As the audience on the gallery cheered, Baldwin flushed red. His mouth tightened, and the whiskey-brown eyes, which had moments ago glowed with the bright lights of glory, hardened like amber. He took a step back from her, admitting defeat as far as Laurel was concerned. She gave him one last hard look and started to turn for the steps, but the reporter outflanked her, and she flinched away from the light of the handheld strobe an assistant shot up behind the cameraman.
"Miss, Doug Matthews, KFET-TV, can we please get your name?"
Memories of other times and other cameras flashed through Laurel 's mind. Reporters pressing in on her, yapping and jumping at her like a pack of hounds. Questions, accusations, snide remarks, hurled at her from all sides like darts.
"No," she murmured, fighting the tightness that suddenly squeezed her chest. "No, please just leave me alone."
Savannah stepped down off the gallery and pushed the cameraman's lens down. "Leave my sister alone, sweetheart," she said, her gaze leveled on the reporter, "else I'll take that cute little microphone and shove it up your tight little ass."
Hoots and shouts issued from Frenchie's patrons. Gasps rippled through the crowd of believers as the Chandler sisters went up the steps and into the bar.
Jimmy Lee stepped away from them, dragging Doug Matthews with him. "You'll take that shit out, or I'll beat her to that goddamn microphone," he growled, looming over Matthews, who was jockey-short and coward-yellow.
Doug Matthews sent him a contentious look, making a token show of journalistic integrity as he smoothed a hand carefully over his blond hair. "It's news, Jimmy Lee."
"So is your penchant for pretty young men." His eyes darted to his throng of disgruntled followers who were milling around the parking lot looking as though their parade had been hailed on. "Fuck news. This is supposed to be the launch of my big campaign against sin. I'm not gettin' shown up by some little skirt in horn-rimmed glasses. You take that tape and cut and paste until I look like Christ himself forgiving Mary Magdalene." He cuffed Matthews on the chest, scowling ferociously. "You got that, Dougie?"
Matthews pouted and rubbed at the sore spot, carefully straightening his turquoise tie. "Yeah, yeah. I got it. I wonder who she was, anyway. She sure as hell cleaned your clock."
Jimmy Lee rubbed his knuckles against his chin, his gaze on the screen door the two women had gone through. "Sister," he murmured, the oily wheels of his mind whirring like windmills. "Savannah Chandler's sister." Awareness dawned, and he brightened considerably as the seeds of a plan took root. "Laurel Chandler."
"Poor Jimmy Lee," Savannah said without sympathy as they stepped into the cool, dark interior of Frenchie's. "He's only trying to rid the town of impurities, immoralities, and prurient behavior. He's a firsthand expert on prurient behavior." Sliding her sunglasses down her nose, she looked at Laurel and smiled wickedly. "And I ought to know, 'cause I've gone to bed with him."
" Savannah!"
"Oh, Baby, don't look so scandalized." She chuckled as she glanced around the room for a choice place to roost. "Preachers get the itch too. And let me tell you, Jimmy Lee likes his scratched in some of the most inventive ways…"
She sauntered toward a table, feeling a little bit mean and a little bit vindicated. Coop had rattled her, something she didn't like at all. Making a fool out of Jimmy Lee went a long way toward making up for the scene at Madame Collette's. And truth to tell, shocking Laurel made up the rest. Laurel, such a good girl. Laurel the upstanding citizen. Laurel the golden child. It did her good to get thrown for a loop every once in a while. Let her see how the other half lived. Let her think There but for the grace of God and Savannah…
The crowd in the bar greeted her like the conquering heroine, calling to her, raising their glasses. A sense of warmth and importance flowed through her. This was her turf. These were her people, much to the dismay of Vivian and Ross. Here she was appreciated. She smiled and waved, the kind of all-encompassing, regal gesture of a beauty queen.
"Hey, Savannah!" Ronnie Peltier called from over by the pool table, where he stood leaning on the butt of his cue. "Dat's some tongue you got on you, girl."
"So I've been told, honey," she drawled.
He grinned and shifted his weight. "Oh, yeah? Well, why you don' come on over here, jolie fille, and show me?"
Savannah tossed her head and laughed, assessing his charms all the while. Ronnie was big where it counted and cute as could be. Conroy Cooper could go to hell. She had just found herself a fun-loving Cajun boy to play with.
Leonce Comeau swiveled around on his bar stool and slid his hand down her back as she passed. "Hey, Savannah, when you gonna marry me? Me, I can't live without you!"
She slid him a sly look over her shoulder, mentally shuddering at the grotesque scar that bisected his face, the long, shiny-smooth pink line that began and ended in strange knots of flesh. "If you can't live without me, Leonce, then how come you ain't dead yet?"
"I yi yiee!" He clutched his hands to his heart as if she'd shot him, a big grin splitting across his bearded face. "You heartless bitch!"
Laurel watched the proceedings with a sinking heart and a churning stomach. It tore her up to see this side of her sister-the seductress, the slut. Savannah had so much more to offer the world than her sexual prowess. Or she once had. Once she had been full of promise, full of hope, bright-eyed at the possibilities life had to offer. Once upon a time…
"You want a toothpick, 'tite chatte?"
The voice was unmistakable. Whiskey and smoke and a vision of black satin sheets. His breath was warm against her cheek, and she jerked around, cursing herself for bolting.
"Why would I want a toothpick?" she demanded indignantly.
Jack grinned at the flash of temper in her dark blue eyes. It was a hell of an improvement over the sadness and guilt he'd glimpsed there a moment before. For a moment she had looked like a lost child, and the impact of that impression had slammed into him like a truck. Not that he really cared about her, he assured himself. Miss Laurel Chandler was hardly his type. Too serious by half. Too driven. He liked a girl who liked her fun. A few good laughs, a nice healthy round of mattress thumping, no strings attached. Laurel Chandler was a whole different breed of cat-as evidenced by the mincemeat she'd made of Jimmy Lee Baldwin.
"Why, to pick all those pieces of Jimmy Lee out your teeth, sugar," he said. "You sure chewed him up and spit him out. Remind me not to get on your bad side."
She scowled. "You're already on my bad side, Mr. Boudreaux."
"Then why I don't just buy you a drink, angel, and we can make up?" he suggested, smiling, leaning down just a little closer than he should have. Her frown tightened, but she held her ground.
"I'd rather be left alone, thank you very much," Laurel said primly, avoiding those dark eyes that had managed to see past her carefully erected defenses once already. She fixed her gaze on one deep dimple and did her best to ignore its blatant sex appeal.
"Oh, well, then you came to the wrong place, sugar."
He draped an arm casually around her shoulders and steered her toward the bar, completely ignoring her wishes. She held herself stiffly, resisting his herding. She looked up at him sideways. He wore a battered black baseball cap that had "100% Coonass" machine embroidered on the front in glossy blue thread. A blood red ruby studded the lobe of his left ear. The wild Hawaiian print shirt he wore hung completely open, revealing a broad wedge of tan chest, well-defined muscle lightly dusted with black hair, a belly that looked as hard and ridged as a washboard. A line of silky-looking hair curled around his belly button like a question mark and disappeared into the low-riding waist of his faded jeans, as if beckoning curious female eyes to wonder about the territory that lay beyond.
She jerked her gaze away, pushing her glasses up on her nose in an attempt to hide the blush that bloomed instantly on her cheeks.
He wasn't her type at all, she reminded herself. He wasn't the kind of man she usually allowed to touch her. He wasn't the kind of man she would ordinarily have known at all. And he wasn't charming her. She was only letting him shepherd her toward the bar because she didn't want to watch Savannah seducing the pool players.