But when he remembered that Alex had a wife who was alive and well and living not two miles from where they were sitting, Nate’s smile left him. Alex was going to have to make a choice, and if he hurt Cay, Nate wondered if he’d have to choose between his sister and his best friend.
Twenty-four
Cay was in bed asleep, dreaming about being on the flatboat and floating down the calm, peaceful Florida river. Mr. Grady and Eli were there, and Alex was sitting close beside her. Tim was by the side of the boat, his hand trailing in the water, and there was a little alligator following his fingers, its mouth open. She was just about to warn him when a sound woke her.
“Hey! Sleepyhead,” Alex said softly as he slid into bed next to her.
She kept her eyes closed and snuggled against him. “You smell wonderful.”
“That’s not what I can say about you. You haven’t had a bath, and you smell like a swamp.”
“Mmmm. I thought you liked the swamps.” She put her leg over his and moved, as though to get on top of him.
Reluctantly, Alex pushed her thigh off his stomach. “Your brother is in the room next door, and with the noise you make, I don’t dare do anything with you.”
She put her leg back over him. “Since when are you afraid of Tally?”
“It’s Adam who’s next door.”
Cay removed her leg, opened her eyes, and lowered her voice. “In that case, what are you doing in here, and when did you take a bath?”
He put her head back on his shoulder. “I’ve been up all night talking to Nate.”
“Nate? My brother Nate?”
“Of course. Why not?”
“It’s just that Nate doesn’t talk to anyone. He’d rather watch and learn than give out information. So what did he tell you?”
“I wanted to know what Grady was told or figured out, but we can’t ask him until he gets back from the jungle.”
Cay knew Alex was stalling and waited for him to get to the important news. But she knew what he was going to say before he spoke because Alex’s arm tightened around her so she couldn’t move.
“Nate told me about Lilith.” When Cay started to roll away, Alex held her in place. “You’re going to have to hear this sooner or later, so you can let one of your brothers tell you, or you can hear it from me. Your choice.”
She knew that Alex would tell the story with more diplomacy than three of her brothers would. If Ethan had been there, she would have asked him to explain it all to her, but he wasn’t. Cay took a breath. “All right, tell me. But if we hear anyone at the door and we think it might be Adam, you have to go out the window.”
Alex smiled. “You do know that we’re on the fourth floor, don’t you?”
“If we were on the twelfth floor, you’d still have to go out that way. Neither your life nor mine would be worth anything if Adam were to find you in here with me.”
“Nate said almost the same thing, and that’s why he’s keeping Adam busy.”
Cay lifted her head to look at him. He was clean and had shaved, and she thought he was by far the most handsome man she’d ever seen. She’d never tell him, but she thought he was even better-looking than her brother Ethan. “You’ve certainly become friends with my brother in a short time.”
Alex put her head back down. “Do you want to hear the story or not? There’s only so long Nate can occupy Adam before your eldest brother gets suspicious.”
“Tell me,” she said and felt her body stiffen. She didn’t like to think about what she was going to hear. “Why is your . . .” She couldn’t say the word wife. “Why is that woman alive when so many people saw her with her throat cut?”
“That’s just it. Very few people saw her. On that night the only people who saw her were the judge, the doctor, and the two men who handcuffed me. After that, Lilith’s body was taken to the doctor’s office, where she was put in a coffin that was nailed shut, and she was buried three days later.”
“I take it she wasn’t inside the coffin,” Cay said, and wanted to add “more’s the pity.”
“No. What Nate found out was that the doctor was in on the whole scheme. He provided the drugs that were used to put me to sleep, and he wrote the note that was careful not to say that I had murdered my bride, but just that I could be found with her. The doctor threw the note through the judge’s window and woke him up. The doctor also got the policemen, and he led all of them to my room. But only the doctor actually looked closely at Lilith. The other three men were too busy throwing me to the floor and telling me that I was a first cousin to the devil. Even I only had a quick glimpse of Lilith. But what I saw has haunted me since that moment. That one look was enough.”
“I guess I should ask why she did such a horrible thing to you.”
“That part we don’t know and won’t know until I talk to her today.”