Dahlia sighed. “He sounds like a very intriguing man. I had Milly and Bernadette. Bernadette was the medicine woman in the bayou. Quite a few of the locals would come to ask her to help them. She delivered babies and treated all sorts of things, mostly with plants and herbs. She was a trained nurse, but she told me her early and best education was here in the bayou with another woman who knew medicine. She taught me quite a bit. I liked being in the bayou, out in the open, away from everyone.”

She had to turn away from him, away from grief and anger. She had to be in control at all times, as long as she was in his company. He helped ease the bombardment of energy, but more than once, Dahlia had lost control and others had suffered the consequences. “I’m very tired. Do you think we should take turns being on guard?”

“I doubt it’s necessary. There are enough natural alarms around us. We’d both probably wake up immediately. I sleep light.”

She didn’t doubt that he slept light. There was something very self-contained about Nicolas Trevane. He exuded confidence and authority. “I’m going outside for a few minutes. If something does happen tonight or tomorrow, there’s a boat tied up just around the bend. It’s old and it leaks, but it has gas in the motor and will get you out of here.” It was one of the many avenues of escape she kept out of necessity.

“We’re sticking together, Dahlia. I hope you don’t think you’re going to hightail it out of here and go after Jesse on your own.”

She shrugged. “We’re adults, Nicolas. I have to do what’s right for me, and I guess you have to do the same. I’m not leaving Jesse behind, and I’m not about to ask you to risk your life going after these people to get him back.”

“My job is to keep you alive and escort you back to Lily. I guess we’re going in the same direction.”

“There’s a small condo in the French Quarter Jesse showed me once. We can go there. There are clothes and money and ID stashed for me.” She opened the door, let the sound of the rain into the small cabin, pausing in the open doorway to stare out into the bayou. “Do you think they know who you are?”

“I doubt they’ll ever find out,” Nicolas said.

Dahlia took a deep breath as she stepped outside, closing the door behind her. The rain had lessened in strength, falling in a light drizzle. The moment she was alone, she sagged against the wall of the cabin and pressed her hand to her mouth, afraid she might choke. She’d never been so off balance in her life. The man had risked his life to save hers. He’d hauled her through the swamp and provided clothes and food for her. She couldn’t very well run off like a rabbit because she didn’t know how to be in the company of people.

Maybe it was his company she was afraid of. She’d never had such a reaction to anyone before. She wanted to put it down to extreme circumstances, but Dahlia knew herself far better than that. She’d lived most of her life under difficult conditions, and she’d never had such an awareness of a man before.

Determined to get through the rest of the night without making a fool of herself, Dahlia went back inside quickly. Nicolas was the type of man who would come looking, and she didn’t want that. There was dignity in returning on her own, unafraid, or at least giving the illusion of being unafraid.

Dahlia went directly to the mattress. She wasn’t going to be a baby about sharing the only place he could stretch out in either. That, too, was beneath her dignity.

“You want the wall or the outside?” He didn’t look at her, giving her space.

Her first inclination was to take the outside, but he was far better with weapons, and she was smaller. She could easily crawl off the mattress without disturbing him, whereas he didn’t have a hope of doing the same. “I’ll take the wall.” She hoped she didn’t suddenly develop claustrophobia.

Nicolas waited until she was lying on the thin mattress. He knew what it took for her to allow him to have the outside. It was more practical, but she had spent her life away from people, living a solitary existence, talking only to a couple of older women and Jesse Calhoun. Nicolas wanted a long talk with Calhoun. The man had to have been working for the same people who had used Dahlia as an operative. Just what had they been using her for?

Nicolas felt Dahlia shrink away from his body when he settled his weight beside her, stretching out fully. “Are you going to be able to do this, Dahlia?”

She closed her eyes, wishing he hadn’t asked her. Wishing his tone wasn’t so gentle, almost tender. Wishing the warmth of his body didn’t envelope her and drive away the shivering she hadn’t been able to stop since she’d found Milly and Bernadette dead. Murdered, execution style. “What did you bring in the pillowcase?”

“The pillowcase?”

“From my room. I saw you had a pillowcase from off of my bed.”

“I picked up as many things that looked like they might be of sentimental value to you and shoved them in it. A few books, a sweater, a stuffed animal. I didn’t have much time.”

Dahlia turned her head to look at him. “That was very considerate. I doubt if too many people would have thought of it under the circumstances.”

Her drowsy voice conjured up images of satin sheets. He’d never laid on a satin sheet in his life, but he suddenly had visions of her looking up at him, naked, her dark hair spread out on the pillow, candlelight playing lovingly over her body. He didn’t trust himself to answer. And he didn’t trust his body to behave, even as uncomfortable and as tired as he was.

He turned away from her, on his side, giving her as much room as he could and took command of his breathing, slowing it down so he could fall asleep. Once he touched the rifle that lay beside him and the Beretta that was next to his hand. He could feel the outline of his knife, sheathed, but unhooked in case of quick need. He was ready should her enemies find them.

CHAPTER FIVE

In his youth, Nicolas spent weeks alone, fasting in the mountains, waiting for the vision to come to him, to tell him of his special gifts. His Lakota grandfather said he needed patience, and Nicolas had done everything required of him, yet he could not interpret his dream. The prophecy came to him when he swayed with weariness, when he was sick or wounded, but it had never come to him while he actually slept before. The vision made no sense. There was nothing tangible to hold on to. It left him frustrated and feeling inadequate, unable to live up to the potential his grandfather had “seen.”

In his dream, there was the steady beat of the drum. He smelled the smoke of the sacred fires. The healing lodge opened for him, waited for him. He knew the words of the healing chants, and he recited them over a man with the great wound in his chest. He passed his palms over the wound, felt the cold breath of death against his own skin.

Small hands covered his. Warmed his hands with the breath of life. The small fingers held an object he couldn’t see, but knew was important. His voice rose in the prayer of life. He sang softly to the spirits, asking them to aid him in healing the terrible wound. He felt the object pressed into his palm, felt it grow warm as if gathering heat from an outside source to pass to him. He saw the red-orange flames dance through his fingers. The object was gone before he could identify it. Once again he placed his palms directly over the gaping wound. The smaller hands slid over his. A thousand butterflies took flight, wings brushing against his stomach at the touch of skin against skin. His singing rose with the smoke and drifted upward toward the sky. Beneath their joined hands, all around the wound, flames danced a ballet, and the wound slowly closed until the chest was unmarred.

He tried to see who aided him in the healing, but he could never see beyond the smoke. He could never see whom he healed. He felt the caress of those small hands sliding over his bare skin and looked down to see a wealth of shiny black hair sliding over his belly, gleaming like strands of silk, teasing and taunting him until his body hardened with urgent demands.

Nicolas frowned and reached for her, determined to know who she was this time. His fingers tunneled into the mass of hair. He came awake instantly, aware his fists were bunched in Dahlia’s hair and his body was as hard as a rock. Her head lay on his stomach and she moved restlessly, fighting nightmares. He suppressed an aching groan of sheer frustration. If he woke her, she would be embarrassed. If he didn’t, her nightmare and his discomfort would more than likely escalate. He lay motionless, his hands in her hair when her breathing changed abruptly. He knew instantly she had awakened.

Dahlia woke in the dark with fear choking her. It was a familiar nightmare, one that never quite faded away. Shadowy figures watching her. Always watching her. She needed open spaces where she could breathe, and at the sanitarium she often crawled out onto the roof. She lay perfectly still, listening to the steady sound of Nicolas’s breathing, yet she knew he was awake. He lay in the darkness, probably awakened by the movement of her body, the way she tensed, the way her breathing had quickened. She was certain he was that attuned to her. And she was that aware of him.

It was only then that she realized she was wrapped around him, her thigh carelessly between his, her head on his abdomen. She moved away from him and felt her hair slip from between his fingers. She lay in silence, unable to think properly, wanting to apologize but not knowing how. In the end she took the coward’s way out. Uncomfortable, Dahlia slipped off the moss-filled mattress, careful not to touch him, not to make physical contact. It was only an hour or so until dawn. She knew the night sounds of the bayou. She was awake more often than asleep after midnight so she knew each hour that insects, birds or frogs serenaded one another.

Nicolas didn’t move, but she knew his eyes were open, watching her as she padded on bare feet across the floor and opened the door. She could feel the intensity of his gaze as it burned over her. She was immediately aware of the thinness of the shirt she was wearing. The tails covered her body, even went to her knees, but she wore nothing beneath it. Her body felt hot and achy, completely foreign. The cool night air rushed over her. She hoped her face wasn’t glowing as hot as it felt.

Dahlia climbed onto the roof with the ease of long practice. Few physical activities were difficult for her. She sat carefully, tucking the shirt beneath her and looking up at the clouds floating above her. So many times she’d spent the nights looking up at the stars and wishing she could grab on to the clouds as they passed overhead. The rain had ceased sometime in the night. She loved the sound of rain, the continuous rhythm a lullaby that sometimes aided her in sleeping. The roof was damp, the bayou clear and crisp and fresh after the cleansing rain.

She refused to dwell on the fact that she had awoken with her body tangled with his. It happened. There was nothing she could do about it anymore than she could change what Whitney had done to her. “Lily.” She whispered the name softly. Her secret, pretend friend. Lily had kept her sane on more than one occasion, yet Dahlia had been told there was no Lily. There never had been a Lily. Lily was a figment of her imagination. Milly had been her nurse for as long as she could remember. Milly had to have known Lily if she were real. It was a small thing, but it was a betrayal. Dahlia thought of Milly as family, as a mother. If she couldn’t trust the things Milly told her, whom could she trust? What could she trust?

“I should have searched for you, Lily. And Flame and all the others. I shouldn’t have stayed here, a prisoner really, and believed them all. I really thought maybe I was crazy.” She stared out over the water and her vision blurred. “I should have been there to stop them from killing Milly and Bernadette. They never hurt anyone or anything in their lives. It just doesn’t make sense.”

She didn’t hear the opening or closing of the door. She didn’t even hear a noise as Nicolas gained the roof, but she was aware of his presence the moment he came up behind her. She rested her head on her knees, not turning as he stepped carefully to the spot beside her, avoiding the cracks in the roof.