Andrei Read online

  ANDREI

  Patricia Rosemoor

  ¶

  PRONOUN

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  GYPSY MAGIC

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  GYPSY MAGIC

  AUTHOR WEB SITES

  About the Author

  Coming Next from Rebecca York, Ann Voss Peterson & Patricia Rosemoor

  More by Patricia Rosemoor

  Copyright © 2002, © 2017 Patricia Pinianski Second Edition Previously print-published as part of Gypsy Magic (3 IN ONE): Andrei Cover Copyright © 2017 Patricia Pinianski This is a work of fiction, a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental. This novel may not be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author.

  GYPSY MAGIC

  IT WAS ALL OVER NOW. Her only son, her beloved son, was condemned to death. For a crime she knew he could not have committed.

  She gathered her strength for what she must do. From the pocket of her long skirt the old Gypsy pulled the bandanna with the objects. The pen. The crumpled paper cup. The metal tack.

  None was of great value. But they held the power she needed. For each had belonged to one of the people she was going to curse tonight.

  Her hand clenched the pen. “Justice is blind,” she whispered, then joined the curse with the name of Wyatt Boudreaux.

  “Love is death,” she intoned as she crumpled the paper cup in her hand and said the name of Garner Rousseau.

  Finally, she picked up the tack and said, “The law is impotent,” linking those words with the name of Andrei Sobatka.

  Pushing herself erect, she stood and shuffled to the edge of the bayou, smug in her satisfaction that she had evened the score.

  Part 1: Wyatt

  Justice is Blind

  An old murder case comes back to haunt Wyatt Boudreaux. Sent by his dad to make sure the gypsies don’t interfere with the conviction of Carlo Mustov, Wyatt runs into the woman he loved and lost, Alessandra King. She blames his father for Carlo’s conviction but she’s shocked to discover Wyatt is blind. Can they bury their differences and work together to find the real killer? And can the embers of passion smoldering between them flame to life again despite the gulf between their worlds?

  Part 2: Garner

  Love is Death

  Garner Rousseau’s father prosecuted Carlo Mustov, but when Sabina King tracks the district attorney down to beg help for her cousin, Garner tells her she’s too late. His father is dead, just like everyone else Garner has loved. Can Sabina heal Garner’s terrible curse? Or will their growing love for one another seal her fate?

  Part 3: Andrei

  The Law is Impotent

  Because his father testified against Carlo Mustov. Andrei Sobatka is cursed to never consummate his relationship with any woman. As Andrei tries to prove his cousin’s innocence, he reconnects with the daughter of the murdered woman. Elizabeth Granville was his first and only love…as he was hers. As they seek out the truth about the murder together, can they find their way back to each other? Can their love nullify a gypsy curse?

  Each of these compelling stories ends with an HEA for the hero and heroine. But only the full set will finally get to the bottom of the murder mystery. Be sure to read them all!

  Part 3: Andrei

  (The Law is Impotent)

  CHAPTER ONE

  A THROWBACK TO DAYS PAST, Granville Plantation set the standard against which other such estates were compared. Framed by live oaks, the mansion dripped with Louisiana character. Strong white pillars. Welcoming front porch. Charming landscaping. Tall, wide windows like the eyes of a living being gazing out on the world haughtily, as if certain of its own superiority.

  Just like its owner, Andrei Sobatka remembered ruefully.

  He was staring at the best of bayou country and stewing about the past when the front door opened, jolting him out of a memory better off forgotten.

  A woman stepped onto the porch, a tall glass in one hand, and leaned a slender shoulder into one of the columns. She looked out at the land with the possessiveness of a lifelong lover. Wearing tan riding pants, black boots and a bright white shirt open at the throat, she was a study in equestrian elegance. She’d surely been riding—her boots were mud-spackled and her shirt, stained with sweat, clung to her like a second skin. Seeming satisfied with her own narrow world, she raised the glass to her lips, her chin lifting to reveal a long, elegant neck as she sipped at her drink.

  She hadn’t changed, Andrei thought, moving closer, mesmerized by the golden locks of hair plastered along her neck. He hadn’t seen her since the last summer he’d worked with the carnival ten years before, but it might just as well have been ten days.

  For a moment he was caught, lost in the fantasy of trailing his fingers through those silky strands, of brushing them back from her warm flesh, of running his mouth along the alabaster column of her neck and drinking her in.

  Suddenly he realized she’d looked straight through the trees and noticed him. The color in her cheeks rose, and as he drew closer, he could see the pulse in her throat. Her heart was hammering, he thought, rushing aristocratic blue blood through her delicate veins. She clutched the glass as she might a lifeline, and he could see she wore no wedding ring.

  “What are you doing on Granville property?” she demanded.

  “Now, Lizzie,” he drawled, purposefully emphasizing the nickname, “is that any way to say hello after all these years?”

  “I would rather say nothing at all to you, but since you’re trespassing, you leave me no choice. And don’t call me by that wretched name. It’s Elizabeth.”

  He moved closer still, stopping inches from the step. “You used to love it when I called you Lizzie.”

  “I allowed you to call me Lizzie.”

  That haughty tone sparked memories. Her voice as smooth and sleek as her long legs and high breasts had haunted his dreams for years after the last time he’d seen her.

  “You loved it,” he countered with a laugh. “And when I trespassed on sacred Granville land, if I remember correctly, it was because you invited me.”

  “So I was young and foolish. A teenager,” she added as if that should explain it all. “I’m a woman now.”

  He eyed her with the lust of a connoisseur, his gaze intimately brushing her breasts. The areolas were large enough and dark enough to show just slightly through her thin bra and damp shirt. “You certainly are a woman.”

  Her nipples pebbled visibly through her thin shirt, and Andrei felt a surge from below in answer.

  “A different person,” she emphasized, crossing her arms before her as if she needed to protect herself from his gaze.

  He shook his head. “You’re the same as I remember you.”

  Liquid spilled from her glass. Flustered, she set it down on a nearby porch table.

  Softly, he taunted her. “I could make you like my calling you Lizzie again.”

  “Never.”

  She was a little breathless and he was so close he could see the perspiration dotting her skin, making her look all dewy and soft, like a woman who’d just been made love to. The thought plagued him, filled him with a lust she would never know.

  “I could make you beg me to take you, not in a bed with nice clean sheets, but out in a pasture or deep in the heart of bayou country—”

  “Stop it! Why have you come back here, Andrei? What is it you want?”

  An easy grin tugged at his lips. “And if I said you?”

  “I would call you a liar.” Her jaw
tightened and she added, “A Gypsy.”

  As if the words were interchangeable, Andrei thought, quick anger slashing through him. He narrowed his gaze on Elizabeth Granville and took the two steps up to the porch. Something flashed through her expression—fear?—and he knew the advantage was his.

  “To be Rom does not automatically make one a liar.” His tone lacked its former come-on. He was all straight arrow now, no more nonsense. “I’m looking for your father.”

  “Daddy? Why?”

  “We have business.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “As a state senator, he represents me, doesn’t he?” Andrei said this as if that was all the reason he needed.

  “I work for Daddy. Whatever the business, you can tell me and I’ll see that it’s taken care of.”

  “You’ll take care of me?” he asked, grinning at her again just to throw her off balance.

  “I can see this conversation is going nowhere.” Abruptly she turned and headed for the door.

  “Tell me where your father has slithered off to and I’ll leave you be.”

  Her spine stiffened. She turned back and gaped. “Excuse me?”

  “A simple request. What rock did he crawl under?”

  “You’re calling Daddy a snake?”

  “That would be an insult to snakes.”

  “How dare you!”

  “I call them like I see them.”

  “You haven’t seen Daddy in almost a decade, so what do you have against him? His politics?”

  “If that’s what you want to call it. I don’t like that he’s walking around free while Carlo Mustov is still sitting on death row.”

  Because he believed that no Romany would ever get a break from the law, Andrei had tried to stay out of the investigation. But now Carlo’s mother Valonia had been murdered and the DA had him in his sights as being suspect in the woman’s death. His beloved cousins Alessandra and Sabina had both put their lives on the line in trying to free Carlo. Too bad their sacrifices had come to naught—they still hadn’t achieved the result they all wanted, which was to free Carlo.

  After a stunned silence, she asked, “Would you care to explain that?”

  “You don’t think your father is capable of murder?” He could see that she didn’t.

  “Whom do you imagine he killed?”

  “Your mother, Lizzie,” he said, watching her amber eyes go round with shock. “Thankfully, he failed when he tried to kill Garner Rousseau.”

  Andrei had chased away the would-be murderer but hadn’t caught the bastard. As he’d expected, District Attorney Leon Thibault had not been overly excited by the letter Sabina had handed him when the whole frightening episode in the fun house was over. The D.A. had been searching for Sabina and Garner at the opposite ends of the midway. Florica must have been confused, but then, Andrei knew better than to rely on the childlike woman he had befriended upon returning to the carnival.

  Lizzie’s incredulous “You’re out of your mind!” brought him out of his musings.

  “Am I?”

  “Absolutely!”

  Perhaps he was, for after witnessing Sabina’s selflessness in healing Garner, he’d been shamed into taking action at last. Sabina and Garner were safely on their way to Baton Rouge to check out Richard Granville’s story—that Lizzie’s father had gone on government business there late on the night of the murder—so investigating closer to home was, for the moment, his responsibility alone.

  “There’s no finer Southern gentleman than Daddy,” Lizzie told him.

  “Are you saying that a Southern gentleman can’t also be a murderer?”

  “Not if you’re talking about my father.”

  “You wouldn’t be a little shortsighted, now would you?”

  “Go to hell, Andrei Sobatka!”

  “Too late. I already have an intimate acquaintance with the place.”

  She turned and again tried to escape, but he grabbed her forearm and swung her back against a column. As fast as he’d ever moved, he slashed her arms up above her head and pinned them there, his long fingers gripping her delicate wrists. He could feel her pulse race. Then he pinned her body to the pillar with his.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked with a gasp.

  What was he doing? Most likely being a fool. He couldn’t help himself. Apparently she was having the same problem, for he sensed need trembling through her, saw deep into her darkening amber gaze where desire for him smoldered. He knew what women wanted—Gypsy magic, Lizzie would call it—and it was both a blessing and a curse. Nothing could come of such torture, not anymore, not for him, but memory plagued him and for a moment he allowed himself the fantasy.

  Dipping his head toward her hair, he inhaled her scent, as rich and ripe as Mother Earth, a combination of magnolia soap and fine leather and horseflesh. He remembered that combination of scents. Remembered more. Considering the way she froze, the way her breath came in little catches, he suspected she remembered, as well.

  Miss Elizabeth Granville, debutante, was held fast to the spot, licking her lips, as nervous as a cat. He almost gave way to temptation and licked them, too.

  Almost.

  With a sardonic laugh, he backed off and saluted her. “Tell your daddy that Andrei Sobatka is looking for him.”

  She said nothing, merely stared at him as he leaped off the porch, not even touching the stairs. He felt her gaze on his back as he swiftly moved off. The sensation never left him, not until he disappeared from sight and made his way back through the bayou and across the road to the carnival grounds.

  CHAPTER TWO

  NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, ANDREI Sobatka was a heartbreaker and always had been, Elizabeth knew. Coming back here to the carnival was so difficult, more difficult than she’d thought. Mentally arming herself against the man’s charms, she stepped foot on the carnival grounds for the first time in almost a decade.

  Familiar sights and sounds—guys hawking rides and games, the smell of popcorn and funnel cake—brought her back to old times. She’d always been attracted to this colorful disarray so at odds with her own ordered life. As an only child who’d suffocated from her parents’ sheltering, she’d wondered what it would be like to be so free…and one summer she had found out.

  But the past was the past, Elizabeth reminded herself as she caught sight of a Gypsy girl in long skirts and jingling bracelets. Gliding toward the trailers and humming to herself, the girl seemed lost in her own world.

  “Excuse me,” Elizabeth said. “Can you tell me where I can find Andrei Sobatka?”

  The girl jerked around, her dark hair swinging along her shoulders. Not a girl, but a woman, slender and fey, who gave Elizabeth the once-over, then arched pencil-thin eyebrows at her business suit and high-necked blouse. Smothering a giggle, she said, “He’s working of course.”

  Knowing she was overdressed for the occasion—a self-defense way of putting herself in the superior position— Elizabeth asked, “Where?”

  For a moment she didn’t think the young woman would answer her, then wondered if she was waiting to be tipped for the information. The odd way the Gypsy was staring at her…

  But before Elizabeth could put a hand to her shoulder bag, the Gypsy smothered another giggle and said, “Tilta-Whirl.”

  Before her thank-you was out of her mouth, the girl had disappeared. Shrugging, Elizabeth headed in the direction of the rides.

  And then she saw him. Andrei. Dark hair swathed his rugged bronzed features—high forehead, well-defined cheekbones, square chin softened by a slight indentation. She remembered once exploring that shallow cleft with a fingertip, remembered the way he’d trapped her hand to suck on…

  With a sharply indrawn breath, Elizabeth pushed the memory back to the purgatory where it belonged.

  Even from a distance, she responded to Andrei’s easy smile and sultry good looks. This morning he was using them on three high-school girls, who seemed unable to make up their minds about trying out h
is ride.

  “Get your tickets, lovely ladies,” he drawled. He seemed distracted for a moment—had he spotted her? Elizabeth wondered—then quickly went on, “I promise, I’ll give the best ride in southern Louisiana just for you.”

  “But it’ll mess up my hair,” one of the girls complained as she shot an annoyed look at the knot of boys standing in line for tickets.

  “Real men like messy hair,” Andrei told her. “And they especially like girls who aren’t afraid to be bold.”

  Though Andrei hadn’t looked directly at her, Elizabeth knew he was aware of her presence—she figured the last comment had been meant for her ears. He had a way with women of all ages. Seeming to know what they wanted to hear, he gave it to them. The girl didn’t know that. Obviously flattered, the teenager whispered to her friends, and, laughing, they headed straight for the ticket booth lineup.

  Elizabeth stood her ground and watched Andrei pretend she wasn’t there as he stopped the ride and kept his dark gaze pinned to the people exiting.

  How dare he show up at her doorstep to accuse her father of her mother’s murder and then when she paid him a return visit, ignored her!

  “All aboard,” Andrei called, finally swinging his gaze to Elizabeth as if challenging her right to be there.

  Behind him, the girls were clambering into the last vacant car of the ride. The one he’d talked to was primping, fussing with her hair, no doubt enchanted by him.

  Remembering how Andrei had enchanted her into a night she would never forget, Elizabeth pitied the foolish girl.

  She watched him check the safety bar of each car to make certain it was secure. Even with his back to her, she felt a strong pull to the broad shoulders revealed by a sleeveless T-shirt and the tight buttocks caressed by a pair of jeans. He was a beautiful male specimen, she admitted, even more beautiful than he’d been as a teenager.

  He was also more arrogant, if that was possible, as evidenced by his knowing look aimed at her before he started the ride. Surely he didn’t think her visit was personal.

  Suspecting he did, Elizabeth fumed.