CATCH ME IF YOU CAN Page 17

  "Have you seen him?" Kit asked, noting the worried frown creasing the man's brow.

  He cleared his throat again and looked at Beau, who gave him a slight nod. The exchange angered her, but brought home as nothing else could how difficult it would be to find Remi out here without Beau's help and cooperation.

  "I, uh, bumped into him fishin' out on the bayou real early this mornin'."

  "You did? You actually saw him?" Kit almost jumped for joy. Finally, something concrete! An actual sighting. This changed everything.

  Girard nodded. "Said he had some business to take care of. Asked me not to tell anyone he was here. But if I'd known he was in trouble…"

  Beau shook his head and clapped his friend on the shoulder. "He's not in any trouble. We just want to talk to him."

  "Any particular reason?" Girard asked, still wary.

  "Kit and I were on his boat out in San Diego. She was shot. We hoped he'd have some idea who might have done it."

  Val's eyes widened. "You were shot?"

  "Just a flesh wound." Kit gestured to the small adhesive bandage on her arm to prove her point. "It was nothing. Really," she said, downplaying the seriousness of the matter so as not to scare their hosts.

  Val looked from Beau to her and back again, the corner of her lips turning up. "On a boat? In San Diego? Together?"

  Kit hastened to explain. "I'm an insurance investigator and Beau is helping me on a case. Our relationship isn't…" She faltered, unable to finish the lie.

  "Personal?" Beau suggested, regarding her stonily. "That's right," he said, regarding her with a hollow smile. "Our relationship is strictly business."

  The day had taken another plunge into disaster. Fighting the urge to scream, she turned back to Girard. "Do you have any idea where Remi might be staying?"

  "No, he didn't say. Could be at any one of a dozen abandoned shacks out there on the bayou."

  She steeled herself and looked Beau in the eye. "You must know where these shacks are. Could we search them?"

  "Sure. But after lunch," Beau said. "I smell fresh bread and see the crawdad kettle steamin' over the fire. Don't know about you, but I'm starving."

  * * *

  Lunch turned out to be a feast. With Val and Girard's help, the awkwardness between her and Beau was smoothed over, and Kit found herself enjoying the meal tremendously. Girard plied her with home-brewed beer, Beau taught her how to crack and eat crawdads in the correct way, and Val kept bringing out more and more dishes of Cajun specialties. She ate until she nearly burst.

  Kit groaned when Val tried to load her plate with another sliver of pecan pie. They had all moved to a blanket on the grass for dessert and chicory. She flopped down onto her back and held her bulging stomach. "Not another bite, please, have mercy!"

  Val moved the plates from the blanket and lay back, too, laughing. "All right. But you take the rest home with you, hear?"

  Girard scooted close and put his arm around his wife, spooning up against her. Kit bit her lip and closed her eyes, refusing to look at Beau, who reclined half on, half off the blanket at her feet, sucking on a grass straw. It was too easy to imagine him taking her in his arms, snuggling up for a lazy snooze after a wonderful meal. How she longed for him to do it.

  But longing wouldn't help her aching heart or her unsolved case. "I think I'll fall asleep if I don't move. Could we search those shacks now?"

  Beau nodded, tossing the straw aside. "Sure." He held up a hand when Girard made to rise, too. "Stay put, I can find them."

  Girard grinned and winked, and Beau laughed along with him, but Kit could see in Beau's eyes that being alone with her was the last thing he wanted at the moment.

  "You take the pirogue," his friend said, pointing to a flat, wooden boat tied to a rickety dock on the water.

  "No, I think we'd better go for speed," Beau answered, and headed for the compact aluminum outboard next to the pirogue.

  He slid onto the back seat, and Kit settled on the bench facing him, their knees practically touching. He'd fetched his shotgun and a backpack from the truck. Stowing the supplies under the seat, he set the gun between his legs and canted them to one side. No doubt so they couldn't bump hers accidentally.

  He pulled the motor to life and steered out onto the bayou. Kit shivered involuntarily as they glided along the still, murky water. It smelled lush and fecund. Spanish moss dripped from dense stands of low-branched trees, trailing over their heads as they putted upstream. Bare stumps and broken skeletons of trees dotted the water. The woods teemed with the sounds of birds and insects, and she could just imagine other creatures peering out at them through the thick underbrush.

  "Are there really alligators this far north?" she ventured nervously, breaking the silence.

  One corner of Beau's mouth went up. "Don't worry. I'm here to protect you. Remember?"

  Deliberately ignoring the irony in his voice, she glanced around. "I'm sure I heard one below the gallery last night."

  "More likely a possum. We can check the tracks when we get home if it'll make you rest any easier."

  She knew she was being silly. Alligators were probably as natural to Louisiana country folks as tornadoes were to Iowans or earthquakes to Californians. All she knew was there weren't a lot of alligators wandering around her neighborhood in New Orleans, and for that she was immensely grateful.

  Of course, who knew what else lurked in wait for her in the back alleys of New Orleans these days. Things had been safe and uneventful since leaving San Diego, but that could easily change when she didn't have Beau to protect her.

  Which reminded her of their unfinished discussion. Come to think of it, Beau had been pretty quiet since her announcement she was leaving.

  "Are you mad at me?" she ventured.

  "Mad?" He tossed her a can of bug repellent, then shook his head. "No. Not mad. Frustrated. Disappointed. But I guess I should have expected as much after what I said this morning."

  His jaw was stiff and he avoided her eyes, searching the scenery floating by for a sign of the first shack.

  She sighed heavily. "What you said was nothing more than the truth, and I'm glad we both agree a relationship isn't possible … as much as I—"

  Breaking off, she stared down at the can in her hands. She felt miserable. She wanted to slide into his arms and make the pain in his eyes go away. Confess it was because this whole damned thing was getting way too personal that she had to get out of there so soon. While she could still walk away with at least part of her heart intact.

  He didn't want to marry her, and she didn't want to marry him. So why were they both hurting so badly?

  "Anyway, my wanting to leave has nothing to do with what you said, and everything to do with my job. I want to keep it, and to do that I need to find Remi." She didn't bother to add, and have him arrested.

  But as usual he read her thoughts. "Well, it looks like we're hot on his trail now. But what if he's innocent? What will you do if Remi doesn't have your necklace? Or any other evidence that he's the one who's been doing these jewel robberies?"

  "I don't know," she admitted, spraying her arms with foul-smelling bug repellent. "Apply for a job at a fast-food restaurant, I suppose." She gave a humorless laugh.

  He looked over at her. "There are other places you could work. Doing other things. In other towns."

  Rubbing the spray onto her neck and around her ears, she picked her words carefully. She knew what would come next, and that was precisely why she couldn't stay. Already he was starting with the demands. Nicely, subtly. But starting.

  In the beginning, Michael had been nice and subtle, too.

  "I like where I live," she said. "The job I have. My life is exactly what I want it to be. I make my own schedule, I get to travel. I'm beholden to no one and no one tells me what to do."

  So why was it, all of a sudden, all that didn't sound nearly as appealing as it had just two weeks ago?

  "I get the picture."

  She ripped off a piece of Spanis
h moss trailing past and tossed it into the water. A school of tiny fish attacked the moss, blowing small bubbles, then flashed away when they realized it wasn't edible. She smiled, taken with the incredible beauty surrounding her.

  Shaking off that unwanted thought, she sat up when he pointed to a shack sitting on stilts close to the water's edge.

  "There's the first one. Stay in the boat while I go check. Some of the folks out here don't take too kindly to visitors."

  She watched as he climbed up on the jetty and called out, then knocked on the door. When nobody answered, he opened it and went in, poking his head out a few moments later.

  "No one's lived here for a while. Want to take a look?"

  She nodded and joined him. There was just one room with sparse furniture—a bed, a small table and a couple of homemade chairs. A trunk served for storage. In one corner sat an ancient woodstove, which seemed to be the only cooking equipment around, and a pint-size sink with a hand pump positioned above it. She didn't even want to think about where it got its water from.

  "The Ritz it ain't."

  She gingerly pulled open a drawer in the metal sink. "Jail'd be better than this." The drawer contained some greasy silverware, a bottle opener and an old Melmac plate. No jewelry.

  "I think we can safely move on," Beau said.

  The second shack turned out to be just as dismal, and just as devoid of evidence. Kit climbed back into the boat. "Somebody's got to be helping him."

  Replacing the shotgun between his knees, Beau squinted against the sun's reflection on the water. "Maybe. But what bothers me is that he's avoiding me. By now he must have heard about the shooting, and that I'm looking for him."

  "Wasn't he avoiding you last time, too?"

  Steering out onto the bayou, he didn't comment.

  "Could it have anything to do with that family business you discussed with him at the Pelican?"

  His expression showed how reluctant he was to talk about it, but after a minute, he said, "Yes, I suppose it could."

  Reaching into the backpack for his mirrored shades, he slid them on. Her pulse shot up a notch. Why was it when he looked extra dangerous, her body responded by lowering her defenses to practically nil?

  "I'm going to regret telling you this, but…" He gave her an ironic smile. "What the hell, why change tactics now?"

  She chuckled, dipping her wrist into the cool water. "We haven't been easy on each other, have we?"

  "That's what makes life interesting, darlin'."

  She dragged her wet hand over her forehead. "So, what are you going to regret telling me?"

  "The reason I was looking for Remi in Vegas."

  "You said it was to try and talk some sense into him about his jewel thieving."

  "Yeah. Because I suspected he'd stolen Grandmère's family jewels."

  Her jaw dropped. "You're kidding me. Are they valuable?"

  "They're worth a good chunk of change. But they're heirlooms. She'd be devastated if she found out they're gone. And you know she's not well. I'm afraid…" He sighed. "Anyway, I kept the jewels' disappearance to myself, hoping I could talk him into bringing them back."

  "I suppose he denied taking them?"

  "No. He didn't." Beau shook his head. "But I'm not so sure he stole them anymore. He never could lie worth a damn."

  "He confessed to you, and you think he was lying?" She rolled her eyes. "Beau, I think you're taking this family loyalty thing a bit too far."

  He shrugged. "Can't help it. And he didn't really confess. He just didn't deny it. Still, something bothers me about the whole setup. I can't put my finger on it, but it's just not right."

  Hours later, they'd found their way to seven more shacks, similarly deserted. The most incriminating evidence they found was an empty water bottle and the remains of a sack lunch left on a jetty.

  Beau slapped at a mosquito that had braved the second layer of repellent they'd put on. "Damn. It's getting thick out here. There are only a few more left that I know about. Let's do them in the morning." He looked up, his eyes questioning.

  The thought of staying another day filled her with a strange, light-headed confusion. Almost as if she wanted the excuse to stay. Because she didn't want to leave Beau.

  Because, despite what she said, and against all logic, common sense and self-preservation, she still wanted him like crazy. Wanted his smile, his friendship and caring, and wanted his touch. His heat.

  Hoping he couldn't see the desperation in her eyes, she turned away and said, "Okay. One more day. I'll reschedule my move to town."

  * * *

  When they got back to Terrebeau, Beau walked her upstairs. At her door, he stopped.

  "I need to call Doug. Will you be all right on your own?"

  She nodded, afraid if she spoke she'd say something really dumb. Like, no, she wouldn't be all right on her own, not ever again. He'd spoiled that for her by making her want things that could never be. Things like hot bourbon kisses and laughter, long mornings in bed, and being read to in a sleepy Southern drawl.

  "I'll be in my office if you need anything."

  "Thanks," she managed to say. "I'll be fine."

  She went into her room and closed the door behind her. Striding directly to the French doors, she flung them open and stood for a moment, fighting not to allow herself to break down, gathering strength in the warm, honeysuckle-scented breeze.

  Oh, God. What am I going to do?

  "Get a grip," she admonished herself, stalking out onto the gallery.

  What she needed was some action to distract her. Now that Remi had been spotted for certain, she should be concentrating all her energy into tracking him down. Not pining over impossible romantic fantasies.

  She had to get out. Talk to some of Remi's old friends, check his old watering holes. She just hoped Ricky had come up with something useful during his deep background check. She didn't relish the idea of asking Beau to point her in the right direction. He wouldn't like it. He was going to some high-society party tonight and expected her to go with him. Of course, she wouldn't. She had more pressing things to do.

  A pang of guilt and regret threaded its way through her until she squelched it, angry at herself for feeling guilty.

  And that was why she couldn't stay. Already Beau had her meeting his friends, attending his social functions, practically living with him.

  Next it would be Quit your job. Then Be what I want you to be, and who I want you to be.

  But she couldn't ever be who and what he wanted her to be. She wasn't cut out for the life of a plantation mistress. She had her own needs, and she wasn't about to let him sabotage her the way Michael had.

  No thanks. Not this girl. Been there, done that. Having found renewed determination, she marched back inside. Glancing at the bed, she stopped in her tracks. On it lay three giant gold-foil boxes, wrapped with miles of silver ribbons and bows.

  Oh, no. She'd completely forgotten.

  Inside the boxes, she found the lace dress and the blue one, plus a pretty pink suit with a long jacket. She clenched her jaw when she realized the gray suit she'd chosen was not among them. Now he was dressing her, too…

  She had to put her foot down. Firmly.

  After hanging the garments in the walk-in closet, she went and knocked on his office door. "Beau?"

  When he saw it was her, he stood up. "Doug has another lead on Remi. Someone out at LeRoy's saw him. He was asking about the Wiltons' party tonight."

  "That's great!" she said, temporarily forgetting about the dresses. "You don't think he'll show up, do you?"

  "He's just crazy enough, he might. If I knew what he was up to, I'd be better able to judge."

  "He's going to steal the Wiltons' jewelry, that's what he's up to."

  Beau gave a wry chuckle. "You don't ever give up, do you?"

  "No. I don't." She leaned against his gun cabinet. "But then, neither do you. I told you at Jolene's not to get all those dresses. I can't accept them."

  "You'll
need at least one of them for tonight. Unless you want to wear that dress you had on in Vegas…"

  Uh-uh. She didn't want to get roped into that one. She pushed off the cabinet and briskly said, "Beau, I'm not—"

  "Don't even try to get out of this party, Kit. You know perfectly well I can't leave you here alone. It's far too dangerous. We still haven't found out—"

  "No one's going to shoot me. There hasn't even been an attempt—"

  He put his hands on her shoulders, glancing down at the bandage which still covered her injury. "Darlin', I need you to do this for me. It'll be a perfect opportunity to find out if anyone else has seen Remi. But I won't be able to concentrate if I'm worried about you sitting at home by yourself. Besides, what if he actually shows up at the Wiltons'?"

  She wanted to fight him. She really did. It was completely infuriating how he could twist things around so that giving in to his wishes sounded as though she were doing herself a favor. This was exactly how things had started getting out of hand with Michael. The last thing she wanted to do was to go to one more snobby party where she'd be the outsider trying to fit in.

  But in the end, Beau's argument about Remi convinced her. There was a point where stubbornness just didn't pay off. And time was of the essence if she was to realize the ultimate payoff—taking down Remi.

  "Oh, all right," she said crossly, parking her fists on her hips. "But I'm not letting your mother set me up with any old Hunter Chenier."

  * * *

  "I'm so glad Gunny and Dori introduced us," Hunter Chenier commented, steering Kit through the crush of partygoers in the second-floor ballroom. "Usually these events are so tedious. Legions of dusty society matrons with perfectly manicured daughters."

  He glanced quickly down at her, his eyes straying to her legs, which showed through the lace dress she had chosen to wear in a fit of temporary insanity. "Not that you aren't done to perfection yourself, my dear."

  She made herself thank him sweetly, silently cursing Beau. If it weren't for Simon Beaulieux and his meddling mama, she wouldn't have landed in this ridiculous situation. But after Beau had introduced her for the third time as "an acquaintance from New Orleans," she'd gotten the hint and stopped tagging along on his rounds of Louisiana's movers and shakers.