He clamped a hand over her wrists, jerked them up again. 'You're embarrassing yourself.' He twisted so he could lever out of the chair and onto his feet to face her. 'That's your business. But you're using me to take a shot at Lena, and that's mine.”
Angry color spotted her cheeks. 'Maybe you think you're too good for me.”
'There's no maybe about it. Get out and we'll forget this happened.”
She wanted to scream at him, to strike out. But she still had her wits about her. She hadn't had enough beer to dull them, and the hit of coke she'd had before walking over had been miserly. Playing it out, she sank into a chair, dropped her head on her folded arms and sobbed.
'I don't know what to do. I'm just so alone. I'm just so scared. I need help. I thought-I thought if I let you have me, you'd help me. I just don't know what to do!”
She lifted her head, and the two tears she'd managed to squeeze out tracked through her makeup. 'I'm in such awful trouble.”
He went to the sink, ran the water cold, then got a glass. 'What kind of trouble?”
'I owe some money. That's why I left Houston, and I'm afraid they'll find me. Hurt me. Maybe Lena, too. I don't want them to hurt my baby.”
He set the water in front of her. 'How much money?”
He saw it, the quick glint of satisfaction in her eyes before she lowered them. 'Five thousand dollars. It wasn't my fault. Really, it wasn't my fault. I trusted the wrong people. A man,' she said wearily. 'And he ran off with the money and left me owing. If I don't find a way to pay it back, they're going to track me down and do something to me. Something to Mama and Lena.”
He sat back down, looked at her intently. 'You're a liar. You want to try to soak me for a quick five K so you can score some drugs and get out of town. You figure me for an easy mark, but you figure wrong. If it wasn't for Lena, I'd give you a couple hundred to send you along. But you see, Lilibeth, there is Lena. She wouldn't like it.”
She hurled the water in his face. He barely blinked. 'Fuck you.”
'I thought we already established that wasn't an option.”
'Think you're so smart, don't you? So important because you come from money.' She pushed to her feet. 'Big, fancy, highfalutin family. I found out all about you, Declan Fitzgerald. Let me ask you just what that big, fancy, highfalutin family's going to think when they hear you're heating the sheets with a Cajun swamp whore?”
The phrase had something clutching in his gut, in the back of his throat, in his head. Her face changed in front of his eyes, became fuller, older. Colder.
Josephine.
'Get out.' He wasn't sure, not entirely, if he spoke to the flesh-and-blood woman or to the ghost. His hands shook as he gripped the edge of the table.
'All those fine doctors and lawyers and Indian chiefs up there in Boston, how are they gonna like the idea of their golden boy hooking up with some bastard child from the bayou? No money, no pedigree. Runs a second-rate bar and has a grandmama who sews for other people to earn extra pennies. Gonna cut you right out of the will, sugar. Leave you high and dry with this big white elephant of a house on your hands. Especially when I tell them you slept with her mama, too.”
His legs were weak as water, but he stood on them. 'Get out of my house before I hurt you.”
'Your type doesn't lay hands on a woman. Don't think I don't know the difference.' Riding on coke and confidence, she tossed back her hair. 'You wanna keep plugging your wick into my girl, and you wanna keep your family out of it, you'll write me a check, cher. You'll write it quick, fast and in a hurry. And we're going to make it ten thousand now, because you hurt my feelings.”
'Your feeling's aren't worth a buck and a half to me, Lilibeth.”
'They will be, after I have a little chat with your mama.”
'My mother will chew you up and spit you out.' He walked to the counter, yanked open a drawer and took out a pad. Scrawled a number on it. 'Here, that's her number. Call her. You can use my phone, as long as I can listen in. It'll be a real pleasure to hear her slice you to bloodless pieces.”
'I need money!”
'You won't get it here.' Out of patience, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to the door. 'I can make a lot more trouble for you than you can for me. Believe it,' he said, and shut the door in her face.
He had to sit down until he had his legs under him again. He felt ill, physically ill. Something had happened when she'd raged at him over Lena. The face that had become her face was one he'd seen in his dreams.
The face belonged to the house, or to the part of it that slammed doors, that wished him away.
That wished him harm.
No doubt now, he told himself, that Lena's mother now wished him harm as well.
He rose, went to the phone. One positive result of the ugly incident was it had made him appreciate his own mother.
He dialed, and felt cleaner at the familiar sound of her voice.
'Hi, Ma.”
'Declan? What are you doing calling in the middle of the day? What's wrong? You had an accident.”
'No, I-was 'All those horrible tools. You've cut off a hand.”
'I still have two, and all other assigned parts. I just called to tell you I love you.”
There was a long, pregnant pause. 'You've just learned you have a terminal disease and have six months to live.”
Now he laughed. 'Got me. I'm a dead man and want to make contact with my family so I get a really cool wake.”
'Do you want Uncle Jimmy to sing `Danny Boy`?”
'I really don't. I'd as soon rest in peace.”
'So noted. What is it, really, Declan?”
'I want to tell you about the woman I'm in love with and want to marry.”
This pause was even longer. 'Is this a joke?”
'No. Got a couple minutes?”
'I think I can rearrange my schedule for this.”
'Okay.' He walked over, picked up his iced tea. The ice had melted, but he glugged it down anyway. 'Her name's Angelina Simone, and she's beautiful, fascinating, frustrating, hardheaded and perfect. She's just perfect, Ma.”
'When do I meet her?”
'Remy's wedding. There's this one minor glitch –other than the one where she isn't ready to say yes.”
'I'm sure you can overcome that minor detail. What's the glitch?”
He sat down again and told her about Lilibeth.
By the time he got off the phone, he felt lighter. Going with impulse, he went upstairs to clean up and change. He was going to confront Lena a bit ahead of schedule.
Declan detoured by Remy's office on the way to Et Trois. The wedding was approaching quickly, and his duties as best man included coordinating the bachelor party. Though he figured the big picture was clear enough- enough booze to float a battleship, and a strip club –there were some finer details to work out.
When reception buzzed through to Remy's office, he heard his friend's almost frantic 'Send him right in.”
The minute he opened the office door, he saw why.
Effie, tears streaking down her cheeks, sat in one of the visitor chairs with Remy crouched at her feet. Though Remy kept mopping at the tears, kept trying to comfort, he shot Declan a look of sheer male panic.
In a testament to friendship, Declan resisted the urge to back out and run. Instead he closed the door, crossed over and rubbed Effie's shoulder.
'Sweetheart, I told you I'd tell him you were dumping him for me.”
Effie merely looked up, then covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
'Okay, bad joke.' Declan scrubbed now-sweaty palms over his jeans. 'What's wrong?”
'Problem with the wedding venue,' Remy began, and Effie let out a wail.
'There is no wedding venue.' She snatched Remy's handkerchief, buried her face in it. 'They had … they had a kitchen fire, and the fire department came, and they … they … Oh what're we going to do!”
