Night Fires

James put his hand lightly over her lips. ‘This isn’t the time to talk about the past.’

‘But you said…’

His mouth narrowed. ‘I know what I said. But today— today is special. It belongs to us.’ He stared into her eyes, and finally a smile eased across his face. ‘And you know what? Let’s begin living it to the hilt right now.’

A ferry took them across the river to an old plantation called Belle Helene. They walked the grounds of Nottoway Plantation and then, in the late afternoon, they drove slowly along narrow back roads. Cultivated fields stretched away on either side; cabins stood half hidden in groves of live oak trees, smoke rising lazily from their chimneys. Dogs rushed out, barking furiously; strangers smiled and waved as if Gabrielle and James were old friends.

The Corvette had become a time machine, taking than back to gentler days, to a past that seemed simple and without blemish.

But the present was different. What would James say when he found out that the woman beside him was really Gabrielle Chiari, a woman hiding a tangled past? Would he look at her differently?

When dusk fell, they pulled up before a graceful plantation house set well back from the road. White columns rose from its porch to its roof; soft strains of music drifted on the still-warm evening air.

Gabrielle looked at James as he shut off the engine. ‘Where are we?’ she whispered, as if a too loud voice might break the spell.

‘Tara, for all I know. There’s a discreet sign that says this is a restaurant. Shall we try it?’

She looked doubtful. ‘What about the way we’re dressed?’

His eyes darkened as he looked at her. ‘I’ll put my jacket on,’ he said, and he laid his hand against her cheek. ‘As for you—you’re far too beautiful to be turned away.’

A smiling woman dressed in a nineteenth-century hoop-skirted gown led them to a secluded table in the far corner of the main room. Candles flickered everywhere, their dazzling golden light reflected in the bubbled glass of the old mirror above the marble fireplace and in the Moet et Chandon champagne James ordered. When the waiter brought them menus, Gabrielle shook her head.

‘You choose for me,’ she said to James.

His eyes met hers, and a strange half-smile twisted over his mouth.

‘Are you sure you want to entrust yourself to me?’

Her heart turned over. They were talking about much more than dinner, she thought, and she wanted to reach across the table and put her hand against his lips.

Instead, she nodded.

‘Yes,’ she said, and even the waiter smiled.

She had no idea what it was she ate. It was all delicious and elegantly served, but Gabrielle had eyes only for the man opposite her. Everything James said was clever, every motion of his hands graceful. The sound of his voice touched her with pleasure.

‘James.’ He looked at her and she touched her tongue to her lips. ‘I just wanted you to know how happy I am. Thank you. Thank you for that..’

His eyes grew dark. ‘Don’t.’

The anguish in his voice startled her. ‘Have I embarrassed you? I didn’t mean to do that.’

‘God, no. You haven’t embarrassed…” He drew in his breath and pushed back his chair. “Dance with me.’

‘We can’t,’ she said, ‘your knee…’

She looked into his eyes, then took his hand and walked with him to the empty dance-floor. James’s arms went around her and she settled against him, her head pressed to his shoulder, and they swayed slowly to the music.

‘Gabrielle.’

There was an urgency in his voice, and she looked up at him, trying to read his eyes, but his face was in shadow.

‘What?’’

His arms tightened around her. ‘ I just wanted to say your name and tell you again that this day has been special.’

Special. A special day for Gabrielle Shelton and James Forrester. But she wasn’t Gabrielle Shelton, and it was time he knew that. It was past time.

‘James,’ she said, her voice slurred with her need to strip away the falsehoods that separated them, ‘we have to talk.’

His mouth narrowed. ‘No.’ His voice was terse. ‘Talking’s the last thing we want to do.’

‘We have to, James. Please.’

He put her from him. ‘No.’ His tone was sharp, and, when she looked at him in surprise, he drew a breath and turned away from her. ‘It’s getting late,’ he said. It’s time we left. Give me a moment to settle our bill.’

Silently, she followed him back to their table. She would do as he’d asked, she thought, but only until they got outside. In the darkness, the truth about herself would be easier to tell.

Later, remembering, she would be staggered by her own folly.

In her eagerness to end her deception, it never occurred to her to wonder why James, who only last night had been so insistent on facing the past, was now equally determined to bury it.

But then, James had known all along where talking would lead them.

Outside, silver clouds rolled across the moon, hiding it from view. The rising fog was like a curtain, obscuring the house and everything around it. By the time they reached the car, they were cut off from the world.

Gabrielle put her hand on his arm. ‘Please,’ she said, her voice low, husky with nervousness, ‘let’s talk here, in the dark. This is hard for me to say.’

He shook his head. ‘I told you, I don’t want to hear it.’

‘Yesterday, you said no one could run from the past.’

‘Leave it alone, dammit! Just ’

‘I can’t do that. We have to talk about who we are. We don’t know anything about each other.’

His hands framed her face and lifted it to his. In the shadowed night, his features were indistinct. She felt the warmth of his breath as he spoke.

‘Listen to me.’ His voice held a rough urgency. ‘As far as I’m concerned, our lives began last night.’

She wanted to believe him. But he’d told her to face the past squarely, and she knew that that was what had to be done.

She had only been kidding herself the last few months. She didn’t really believe Tony Vitale wanted her silenced, but there were other things to fear. All it would

take to resurrect the past was a sharp-eyed reporter or a persistent federal agent to discover her whereabouts.

‘You have to listen to me, James. When I—when I lived in New York…’

‘I don’t give a damn about New York. Just tell me that you’ve left it behind.’

She hesitated. ‘I—I think I have. But I’m not sure. I…’

His breath hissed between his teeth. ‘What do you mean, you’re not sure?’

There was so much to explain. If only she knew where to begin, how to tell him her story.

‘I meant that—that you can’t just walk away from the past. You can’t shed it like an old skin.’

‘You can.’ His voice was sharp. ‘The life you left in New York, the one I left in Washington, are meaningless.’ ’

Gabrielle stared at him. ‘Is that where you’re from? Washington?’

He nodded, his expression grim.

‘What do you do in Washington?’ She waited for his answer, but he said nothing. Nervous laughter rose in her throat. ‘Just don’t tell me you work for the government.’

‘Gabrielle, please…’

Somehow, the night had become strange and alien. She shivered as it closed down around them. What she’d said had been meant as a joke, but suddenly there was nothing funny about it.

When they’d met, she’d wondered if James meant her harm. She’d even wondered if he was a reporter. But the possibility that he might be an agent had never occurred to her.

No. Not James.

‘Answer my question,’ she said. ‘What do you do in Washington?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘If you work for the government—if you’re part of that slime…’

‘Dammit,’ he growled. ‘Okay.

If you insist upon resurrecting the past, we’ll do it somewhere private. Get in the car.’

Gabrielle shuddered in the cool night air. James was frightening her; he reminded her of how he’d been that morning in the alley.

‘We can talk right here,’ she said.

His hands closed on her shoulders. ‘Get in the car. Now.’

His voice was like a whip. She tried to step back, but his fingers bit into her flesh. A chill raced along her skin.

‘You can’t talk to me like that.’

He laughed unpleasantly. ‘It’s a little late to tell me what I can and can’t do, isn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve done whatever I wanted from the minute we met. Why should that change now?’