“Daddy didn’t come home last night.”
Monica’s face was tight with misery as she stood at the window of the dining room. Gray continued eating his breakfast; there wasn’t much that could curb his appetite. So that was why Monica was up so early, since she usually didn’t crawl out of bed until ten or later. What did she do, wait up until Guy came home? He wondered with a sigh what Monica thought he could do about their father’s hours; send him to bed without supper? He couldn’t remember when Guy hadn’t had women on the side, though Renee Devlin had certainly had a lot more staying power than the rest of them.
His mother, Noelle, didn’t care where Guy spent his nights, so long as it wasn’t with her, and simply pretended that her husband’s affairs didn’t exist. Because Noelle didn’t care, Gray didn’t either. It would have been different if Noelle had been distressed, but that was far from the case. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Guy; Gray supposed she did, in her fashion. But Noelle intensely disliked sex, disliked being touched, even casually. For Guy to have a mistress was the best solution all around. He didn’t mistreat Noelle, and though he never bothered to hide his affairs, her position as his wife was safe. It was a very Old World arrangement that his parents had, and one that Gray knew he wouldn’t like at all when he finally decided to get married, but it suited both of them fine.
Monica hadn’t ever been able to see that, however. She was painfully protective of Noelle, relating to her in a way that Gray never could, imagining that Noelle was humiliated and hurt by Guy’s affairs. At the same time, Monica adored Guy, and was never happier than when he was paying attention to her. She had a picture in her mind of how families should be, close-knit and loving, always supporting each other, with the parents devoted to each other, and she had been trying her entire life to make her own family match that picture.
“Does Mother know?” he asked calmly, and refrained from asking if Monica really thought Noelle would care even if she did know. He sometimes felt sorry for Monica, but he also loved her, and didn’t deliberately try to hurt her.
Monica shook her head. “She isn’t up yet.”
“Then why worry about it? By the time she gets up, when he comes in she’ll just think he’s already gone somewhere this morning.”
“But he’s been out with her!” Monica whirled to face him, her dark eyes swimming with tears. “That Devlin woman.”
“You don’t know that. He could have gotten into an all-night poker game.” Guy did love to play poker, but Gray doubted that cards had anything to do with his absence. If he knew his father, and he knew him very well, Guy had far more likely spent the night with Renee Devlin, or some other woman who caught his eye. Renee was a fool if she thought Guy was any more faithful to her than he was to his wife.
“You think so?” Monica asked, eager to believe any excuse other than the most likely one.
Gray shrugged. “It’s possible.” It was also possible a meteor would strike the house that day, but not very likely. He drank the last of his coffee and pushed back his chair. “When he comes in, tell him I’ve gone to Baton Rouge to look over that property we were talking about. I’ll be back by three, at the latest.” Because she still looked so forlorn, he put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her. Somehow Monica had been born without the decisiveness and arrogant self-assurance of the rest of the family. Even Noelle, as remote as she was, always knew exactly what she wanted and how to go about getting it. Monica always seemed so helpless against the forceful personalities of everyone else in the family.
She buried her dark head in his shoulder for a moment, just as she had when she’d been a little girl and gone running to her big brother whenever something had gone wrong and Guy hadn’t been available to put things to rights again. Though he was only two years older, he had always been protective of her, knowing even as a child that she lacked his own inner toughness.
“What do I do if he has been out with that slut?” she asked, her voice muffled against his shoulder.
Gray tried to stifle his impatience, but some of it leaked through in his voice. “You don’t do anything. It’s none of your business.”
She drew back, stung, and stared reproachfully at him. “How can you say that? I’m worried about him!”
“I know you are.” He managed to soften his tone. “But it’s a waste of time, and he wouldn’t thank you for it.”
“You always take his side, because you’re just like him!” The tears were slowly dripping down her cheeks now, and she turned away. “I bet the property in Baton Rouge happens to have two legs and big boobs. Well, have fun!”
“I will,” he said ironically. He really was going to see some property; afterwards was a different story. He was a strong, healthy young man, with a sex drive that had shown no signs of slacking off since his middle teens. It was a persistent burning in his guts, a hungry ache in his balls. He was lucky enough to be able to get women to ease that hunger, and cynical enough to realize that his family’s money added to his sexual success.
He didn’t care what the woman’s reason was, whether she came to him because she liked him and enjoyed his body, or whether she had her eye on the Rouillard bank account. Reasons didn’t matter, because all he wanted was a soft, warm body beneath him, taking his surging lust and giving him temporary ease. He’d never loved a woman yet, but he definitely loved sex, loved everything about it: the smells, the sensations, the sounds. He was particularly entranced by his favorite moment, the instant of penetration when he felt the small resistance of the woman’s body to his pressure, then the acceptance, the sensation of being taken in and enveloped with hot, tight, wet flesh. God, that was wonderful! He was always extremely careful to protect against unwanted pregnancies, wearing a rubber even if the woman said she was on birth control pills, because women had been known to lie about things like that and a smart man didn’t take chances.
He didn’t know for certain, but he suspected Monica was still virgin. Though she was far more emotional than Noelle, there was still something of their mother in her, some deep remoteness that so far hadn’t let any man get too close. She was an awkward mix of their parents’ natures, receiving some of Noelle’s cool distance without any of her self-assurance, and some of Guy’s emotionalism without his intense sexuality. Gray, on the other hand, had his father’s sexuality tempered with Noelle’s control. As much as he wanted sex, he wasn’t a slave to his cock the way Guy was. He knew when, and how, to say no. Thank God, he seemed to have better sense picking his women than Guy did, too.
He tugged on a strand of Monica’s dark hair. “I’ll call Alex and see if he knows where Dad is.” Alexander Chelette, a lawyer in Prescott, was Guy’s best friend.
Her lips trembled, but she smiled through her tears. “He’ll go find Daddy and tell him to come home.”
Gray snorted. It was a wonder how Monica had reached the age of twenty and learned absolutely nothing about men. “I wouldn’t bet on that, but maybe he can ease your mind.” He intended to tell Monica that Guy was in a poker game, even if Alex knew the number of the motel room in which Guy was screwing the morning away.
He went into the study from which Guy handled the myriad Rouillard financial interests, and where Gray was learning how to handle them. Gray was fascinated by the intricacies of business and finance, so much so that he had willingly bypassed a chance to play pro football in favor of plunging headlong into the business world. It hadn’t been that much of a sacrifice for him; he knew he was good enough to play pro, because he had been scouted, but he knew he wasn’t star material. Had he given his life to football, he would have played eight years or so, if he’d been lucky enough to escape injury, and made a good but not spectacular salary. What it came down to, in the end, was that, as much as he loved football, he loved business more. This was a game that he could play much longer than he could football, make a hell of a lot more money, and was just as dog-eat-dog.
Though Guy would have burst his buttons with pride if his son had gone into pro football, Gray thought he’d been somehow relieved when Gray had chosen to come home instead. In the few months since Gray had gotten his degree, Guy had been happily cramming his head full of business knowledge, stuff that couldn’t be gotten from a textbook.
Gray ran his fingers over the polished wood of the big desk. An eight-by-ten photograph of Noelle was positioned on one corner, surrounded by smaller photos of himself and Monica at various stages of growth, like a queen with her subjects gathered around her. Most people would have thought of a mother with her children gathered about her knee, but Noelle wasn’t in the least motherly. The morning sunlight was falling across the photograph, picking up details that usually went unnoticed, and Gray paused to look at the still image of his mother’s face.
She was a beautiful woman, in a totally different way from Renee Devlin’s beauty. Renee was the sun, bold and hot and bright, while Noelle was the moon, cool and remote. She had thick, sleek, dark hair which she wore in a sophisticated twist, and lovely blue eyes which neither of her children had inherited. She wasn’t French Creole, but plain old American; some folks in the parish had wondered if Guy Rouillard wasn’t marrying beneath himself. But she had turned out to be more queenly than any Creole born to the role could have been, and those old doubts had long since been forgotten. The only reminder was his own name, Grayson, which was her family name, but as it had long since been shortened to Gray, most people thought it had been chosen because of its similarity to his father’s name.
Guy’s appointment book was open on the desk. As Gray hitched one hip onto the desk and reached for the telephone, he ran his eye down the appointments listed for that day. Guy had an appointment with William Grady, the banker, at ten. For the first time, Gray felt a twinge of uneasiness. No matter what, Guy had never let his women get in the way of business, and he would never go to a business meeting unshaven, and without a fresh change of clothes.
Quickly he dialed Alex Chelette’s number, and his secretary answered on the first ring. “Chelette and Anderson, Attorneys at Law.”
“Good morning, Andrea. Is Alex in yet?”
“Of course,” she replied with good humor, having immediately recognized Gray’s distinctive deep voice, like smoky velvet. “You know how he is. It would take an earthquake to keep him from coming through the door on the dot of nine. Hold on and I’ll get him.”
He heard the click as he was put on hold, but he knew Andrea too well to think that she was buzzing Alex on the intercom. He’d been in the office often enough, as both child and man, to know that the only time she used the intercom was when a stranger was in the office. Most of the time, she simply turned around in her chair and raised her voice, since the open door of Alex’s office was right behind her.
Gray smiled as he remembered Guy roaring with laughter as he told how Alex had once tried to get Andrea to behave more formally, as was proper for a law office. Poor easygoing Alex hadn’t stood a chance against his secretary. Affronted, she had turned so cold, the office had frosted over. Instead of the usual “Alex,” she had started calling him “Mr. Chelette” whenever she had to address him, the intercom was always used, and their easy camaraderie had gone out the window. When he stopped by her desk to try to chat, she got up and went to the rest room. All of the small details that she had once handled as a matter of course, taking a good deal of work off his shoulders, were now dumped on Alex’s desk for him to do. He found himself coming in earlier and staying later, while Andrea suddenly developed a very precise time schedule. There was no question of replacing her, legal secretaries weren’t easy to come by in Prescott. Within two weeks, Alex had abjectly surrendered, and Andrea had been yelling through his office door ever since.
The line clicked again as Alex picked up. His lazy, good-natured drawl came over the line. “Good mornin’, Gray. You’re out and about early today.”
“Not so early.” He had always kept earlier hours than Guy, but most people assumed like father, like son. “I’m going to Baton Rouge to look at some property. Alex, do you know where Dad is?”
There was a small silence on the other end of the line. “No, I don’t.” Another cautious little pause. “Is something wrong?”
“He didn’t come home last night, and he has an appointment with Bill Grady at ten.”
“Damn,” Alex said softly, but Gray could hear the alarm in the word. “Oh, God. I didn’t think he’d—goddamn it!”
“Alex.” Gray’s voice was as hard and sharp as polished steel, slicing through the wire. “What’s going on?”
“I swear, Gray, I didn’t think he’d do it,” Alex said miserably. “Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just overslept.”
“Do what?”
“He mentioned it a couple of times, but only when he’d been drinking. I swear, I never thought he was serious. God, how could he be?”
The plastic of the receiver cracked under Gray’s grip. “Serious about what?”
“About leaving your mother.” Alex audibly swallowed, the gulping sound plain. “And running away with Renee Devlin.”
Very gently, Gray replaced the receiver in its cradle. He stood motionless for several seconds, staring down at the instrument. It couldn’t—Guy wouldn’t have done that. Why should he? Why run away with Renee when he could and did screw her whenever he wanted? Alex had to be wrong. Guy would never have left his children or the business—but he had been relieved when Gray had chosen to turn down pro football, and had given Gray a crash course in running everything.
For a blessed little while Gray was numb with disbelief, but he was too much of a realist for it to last long. The numbness began to fade, and pure rage rushed in to fill the void. He moved like a snake striking, snatching the phone from the desk and hurling it through the window, shattering glass and bringing several sets of footsteps rushing down the hall to the study.
* * *
Everyone slept late except Faith and Scottie, and she left the shack as soon as she had fed Scottie his breakfast, taking him down to the creek so he could splash in the shallow water and try to catch the darting crawfish. He never did, but he loved to try. It was a gorgeous morning, with the sunlight slanting bright and golden through the trees, dappling the water. The smells were fresh and sharp, full of good, clean colors that wiped out the sour miasma of alcohol lingering in her nostrils, exuded from the four people she had left sleeping off the effects of the night.
Expecting Scottie to keep his clothes dry was like expecting the sun to rise in the west. When they reached the creek, she pulled off his shorts and shirt, and let him plunge into the water wearing only his diaper. She had brought a dry one to put on him when they left. She carefully hung the discarded garments on limbs, then stepped into the creek to wade and keep an eye on him. If a snake slithered toward him, he wouldn’t know to be alarmed. She wasn’t afraid of them either, but she was definitely cautious.
She let him play for a couple of hours, then had to pick him up and carry him out of the water, with him kicking and protesting every inch of the way. “You can’t stay in the water,” she explained. “Look, your toes are wrinkled like a prune.” She sat down on the ground and changed his diaper, then dressed him. It was a difficult job, with him still squirming and trying to escape back into the water.
“Let’s look for squirrels,” she said. “Can you see any squirrels?”
Distracted, he immediately looked upward, his eyes rounded with excitement as he searched the trees for a squirrel. Faith took his stubby hand in hers and slowly led him through the woods, taking a meandering path back to the shack. Maybe by the time they got back, Renee would be home.
Though her mother had stayed out all night before, it always made Faith uneasy. She kept it in the back of her mind, but she lived with the constant fear that Renee would leave one night and never come home. Faith knew, with bitter realism, that if Renee met some man who had a bit of money and promised her pretty things, she would be gone like a shot. Probably the only thing that kept her in Prescott anyway was Guy Rouillard, and what he could give her. If Guy ever dumped her, Renee wouldn’t hang around any longer than it took her to pack her clothes.
Scottie managed to spot two squirrels, one jumping along a tree limb and another climbing a tree, so he was happy to go where Faith led him. When they came in sight of the shack, however, he realized that they were going home and began to make grunting noises of disapproval as he pulled back, trying to tug his hand from her grip.
“Scottie, stop it,” Faith said, as she dragged him out of the woods into the rutted dirt road leading up to the shack. “I can’t play with you anymore right now, I’ve got to do the wash. But I promise I’ll play cars with you when I get—”
She heard the low, rumbling sound of a car engine behind her, getting louder as it got closer, and her first, relieved thought as she turned was Mama’s home. But it wasn’t Renee’s flashy red car that came into sight around the curve. It was a black Corvette convertible, one bought to replace the silver one Gray had driven since high school. Faith stopped in her tracks, forgetting all about Scottie and Renee as her heart stopped, then began pounding against her rib cage with a force that almost made her sick. Gray was coming here!
She was so stunned with joy that she barely remembered to pull Scottie out of the road to stand in the weeds on the side. Gray, her heart sang. A fine trembling began in her knees and worked its way up her slender body at the thought of actually speaking to him again, even if it was just to mumble a hello.
Her gaze locked on him, drinking in the details as he drove closer. Though he was sitting behind the wheel and she couldn’t see that much of him, she thought that he seemed leaner than he’d been while he was playing football, and his hair was a little longer. His eyes were the same, though, dark as sin and just as tempting. They flashed over her as the Corvette bumped past where she and Scottie were standing, and he curtly nodded his head.
Scottie squirmed and tugged at his hand, fascinated by the pretty car. He loved Renee’s car, and Faith had to watch to keep him away from it, because it made Renee mad if he patted it and left his dirty little handprints behind.
“All right,” Faith whispered, still dazed. “We’ll go see the pretty car.” They stepped back into the road and followed the Corvette, which had now stopped in front of the shack. Gray slid up from behind the wheel and swung one long leg over the door, then the other, stepping out of the low-slung car as if it were a child’s vehicle. Going up the two rickety steps, he jerked open the screen door and went inside.
He didn’t knock, Faith thought. Something’s wrong. He didn’t knock.
She speeded up, hurrying Scottie so that his short legs pumped and he gave a squawk of protest. She thought of his heart, and terror squeezed her insides. She skidded to a stop, and swiftly stooped down to pick him up. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to make you run.” Her back arched from the strain of carrying him, but she ignored it and hurried her steps again. Small rocks rolled unnoticed under her bare feet, and little clouds of dust flew up with every thud of her heels. Scottie’s weight seemed to drag at her, keeping her from reaching the shack. Blood roared in her ears, and a sense of dread swelled in her chest until she almost choked.
She heard some dim, faraway roar that she recognized as Pa’s voice, underlaid by Gray’s deeper, more thunderous tones. Panting, she pumped her thin legs even harder, and finally reached the shack. The screen door squeaked as she jerked it open and hurled herself inside, only to skid to a stop, blinking in an effort to adjust her eyes to the dimness. Unintelligible shouts and curses swirled around her, making her feel as if she were caught in some nightmare tunnel.
She gulped in air as she let Scottie slip to the floor. Scared by the shouting, he latched on to her legs and buried his face against her.
As her vision adjusted and the roaring in her ears subsided, the shouts began to make sense, and she wished they hadn’t.
Gray had hauled Amos out of bed and was dragging him into the kitchen. Amos was yelling and swearing, grabbing at the doorframe in an effort to halt Gray’s momentum. He was no match for the young man’s enraged strength, however, and could only scramble for balance as Gray shoved him toward the center of the room.
“Where’s Renee?” Gray barked, looming threateningly over Amos, who shrank back.
Amos’s rheumy eyes darted around the room, as if looking for his wife. “Not here,” he mumbled.
“I can see she isn’t here, you stupid bastard! I want to know where in hell she is!”
Amos weaved back and forth on his bare feet, and suddenly belched. He was bare-chested, his pants still gaping open. His uncombed hair stood out in all directions, he was unshaven, his eyes bloodshot, and his breath foul with sleep and drink. In contrast, Gray towered over him, six feet four of lean, steely muscle, his black hair neatly brushed back, his white shirt spotless and his slacks handtailored to fit him.
“You ain’t got no call to be shovin’ me around, I don’t care who your daddy is,” Amos complained. Despite his bluster, he cowered back every time Gray moved.
Russ and Nicky had crowded out of their bedroom, but they made no move to back their father. Facing down a raging Gray Rouillard wasn’t their style; attacking anyone who could cause them trouble wasn’t their style.
“Do you know where Renee is?” Gray asked again, his voice icy.
Amos hitched one shoulder. “Must’ve gone out,” he mumbled sullenly.
“When?”
“Whaddaya mean, when? I was in bed. How in hell would I know what time she left?”
“Did she come home last night?”
“Course she did! Gawddammit, what’re you sayin’?” Amos yelled, the slur in his words testimony to the alcohol still in his blood.
“I’m saying your whore of a wife has left!” Gray yelled back, his dark face twisted with rage, his neck corded.
Pure terror sliced through Faith, and her vision blurred again. “No,” she gasped.
Gray heard her, and his head snapped around. His dark eyes were glittering with fury as they raked over her. “You look sober, at least. Do you know where Renee is? Did she come home last night?”
Numbly Faith shook her head. Black disaster loomed in front of her, and her nostrils were filled with the sharp, yellow, acrid smell of fear . . . her own.
His upper lip curled, showing strong white teeth in a snarl. “I didn’t think so. She’s run away with my father.”
Faith shook her head again, and then couldn’t seem to stop it from wagging. No. The word reverberated through her brain. God, please, no.
“You’re lyin’!” Amos yelled, tottering toward the rickety table and sagging into one of the chairs. “Renee wouldn’t leave me and our kids. She loves me. Your whore-hoppin’ pa’s out with some new piece he’s found—”
Gray lunged forward like a snake striking. His fist connected with Amos’s jaw, knuckles smashing against bone, and both Amos and the chair crashed to the floor. The chair splintered into kindling beneath him.
With a terrified wail, Scottie burrowed his face harder against Faith’s hip. She was too frozen to even put a comforting arm around his shoulders, and he began to cry.
Amos groggily scrambled up from the floor, and staggered to put the table between him and Gray. “Why’d you hit me?” he whined, holding his jaw. “I ain’t done nothin’ to you. Whatever Renee and your pa done, it ain’t my fault!”
“What’s all the yellin’ about?” came Jodie’s deliberately sultry voice, the one she put on whenever she was trying to entice a man. Faith looked toward the entrance to the lean-to, and her eyes widened with horror. Jodie posed against the doorframe, her uncombed reddish blond hair tossed back over her bare shoulders. She wore only a pair of red lace panties, and demurely held the matching lace camisole so that it barely covered her breasts. She blinked at Gray with wide-eyed innocence so blatantly false that Faith cringed inside.
Gray’s expression tightened with disgust as he glanced at her, his mouth curled and he deliberately turned his back. “I want you gone by nightfall,” he said to Amos, his voice steely. “You stink up our land, and I’m tired of smelling you.”
“Leave?” Amos croaked. “You high-and-mighty bastard, you can’t make us leave. There’re laws—”
“You don’t pay rent,” Gray said, a cold, deadly smile twisting his lips. “Eviction laws don’t apply to trespassers. Get out.” He turned and started toward the door.
“Wait!” Amos cried. His panicked gaze darted around the room as if looking for inspiration. He licked his lips. “Don’t be so hasty. Maybe . . . maybe they just took a little trip. They’ll come back. Yeah, that’s right. Renee’ll be back, she didn’t have no reason to leave.”
Gray gave a harsh bark of laughter, his contemptuous gaze moving around the room, taking in the mean interior of the shack. Someone, probably the youngest girl, had made an effort to keep it clean, but it was like trying to hold back the tide. Amos and the two boys, who were younger editions of their father, sullenly watched him. The older girl still lounged in the doorway trying to show him as much of her tits as she could without actually dropping that scrap of cloth. The little boy with Down’s syndrome was clinging to the younger girl’s legs and bawling. The girl was standing as if turned to stone, staring at him with huge, blank green eyes. Her dark red hair hung untidily around her shoulders, and her bare feet were dirty.
Standing so close to him, Faith could read his expression, and she cringed inside as his gaze swept over the shack and its inhabitants, finally settling on her. He catalogued her life, her family, herself, and found it all worthless.
“No reason to leave?” he sneered. “My God, as far as I can tell, she doesn’t have a reason to come back!”
In the silence that followed, he stepped around Faith and shoved the screen door open. It banged against the side of the shack, then slammed shut. The Corvette’s engine roared to life, and a moment later Gray was gone. Faith stood frozen in the middle of the floor, with Scottie still clinging to her legs and crying. Her mind felt numb. She knew she needed to do something, but what? Gray had said they had to leave, and the enormity of it stunned her. Leave? Where would they go? She couldn’t make her mind start working. All she could do was lift her hand, which felt as heavy as lead, and smooth Scottie’s hair while saying, “It’s all right, it’s all right,” even though she knew it was a lie. Mama was gone, and it would never be all right again.