Forty-One
New Orleans. Rising up out of the steaming swamps of Louisiana. Riding into the city was like bursting inside a flowered wedding cake, all structure, confection, decoration and sugar. It was an overheated, proud city, that didn’t shrink from its history and culture like so many paved-over suburban Southern cities. Tropical blossoms, flaking loud paint, iron railings and all that water-smell, it folded over her like hot dough as they crossed its limits. Stop, she wanted to tell him. She wanted to stand in the street and turn circles, absorbing it through her eyes and her pores.
Ava was exhausted and so sore, but they didn’t go straight to the clubhouse as she’d expected. After five minutes, she realized what Mercy was doing: he was giving her a silent tour, slowing the bike to a crawl when they passed something he knew would set her imagination roaring.
He took her through the French Quarter, with its three-tiered facades crawling with ornate iron curlicues, the upper galleries bursting with Boston ferns. The brick walks and the old iron lampposts. The street-level cafes and the striped awnings. The jazz and the Dixieland bands, playing on the corners for the tourists.
Through the Garden District, with its precise European gardens, spreading oaks, iron fences and the glorious, gorgeous houses, holding court behind gates.
It was a blur, all of it, as the bike rolled down narrow streets, stopped to wait for the horse-drawn carriages toting tourists down Bourbon Street.
Ava felt the heat work its way into her exhausted joints. The magical myriad houses marched past her in pastel flashes interspersed with green breaks, flowers bobbing in the breeze. Her soreness faded, the exhaustion shoving down beneath the wonder.
How could Mercy hate this place?
Eventually, they moved away from the glamor, hitting a two-lane that led out of the tumbled-down outskirts of the city, and out through a stretch of scrub forest. The grass was blue and shiny with the water that hid between the blades. The oaks here were untended and bowed toward the ground, their gnarled branches heavy with Spanish moss.
With nothing to look at, she pulled back inside herself, the hurts coming back to the surface. She closed her eyes and knotted her fingers in the front of Mercy’s shirt, her arms quivering from the prolonged effort of holding onto him. When this trip was over, she didn’t want to see the bitch seat of a motorcycle again, not ever.
She didn’t know how much time had passed before they turned off the main road, and then turned again, and the trees closed overhead, laced fingers that bathed them in shadow. She could smell the water stronger here: a ripe, dark smell, water full of plant and animal life. The pavement fell away, and they drove on a powdery white dirt; she could taste it against her lips as a cloud of it rolled up over them. And then the road simply ended, right at the doorstep of a ramshackle tar paper building with a high, peaked roof and a scattering of old pickups out front.
Mercy parked, and she gritted her teeth as she climbed off the bike like a crippled, arthritic woman. “Oh, God.” She bent at the waist and stretched her back, staring at the pale dirt under her dusty boots.
Mercy’s hand landed between her shoulder blades. “Poor fillette. Not used to this much riding, huh?” He sounded like he was trying not to laugh.
“Ass,” she accused. “I feel like I got run over by something.”
“You just need to get drunk,” he said cheerfully. “Come on, baby doll. We wanna hit the water while there’s still plenty of light.”
“Water?” She straightened and was pulled along by his hand.
“Yeah,” he said over his shoulder as he towed her. “Unless you wanna ask Lew if you can borrow his hammock.”
“Where are we?”
He slapped a wooden sign as they passed it. Lew’s Tackle and Grocery.
“Oh nice,” she muttered. “Ice cream and worms.”
But she wasn’t disgusted. Under all the aches and pains, she was fascinated, and charmed.
The store was a long, narrow building, half of which perched over the water on thick pylons. It had a three-sided, roofless porch, old rusted shovels, garden tools, boat anchors, and other oxidized metal bits hanging on the walls. An ancient Coke machine sat beside a hip-high cooler with a hand-labeled Fresh Bait sign taped to the front.
The land sloped down toward the water, the little dock that jutted out across its dark surface. Ava spotted a sequence of outbuildings, under the dense shade cast by the trees, and between two of them, the hammock Mercy had mentioned. She also spotted the gas pumps.
Mercy paused when he reached the door of the place and turned back to give her the most excited, boyish smile. It did dangerous, melty things to her insides. “I just gotta warn you. You’re about to step into the Land That Time Forgot. This ain’t no place for princesses like you.”
“Call me a princess again,” she said, “and the only place for you will be the bottom of that lake out there.”
Unperturbed, he said, “Technically, that’s a bayou.”
“Technically, I don’t care.”
He squeezed her hand. “Come meet Lew.”
Despite the high peak of the roof, the ceilings were low inside the store. With a scant handful of small windows, shadows lay thick between the squat, wooden aisles; dust clung to shelves, marks of fingers and sleeves where merchandise had been taken and restocked. The walls and floors were a rough gray barn wood, the overhead tube lights flickering and hissing. A window unit chugged and fussed and failed to cool the entire space; they walked through a pocket of cool air on their way to the wooden counter.
Behind the register, a bent man in a trucker cap perched on a stool, dealing a hand of solitaire onto the rough surface of the counter. He had the sleeves of his striped button-up folded back, and his wrists were thin, knobby, dark tan and speckled with sun spots. He glanced up at the sound of Mercy’s footfalls, his face deeply lined, cracked and leathery under the bill of his hat. He wore rectangular-framed glasses low on his nose, and peered up at them with filmy eyes a long moment before he gasped.
“That…” His voice sounded like it had been used often, deep and well-oiled, despite his frail outer shell. And there was that Louisiana accent, so unlike the traditional Southern accent, one familiar to her because of Mercy. “That’s not – nah, that can’t be Remy Lécuyer’s boy.” He put his feet on the floor and the effort of straightening his legs looked like it hurt. “That’s not Felix, is it?”
Mercy reached across the counter, caught the man’s hand, and steadied him. “You know it is, you old fart,” he said with deep affection, smiling. “Hey, Lew, how you doin’?”
Still beaming, the man said, “Mad as hell I ain’t seen you in years! Boy, when you move back to New Orleans, you’re supposed to come visit more often. What’s it been? Two? Three?”
“Three and a half,” Mercy said. “But I got bad news, man. I’m moving back to Tennessee.”
“Son of a bitch. You just can’t stay put, can you?”
“Nope.” His free arm came back, encircled Ava’s shoulders and pulled her forward. “Lew, I want you to meet my wife. This is Ava.”
The pride in his voice furthered the inside-melting. She wanted to cry and smile all at once. Instead, she said, “It’s very nice to meet you, Lew.”
The old man was gaping at her, still smiling a little. “Wife? Did you say wife? Oh no, she’s too pretty for you. Wife? I’ll be damned.” He laughed. Then he sucked in a big breath. “Ava? Now, you don’t mean…she’s not…” He looked at Ava. “Are you that little girl he keeps in his wallet?”
Before she could answer, his smile became small and warm, and he nodded. “It is you. You’re his girl.”
Ava felt the shock bloom and turn to wonder. She looked up at Mercy, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze, his high cheekbones suspiciously dark. She stared at him, hand slipping up under his jacket and shirt in the back, so she could press her palm to his skin. Stared until he finally granted her one bashful glance from the corners of his eyes. She didn’t say anything, because she didn’t have to.
He had a photo of her at ten in his wallet – she knew that. But she hadn’t known that he’d showed it to people, that he’d talked about her. That, in the eyes of people she’d never met, she was “his girl.”
She rested her head against his chest, soaking up this proof of unspoken love.
Mercy cleared his throat. “Sweetheart, why don’t you go see if there’s anything good to drink in the back? Aisle seven.”
She nodded and slipped away from him, knowing this was his way of asking for a moment alone with the shopkeeper. “Lew, do you have chocolate?”
“Aisle twelve.”
There was something quaint and picturesque about the cramped store with its odd assortment of goods, all the dark barn wood absorbing the light. The liquor was arranged by brand, shelves sagging from the weight. Ava took two bottles of Johnnie Walker Red…and then two more. She didn’t care about drinking. She didn’t want to be numb right now, not when she had him all to herself. But Mercy liked his Scotch, and he could put it away.
Arms loaded with bottles, she managed two Hershey bars before she had to admit defeat and go back to the counter for a basket. She paused a few feet back, and watched Lew and Mercy exchange a handshake.
“…long as you need it,” Lew was saying. “I’ll be happy to.”
“I appreciate it.”
“And if anyone comes sniffing, you know I’ll turn ‘em away.”
“Appreciate that, too.”
Mercy turned and spotted her, and came to take the bottles out of her arms, put them on the counter. “Anything else you want?” he asked. “The house should be stocked, but I don’t know with what.”
“House?”
“I’ll explain on the way.”
Amid the cluttered shelves, she found microwave popcorn, a box of saltines, and a block of white cheddar. Staples from her college years; she could live on that stuff for weeks if need be. Mercy bought some bait, fresh hooks, a few lures, and some fishing line. Lew told them they needed to come back and visit him, and he assured, with a wink for Mercy, that “not a soul” would catch their trail from here.
“He knows we’re running?” Ava asked, as they walked back out onto the porch, bags in tow.
“One of three people I trust outside the club with all this, yeah. He knows, and nobody could get a word out of him about it. Lew’s good people.”
She agreed.
Mercy stripped all the saddlebags off the Dyna and rolled it into one of the outbuildings that he then locked with a combination Master lock. He told her the code and made her repeat it back to him five times, so he was confident she’d memorized it. Then they went down to the dock, to one of the small, weathered fiberglass boats that were anchored on boat hooks. The thing was stained and ancient, a sharp contrast to the shiny huge motor on the back. It was an Evinrude, and she knew just enough about boats to know this engine could send it flying across the water.
“She ain’t pretty,” Mercy said as he stepped down into it with one foot and began loading their belongings. “But she’ll get the job done.”
Ava handed over the bags one at a time. “And that’s for backup?” she asked of the long pole resting in the bottom of the boat.
“Push pole,” he explained. “If I was worth a damn, I’d use that instead of the engine. Safer for the wildlife, cleaner.” He shook his head. “But I grew up with motors. It’s easy to get lost out here and you need the speed. Plus” – he glanced up at her – “I ain’t taking you anywhere that I can’t make a fast getaway.”
She nodded, not wanting to dwell on the potential for getaways.
When he’d arranged everything to his liking, he reached up a hand for her, a bright excitement in his dark eyes. “M’lady,” he said with a smirk, though his tone was serious and respectful.
As Ava laid her palm against his, and as his fingers closed around hers, she felt a shiver move through his arm and up into hers. He wasn’t just inviting her down into this boat; he was inviting her into the part of his life he’d never shown her, that moss-draped past that captivated her, and that he’d kept guarded so tightly.
It’s okay, she wanted to tell him. Nothing you show me will change things. I love you more than anything; there’s not a skeleton I can’t overlook.
She put her foot down and felt the movement of the boat, the water shifting under her. She grabbed at the front of Mercy’s shirt as she stepped fully down, letting him catch her weight and steady her.
“Okay, so…” She tipped her head back and sought to project all her warmth and acceptance toward him. “Where are we going?”
**
He was a man torn. In so many ways, he hated this place. This hot, smelly, head-wrecking place that had devoured his meager family and sent him running. It always came back to running, didn’t it? How many times would he run back and forth between New Orleans and Knoxville? Seeking to escape the horrors at either end. He hated the idea of having his girl here, bringing her to the place that had crippled him so badly. There were ghosts in these swamps, some of his own making, and he didn’t want the taint getting into her blood, turning her soft writer’s heart into a bloody abscess.
But on the other hand, this moment was a recurring dream brought to life. Ava at the bow of his boat, legs drawn back behind her, face in the wind as the Evinrude powered them through the black water, the cypress rising tall around them. Her eyes were wide, scanning both banks, drinking it all in. As he sat at the stern, hand on the throttle, he watched her grip the edge of the boat and lean down, fingertips skimming across the shiny green duckweed.
He edged back the speed, so she could hear him, and said, “What do you think?”
“It’s beautiful.” And she meant it, too.
“Giving you story ideas?” he asked.
“So many.”
It was a gorgeous night on the bayou. The sun fell in hazy shafts through the cypress trunks, glimmered on the dark surface of the water, bold stripes that rippled as the spreading wake of the boat lapped toward the banks. Moss hung in thick drifts. Amongst the knobby knees of cypress roots, a white egret was startled and took flight, winging silently above them. Turtles sunned themselves on half-submerged logs. And…there, there was one. A gator at ten o’clock, its eyes and tip of its snout all that were visible above the water. To a tourist, it would go unnoticed; Mercy could spot a gator like it was glowing neon.
He slowed the boat and pointed it out to Ava. “You’ll see a lot more than that,” he assured her, and he loved the light in her eyes, the way being enchanted made her seem even younger, more like she’d been at seventeen, before anything bad –
No. He wasn’t going to think about the bad parts. That was why he’d put the ring on her finger. A promise that nothing like those five years would ever come between them from now on. This wasn’t a fresh start, but a return to what had been. A do-over.
As they moved toward their destination, he planned their boat trips in the days to come, the hours exploring his childhood stomping ground. But for now, they’d go to their home for the next…however long. Their honeymoon spot and sanctuary from all outside threats.
He took a hard right, through a curtain of moss, where the banks compressed and it looked like the boat couldn’t possibly go through. He slowed the boat, then killed the motor, plucking the pole up and sinking it down below the surface toward the bottom.
“The water’s deep here,” he said, “deeper than it looks. But we’ll go in careful, so you can see your way.”
He hadn’t been to this spot in years and years, not since Daddy was still alive, but its textures came back to him, fresh and familiar all at once.
The bank rose steeply to the right, and crawling down its face where high-kneed cypress roots that formed a deep cavern going into the hill, a little wooden cave floored with water.
“Duck,” Mercy instructed, and Ava dropped down low as he poled the boat into the opening.
Tiny stripes of light fell across them, and there, at the far end, where he could just make out a similar boat tied up, a thick spill of sunlight flooded through the opening that led up into the clearing above. In its golden light, he could make out the earthen and wood stair carved into the bank that was their way out.
“Stairs,” Ava said, delighted. “Is this real? Or am I dreaming?”
“Wait till you see what’s up top.”
He tied them up alongside the other boat. “Friends,” he assured, and he urged her on ahead of him up the stairs, leaving their stuff behind for the moment. She wouldn’t want to be weighted down with luggage when she got her first look of the place, and he didn’t blame her.
The sun was at that perfect evening slant when they stepped out from the cave and entered the clearing. Mercy’s eyes were on his wife, the way the light burnished her hair, the way her eyes flipped wide, her face smooth with surprise. And then, because he couldn’t resist, he looked at their surroundings.
Over a century ago, mule-drawn wagons had hauled timbers and glass through the swamps to this idyllic spot along a narrow finger of water. A white clapboard chapel and caretaker cottage had been erected amid a grassy meadow, ringed by ancient, massive oaks, a screen of cypress along the water. In the fifties, the narrow roadway leading out to this spot had been washed out. Inaccessible by land, the chapel had withered, until it was nothing but a gray shell. The cottage, though, had served hunters and fishers, a safe harbor for the lost and the weary. Its paint had peeled and its roof had been badly patched, but the tiny house with its dual windows on either side of the door was warm and dry and charming inside, its stone chimney always stocked with wood. That was the rule of this place: you had to leave firewood when you left, for the next lonesome soul who stopped to seek shelter within its walls.
The chapel stood closest to the water, with a view of the opposite bank and the tangled swampwood that he’d always found so darkly beautiful. It no longer had a door. Grass and weeds floored the aisles between the pews. Thick tendrils of jasmine had claimed the pulpit, and the ten-foot-tall cross behind it. Its bare windows looked sad, like they were crying.
Beyond, the cottage glowed with lamplight; a fresh stack of firewood was piled against one outer wall, and Larry dusted off his hands as he stood on the small porch.
Ava turned to him, and he didn’t know how to classify her expression. “What is this place?” she asked, voice just a whisper.
“They call it Saints Hollow.”
“It’s perfect,” she breathed, drifting to him, like she was floating. When she put her arms around his waist, he hugged her against him, hard. “Who are your friends?”
“You wanna come meet them?”
She kissed his chest, through his clothes. “Yes.”
Mercy’s father’s name had been Remy, something Ava had learned from both Lew, and the O’Donnells. Remy. She filed it away: French, warm, mischievous. She liked it. She pressed it into her internal baby name book.
She was intrigued by this chance to meet people who’d known Remy and Felix Lécuyer. Larry had hunted gators also, sometimes working with Remy. His wife, Evangeline, the Cajun spice to Larry’s pale Irish heritage, had cooked many a dinner and taken it to the Lécuyer house via bateau. The families went way back. Larry and Evie were so obviously delighted to see Mercy again, both hugging and kissing him on the cheek.
“You got married!” Evie exclaimed. To Ava, she said, “And you’re his – oh, come here. Hug me.” She was a regular-sized woman, but her arms were strong, and she crushed Ava to her chest. Then she pushed her back.
“You’re so pretty!” she exclaimed. She caught Ava’s chin in her hand. “And sweet. I can just tell.” She smiled. “I guess it’s not always true what they say about marrying someone like your mama.”
When Evie let go of her, Ava turned a questioning look up to her husband. “His mama?” she asked Evie. “What was she like?”
Mercy’s expression became thunderous.
“Well,” Evie said, quickly, face coloring. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Big breath. “Anyway,” she said, smiling at Ava again, “I’m so glad he’s got himself a girl. Someone to love and feed him.”
Mercy shook off his black look and snorted. “Well, love anyway. The food, not so much.”
“Oh, honey, you can’t cook?”
Ava cringed.
“Don’t worry. I can teach you. I can–”
“Jesus Christ, Evangeline,” Larry said. “Let the girl breathe. You’re running on like a chainsaw.”
Evie glared at her husband and slapped his arm, but she backed off a little. “I want the poor thing to feel welcome. Felix’s dragged her half through the swamp.” She addressed Mercy: “That’s no way to treat your bride, by the way.”
“Yeah.” Mercy sighed. “I know. Before shit went south in Knoxville, I was planning a whole trip to the Bahamas.”
Evie pursed her lips. “Smartass.”
Mercy grinned. “Okay, a Holiday Inn in Chattanooga, at least.”
“Makes a girl want to swoon, doesn’t it?” Evie winked at Ava.
“Are you done yammering yet?” Larry asked. “So we can take them inside?”
“Yes,” Evie said, and slapped him on the arm again, harder this time.
The inside of the cottage was warm and bright. There was electricity here, Larry explained, lines running through the swamp that had been maintained. And there was well water, but he suggested she drink the bottled water stacked in cases in one corner. The cottage was one wide room, furniture designating the use of each corner. In back left was an old iron bedframe, tidily made up with a red and white patchwork quilt and two stacks of white pillows. Back right was the kitchen, small sixties-era fridge, wood-burning stove with pipe vent snaking up to the ceiling, a butcher block island and wall-mounted shelves loaded with cast iron pans, Dutch ovens, and stone pots. A faded green velvet sofa, in an old tufted, Victorian style marked the living room. There was an ancient TV with rabbit ears, a radio on a side table, two floor lamps. And in one front window, a makeshift office had been established with a cherry escritoire and more wall-mounted shelves arranged with books, boxes of envelopes and stationary, fishing paraphernalia and what looked like car parts.
The door between kitchen and bedroom led to the bathroom, Larry explained. Indoor plumbing and everything, he said proudly, which made her realize, for the first time, that an outhouse was a real possibility out here in the swamp.
Larry and Evie had stocked the fridge and the open pantry shelves; they’d brought clean towels, new sheets and pillows and blankets for the bed, water, champagne, beer. Evie had thought of things for Ava that she herself hadn’t been able to pack on the bike: body and foot lotion, little scented candles, a new terry robe, slippers, and a small bottle of lavender oil. “He said lavender, over the phone,” Evie whispered in her ear. She laughed. “He was very specific.”
Larry helped Mercy carry their bags up, and Evie showed Ava the soup she’d left simmering in a big stone Dutch oven on top of the stove. “Let it cool completely, after you’re done eating, and this pot can go straight in the fridge.”
They offered to walk the O’Donnells down to their bateau, but Evie wouldn’t hear of it. “We’ll come by and check on you in a day or two. We’ve bothered you enough. Enjoy your dinner.”
She hugged Ava one last time, and as she pulled back, Ava saw Larry saying something to Mercy, a low murmuring she couldn’t hear. And then Larry and Evie were out the door, and they were alone together, in this fairy story cottage fit for the Seven Dwarves.
The exhaustion hit her like a blow to the face. She sank down onto the edge of the bed, hands in her lap, relishing the slow push of air out of her lungs.
Mercy leaned a hip against the high back of the sofa and folded his arms. He looked like she felt. “I’m sorry about them. They’re kind of–”
“Wonderful,” Ava finished for him. “Look at this place; what they set up for us. They love you, and that makes me want to love them.”
He made a vague gesture to the air, looking embarrassed. “Evie goes overboard, sometimes.”
Ava grinned. “But she takes instruction really well, apparently.”
He lifted his brows.
“The lavender oil. That you were ‘very specific’ about.”
His face darkened as he blushed.
She laughed. “So you like smelling like flowers, huh?”
“It just feels good. It’s got nothing to do with the smell.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
He gave her a long-suffering look, then took a deep breath and let the fatigue take hold of him again. “You wanna eat?”
“God, yes.”
Jambalaya. When Ava pulled the lid off the pot, the roiling steam brought with it a sharp smell of spices her mother never used in her kitchen. Rich, exotic scents, full of heat and color. She dipped the ladle into the glossy orange liquid and stirred up thick slices of sausage, celery, carrot. There was rice, and fat pink shrimp, corn and flakes of basil.
“This smells amazing,” Ava said as she dipped servings into blue glazed bowls. Her stomach howled for the food.
“Bread?” Mercy asked, pulling a baguette off the shelf.
“Ooh, yes.”
They tore off chunks of it and sat on the sofa while they ate, too hungry to utter a word to each other. They didn’t even make eye contact. Suddenly, she hit the bottom of her bowl, and she set it aside with the languorous slow reach of a very drunk person. Only then did she look at Mercy.
He studied his spoon like it was fascinating, brows plucked together.
She would have laughed if she wasn’t so tired. She was too tired to think about taking a shower, even undressing. She would strip naked and fall between the sheets. She’d cry if she had to do anything else. Knowing she had to put the jambalaya in the fridge was devastating. Her eyelids sagged and her pulse throbbed in her head.
“Mercy,” she said, “I know we haven’t had a real wedding night yet, and I want us to, you know I do, but…”
He grabbed her socked foot where it lay on the sofa at his hip and squeezed it. “It’s fine, baby.” Tired smile. “I’m so dead, I’d probably only embarrass myself.”
The relief was a balm.
She let her head fall back against the sofa arm. “We just gotta put the food away…just that…and then sleep…”
A scream woke Ava. She bolted upright in bed, and at first, she didn’t remember where she was, could only grapple with the sense that this was an unfamiliar place. Not home, she thought wildly. And there was an awful high screeching sound, coming from somewhere in the dense night beyond. It was so dark, she couldn’t see her hands, her feet, the soft sheets around her waist. The faintest moonlight illuminated the four-paned windows in thin silver, and it was counting them that helped her recall the cabin. Saints Hollow. The humanless middle of the swamp.
Her heart was still knocking, so she reached out a hand for Mercy beside her. He was snoring. She touched his bare chest. “Merc. Mercy, what is that?”
“…Huh?” He took one of those deep breaths people take when climbing up out of a dream; his chest lifted beneath her hand. His voice was thick with sleep. “What is it?”
“That noise. Someone screaming.”
But it was dying away, strangling off into nothing, and then the drone of the cicadas and crickets was filling in the space it had left behind.
“It sounded like…I dunno. It woke me up.”
Mercy took another deep breath and sat up beside her. His presence was instantly soothing. “A nutria,” he said.
“One of those big rat things?”
“Yeah. You’ll get used to it.”
“Why was it…doing that, though?”
He made a sound that made her think he was smirking. “Something got it.”
“How nice.” She sighed. “Well, as long as that something wasn’t human, I don’t guess there’s anything to worry about.”
“I don’t know a gator that can pick a lock,” he agreed. The covers pushed back. “But I can go look if you want me to.”
Ava caught at him, felt his forearm and wrapped her fingers around it in the dark. “No, the mosquitos would carry you off. It’s fine. I just…well, sleeping in a strange place, you know how it is.”
“I do.” The weight of his hand passed across the sheet until it found her thigh, and then settled there.
Beyond the cottage, the Hollow was alive with night sounds: things chattering, whispering, groaning, pushing through the undergrowth.
And they were both awake now.
“What time is it?” she asked.
The mattress creaked as Mercy leaned over the side of it, checking his prepaid cell in the saddlebag they’d left beside the bed along with their shucked clothes. “Five-eighteen,” he answered, clicking on the bedside lamp as he straightened. Its shade was a dark, heavy paper, so the glow was soft and unobtrusive, just a hazy brush of visibility over the bed that didn’t stretch beyond to the rest of the cottage.
The low light turned Mercy golden, his loose, rich black hair falling in straight sheets to his shoulders, framing his narrow face. When he turned to her, his eyes were tired, but soft. With the covers around his waist, he was all long arms and muscle-corded torso. The image of him like that would stay with her for a while, she thought, as the sight of him warmed her from the inside out.
“I just realized something,” she said, smiling.
“What?”
“You don’t have a ring.”
He looked at his left hand, as if to check. “I don’t carry one of those around with me.” He glanced up at her from under his brows, his smile teasing. “Do you care if I have one?” Smile widening, flash of teeth; he already knew her answer.
“Um, you better believe it.”
“Really?” he asked with fake innocence. “Why?”
“You know why.”
“But I want to hear why.”
“No you don’t. Your ego’s gigantic already.”
“I won’t argue about anything of mine being gigantic, but really, baby, I’m feeling a little insecure.” He couldn’t keep from chuckling.
Ava took his hand and pulled it into her lap, encircling the ring finger with her pinky. “I want you to have a ring so random skanks know you belong to someone.”
He grinned. “If you want, we can get Ziggy to tattoo your name right up here.” He drew a finger across his forehead. “Then they’ll really know.”
She nodded. “Good.” And then dissolved into giggles and flopped back onto the pillows. “God, we got married. I still can’t quite believe it.” Her voice came out breathless.
“That’s because we haven’t had a chance to celebrate properly.” Mercy leaned over her, hands braced on the mattress, a jungle cat ready to pounce. His hair fell forward as he lowered his face over hers, tickling her throat. He slipped into his loverboy purr, the one that gave her gooseflesh. “Gimme a few hours, baby, and you’ll believe it.”
His lips were hovering above hers when she slid her hand between them, pressing at his mouth. “Wait! I was so tired before, I forgot to take my pill. Here, lemme up, and I’ll get the pack out of my bag.”
He frowned and shook her hand away. “Will one really make a difference?”
“It could. You don’t want to take the chance do you?”
He dropped down to his forearms, and was very still, and contemplative a moment, their chests together, just enough of his weight distributed across her that she wanted to lift up into it, but wasn’t being crushed. He kissed her, very softly, and then lifted his head again. His voice took on an unfamiliar quality, a quiet strain she interpreted as hopeful. “Don’t you want kids?”
She felt the emotion well up in her throat, that warm melting that his surprising, tender moments always inspired in her. She wanted to touch him, and framed his face with her hands. “I do.” Her voice quavered. “I really do. But I don’t know that right now is the best time.”
His brows crimped in question. It was adorable.
“I just started school,” she said gently, “and we don’t even have a place to live. Hell” – wry smile – “we’re hiding out in the middle of the swamp. Who knows how long we’ll be out here. What if–”
“What if I have to deliver the baby myself right here in this bed?” He made a considering face. “I can do that.” He grinned. “I’ve done messier things than that.”
She sighed. “Mercy.”
“Ava.”
Her throat felt tight, and her eyes were starting to sting. She didn’t have any fight in her when it came to this. Just hearing him say “kids” propelled her five years back, to the life that had been lost, their first chance bleeding down the insides of her legs. She wasn’t even sure she wanted children for any of the right reasons; she was convinced that a baby would be a way to reclaim some of that old grief, carry out what was always meant to be.
She didn’t know. There was just this empty, aching, yearning inside her, and she wanted to put a piece of Mercy inside it.
“But wouldn’t it be reckless,” she whispered, “wouldn’t it be selfish, to reach for that now, when we don’t have any right to?”
He kissed her forehead. “Baby.” He breathed a soft laugh through his nose that ruffled her hair. “How is it reckless or selfish?”
She hated the words that were building behind her lips, but she had to say them. She had to let her fear out into the open, at last, so they could deal with it together. “Because of who you are, and who I am, and we were so twisted – maybe we’re not supposed to be happy. Maybe it isn’t supposed to be as easy as houses and babies and being partners.” The tears were gathering in her eyes as she stared up at him. “I’m afraid to have a baby on purpose,” she admitted, “because look what happened when it was just an accident.”
His chest pressed against her breasts as he took a huge breath, and let it out through his nose, nostrils flaring. “You don’t believe any of that.”
“No. But I’m afraid to think that we could be happy, and not pay for it somehow.”
She closed her eyes as he kissed her cheek, nuzzled into her throat, breathed against her skin, kissed her neck. He murmured in French, long strings of lilting syllables. He kissed her mouth.
“Do you know when I wanted you for the first time?” he said against her lips.
The question made her toes curl. She threaded her fingers through his hair and held his head close to hers, so he couldn’t pull away. She wanted to feel his mouth touching hers when he spoke. She pulled the tears back, felt this new, sudden excitement pulse through her. “When?”
She could feel the shape of his smile against her lips. “You’d just turned sixteen, and you drove onto the lot all by yourself the first time, and you were so proud of that, grinning great big. You came up to me, and I remember it was hot out, and you had on these little Daisy Dukes, and a white tank top, and your bra was purple. I could see it straight through your shirt. You called my name, and I turned to look, and you were just – there. I thought, Jesus Christ, look at that. She’s all grown up, and I used to be able to put her in my pocket. I loved you like you were my very own, and all of a sudden, I wanted to bend you over my work bench and see what you tasted like.”
She made a wordless sound and pressed up into him. She felt the hard plane of his stomach against her sex, wanted to rub herself against him.
“That hadn’t ever happened to me,” he went on, his voice velvety and confident as he felt her reaction. “Loving someone so much, and wanting her at the same time. Never. Has it ever happened to you? Both at once like that?”
“Only with you. You know that.”
He kissed her again and she clenched his hair tight in her fists.
But then he pulled back again, close enough for them to be nose-to-nose, far enough that their lips weren’t touching. “Okay, your turn.”
“My turn for what?”
His grin was wicked. “When did you want me for the first time?”
Oh, this was a devious, awful, wonderful game he was playing with her, and it was working. She could feel the slickness building between her legs, her nipples contracting to tight buds. She shivered, and it had nothing to do with the temperature.
“I was fifteen, maybe fourteen. I don’t know; it all runs together, because it feels like it was forever. I don’t think I was even old enough to know what sex was. I didn’t understand it, anyway.
“You’d come over for dinner, and you were in front of the TV with Dad. Mom said to take you both a beer, and I did…I dunno why, but seeing you sitting there – you had your boots on the coffee table and Mom woulda killed you for that – I went from having a crush to…”
“What?” he prompted, still with the evil grin.
“I wanted something physical. I wanted to…bite your neck for some reason.”
He laughed quietly. “Because you were a teenage vampire?”
She felt her face color. “I just wanted to do it. And I remember I wanted you to put your arm around my waist, and I wanted you to kiss me, really kiss me.” She bit her lip. “I’d just seen Titanic, and that may have had something to do with it.”
He groaned. “Please don’t tell me I reminded you of that putz.”
“Oh no, never,” she assured, pulling her fingers through his hair. “But I liked the idea of the romance.” She reached to touch his face again, thumb against his lips. “I wanted to be special to you.”
“Fillette, you were always that.”
He just wasn’t going to be satisfied, apparently, until he’d made her cry and come all at once.
His smile softened, became more private and genuine. “Now tell me again why we shouldn’t have a baby, when I know you want one so bad, and I want to give you one.”
Layla’s words came back to her, the assertion that when you wanted it, you just wanted it, and logic played no part.
And she did want it. He had married her, and he’d left the club behind so he could protect her, and they were the only two souls in this corner of the swamp, and she wanted the thunderous knowledge that they could create something together that was just theirs, that no one could take from them.
“Just don’t go get the pills,” he urged. “Let me be your husband, and we’ll just see what happens.”
She was lost. She parted her lips and reached for him; he came down and kissed her, passed his tongue into her mouth, and a deep, glad growl reverberated through his chest.
She was slippery wet, and when he entered her, her body welcomed him. There was that incredible stretching, the pressure, the way he filled her until her breathing was choppy and irregular. With one hand, he angled her hips, brought her up tighter against him, so that he was totally inside her.
She pressed her head back against the pillow as her spine flexed in helpless reaction, but he wouldn’t let her break the kiss. His tongue stroked deep inside her mouth as his hips began to move. Slow, rhythmic, forceful thrusts. Driving into her again and again. The mattress groaned. He was so heavy, and so powerful, and yet so careful with her.
Ava was anchored at two points: his mouth on her mouth, his cock so deep inside her. And everywhere else, she floated. Her Mercy, her man, her husband.
Her husband.
Husband…
Husband…
A chant in her head in time to the relentless plunging of his hips, the press of his hip bones as they left bruises on the soft insides of her thighs.
He finally broke the kiss, lifting his head so he could use the strong length of his spine to bear down on her, pinioning her to the mattress, grinding down into her.
Ava put her hands on his chest, to feel his heart and lungs and the heavy bundles of muscle working.
“What a good little girl,” he murmured breathlessly. “Taking it all like that. Bonne fillette, mon amour.”
She loved the way he looked in the dull lamplight above her. The straining tendons, the veins in his neck, the jagged ends of his hair as it fell forward off his shoulders. This was why men liked for the woman to get on top, so they could watch the way the body worked as it brought them such pleasure.
But she had to close her eyes, because she felt the orgasm starting, and all of her being was straining, straining to meet it.
Mercy cursed in French, his fingers dug into her hip, and his next hard thrust was the finish for both of them.
She thought she might faint, the heat sweeping beneath her skin, through her face, making her neck and arms and legs limp. Powerful, sweeping pulses as the orgasm kept coming and coming.
She drifted – probably seconds, but it felt like minutes.
She felt Mercy withdraw, and as he sat back on his heels, he put his arms around her and lifted her up, settling her against his chest, holding her to him, so their sweaty skin glued together.
With one hand, he smoothed her hair back off her face and down her naked back. “Ava,” he said, voice tight. “Ava. Oh God, I got you back. I got you back. I won’t ever leave you again. I swear. Baby, I swear. Not ever again.”