T-Grace sniffed and shot a look at Jack. "Some less than there oughta be."

He scowled at her, picking the unlit cigarette from between his lips to gesture with it. "I told you, T-Grace, I couldn't if I wanted to. Besides, you don' need no lawyer. Jimmy Lee's just a pest. Ignore him, and he'll go away."

The older woman stared hard at him, all pretense of teasing gone from her bulging dark eyes, leaving her looking old and tough as boot leather. "Trouble don' just go away, cher. You know dat good as me, c'est vrai."

Laurel watched the exchange with interest. Jack's bad-boy grin had vanished into that hard, intense look she had glimpsed the night before. A look that clearly told T-Grace to back off, a look that most grown men would have heeded. T-Grace pretended to shrug it off and turned away from him. She glanced sideways at Laurel as she pulled a pair of bottles from the cooler and popped the tops off.

"Why for you wearin' dem big glasses, chère? You in disguise or what?"

She moved off to do a dozen tasks at once before Laurel could formulate any kind of answer. Laurel pushed the glasses up on her nose and frowned.

"It's not much of a disguise, angel," Jack said.

"Not compared to yours," Laurel returned. The best defense was a good offense. She didn't like being so easily read, and she had no intention of talking to Jack Boudreaux about her motives for doing anything. She certainly wasn't about to let him escape being questioned himself.

"Mine?" he scoffed. He shook his head, took a long drink of his beer, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "No disguises here. What you see is what you get, sugar."

The wickedness returned, sparkling in his eyes, curling the corners of his mouth, digging those breath-stealing dimples into his cheeks. He leaned close, sliding his hand around to the small of her back. His fingers teased her through the thin cotton of her blouse, rubbing lazy circles.

"You like that promise, no?" he breathed, leaning closer still, his lips just brushing the shell of her ear. Laurel shivered, then gasped as his hand slipped beneath the hem of the loose-fitting blouse.

"No," she said emphatically, batting his hand away. She gave him a look that had made better men back off and ground her teeth when he only smiled at her. "Don't try to change the subject."

"I'm not. The subject is us. I'm just tryin' to get past the talkin' stage, angel."

"When hell freezes over."

"Well, that devil, he's gonna feel a chill one of these days real soon."

She arched a brow at him, thwarting the temptation to be either flattered or amused. "Is that a fact?"

"Oh, absolutely," he drawled, dark eyes shining.

His intent was clear. For reasons Laurel couldn't begin to fathom, he'd set his sights on her. Probably because she was the only female in his territory he had yet to notch his bedpost for. His arrogance was astonishing. But more astonishing was the vague sensation of arousal his words, his touch, his nearness conjured inside her.

It was a simple matter of physical needs, she rationalized, needs too long ignored and a handsome man all too willing to rectify the situation.

"You think too much, angel," Jack said, replacing his cigarette. She was as transparent as glass, working out in her mind a logical excuse for the physical attraction that arced between them like electric sparks. He bumped her glass closer. "Have a drink. Have a good time. Lighten up."

His philosophy in a nutshell, Laurel thought. She was about to give him her opinion on the subject when Savannah appeared to her right, draped all over the Cro-Magnon pool player like a vine.

"Baby," she drawled, her gaze fastened hungrily on Mr. Cuestick as she rubbed the flat of her hand over his chest. "Me and Ronnie got plans for the evening."

She sounded drunk, though they hadn't been in the bar long enough for that to have been the case. Drunk on arousal. Drunk on the need for sex. Laurel sighed and glanced down, finding no relief as Savannah 's bare knee came into view-sliding up and down Ronnie's muscular thigh.

"What about supper?" she asked shortly.

"Oh… we'll eat later." The pair of would-be lovers shared a laugh over that, ending the joke with a kiss, open mouths meeting briefly, tongues teasing. Ronnie's hand slid down from the small of Savannah 's back to grope her ass, and she groaned deep in her throat.

"Fine," Laurel murmured, turning to stare at her untouched beer. "Just how am I supposed to get home?"

"Here. You can take the 'Vette." The keys landed on the bar with a rattle. "I'll get my own ride."

Another round of salacious laughter. Laurel shook her head.

Savannah caught the action from the corner of her eye. Putting her enjoyment of Ronnie on hold for an instant, she turned her head, taking in the total package of sisterly disapproval.

"Don't knock it till you've tried it," she said peevishly, forgetting about love, forgetting about Laurel's current state of frailty and her own vow to help her baby sister through it all. Right now her needs were all that mattered, and what she needed most was to get naked with Ronnie Peltier and forget all about her good girl sister and Conroy Cooper and wanting to be something she wasn't. "Loosen up, Laurel. Have a little fun of your own for a change.

"Come on, Ronnie, sweetie," she said, disentangling herself from him and taking him by the hand to lead him away like a prized stallion. "Let's go."

Laurel didn't turn to watch her leave. She sat staring at her drink, staring at Savannah 's key ring with the little rubber alligator hanging from it by his tail. The gator looked up at her, jaws open, with a tiny boot lying on its red tongue. It was supposed to be a joke, but she didn't feel like laughing. There wasn't anything funny about people being swallowed up-by alligators or by their own demons.

The noise level in the bar suddenly seemed to increase in volume, the clank of glasses, the noise of the jukebox, the sounds of voices all becoming too loud for her ears. She grabbed the keys and pushed herself away from the bar.

Outside, the protesters had gone, and the news van with them. There was no sign of Savannah and Ronnie Beefcake. Out on the bayou someone was fishing among the spider lilies and water lettuce along the far bank. The sky that had been a fine clear blue earlier was now striped with clouds tumbling up from the Gulf. The wind had come up as well and shook the heart-shaped leaves of a redbud tree that grew at the edge of the parking lot, flipping them inside out.

Laurel stood for a long moment beside the door of the Corvette, just staring across the bayou, wondering if she'd made a mistake in coming back here. Time away had somehow softened memories of Savannah 's penchant for self-destruction. The lure of familiar faces had outweighed the potential for resurrecting old pains, old guilt.

"It's not your fault, Baby."

"But he doesn't hurt me."

"You're lucky and I'm not, that's all. Besides, I'd never let him hurt you. I'd kill him first."

"Killing's wrong."

"Lots of things are wrong. That doesn't stop people from doing them."

She raked a hand through her hair and rubbed at the tension in the back of her neck. She should have stayed home, stayed in the quiet seclusion of the courtyard at Belle Rivière. Maybe she could have talked Savannah into it, and they would still be there now as afternoon edged toward evening, sipping iced tea and lounging on the chaises, talking of nothing important. Or she could have taken her sister up on the idea of shopping. Anything would have been better than this outcome.

The if onlys piled up one atop the other, adding to the pile she'd started as a child, like live coral settling on dead to form a reef. The layers below were thick with remorse, hard with guilt. If only she had stopped Daddy from going out in the field that day… If only she could make Mama see the truth… If only she could make the attorney general believe…

If only she weren't so powerless, so weak…

She hung her head and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she was staring at the foot pedals of the Corvette-all three of them-and yet another wave of impotence crashed through her. She had never learned to drive a standard transmission.

"Come on, angel," Jack said as he materialized beside her. She shied away from him, but not before he slipped the keys from her limp fingers. He tossed them up in the air, catching them with one hand, and grinned like a pirate. "Let's go for a spin."