Andrei Read online

  “And now? This time you didn’t come back because of me.”

  He shook his head. “I came back despite you, because there were some things…personal problems…I had to work out. And, God help me, Lizzie, because I still love you.”

  He loved her still…Elizabeth frowned. “Why God help you?” Was he going to tell her he was committed to some other woman?

  “Because there’s nothing I can do about it,” Andrei said, pulling away.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “More Gypsy magic. A curse, this,” he said grimly. “Valonia cursed the sons of those who put her only son in prison. Wyatt Boudreaux, Garner Rousseau and me.”

  “What kind of curse?”

  “The curse was different for each of us. Justice is blind. Love is death. The law is impotent.”

  A shiver ran up Elizabeth’s spine. “Wyatt lost his sight on the job, but now he has it back, right? I don’t really know much about Garner.”

  “For years, anyone he cared about died.”

  “But doesn’t he love your cousin Sabina? She’s all right, isn’t she?”

  Andrei nodded. “Though it was a close call. She almost died healing Garner.”

  “But both men have worked through their curses. What about you? How did Valonia curse you?”

  Andrei didn’t say anything. A taut connection wired between them, and suddenly Elizabeth understood.

  “Oh,” she whispered.

  “So you see why my loving you does neither of us any good,” he said bitterly.

  “It does me good, Andrei. It does my heart good. As for the rest…I don’t care about some damn Gypsy curse!” Those tears were welling up in her eyes again, but this time she didn’t care. She reached out and touched him, running her fingertips along the beard stubble covering his cheek and jaw. “I’ve been so lonely for you all these years, Andrei. I’ve been unhappy deep down in the darkest reaches of my soul, but all that’s changed in the last few days. With you, I feel alive again. Please don’t deny me—I’ll take whatever you have to give.”

  He caught her wrist and burned a kiss into it until Elizabeth felt faint. When he released it, she slid her hand behind his head and hooked him by the neck so that when she rolled back, he rolled with her.

  “Lizzie…”

  “No protests. Kiss me, Andrei. Kiss me like you love me.”

  ______

  He really did love Lizzie, Andrei decided, impassioned by the thought, now more than ever. He tried to tell her so in a kiss that seared his soul.

  Her generosity—telling him she wanted whatever he had to give—touched him deeply.

  Even as he kissed her, as his body responded—just as it always did, only to disappoint him at the crucial moment—Andrei knew he was being selfish. He couldn’t give Lizzie what she needed, and he couldn’t stop himself from trying. But he wouldn’t let her go unsatisfied, and he would have the memory to last him a lifetime. It would have to, for no matter her protests, he couldn’t allow her to share his curse. In his heart he knew that while he would always love her, the fair thing for him to do was to let her go.

  He touched her breasts through the dress and felt her nipples spring forth to kiss his palms. He groaned into her mouth and explored lower, past her belly and her thighs, scooping up the material of her skirt and finding her flesh.

  Lizzie moaned and spread her thighs and Andrei’s erection grew.

  He wanted her more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life. Dipping a finger beneath her panties, he found her wet and ready for him. Hand trembling, he tugged them down below her hips. She helped him slide the panties down her legs and kick them aside. Then her hands found him. Her touch through the denim was exquisite, and he held his breath as she unzipped the jeans and slid her hands inside.

  “Lizzie,” he breathed, heartsick at knowing that any second now, his erection would fade as it had so many times before he’d given up trying. “Stop.”

  Tugging at his waistband and pulling it down over his hips, she didn’t seem to be listening. Andrei closed his eyes and prepared himself for the moment when he would disappoint her. He would make it up to her, though, he vowed, even as he felt light kisses across his stomach. He groaned and arched and suddenly he was surrounded by a wet, warm mouth.

  “Lizzie…”

  Her mouth worked magic. He grew harder, tauter, closer to release than he’d been in years.

  He couldn’t help but take what pleasure he could. His fingers tangled in her hair and he moved against her. She had a clever mouth that kept him hard and aching for her. But he wanted other things, too. Closeness. Warmth. For, in reality, he’d missed that more than anything.

  Groaning, he pulled Lizzie up so that he could kiss that clever mouth of hers. While he was doing so, she straddled him and shifted so that he felt her wet entrance against his tip. Unable to help himself, he pushed and the tip parted her silky lips.

  Rather than failing as he’d done in the past, he slid right into Lizzie as if he belonged there.

  “What have you done to me?” he murmured in her hair.

  “Gadji magic,” she whispered, levering her hands against his chest and rocking over him.

  Andrei slid a hand between them. He paid homage to her breasts, released them from the dress and bra so that he could kiss them and suckle them. Dipping a hand lower, he explored beneath her skirts until he found her center. She made a low noise deep in the back of her throat and arched. An increase in pressure, and she began to move faster and harder. He followed the beat with his fingers until she began to shudder.

  “Now, Lizzie,” he urged, watching her face in the moonlight. “Come for me now!”

  She cried out and went still, and his erection began to pulse—the beginning of the little death he hadn’t been able to capture for years. No orgasm had ever been longer in coming, he vowed, or as sweet.

  When he pulled her back to him, Lizzie was still shuddering. Andrei wrapped his arms around the woman he loved and held her against his heart.

  Somehow the curse had been broken.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HEAT WOKE ELIZABETH. NOT THE heat of the morning, because it was still too early. Andrei’s heat. His body was spooned around hers and he’d thrown an arm around her waist.

  She slipped out from under the constriction and scooted away the few inches available to her. The boat was cramped, but she hadn’t minded. They hadn’t needed much room to make love in the dark of night.

  But it was daylight, or would be soon.

  Morning crept over the horizon like a forbidden lover. Elizabeth would have liked to creep away with it. Uncertainty filled her, and a glance at Andrei made her stomach knot. A miracle had happened between them—his curse had been broken. She remembered every word spoken in passion. She remembered every touch.

  But she also remembered that night ten years before.

  What if the morning brought her the same results, if in a different manner? She knew the carnival would be packed up today and gone tomorrow.

  The last time, she had been the one to turn Andrei away. But no matter what he’d said about loving her, he hadn’t fought for her, hadn’t tried to chase away her doubts. After learning about her mother’s death, she’d been in shock. And, in her mind, she could only believe that he’d been glad for the excuse to go.

  What if she’d been right?

  And so, as if it was her very last chance, she drank in the sight of the man she loved. A sight that might have to last her a lifetime.

  The lashes brushing his cheeks fluttered open and his dark gaze found hers. His lips curled into a smile.

  “Morning,” he murmured.

  “Morning,” she returned, her smile feeling brittle. He reached for her, but she backed off, saying, “We should get on our way and make that call to Leon Thibault.”

  Andrei’s smile faded, but he didn’t argue, simply sat up and slid back to where he’d set the paddle. Elizabeth was both relieved and disappointed. She could have u
sed some reassurances, rather than renewed strain between them.

  Andrei used the paddle like a pole and shoved them back from the growth in which the pirogue had become tangled. She reached over and pushed against a cypress knee, then whipped her hand away when something slithered into the swamp nearby. A fat brown cottonmouth.

  The journey back seemed fraught with danger. What looked to be logs in the dark became, in the morning light, sluggish alligators that opened their mouths and gulped air as they passed. At the shoreline, No Tresspassing! signs warned intruders to stay in their boats.

  She kept her attention on the swamp so she wouldn’t have to think too deeply about what came next with Andrei. They churned through floating hyacinths, with mullet and shad leaping before the boat. And a festive line of red ribbons trailed into the bush, a track for inexperienced bullfrog hunters to follow.

  When they arrived back at the dock, the other large pirogue was gone—fishermen started work early—and she wondered if an alert had already gone up about this one being stolen.

  Andrei got out first and tied up the boat, then held out his hand to her.

  Gazing up at his face, she couldn’t read him. Still, she took his hand and let him help her onto the dock. They stood there a moment, a breath apart—she with her eyes averted, waiting for him to say something that would dispel the chill that had more to do with her own uncertainty than the weather.

  “Let’s stay together,” he said. “I don’t want anything happening to you.”

  Not exactly romantic, but reassuring nevertheless.

  Elizabeth figured they were halfway back to the live oak before she asked, “Do you think they’ll have trouble finding Milo? He could be far from here by now.”

  “He would never leave Florica on her own,” Andrei said. “He would come back for her, may have already. And the carnival is his. Who knows what he might be planning?” he mused. “Don’t let down your guard.”

  Elizabeth took the warning seriously, but nothing untoward happened. As they approached the grounds, however, mechanical noises got her attention.

  “What is that?”

  “The men are breaking down the rides. We were to be on the move tomorrow at daylight.”

  Elizabeth swallowed hard. Andrei would be on the move, too. Then what? He still didn’t offer any reassurances.

  As they cut across the carnival grounds, the noise suddenly stopped, only to be replaced by a cacophony of voices. And in the distance, a crowd gathered.

  “Something is going on,” Andrei murmured, hurrying off.

  Elizabeth kept up, and in a moment they were at the edge of a crowd gathered around the Tilt-a-Whirl. It wasn’t until they broke through the crush of bodies that Elizabeth recognized the two detectives. One was bending over something. Someone. A body. She pushed in closer and saw Milo Vasilli lying sprawled across the floor of the Tilt-a-Whirl, his eyes staring, his mouth open as if in a scream.

  And protruding from his chest…the knife that had killed her mother.

  ______

  “I don’t believe Milo committed suicide,” Andrei said in protest to Leon Thibault’s explanation. “Too damn tidy!”

  And he was certain that the knife that killed the carnival owner was the one from the live oak—he recognized the handle. Even as strong as Milo had been, it would have been some feat for him to have freed the damn thing.

  “Be careful with that,” Andrei cautioned the examiner who’d pulled the knife from the body and was dropping it into a bag. Old, long-dried blood that he hadn’t noticed before spattered the handle. “It’s evidence—”

  Thibault stepped in. “Don’t stick your nose where it don’t belong, Sobatka. Of course it’s evidence—”

  “—in Theresa Granville’s murder,” Andrei finished.

  “What?”

  “We saw Milo pull that knife from a hollow in the live oak where Theresa Granville’s body was found. Take a good look at that handle. Dried blood.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  The D.A. appeared disbelieving until Andrei explained what had happened the night before.

  Thibault looked from him to Lizzie. “That your story, too?” he asked her.

  “Yes. He all but admitted to murdering Mama. I’m afraid you’re going to have to stop a certain execution,” she said.

  “I see.” But he didn’t sound convinced. “We’ll have to go over the story again, get all the details in writing.”

  “Of course,” Andrei said, wondering what Lizzie was thinking.

  The carnies were disbursing, keeping busy, going back to dismantling rides and tents, their mood dark, their future uncertain. Her gaze darted around as if she was afraid to look at anything or anyone too long. Especially him.

  Was she already regretting sleeping with him? It seemed so.

  Or maybe she was just freaked out by this latest development. Milo dead. Murdered. By whom?

  “I’ll have one of the men bring you back to my office in Les Baux,” Thibault was saying.

  “I would like to go home and get cleaned up first.” Lizzie was fidgeting, as though she couldn’t wait to leave. “I can get myself there.”

  Because of Milo? Andrei wondered. Or because she wanted to get away from him. “Give me a minute and I’ll take you.”

  But she was already backing off. “That won’t be necessary.”

  Andrei pressed his lips together lest he argue the point. She was safe from Milo. She wanted to put some distance between them, that was obvious.

  And before he could convince her to wait, Thibault mused, “What would make someone kill Milo Vasilli?”

  Distracted long enough for Lizzie to turn and flee before he could speak, Andrei tried not to take it personally. This was a difficult time for her, he told himself. He would give her some space, but he wouldn’t disappear, not until he was certain that was what she wanted.

  The D.A. went on, his sharp gaze going from carny to carny. “Which of these seemingly grief-stricken people is, in fact, a murderer?”

  Andrei snapped back to him for a moment. “Maybe you ought to be looking at who isn’t here.”

  ______

  Caught up in an emotional whirlwind, Elizabeth averted her gaze from the signs of the carnival leaving. She didn’t need to see the rides being dismantled or the tents being taken down to know that it was over.

  Not just the carnival, but her and Andrei.

  She crossed the grounds as quickly as she could, and it was only when she came to the path—a shortcut home—that she slowed and mentally began to process Milo’s death. Most significant—at least she thought so—was the murder weapon. Whoever had removed it from the trunk had been really strong. Milo himself? She supposed a crazed person might have more adrenaline and therefore more strength than normal, and Milo certainly had been crazed the night before.

  But for all these years, Milo had left the murder weapon hidden. What in the world would make him bring it back to the carnival? And why would someone else use it to kill him, unless…

  Unless the same person who killed Milo was involved in the attempts on the lives of Andrei’s cousins and their lovers. Why? Because that someone must have been involved in her mother’s murder, Elizabeth concluded.

  Thinking she ought to go back and offer that theory to Leon Thibault, she hesitated. She would have to face Andrei, as well, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that.

  And then she heard a noise behind her that raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

  Someone was following her!

  Her pulse rushed and so did she, straight for home.

  But suddenly other sounds, these somewhere ahead, made her falter. Heart pounding into her throat—what if the murderer were after her now?—she looked around wildly and left the path, cutting off into the brush.

  The scrunch of footfalls seemed to surround her.

  Frightened and confused, Elizabeth realized she’d turned herself around and didn’t know in what direction to go. Where
the hell was she?

  Suddenly someone stepped into her path and she nearly jumped out of her skin. And then she saw who it was.

  “Florica.” Tension whooshed right out of her. “Lord, you startled me.”

  The child-woman giggled softly, and as if playing a game, she said, “You’re it!” Then just as quickly, Florica’s good humor disappeared. Her smile faded, leaving an angry visage and cold eyes staring at Elizabeth.

  And why not? Florica had just lost a parent to violence.

  “I know how you must be feeling,” Elizabeth said reassuringly. “I lost my mother the way you just lost your father. I’m so sorry about everything, Florica.”

  “You’re sorry?” She seemed puzzled. “Truly?”

  “That your father was murdered so horribly? Of course.”

  Florica’s confused expression only lasted a moment. Then she shook her head and said, “Papa had to die. He tried to hurt Andrei. I saw him. I saw you, too, touching Andrei and kissing him. You shouldn’t have done that.”

  Elizabeth’s spine crawled. “I shouldn’t have?” she echoed as she tried to think. Slowly, she backed away.

  A solemn Florica shook her head. “Andrei was mine. Just like Carlo.”

  “C-Carlo?”

  “He was going to take me to the movies. But then he didn’t come and I saw him with the gadji.” Florica focused on Elizabeth. “She looked like you.”

  “Mama? What do you know about her? What did you have to do with her? Theresa Granville—that is who you mean, isn’t it?”

  “Theresa Granville,” Florica echoed, nodding. “She gave me a letter for Carlo, but I read it and then I knew that Carlo had betrayed me with her. She was bad, a gadji harlot, Papa called her. I knew what I had to do then.”

  Elizabeth blinked and tried to take this in. Florica was more a child than a woman mentally, but she undoubtedly had a woman’s needs. She’d thought Carlo had cared for her and then had cheated on her…and she’d what?

  “Did you tell Milo—your papa—about Carlo?”

  “After. He kept me safe.”

  The truth couldn’t be clearer. “Then Milo didn’t do it,” Elizabeth murmured, more for her own satisfaction than Florica’s. “He wasn’t the murderer, after all.”