby was being held prisoner somewhere else.
Without hesitation, Flame made for the house. The stairs creaked under her weight and she moved off of them immediately, circling the deep porch to find a way to the roof. She was always more comfortable in high places. She went up the side of the house, using the porch railing and roof to gain the second story with ease. She crept onto the small balcony and found the French doors unlocked.
Easing the door open just enough to slide inside, Flame went in low, close to the wall, shutting the door without a sound. She stayed motionless, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the difference in lighting. The room smelled of gardenias and lavender. A rose-colored sheet covered a gray-haired woman sleeping in the four-poster bed. She looked especially fragile and Flame frowned, wondering why Whitney's hunter had led her to civilians--unless he'd stolen the Jeep.
Flame moved with care, not wanting the floorboards to creak as she moved across the room to the door. There was a vanity with an old-fashioned brush and mirror set and several pictures just to the left of the door. Flame glanced at the pictures, trying to make out the faces in the dark. This was a home. It had the bayou trappings, but smacked of money. Somewhere along the line the family had come into money. She wondered if the money had come from Whitney, a bribe for Gator to hunt her down and bring her back.
Had Gator gone after Dahlia? Poor Dahlia. Flame remembered all of the other girls, every single one of them. Whitney hadn't been any fonder of Dahlia than he had been of Flame. He'd locked Dahlia up in a sanitarium and kept her from the world, kept her from a home and family--just as he'd done with most of the others one way or the other. Dr. Whitney had experimented on infants, continued the experiments on them as toddlers, teens, and even into their adult lives. He was never going to let them go and he sure as hell wasn't going to let the world discover what he'd done.
She looked around her, shocked that Whitney could get anyone to leave such a beautiful home to work for him. The structure had probably started out as a more traditional frame house, one and a half stories, with a covered porch or galerie raised on pillars to keep the sill from the soggy ground. The Fontenot farm had a frontage on the bayou to ensure travel on the waterways as well as harvesting the waters. They had plenty of woods for hunting and harvesting trees as well as fields for growing what they needed to survive. From the looks of the house, they'd done well.
She crept down the hall to the long staircase, studying the layout below her as she went. How had Whitney lured someone like Gator Fontenot into his world of deceit and treachery? This was a home filled with love. She could tell by the pictures of laughing faces. Someone, most likely the woman asleep in the upstairs bedroom, quilted and wove cotton for material. There were beautiful home-crafted items throughout the house, items fashioned with care to detail. Something none of the girls Whitney had experimented on had ever known.
No wonder they were all so dysfunctional--they hadn't grown up in a nice family environment with a sweet old lady to cook them breakfast every morning like this one. What had gone wrong with Gator? What would make him trade all that to work for Whitney? A flash of anger curled through her and she felt the house shift ever so slightly. Forcing air through her lungs, she continued moving, trying to think of other things.
She flashed the small penlight on the pictures above the stairs. Little boys smiled out at her, surrounding an older woman who looked both proud and stern. As Flame moved down the stairs, the boys became older, barefoot teens with alligators and fish, the same silly grins of their faces. She recognized Gator. He seemed the oldest of the brothers with their mops of black, curly hair and bright eyes.
At the bottom of the stairs was a chest with a marriage quilt thrown over the top of it. Three more chests stood in a row, each covered with a marriage quilt. In spite of the gravity of the situation, Flame found herself smiling. Someone was trying to not so subtly tell the boys something. It was amazing to think that families like this really did exist and Gator had been lucky enough to grow up in one. The knowledge made her angrier at him. It seemed a betrayal, taunting her with the very thing she had craved all her life. She fought back her rising temper. Maybe whoever raised him should have given him a swift kick. It wasn't too late to administer one and she was the woman to do it.
She found him in the second bedroom, sound asleep, his hand on the seat of her motorcycle where it was parked only inches from his bed. Sliding a knife from the scabbard hidden in her boot, she positioned herself above his head, crouched against the wall so that her breath stirred the waves in his hair as she placed the blade against his throat with exquisite gentleness.
He woke instantly, completely alert, danger flooding the room, expanding the walls. Even the floorboards creaked as if disturbed, but he never moved a muscle.
"Cher. How nice to see you again."
"You stole my bike."
"I saved your pretty little ass is what I did."
She felt the ripple of his muscles, actually felt it, tension was so strong in the room, yet she wasn't actually touching his skin. He was far more dangerous than she'd given him credit for and her senses went on heightened alert. "Don't move, Wyatt. I wouldn't want to accidentally cut your throat and this blade is sharp."
"Don' go makin' a mistake, cher, I'm Raoul, not Wyatt and I wouldn't take kindly to you messin' with my lil brother."
His tone was light, cheerful even, but she caught the edge of something lethal buried deep. Raoul Fontenot wanted people to think he was Mr. Charm, but his easy laughter hid something deadly, something only waiting for the right trigger. Her heart kicked into high gear, pounding hard with the knowledge she had a ti
ger by the tail.
"All I want is what belongs to me, Raoul. I couldn't care less about you or your brother or the Whitneys. Just remove your hand from my bike and sit up very carefully and won't have a problem."
"We already have a problem, cher. You stuck a knife in my throat and I don' take kindly to that."
Flame snapped her teeth together. "Stop being unreasonable. It isn't in your throat, it's against your throat. I'm not buying the good old boy routine either, you snake. You tell your boss to back off and leave me alone. I'll never go back there."
His eyebrow shot up. "Who do you think is my boss?"
"I'm not playing games with you. I know you're dangerous. You know I am. Let's not be dumb. I just want my bike and I want to get out of here. I won't even push your Jeep into the Mississippi. And I'll leave you the keys. I think that's a fair trade."
"The Jeep belongs to Wyatt and he wouldn't like losing it, but on the other hand, he's a sucker for a beautiful face." A slow, melting grin crept over his dark features. "And cher, you have a damned beautiful face."
Her breath left her lungs in an unexpected rush and wings seemed to flutter lightly against the inside of her belly. The man was lethal. "I also have a very sharp blade and you're irritating the hell out of me."
His white teeth flashed at her. "I can hardly believe that. Most women find me charmin'. I think you're lyin' to us both, Flame."
His voice was pitched so low, so sultry, drawling with enough molasses that her insides melted. The reaction to him scared her. She didn't have those kinds of connections with people--especially not traitors. She despised men like Gator, throwing away everything she would have given her right arm for, just for money or power. Flame sucked in her breath sharply, trying to see him as the enemy when, for some strange reason, her body wanted to see him in a completely different light.
"You're enhanced." She made it an accusation. Maybe Whitney had figured out how to heighten sexual magnetism and Gator was the ultimate weapon against women. She gritted her teeth and inwardly vowed resistance.
"So are you." He shifted enough, careful of the sharp blade against his skin, that he could rest his gaze on her face. "You look tired, cher."
There was concern in his voice, in the depths of his eyes. Knowledge. Her heart thumped hard again and something close to fear curled in the pit of her stomach. "Don't you worry about me, Gator. I'm not so tired I can't slit your throat. Let's get this done. Sit up slowly."
"I don' know if you want me to do that." Amusement was plain in his drawling voice. "I'm in my altogether so to speak. I don' like many clothes when I sleep."
She couldn't stop the color stealing into her cheeks. Damn him, he seemed to be so in control, so calm and sure of himself in spite of the fact that she had a knife to his throat. Was he really that good? For the first time doubt crept in.
The door to the bedroom burst open so hard it bounced against the wall with a hard crash and nearly swung shut. A hard foot smashed it back open, splintering the wood, and a younger copy of Gator stood framed in the doorway, his narrowed gaze fixed on the knife at his brother's throat.
"You look like you're havin' woman trouble, Gator," he greeted, confirming Gator's belief that he wasn't the only one in the family with natural psychic talents.
Flame tightened her grip on Raoul. "Tell him to back the hell off," she snapped.
The tension in the room stretched to a screaming point. Without warning, Gator caught her wrist in a gripping vise, thumb digging hard into her pressure point so that her fingers involuntarily opened and dropped the knife. At the same time, he jerked down, relieving the pressure on his throat, his other hand whipping up to catch her around the neck in a throw.
Flame went sailing over his head to land at the bottom of the bed. He was already on top of her, pinning her to the mattress. He looked up at his brother with a huge grin on his face. "I don' never have trouble with the ladies, Wyatt." He lowered his head until he could nuzzle Flame's neck. "Ah cher, you smell so good."
Fury burst through her, a bright bubble of anger so that the room narrowed, her vision tunneled, and she saw red as she glared up at his smirking face. The house shook, the walls vibrating, and Wyatt clutched his stomach, doubling over.
The smile was gone in an instant, Gator's black eyes glittered dangerously as his fingers closed like a vise over Flame's trachea. "Stop now."
"Kill me then," she dared, her voice hoarse, eyes defiant.
"Wyatt, get out of here," Gator directed.
"That won't save him." She gasped for breath, but refused to panic. If she panicked the entire house and all its occupants would go down with her.
"He's an innocent. You keep this between us." He bit out each word distinctly between his white teeth, his black gaze narrowed and hard.
"I don't know if I can." Flame tried to be honest. Her gaze met his squarely, wanting him to see the truth there.
He let his breath out slowly, easing the pressure on her trachea. "Breathe, cher. Breathe it away. You do it every day of your life. I know. I'm the same." He glanced toward the door, toward his brother, but both of them heard the soft footsteps hurrying toward them.
Her gaze clung to his and she reached with desperation for his breath, for the air moving in and out of his lungs, regulating her own breathing, pushing the anger away enough to regain control.
"That's it ma petite enflamme. You're fine."
Her eyes softened for just a moment, a hint of gratitude there and then she glared at him. "I won't be fine until you give me back my bike, you thief."
"That's the pot calling the kettle black," he retaliated.
"Raoul Fontenot!" A woman's voice cut through the tension. "What are you doing with a woman in your bed and you nekkid as the day you were born?"
Shocked, Flame looked at the little old lady wrapped in a robe and holding a shotgun nearly as big as she was in her hands. Her silver-white hair was braided and looped in a neat bun at the back of her head. Her skin was paper thin and white, but her eyes were clear and steady, her lips compressed tightly in disapproval.
Gator scrambled to drag up a sheet, half standing as he did so. "Grand-mere Nonny--"
His grandmother cut him off without a word, sending him a glare. The older woman was magnificent. Flame would have given anything to be related to her. She sat up slowly, ignoring Gator's hasty scramble to cover himself. She did sneak a peek though. "I'm so sorry, ma'am. I shouldn't have come." She lowered her gaze looking young and vulnerable, allowing her voice to tremble. "I sing in a club and he came in sweet-talkin' and smiling at me and I know I was wrong. I'm really a good girl. And now there's a baby on the way and I . . ." She pressed a hand to her stomach as she stood up shakily. "I thought if I came, he'd do the right thing, but . . ." she trailed off pathetically.
Nonny lowered the barrel of the shotgun to the floor, not appearing to notice as Wyatt took it out of her hand. He had a huge grin on his face.
"Grand-mere," Gator protested. "Don' be listenin' to--"
Her hand came up sharply, palm flat and she waved him to silence with an imperious gesture, effectively cutting him off from explaining that he couldn't possibly have been there long enough to do what Flame accused him of.
His grandmother stepped forward and put her arm around Flame. "You poor child. You look very pale. Let me get you a cup of tea."
"Bien merci! You're so kind." Flame cast a small triumphant glance over her shoulder at Gator behind his grandmother's back before putting her head down as she walked off. "My family is going to disown me. I don't know what to do, but I'm so sorry for coming here, I shouldn't have. It was a mistake. Now he hates me more than ever."
"He don' hate you, child. He's just shocked. Men never think their chickens is goin' to come home to roost. Don' you worry, cher, I'll help you. We'll get this straightened out fast. Gator, he lives up to his responsibilities. He's been brought up right."
"I need to leave. I can't face him right now," Flame said, flicking a glance
toward the door. She'd have to leave without her bike, but she could make it to the Jeep before he could get dressed, pacify his grandmother and come after her.
"You look ill, child. Let me help you."
Flame patted her arm, swallowed the sudden, unexpected lump forming in her throat. Gator's grandmother's concern was genuine and there was no doubt in Flame's mind that she would have done her best to help out a pregnant, unwed mother. Damn Gator for his selfish choices. This woman was to be treasured, his family valued. He had no right to sell himself as a Whitney puppet.
"Merci. Bien merci." She stammered it several times as she bolted toward the door and out into the heat and rain of the night. There were tears in her eyes and she didn't know why, refused to ask herself why. She dashed them away and ran for the Jeep.
CHAPTER 4
The sun sank deep in the bayou, raining fire and pouring gold into the dark waters. Several great blue herons silhouetted against the horizon appeared like enormous stick figures cut from black paper as they crept slowly through the shallower edges of the canal. Long ropes of moss dangled from cypress trees and swept the water creating a red and gold jungle of feathery arms dipping into the shimmering surface. With humidity so high, even the night creatures moved slowly and easily. Snakes plopped into the water from the low-slung branches and snapping turtles slid much more silently into the murky depths.
The cloying perfume of gardenia and jasmine hung heavy in the air adding to the oppressive heat. A small expanse of grass and several stumps of trees covered a small area between a large cabin and the rickety pier. One alligator stretched along the pier, much like a guard dog, eyes half closed, mouth wide open exposing sharp teeth, watching the boats chugging toward the cabin with lazy disinterest. Two other alligators snoozed on the grass in between the stumps and flowers quite close to the stairs leading to the porch. Neither looked up as several noisy people tied off pirogues and small fishing boats and clambered along the pier. The crowd made wide berths around the guard alligator with small salutes. Friday nights brought the boisterous throng and the loud, upbeat music.