Much as she hated to admit it, she was still feeling physically weak, as well as emotionally battered. Coming unhinged was hard on a person, she reflected with a grimace. But as Dr. Pritchard had been so fond of pointing out, her physical decline had begun long before her breakdown. All during what the press had labeled simply "The Scott County Case" she had been too focused, too obsessed to think of trivial things like food, sleep, exercise. Her mind had been consumed with charges of sexual abuse, the pursuit of evidence, the protection of children, the upholding of justice.
Savannah 's disgruntled voice pulled her back from the edge of the memory. "Crimeny, Baby, don't you own a nightgown that doesn't look like something Mama Pearl made for the poor out of flour sacks?"
She came back to the bed holding an oversize white cotton T-shirt at arm's length, as if she were afraid its plainness might rub off on her. Savannah 's taste in sleepwear ran to Frederick 's of Hollywood. Beneath the gaping front of her short, champagne silk robe, Laurel caught a glimpse of full breasts straining the confines of a scrap of coffee-colored lace. With a body that was all lush curves, a body that fairly shouted its sexuality, Savannah was made for silk and lace. Laurel 's femininity was subtle, understated-a fact she had no desire to change.
"Nobody sees it but me," she said. She stripped her damp gown off over her head and slipped the new one on, enjoying the feel of the cool, dry fabric as it settled against her sticky skin.
An indignant sniff was Savannah 's reply. She settled herself on the edge of the bed once again, legs crossed, her expression fierce. "If I ever cross paths with Wesley Brooks, I swear I'll kill him. Imagine him leaving you-"
"Don't." Laurel softened the order with a tentative smile and reached out to touch the hand Savannah had knotted into a tight fist on the white coverlet. "I don't want to imagine it; I lived it. Besides, it wasn't Wes's fault our marriage didn't work out."
"Wasn't his-!"
Laurel cut off what was sure to be another tirade defaming her ex-husband. Wesley claimed he hadn't left her, but that she had driven him away, that she had crushed their young marriage with the weight of her obsession for The Case. That was probably true. Laurel didn't try to deny it. Savannah automatically took her side, ever ready to battle for her baby sister, but Laurel knew she wasn't deserving of support in this argument. She didn't have a case against Wes, despite Savannah 's vehemence. All she had was a solid chunk of remorse and guilt, but that can of worms didn't need to be opened tonight.
"Hush," she said, squeezing Savannah 's fingers. "I appreciate the support, Sister. Really, I do. But don't let's fight about it tonight. It's late."
Savannah 's expression softened, and she opened her hand and twined her fingers with Laurel 's. "You need to get some sleep." She reached up with her other hand and with a forefinger traced one of the dark crescents stress and extreme fatigue had painted beneath Laurel 's eyes.
"What about you?" Laurel asked. "Don't you need sleep, too?"
"Me?" She made an attempt at a wry smile, but it came nowhere near her eyes, where old ghosts haunted the cool blue depths. "I'm a creature of the night. Didn't you know that?"
Laurel said nothing as old pain surfaced like oil inside her to mingle with the new.
With a sigh Savannah rose, tugged down the hem of her robe with one hand and with the other pushed a lock of wild long hair behind her ear.
"I mean it, you know," she murmured. "If Wesley Brooks showed up here now, I'd cut his fucking balls off and stuff 'em in his ears." She cocked her fingers like pistols and pointed them at Laurel. "And then I'd get mean."
Laurel managed a weak chuckle. God, how Vivian would blanch to hear language like that from one of her daughters. Daughters she had raised to be debutantes. Sparkling, soft-spoken belles who never cursed and nearly swooned in the face of vulgarity. Vivian had expected sorority princesses, but God knew Savannah would eat dirt and die before she pledged to Chi-O, and she doubtless lay awake nights dreaming up ways to shock the Junior League. Laurel had been too busy to pledge, consumed by her need to get her law degree and throw herself into the task of seeing justice done.
"Would you prosecute me?" Savannah asked as she reached for the lamp switch.
"Be kind of hard to do, seeing how I don't have a job anymore."
"I'm sorry, Baby." Savannah clicked off the lamp, plunging the room into moonlight and shadows once again. "I wasn't thinking. You shouldn't be thinking about it, either. You're home now. Get some sleep."
Laurel sighed and pushed her overgrown bangs back off her forehead, watching as Savannah made her way to the door with her lazy, naturally seductive gait, her robe shimmering like quicksilver. "'Night, Sister."
"Sweet dreams."
She would have settled for no dreams, Laurel thought as she listened to the door latch and her sister's footsteps retreat down the hall. But no dreams meant no sleep. She checked the glowing dial of the old alarm clock on the stand. Three-thirty. She wouldn't sleep again tonight no matter how badly her body needed to. Her mind wouldn't allow the possibility of another rerun of the dream. The knowledge brought a sheen of tears to her eyes. She was so tired-physically tired, emotionally exhausted, tired of feeling out of control.
With that thought came the memory of Jack Boudreaux, and a wave of shame washed over her, leaving goose bumps in its wake. She'd made an ass of herself. If she was lucky, he was too drunk to remember by now, and the next time she saw him she could pretend it never happened.
There wouldn't be a next time if she could help it. She knew instinctively she would never be able to handle a man like Jack Boudreaux. His raw sexuality would overwhelm her. She would never be in control-of him or the relationship or herself.
Not that she was interested in him.
Tossing the coverlet and sheet aside, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, went to the French doors, and pulled them open. The night was comfortably warm, fragrant with the scents of spring, hinting at the humidity that would descend like a wet woolen blanket in another few weeks. The magnolia tree near the corner of the house still had a few blossoms, creamy waxy white and as big as dinner plates set among the broad, leathery, dark green leaves.
She had climbed that tree as a child, determined to find out what the experience was all about. Tree climbing was forbidden at Beauvoir, the Chandler family plantation that lay just a few miles down the road from Belle Rivière. Tree climbing was not something "nice girls" did-or so said Vivian. Laurel shook her head at that as she wandered out onto the balcony. Nice girls. Good families.
"Things like that don't happen in good families…"
"Help us, Laurel! Help us…"
The past and the present twined in her mind like vines, twisting, clinging vines attaching their sharp tendrils to her brain. She brought her hands up to clamp over her ears, as if that might shut out the voices that existed only in her head. She bit her lip until she tasted blood, fighting furiously to hold back the tears that gathered in her eyes and congealed into a solid lump in her throat.
"Dammit, dammit, dammit…"
She chanted the word like a mantra as she paced the balcony outside her room. Back and forth, back and forth, her small bare feet slapping softly on the old wood. Weakness surged through her like a tide, and she fought the urge to sink down against the wall and sob. The tears choked her. The weakness sapped the stability from her knees and made her curl in on herself like a stooped old woman or a child with a bellyache. The memories bombarded her in a ferocious, relentless cannonade-the children in Scott County, Savannah and their past. "Nice girls." "Good families." "Be a good girl, Laurel." "Don't say anything, Laurel." "Make us all proud, Laurel." "Help us, Laurel…"
No longer able to fight it, she turned and pressed herself against the side of the old house, pressed her face against it, not even caring that the edges of the weathered old bricks bit into her cheek. She clung there like a jumper who had suddenly remembered her terror of heights.