A Marked Man. Stella Cameron

worked his jaw, said, “Just take the car. I’ve got to go now.” He walked from the lot and turned toward Bayou Teche.

      Confused, her skin damp and clammy, Annie watched him move rapidly out of sight. She looked at the keys, then at the Boxster. Of course she couldn’t take his car and leave him here. But the man with the white bag had stopped outside the bagel shop door and she felt him staring at her.

      Max wouldn’t have gone so far. She’d go after him now and give back the keys.

      Only her feet wouldn’t move. She pulled up her hood and bowed her head, moved close to the car.

      It was Bobby Colbert who stood, looking directly at her.

      How old was he now? A couple of years older than her, thirty-one maybe? Move. Get out of here.

      Annie pivoted from the vehicle. No one would think anything of someone who took off running in this kind of weather.

      “Annie? Is that you?”

      She froze. He might as well have taken her by the throat and squeezed. Annie didn’t react.

      The sound of his footsteps, coming in her direction, horrified her. He’s not bad. He was just a boy back then. We were both kids. And the last time I met him he was trying to help me—he did help me. I would probably have died if he hadn’t showed up. But he saw what that crazy man did to me. Bobby knows all about what I have to hide…No one else could know. She couldn’t bear it if…If Max found out, she would leave Toussaint rather than put up with either his revulsion, or his pity.

      “Annie, it’s me, Bobby. I didn’t know you were back.”

      She raised her face as he reached her. Not a boy anymore. Slim as he had been, but with the mature development of the man he had become. Sandy hair, curly and well cut. Earnest brown eyes. Even, white teeth. The all-American kid had grown up and his open face only intensified her shock and fear at seeing him.

      “I’m not back,” she said and shuddered at the thin, wobbly sound of her voice.

      Bobby smiled. “I think about you a lot, cher. How you doin’? How did it all…?” He glanced downward over her body.

      Annie unlocked the Boxster, dropped inside and locked the door. Not until she saw him jump away did she register that when she shot backward, she almost hit Bobby Colbert.

      He could destroy everything she had worked for.

      Chapter Six

      Max’s shoes slipped on wet leaves and mud.

      Sounds traveled from the bayou but there were no visuals of the water. He heard voices calling out there, from one boat to another. They headed for a dock and shouted back and forth to avoid a collision. Even the fog had a presence, as if it repeatedly whispered for the world to “shush.”

      He knew exactly where he was and kept moving quickly, corrected once for almost losing his balance and hurried on. A large piece of land lay ahead about a mile, and back through pretty dense trees. He had wanted to build the clinic there but the others preferred to work on an existing building. Today, he was convinced he should have insisted on that piece of land over Green Veil. A simplistic reaction and the result of pressure, but so what? If he could, he would change everything he had done since arriving in the area. Everything except meeting Annie and he’d managed to scare her away, too.

      Under the leaves lay a concrete track, pitted, cracked and long past needing repair. If he had bought and built there, a good road would have been put through. He had thought about gardens and terraces where patients could wander and sit outside while they recuperated.

      At a spot where he knew he could get through the trees easily, he climbed up a shallow bank from the track, stepped over a sagging wire fence and slapped a jungle of vines and bushes away as he passed.

      He knew the sound of his own engine when he heard it. Annie had followed him. It was no good, he had to stay away from her until he found out if the unthinkable had happened, if Michele had been hurt, or…Max couldn’t bring himself to form the other word.

      Ducking under a low branch, he pressed on and hoped Annie hadn’t seen where he went.

      The noise of the car got closer.

      A clearing opened in front of him and he stepped onto uneven ground where shadow from the surrounding trees had killed any grass and left moss and hardy weeds in its place.

      The car passed. Max sighed. His gut told him the next news of Michele might not be what he wanted to hear. And a blow like that was what it took to knock sense back into him? Annie was off-limits; off-limits because he wanted her too much and the wrong people could find out how he felt.

      Being important to Max Savage increased a woman’s chances of premature death.

      

      If Max wanted her company, he would not have taken off the way he had.

      Annie braked gently and looked in her rearview mirror. He had left the road about a mile back.

      She chewed a fingernail and immediately jerked it away from her mouth, muttering at herself.

      Slowly, she eased the car into reverse, took her foot partway off the brake and coasted backward, stopping before she reached the exact place where she thought Max had gone.

      Without giving herself time to back out, she left the car and went up the bank. He had stepped easily over the fence; the operation took her longer because she had to use a foot to draw the loose top wire to the ground so that she could move on.

      Trees closed around her—old timber, a mixture of conifers and heavy deciduous trees—their branches seeming to push at one another for more space.

      Debris crackled under her feet and she made no attempt to be quiet. She didn’t want to surprise Max.

      Annie leaned a hand against the furrowed bark of a dripping live oak. She had nothing to offer Max but friendship. By now he had to want more than that—and a few memorable kisses quickly cooled by Annie. The scent of rotting leaves rose around her, tannic and disturbing. In dreamy moments alone, she visualized, even felt, unbearably good sex with Max. She wanted to share his bed, to tear away her hang-ups and give herself to him—and take him in return. Annie’s skin heated yet she shivered. The chance was too great that real intimacy with him would be a disaster.

      But she couldn’t leave him here. More quickly than she expected, spaces between the trees grew lighter. She saw Max move in a clearing, but hung back.

      Standing close to a tree, she watched him. He trailed one end of a long stick along the ground, stopping from time to time to make marks before carrying on with one line after another. And at intervals he glanced up as if taking measure of the area and his chart, or whatever he was making.

      Darkness fell rapidly. It wasn’t time. Annie gasped, or rather opened her mouth and heard a gasp. She did not feel the muggy air enter her mouth. “Max,” she called.

      He didn’t hear her.

       Light went out completely, scarred by an immediate flash of flame. It crackled, and hissed, and went away, but not before she felt its heat.

      She knew what was happening. Once again the nightmare closed in on her while she was awake. Only she wouldn’t let it.

      A rushing cloud of leaves billowed past her, grazed her hair and neck. Annie batted at her head, shook her hair. A sound squeezed from her throat, a sob.

       Dragging.

       From nearby she heard something being dragged, and the brittle sound of a hard object hitting rocks as it bounced along.

       She closed her eyes but saw clearly just the same. A man dragged a woman’s stiff body into the clearing and dropped it. He took up a shovel and cleared away leaves at least a foot deep that hadn’t been there before. He poked at the leaves, making a hole through them to dig beneath.