Mama's Charm

 

 

MAMA’S CHARM

Luxie Ryder

EROTIC ROMANCE

Siren Publishing, Inc. www.SirenPublishing.com

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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

MAMA’S CHARM Copyright © 2009 by Luxie Ryder E-book ISBN: 1-60601-325-4 First E-book Publication: April 2009 Cover design by Jinger Heaston All cover art and logo copyright © 2009 by Siren Publishing, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER Siren Publishing, Inc. www.SirenPublishing.com

DEDICATION This one’s for me…

MAMA’S CHARM LUXIE RYDER Copyright © 2009

Chapter 1 Part One Mama’s Charm Mama Susu shuffled to the window, pulling down the shade to block out the blazing sunshine. ‘That chile is lonely,’ she said to no one in particular. ‘Time to fix it. Kep’ meanin’ to fix it, kep’ forgettin’. Promised her kin that I would. Kep forgettin’. Old fool I am…old fool.’ MARTINE The man who had been standing outside my shop window for the last few minutes finally moved away. I had already decided that I didn’t like him much. It’s not that I knew him—I guess I just didn’t trust his ‘kind’. Men like him could usually be found farther north of the state, laughing and cussing around a pig roast with a six pack of beer in their belly and another one under their arm. He was a fine specimen though. Tall and strong, he’d blocked most of the light coming in through the window, casting his shadow over me.

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I pushed my dark, curly hair off the back of my neck, cursing my decision not to wear it up that day. The Louisiana afternoon had been a killer even by our standards, and I felt unbearably hot. My black cotton slip dress clung to every part of me. I turned to check the fan in the corner, which sure wasn’t helping much, despite the noise it made. Just then, the door chimes tinkled and I turned in time to see the guy enter. The low evening sun had made it hard to see his features through the glass and I couldn’t see them much better once shaded by the darkness of my small shop. Up close his size made me a little nervous, although he seemed harmless enough. Dressed in a plaid shirt jacket worn open over a t-shirt and a trucker cap, he must have been the original mould for the stereotype. I wondered where he had left the pickup he most certainly would have driven. He wasn’t one of my typical customers. ‘Can I help you?’ He stepped forward nervously, remembering with a jerk to take his hat off before he spoke. ‘Good afternoon, ma’am.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I uh…I wondered if I could have a reading with you?’ His face told me nothing. Now that I could see him properly, he looked very handsome in a rough kind of way, despite the full beard. His eyes, dark and quietly watchful, were unreadable in a wide, tanned face. Collar length scruffy black hair fell onto broad shoulders atop a long torso that tapered down into linebacker thighs encased in dusty jeans. His coloring made me wonder about his heritage. He appeared white at first glance but the slight tint to his skin combined with almond-shaped eyes, a strong nose and raven black hair hinted at a Native American influence somewhere in his ancestry. He was more polite than I had expected considering the way he dressed and I reminded myself not to judge people so quickly. He held my gaze as I scanned him, taking my time to answer. I noticed he felt no need to repeat himself or shuffle nervously as the silence stretched out between us. Confidence blazed in his eyes and I

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wondered why a man like this needed the services of a tarot card reader. I seriously doubted he had ever suffered a moment’s uncertainty in his whole life. He looked like a man who got—or took—what he wanted. My little shop in the French Quarter of New Orleans didn’t attract many locals. Tourists and visitors, still drunk from Mardi Gras, were the usual clients. My skills weren’t needed very often as they mostly asked about finding true love or winning the lottery. I told them what they wanted to hear, often seeing far more in the cards than I revealed, but keeping it to myself. Happy customers tipped more. A couple of regulars in need of genuine advice and guidance came in once in a while, but they were few and far between. This guy didn’t seem the type. ‘I was about to close up for the day,’ I said. The sky had begun to darken and, after a long, traumatic reading with one of my regulars earlier, I’d had enough. ‘It’s kinda important.’ He offered no further explanation but his face split suddenly into an abrupt smile that looked out of place, alien to his features and didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I’ll pay you extra for your trouble. It will only take a minute of your time.’ Curiosity and a need for the money he offered won out over my tiredness, so I beckoned him to follow me behind the beaded curtain that separated the shop from my reading room. The tiny colonial townhouse I’d inherited from my mother at the age of thirty a couple of years earlier was my pride and joy but it took a lot of money to look after. I’d left the layout as she had it—keeping the front as a gift shop but using the back room for clients. The house wasn’t the only thing I had inherited from her. A gift for the Tarot had been passed on to me, as well as her fiercely independent nature. Alone since the day she had announced to my ‘father’ that she’d fallen pregnant with his child, she had worked hard to give us a good life. I’d left everything in that tiny shop just as she’d

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had it—both as a living testament to her achievement and a way of staying connected to her memory. The tiny round table I used for the cards seemed even smaller now with the large man sitting at it. His hands covered almost a third of the top as he spread them out wide, palms down. A small smile creased the corner of my mouth. He looked like a convict trying to get comfortable in the electric chair. Why on earth had he come? ‘Please try to relax Mr.…’ Waiting for his name, I saw the shutters drop over his eyes. Whatever he said next would be a lie. ‘Call me Wade,’ he said in a deep, scratchy drawl typical of the blue-collar workers living in the parishes. I laughed. ‘Wade?’ He held my gaze steadily as he nodded, unworried that I appeared not to believe him. It didn’t really matter that he had lied, but I did wonder why. No time to think on it yet. Did he know me? I squirmed a little under his intense scrutiny, sure he had never been a client. I wouldn’t have forgotten him—if only for his looks if not his strange mannerisms. Still, something lurked behind his gaze that unnerved me. If I didn’t know better, I would swear he didn’t like me much. I’d be happier when the session was over. Going through my usual routine, I gave my name. He repeated it, making it sound dirty somehow. ‘Martine. Is that Creole?’ I nodded, uncomfortable with the slant he put on the words. Deciding to ignore it, I continued. ‘Usually, people tell me what they want to know, and we see where the cards take us, ok?’ He shuffled in his seat before fixing me with a look. Again, I knew he wouldn’t be entirely truthful, but it was his money, and if he wanted to waste it, it made no difference to me. ‘I think my wife is seeing someone.’ His voice had trailed off as he finished speaking, sounding rougher, tinged with something that sounded like sadness, but could have been anger. I got up and lit some candles—a blue one for him, to bring peace and happiness and a black one for me, to absorb the negative energy I

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could feel coming from him. I wasn’t exactly nervous but couldn’t shake the edgy feeling I had about the guy. Flicking a quick glance over my shoulder, I found his eyes on my ass. Turning back to him as I cleared my throat, his perusal continued, inching slowly up my body, finally reaching my face. Any hope I had of seeing contrition or embarrassment at his being caught mentally undressing me was chased away by the slight smirk he gave before dropping his gaze. His story wasn’t ringing true but the natural intuition I always relied on failed me. All I knew for sure was that a man, concerned about a cheating wife, didn’t come to a tarot card reader and look at her in the way he had just looked at me. I settled in my seat, determined to get the reading over with as quickly as possible. Lifting the damp hair from my neck once again, I felt the fabric of my dress strain across my breasts and knew without needing to check that he would have noticed. Appallingly, my nipples hardened at the thought and I abruptly dropped my arms, cursing my own stupidity. Eyes averted, I spent a few moments shuffling the deck while telling him to concentrate on what he wanted to know. Offering him the cards, I told him to split them as he asked the question out loud. Nothing happened. Having no choice but to look at him again, my breath caught at the change in his expression. The cold, dark eyes that had first greeted me now seemed larger and much warmer. The hard line of his mouth had relaxed and he looked slightly flushed. His delay in answering had been intentional. He’d wanted me to look at him. I could feel myself blushing under his stare, feeling totally out of my depth. I didn’t know what he wanted or why he affected me this way. And he knew he affected me. His posture had relaxed and the hands that had been rigid on the table now smoothed down over his thighs as he kept his eyes on me all the while. I felt a trickle of sweat start to roll down the side of my neck. Needing to wipe it away, I didn’t move, afraid again of making him

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look at my body but more afraid of how I would react when, not if, he did. I felt it slip slowly downwards onto my collarbone, pooling there for a second before it continued, as I knew it would, down my chest and under the neckline of my dress. His voice made me jump. ‘It’s sure hot in here. Do you mind if I take off my over-shirt?’ His gaze riveted to the spot where the trail of sweat had disappeared inside my clothing, making it clear he had been following its path. I shook my head at his question, trying without success to refocus my attention on the cards. My eyes were drawn back to him as the grubby v-neck t-shirt stretched taut across his chest. He shrugged off the shirt to reveal sweaty, heavily muscled arms that rippled as he moved, causing my breath to catch in my throat. His musky scent reached my nostrils and wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but it was entirely male. An ache began between my legs and I willed myself to ignore it. Sure, he was one hell of a man but that didn’t explain my reaction to him. Maybe the sexual drought of the past year caused me to squirm in my seat at the nearness of a good-looking guy? Whatever it was, I wished it would stop. ‘Should I cut them now?’ I only realized that I had been staring at him dumbly when his voice broke through my trance. I nodded, grateful for the distraction of the cards as I held them out to him. Placing a large hand under mine to steady it, he cut the deck. My skin burned where he touched me but I refused to analyze it, concentrating instead on the small amount of cards he had chosen. Men were quite anal about such things and often struggled to cut them exactly in half, like it mattered. I found my voice. ‘You didn’t ask the question.’ The warmth in his gaze disappeared. ‘I want to know if my wife is fuckin’ around.’ His voice sounded raw but his face told me nothing so I guessed the words had been used to elicit a response from me. Refusing to

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react, I dealt the cards quickly, into a traditional diamond shaped, four-card spread. Frowning at the display, I flapped my hands ineffectually as my frazzled brain failed to make any sense of what I saw. Gathering the cards together, I turned to him. ‘I am sorry Wade, I don’t see anything.’ ‘What do you mean? She ain’t up to nothing?’ ‘No, I just mean I can’t see anything. For some reason, the energy is blocked. Maybe it’s just that I’m tired,’ I explained. ‘Whatever it is, the cards aren’t working for me.’ His brow knit in confusion. ‘Is that it?’ I nodded. ‘I can’t do any more for now. Maybe you should come back another day. I won’t charge you for this time, okay?’ ‘You can’t tell me anything?’ He looked like he didn’t believe me but didn’t push it after I shook my head. I waited for him to begin gathering his things and make a move for the door. Instead, he stayed put, watching me intently. For an insane moment, I felt like he was trying to read me, searching for my secrets. His dark eyes pinned me to the spot and it took all my nerve to return his gaze. Not for the first time, I regretted the layout of the small room. I had to face the front of the shop so I could keep an eye on it while I read for my customers. It also helped that they couldn’t be distracted by anything else if they looked my way. However, with a man the size of Wade, there was no way around him without touching him, and I didn’t want to do that. Standing abruptly, I put the cards away, hoping he would take a hint and leave. With no reaction at all from him, I tried a different tack. ‘Do you live far from here?’ He smiled slightly, as if amused. ‘LaPlace.’ He still hadn’t moved. I tried another hint. ‘Does it take you long to get home? Smells like it’s gonna rain.’ ‘Not long. You got far to travel?’

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‘No, I live upstairs, above the store.’ Why had I told him that? I decided to put an end to his games. I made to move passed him, flattening my back against the wall but still skimming his impressive shoulder with my groin as I did so. Almost clear of him, I nearly cursed aloud when he grabbed my wrist and stopped me. Placing a free hand on his shoulder to steady myself, I stood rigid, unsure whether to pull away. Brown eyes looked up at me innocently, like they had no idea what their owner was doing. ‘When can I come again?’ ‘I’m open every day,’ I said brightly, trying not to be aroused by his nearness and persistence. ‘Maybe the Tarot isn’t the thing for you. I know some good palmists and clairvoyants you could try down in Jackson Square.’ Pulling my hand away, I moved to the front of the shop and held the door open for him, keeping my eyes averted until his quiet chuckle brought my attention back to him to find that he still hadn’t moved from the table. He got up finally, taking his own sweet time as he made his way towards the waiting doorway. The Louisiana dusk lit his face warmly and he had to glint against the dipping sun—making his eyes unreadable. He stopped to put on his shirt and hat and I could see from the tilt of his mouth that he was amused by my obvious attempts to get away from him. Still, he left immediately and without further comment. I shut the door as soon as I could, locking him out. I watched him amble along the street until he was out of sight. He didn’t turn around but I’m sure he knew I was watching.

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Chapter 2 WADE I walked away, feeling her eyes on me. What was her deal? I didn’t believe in Tarot cards or any of that stuff. Hell, I’d only gone to see her to find out what kind of junk she had been filling Cindy’s head with. The dark little shop, crammed to the rafters with books and trinkets, had been pretty much what I had expected from a Tarot card reader in the heart of New Orleans. Seeing Martine inside had reinforced my suspicions that she ran no more than a tourist attraction—she even looked like a gypsy with all that dark hair and dusky skin. I’d been sure I knew what to expect but she had surprised me by refusing to tell me something, anything in fact, in order to fleece me of my money and move on to the next naïve fool. Whether I believed in card readers or not, it seemed Martine took it all very seriously. For a moment back there, I’d begun to wonder if she knew me— especially when she laughed as I told her my name. Part of me had wanted to say that she should know it already, being that she could ‘see’ stuff in the cards and all. I’d thought better of it though, deciding there was no point pissing her off before I found out whether she could help me or not. Following my cheating wife around didn’t make me particularly proud of myself and I was getting paranoid about everything. Maybe Cindy had spoken about me before? Thinking back on Martine’s reaction to me, I realized I’d unsettled her somehow, and not just because we could have cut the sexual tension in that room with a knife. It had been years since I’d gotten

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hard just by looking at somebody. No doubt, she was a fine looking woman, with all that gleaming olive skin that broke out into a sweat as my eyes lingered on it, and masses of dark curly hair that I wanted to tangle my hands into. The longer I watched her, the more fascinated I became, until eventually all I could think of was dragging her across the rickety table between us and fucking her. In the end, all I had managed to do was scare her into trying to get rid of me without giving up the information I needed. I knew no more about what Cindy had doing than I did before. Climbing into the front seat of my Isuzu, I gunned the beat up old engine a couple of times to prime it, ready for the journey home. Nothing in my life worked as it should—not the ancient green pickup I used for my work as a carpenter or my joke of a marriage. No wonder Cindy treated me like a jerk. I was a jerk. Had to be to keep paying the bills and swallowing her lies when I knew she’d been cheating on me. I even knew the guy’s name. All I didn’t know was why she kept denying it. Cindy had proven to me time and time again that she could look me dead in the eye and lie her ass off. A few times, she had even managed to make me feel like a shit for not trusting her, which is why I knew I would have to catch her in the act. It had all started a while back, when I’d unexpectedly dropped in to the bar she liked to go to a couple nights a week. She always bitched that I worked all the time and never paid her any attention to her so, like the idiot I am, I decided to surprise her. When I’d first seen her talking to the guy in her local bar, The Hungry Hound, I hadn’t thought twice about it. Cindy had been a flirt since the day we had first met—even taken things further than that a time or two—but over the past few years I had come to trust her again. I figured she just liked the attention. The first thing that gave me an idea something was going on was the recognition in the guy’s eyes when I’d walked in. I sure as hell didn’t know him or why he would have any reason to whisper a warning into my wife’s ear as he saw me. Cindy had leapt away from

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him like a scalded cat, spinning around to look at me with a brittle, nervous smile. ‘Who’s your friend?’ I’d asked her, standing my ground as she tried to lead me away. He’d turned his attention back to the bar with a grin on his face that only another guy would understand. The kind of grin that said he had something that belonged to you and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it. I’d grabbed at his shirt, intending to drag him from the stool and make him explain what the hell he was doing with my wife, when Cindy had begun screaming. She’d been stinking drunk, and shouting for all to hear what a bastard I was and how I always accused her of shit she wasn’t doing. She threw her drink at me then—glass and all—which is when the bartender had said to get her out of there before he called the cops. When she’d sobered up, I had asked her outright. She denied it and laid the same guilt trip on me as she always did. But I knew in my gut she was up to something, and I’d spent the last few weeks since then trying to catch her out. I’d managed to find out who the guy was and where he lived, then I’d followed Cindy around for a few days, ready to walk in on her the next time she met up with him. It hadn’t happened yet but I knew it would. When it did, I would be there, ready to finally close the door on a chapter of my life that should never have started. I thought about Martine again, the classy, sexy as hell woman I’d just had to drag myself away from before I turned did something stupid. I felt ashamed for wanting her more than I ever had my own wife.

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Chapter 3 MARTINE The feeling that I wasn’t alone is what woke me. I leapt from the bed and turned on the light. My eyes told me that there was nobody in the room but my brain just wouldn’t accept it. A rumble of thunder made me jump and I realized it was probably the reason I had woken feeling so edgy. I got a glass of water to calm my nerves and then remembered that I had been dreaming. As I climbed into bed again, the details came back to me. Why in hell had I dreamt about Mama Susu? I hadn’t laid eyes on her since I’d buried my mother two years earlier. Her sudden passing had left all who knew her reeling in shock. Mama had been one of many who had turned up at the funeral to pay their respects. Her presence had barely registered through my distress, but when I was at my absolute lowest point on my knees crying at her graveside, I felt a calm come over me. My eyes had been drawn to the old woman staring at me in the strangest way. Mama simply smiled, but I swear to this day that she spoke. ‘It will be alright, baby’, she’d said. Or at least that’s what I heard in my head. Then she’d shuffled away. Her words had stayed with me during the weeks it took me to recover from the sudden shock of losing the only parent I had ever known. For some reason, I believed what Mama had told me and it gave me strength. It made me real edgy to have been dreaming about her… I don’t know why. She had never done me any harm, but her reputation as a root doctor was well known. Revered and feared by those who knew

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her, she was rumored to be a ‘mambo’ or voodoo priestess, and a powerful one at that. I clutched at the strands of the dream, trying hard to remember what she had been holding in her hands, as if offering it to me. I knew it to be a voodoo charm—a Haitian Veve in fact—but I didn’t know what it represented. It wasn’t even a real one and, had I seen it elsewhere, I would have dismissed it for the cheap tourist trinket that it appeared to be. My own powers with the Tarot made me a little more knowledgeable than most about such things, but I only had a basic understanding of Voodoo. Stories from my childhood made me fear it, maybe irrationally, but I feared it nonetheless. Folklore regarding Mama had been passed from generation to generation in hushed, reverent tones. I had always been nervous the few times I had been in her presence, feeling like the old woman could see inside my mind. Mama had been born in Haiti many years earlier. Nobody seemed to know just how old she was or even when she arrived in Louisiana, but she’d been around for as long as anyone could remember. Mama Susu loved my family and had always been kind to me. Dreaming about her and the Veve unsettled me, but I’m sure she would never do me harm. I tried to push the dream to the back of my mind and settled down to sleep. I was awoken again later, this time by the sounds of my own cries. Unsure for a moment whether I had dreamed the orgasm or actually experienced it, I tensed the muscles in my pelvis. The pulsating ache I felt left me in no doubt that I had just come…. hard. Thank God I’m not dreaming about Mama this time, I thought with a wry grin. I’d had the same dream a few times before over the past year. There was always a man… one I didn’t know. As usual, I struggled to remember his face without luck. I always remembered his touch and his total possession of me. My heart skipped a beat as a

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quiver between my legs reminded me how his tongue had moved over me and how his cock had felt as he pounded into me relentlessly. It didn’t take a genius to understand why I’d had the dream this time. The earlier encounter with the tall, dark redneck had left me hot and bothered all night. As I thought about him, my brain kind of morphed his face onto that of the man who had been taking me in my sleep. My senses plotted against me to make all the pieces fit. Suddenly, the voice I’d heard—the one breathing urgent, dirty words into my ear—became Wade’s too. I felt a pulse begin to beat between my thighs as my physical reaction to his presence earlier in the day merged with the heat left from the man who had come to me in my sleep. I trailed a hand down between my thighs, fighting the desire to touch myself but unable to stop. I came at the first tentative touch, my body arching in almost painful reaction as my thighs clamped around my fingers. I heard his voice again in my head and could almost feel his lips on my neck and his hardness inside me. I collapsed back on the bed breathlessly. As the last spasms subsided I felt my body return to something near normal, allowing me the time to wonder what the hell just happened. The man in my dream had always been unknown to me before so I couldn’t figure out why I had become convinced it was Wade. Try as I might, I just couldn’t shake the feeling. My mystery lover had a face. A face I wouldn’t get out of my mind for the rest of the night.

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Chapter 4 WADE I’d arrived back home that evening to an empty house. A note stuck to the refrigerator told me Cindy’s friend had come in unexpectedly from out of town and that she would be staying over with her at a hotel. I’d balled the paper in my fist, almost amused that she wasn’t even bothering to make up decent excuses anymore. My humor surprised me. For the first time in years, I realized I didn’t give a good God damn where she was or who she was with. Grabbing a beer, I’d taken it into the den to watch the game. Kicking off my boots, I stretched out on the recliner in defiance, knowing that Cindy would pitch a fit if she could see that I still wore my dirty work clothes. I woke with a jolt sometime later, staring at the infomercial blaring out of the TV in confusion and wondering what had happened to the game, before realizing I had fallen asleep. It was just after midnight. Too late to do anything else but go to bed, whether I wanted to sleep alone or not. I slid between the sheets minutes later, still wet after taking a quick shower. It had turned into one of those hot, muggy nights, the kind I hated and always kept me awake. Flicking on the TV, I channel hopped for a while before stopping on a film about a P.I. with a femme fatale for a client. I settled back against the pillows, hoping the movie would be boring enough to send me to sleep. My mind started to wander back over the events of the day, back to Martine. My guilt had managed to suppress the memories of her so far, but I was in no mood to fight them off anymore. Alone

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and feeling unwanted, I gave in to the thoughts of her that had been threatening to overwhelm me. The image of her hot, gleaming skin and the way her hair had stuck to it in tendrils was the one that caused my body to harden. I remembered how I had watched in fascination as a shiny bead of sweat had run down the line of her neck and onto her breasts and the way I had ached to follow it with my tongue. I slid a hand under the sheet and grabbed my cock. It pulsed in response as I closed my fist around it, shutting my eyes so I could imagine Martine with me… touching me. I tried to hear her soft voice and how it would sound when she asked me to fuck her harder, faster. I wanted to kiss her, taste every inch of her, and watch as she came for me. Her mouth had been full and firm and I groaned at the thought of her lips on my prick. Would she keep her pretty green eyes on mine as she took me in her mouth, to watch my reaction to her? Her body was unknown to me but my imagination filled in the gaps. I knew without doubt she would be beautiful naked. Her skin was stunning and I wondered what color her nipples were. Dusky rose, I guessed. Her pussy would be the same. I imagined it slick and shining with her arousal and knew that I would give anything I had to be the cause of it. A sudden burst of thunder erupted overhead and I jumped at the noise. The adrenaline rush that followed was all I needed to send me tumbling over into an orgasm that robbed me of my breath and strength as I shouted her name to the still rumbling skies. I lay still, trying to hold on to the feelings I had experienced before they ebbed away, to be replaced by a hollow emptiness I was more familiar with. Listening to the thunder as it rumbled off into the distance, I welcomed the drop in temperature it had brought. The rain started and I got up to watch it through the sliding glass doors before opening them when the urge to step out into the yard became irresistible.

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Staying in the shadows in case the storm had woke the neighbors, I gasped at the feeling of the icy rain running over my naked body. The shock was exhilarating and just what I needed to shake the fog of guilt clouding my brain since I had begun to think about Martine. I allowed the downpour to soak my hair and skin, dropping my head to let it pummel my shoulders. For a moment or two, I enjoyed the isolation the rain brought as it drowned out every other noise. The silence cleansed my brain as the needles of water made my skin tingle. Finally, the chill began to bite, forcing me back in the house. I fell into the bed without bothering to dry myself. Turning off the TV to lay in the darkness, I stared up at the ceiling. The cold seeped out of my skin and I began to relax, feeling much more at peace and able to sleep. I pictured her face again and rather than chase the image away, I began to think on just why she had affected me so strongly. By the time I fell asleep I’d figured out what the problem. It wasn’t guilt from wanting her that tortured me. It was the thought of never having her.

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Chapter 5 MARTINE I can’t say I was surprised when he appeared outside my window again the following afternoon. For the briefest moment, I couldn’t be entirely sure that it wasn’t just my imagination playing tricks on me. His face and body had been swimming in and out of my mind all day. To tell the truth, I was absolutely exhausted. I had spent all day either worrying over why Mama had come to me in my sleep or finding myself totally immersed in the memories and sensations of my dream lover. More than once, my customers had started to get irritated because they could tell I wasn’t focused on them. I’d taken some time earlier in the day to quickly scan one of the folklore books that I collected and sold, to search for the type of Veve that Mama had been offering me in the night. Discovering it was the kind used for sex spells hadn’t made me feel any better. I didn’t doubt for one second that Mama had been up to something. Voodooiennes didn’t appear, either in spirit or in person, without a reason. What I couldn’t figure out was why. I hadn’t seen her in years, so for all she knew, I could be married. I flicked another look Wade’s way. Whatever Mama’s plan, I was sure it didn’t include him. His appearance in my dreams probably had more to do with my neglected libido than with anything else. He returned my gaze steadily, but didn’t come in. After a few moments I gave up trying to figure out what in hell he was doing, besides unnerving me, and focused again on the customers seated at the reading table.

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The silly, giggling co-eds began to annoy me. What had begun as a welcome distraction from my thoughts had turned into a chore. Their questions had gotten more and more trivial as the moments passed. With the heat from Wade’s gaze burning into my face, I couldn’t concentrate on them a moment longer. After gently reminding them that they had only paid for a basic reading, I guided the girls towards the door. As I approached it, a small movement at the edge of my vision drew my attention back to Wade, who had stepped closer to the entrance. He held the door open for them as they left; appearing not to notice the approving glances they gave him as they took their time moving passed him. I stayed where I was, waiting for him to finally enter, my heart beating hard. I watched him approach me with a wary look on his face. He looked as nervous as I felt. Something had unsettled him. Dressed in a clean white t-shirt and jeans, he looked better than the last time I had seen him. His beard was trimmed short, barely longer than stubble, revealing the strong line of his jaw. Had he made the effort for me? The thought was scary and exciting. I tried to suppress the quiver beginning between my legs but all that did was make me focus on it more. My mind had been full of hot images all day, stretching my senses to breaking point. Seeing him there in front of me—the subject of my lurid thoughts and dreams turned into flesh and blood male—made me a little lightheaded. I turned away to compose myself, asking him in a voice that sounded harsher than intended, what he had come for. ‘I wanted to ask you what this is.’ He sounded hoarse, maybe even a little tired, but the question may as well have been shouted for the reaction it caused in me. My heart threatened to burst out of my throat at his words. I knew without needing to look what he would be holding in his hand. ‘Where did you get that, Wade?’ I asked, my eyes riveted to the small silver charm dangling from his finger. ‘I found it in my wife’s purse. Why? What is it?’

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I tried to keep the drama out of my voice as I answered him. There was no way he could know why the innocent looking trinket had alarmed me. ‘It’s a Veve, a Haitian voodoo charm.’ ‘Huh’, he said to himself, giving it a curious look before dropping it into his palm, as if to test its weight. ‘What’s it for? And why is it making you nervous?’ I hoped he wouldn’t notice, but nothing got past those warm, dark amber eyes of his. Eyes that were now riveted on my face. ‘It’s... it’s a love charm, Wade. Well, not love exactly. It’s more for those who want to… I mean it’s for people who want—” ‘Sex?’ he interrupted, sparing me from a few more awkward moments where I couldn’t seem to make the word pass my lips. I nodded quickly, blushing as he grinned at my discomfort. I blundered on recklessly, speaking without thinking. ‘Your wife must want to improve her sex life,’ I said, my voice edged with a brittle laugh that died in my throat at the look on his face. ‘Well she sure as hell isn’t using on me.’ ‘Maybe she doesn’t know what it is?’ He shook his head, rejecting my words. ‘I found it a few weeks back, thought it was a gift from the guy she’s been seeing.’ The cynical smile he gave me didn’t reach his eyes. ‘When I asked her about it, she told me she got it from a woman in Cane River. Didn’t say what it was for though.’ I felt sick. If it came from Cane River then it had to be from Mama Susu. She was the only person round those parts who would have one. What the hell was happening? He noticed the change in my demeanor and moved towards me, stopping in surprise when he saw my eyes flit to the charm as I took a step back. ‘Don’t tell me you believe in all that mumbo jumbo?’ His laugh took the edge off his harsh words. Even in the midst of my nervousness, I couldn’t fail to notice how the smile softened his face. ‘This is powerful magic, Wade. You need to be really careful.’

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‘Of what?’ His tone made it clear he thought I was crazy. Still, he came closer, lifting the charm high to dangle from his finger, inches from my face. His voice was low, barely more than a whisper. ‘What do I need to be careful of, Martine?’ ‘I’ve seen stuff happen, in the past I mean.’ I didn’t dare look at him as he took another step towards me. Torn between playing down my fear and a need to warn him not to mess with things he didn’t understand, I couldn’t tell him the real reason I was so nervous. A glimmer of light bounced off the trinket in his hand, drawing my gaze back to it. I watched it spin slowly at the end of its chain, almost mesmerizing me with the movement. A vision flashed into my mind of Wade with his head between my thighs, his glossy black hair all I could see as his tongue buried itself inside me. I shook the image away and forced myself to look at him when he spoke. ‘Maybe that explains why I couldn’t sleep last night.’ ‘What do you mean?’ He shook his head, as if rejecting a thought. ‘I had the weirdest dreams, so many I lost count.’ My heart began to pound again as he continued. ‘You were in a couple of them.’ I couldn’t speak and had no intention of telling him of my own experience. A distant part of my brain wondered if his reaction to the dreams had been the same as mine. My treacherous imagination instantly rewarded me with an image of him, sweaty and writhing, cock grasped firmly in his fist as he masturbated at the thought of me. The pulse between my legs intensified and I could feel my panties begin to cling to my skin as I got wetter. I tried to hide my reaction to him and took a deep breath before looking at him again. Wade seemed shaken by what he saw in my face. The look of surprise quickly changed to one of knowing, then to one of invitation. I fought the seductive pull of his eyes as they pinned me to the spot, promising everything I wanted if I would just reach out and take it. ‘Don’t you want to know what happened in my dreams, Martine?’ I shook my head as I closed my eyes, not wanting to hear what I

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already knew. He continued regardless. ‘We were fucking…over and over again.’ ‘Please don’t say any more,’ I begged, scared and excited by what he said. His voice turned to pure syrup and it trickled over me, seeping down into my loins, smoothing the rough edges from his words. ‘I was crazy with it all night long. Every time I closed my eyes, awake or asleep, you were there.’ He looked through me, remembering rather than seeing me. I began to turn away. I needed time to think, to understand what it all meant. He had other ideas. ‘You felt it too, didn’t you?’ he asked in a quiet voice, shrewd eyes piercing my defenses. He raised a hand to stop me as I began to shake my head. ‘Don’t bother lying. I can see it in your face.’ Suddenly, he strode away to lock the door to the store before returning to grab my hand and drag me behind the bead curtain at the back of the room. I held him away as he moved to kiss me, bracing my hands against his chest. ‘What about your wife?’ I whispered, tilting my head back to look up at him. The knot of fear in my stomach seduced away by the want in his dark eyes, and the aching wetness between my legs. ‘I don’t wanna think about her. Not now,’ he said, his expression clouding over briefly at the mention. He leaned down, placing the softest kiss on my open mouth, barely brushing my lips. His gentleness surprised me. The heavy throbbing in my groin intensified as he trailed his tongue across my bottom lip before slanting his mouth over mine. I broke the kiss, forcing him to take a step back as the struggle between my body and my brain raged. Sleeping with married men wasn’t my style and I’d resolved to stop things going any further until I looked at him again. Right at that moment, everything I wanted was reflected in his eyes and I felt his gaze right down to my groin. My lips still tingled from his kiss and I could feel his hot breath on my face as he watched me silently. I

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smiled my consent as I stopped fighting, the need to have him won out over my fear and any thoughts of his wife. Mesmerized I watched as he lifted the trinket by its chain, trailing it across my skin before allowing it to disappear between my breasts. My skin burned as it passed over me. His hand at my ass pressed me against his thigh as he dipped his head to retrieve the chain with his teeth, dragging his lips up to meet mine with it still in his mouth. He kissed as if his life depended on it and I responded to him eagerly, threading my hands up into his hair to pull on it gently. Wade raised his head, letting the charm fall from his lips as he gasped for air. ‘Please don’t ask me to stop now,’ he begged on a half smile. About to answer, I was forced to groan instead as he dragged the dress up my thighs, sinking his fingers into the crotch of my panties without warning. I felt a shudder ripple through him as he realized just how wet I’d become. ‘Is that for me, Martine?’ he asked in a raw voice. The fingers between my legs suddenly plunged inside the fabric and upwards into my pussy, causing my head to fly back and bang against the wall as I groaned his name. I saw in his eyes that he knew it was for him, and because of him. He pressed the flat of his hand against my mound as his fingers pushed deeper inside me. I could smell my own arousal and hear the sounds made by his hand as it entered me over and over again. He fumbled with his jeans as I tried to rip the t-shirt over his head, needing to feel his skin. Forced to pull out of me, he tore his top off before ripping open my dress and pushing it from my shoulders. I fell into him, sinking my teeth into his shoulder as he grappled with my bra. Pushing me back against the wall, he cupped my breasts in his hands, flicking the nipples with his thumbs. ‘Dusky rose…’ he said cryptically as he stared at them, a small smile playing on his lips. I reached up to pull his head to mine, biting hard on his lip. His hands left my breasts to trail down over my body, feeling scratchy and rough as they moved over my abdomen, followed by his mouth. My

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panties suffered the same fate as my dress and he threw them to one side. I had a weird sense of déjà vu as my gaze fell to his dark head, watching as he sank into my groin, teasing my lips apart with his. I almost stopped breathing for a moment as he sucked my clit into his mouth, swirling the bud around with his tongue. My legs shook uncontrollably and he stopped what he was doing long enough to angle his massive shoulders between my thighs and lean me into the wall, lifting my feet from the floor. I feared I would fall but the hands under my ass held me steady as he buried his face into me again. I had nothing to hold onto but his hair and I pulled on it hard as he sucked me relentlessly. I forgot everything then, my surroundings, who and what he was. Nothing existed except his tongue on my clit and the feelings swirling tighter and tighter in my groin as I inched towards orgasm. I was surprised and a little disappointed when he stopped. It hadn’t occurred to me that he had been holding my weight on his shoulders as I squirmed and groaned against the wall. Putting me down, he shed the rest of his clothing and pulled me onto the floor with him as he pushed the table out of the way, guiding my hips over his erection. I saw his body clearly then for the first time. He was toned, hard and brown—right down to where his jeans would ride—from working in the sun. I lay on top of him, pressing my soft breasts and abdomen into his hardness. I could feel the wetness already oozing from his cock as my skin brushed against it. Lifting his head, he kissed me as his hands roamed down over my back, spreading my ass as he maneuvered his legs between my thighs. One tiny adjustment in position and he was pushing into my pussy, biting on my shoulder. I reared up over him, sinking further onto his hardness. His cock felt just as I knew it would although my dreams hadn’t prepared me for the tears that would prick my eyes as I accommodated his size.

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He grunted in satisfaction at the first, full penetration, not allowing me to move. His fingers bit into my hips as he held me there, happy to throb deep within me for a moment. Dropping his hand barely two inches, he slid a thumb underneath me to circle my clit. Rocking my body to increase the friction against his hand, I felt his cock grow stronger inside me as my muscles undulated around him, warning of my coming orgasm. Responding to my need, he turned his hand over, rubbing me briskly with his fingertips. I opened my eyes to see him writhing beneath me, desperate for his own release but trying to bring me off first. His eyes closed as ragged breaths tore through him, teeth biting into his lip as his chest quivered with the effort. He sensed my eyes on him and opened his own. ‘Come for me, Martine,’ he said in a barely audible voice. The need in his gaze surprised me. Leaning forward, I placed my hands on his chest, bracing myself against him as I began to rock harder and faster on him. He grimaced as if in pain, hissing through his teeth as he rose up to meet me. Images from the night before flashed in and out of my mind, mingling with the sights and sounds I was experiencing at that moment. I remembered touching myself the way he was touching me right then but this time the need for something hard inside me was satisfied. My orgasm came out of nowhere, hitting hard and forcing my body to go rigid over his. Desperate hands scratched at his chest as I rode out the spasms, hair thrown over my face as I ground against him. I heard him grunt a couple of times from the effort it took to hold me steady as I flailed above him. He waited until I had finished before moving suddenly and throwing me onto my back like a rag doll. I began to open for him but he got between my legs and inside me before I knew it. I tried to move with him but he didn’t want it. My hands were clasped over my head as he attacked my mouth, licking and biting rather than actually kissing me. His thrusts became brutal, animalistic. He didn’t frighten

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me but I wondered what drove him. With or without a spell, maybe this man had demons of his own, demons he needed to chase away? His groans became louder, sounding almost painful. Freeing my hands finally, he braced his weight on his palms, rocking into me again and again, chasing away any rational thought. The angle of his body brought my mound into contact with his pelvis and I felt the friction against my clit. I grabbed his ass, pumping his rigid cock into me repeatedly, as I breathed filthy words into his ear. Again I came, my pussy sucking at him as my muscles rippled. A low growl rumbled through him as he finally found the orgasm he had been searching for. He grimaced again, baring his teeth as sensation took his breath away. His eyes locked onto mine and I could read every emotion flashing through them, making me feel he was spilling his soul into me as he shuddered to a stop. I felt his considerable weight on my chest as he collapsed, sweating and shaking against me. Thankfully, he didn’t stay there long before grunting onto his hands and knees to suck in a few ragged breaths. I closed my eyes as I lay in a kind of post-coital stupor, tiredness seeping into my limbs as my brain screamed at me to start questioning what had just happened. I managed to ignore it until I opened my eyes to find Wade staring at me in something resembling shock. I didn’t comment at first, giving him time to compose himself, but he stayed right where he was. ‘Are you ok, Wade?’ He didn’t answer. ‘Wade?’ His head began to shake slowly from side to side, denying whatever it was he was thinking. ‘It’s never been…I mean I’ve never fucked like that in my life.’ His eyes searched mine for answers. ‘Forbidden fruit,’ I drawled at him, turning away to find what was left of my clothing. ‘It’s always sweeter.’ Sure, it was a harsh thing to say but the enormity of what had just happened and my loss of control made me cranky. Spending more time with him was the last thing I needed right then. My brain finally won, embarrassment had set in and I was desperate to be alone.

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The sarcasm was lost him on him. ‘No! That’s not it,’ he protested. ‘That’s not it,’ he repeated to himself in quiet frustration, shaking his head at the idea. There was no way I could sit and listen to him try to analyze what had just happened. I had my own thoughts to deal with. Shame started to crawl over my skin, making me squirm. I’d had casual affairs and one night stands before, but there had always been a drink or two and maybe a movie or dinner first. It wasn’t like me to throw myself at any guy who turned me on. ‘Whatever it is, Wade, you need to go.’ Darkness fell like a cloak around us, hastened by the rain clouds boiling in the evening sky and I needed to be alone. I busied myself by holding the tattered remnants of my dress around me as I picked up the small table that I hadn’t noticed being knocked over and tidied away the cards and candles I used for readings. Happy to see he had dressed as I turned back to him, I could tell by his stance that he was preparing to leave. I was desperate for some space to think but something nagged at me and I had to ask. ‘Why do you want to know what your wife is doing? From the way you’re acting, she’s the one that should be worried.’ He at least had the good grace to look ashamed, casting his eyes quickly downward. ‘It’s a long story…’ He left the sentence hanging as he turned to retrieve the charm from the floor in a corner of the room, no intention of explaining further. ‘That’s what they all say.’ I felt bad as soon as the words left my lips but I couldn’t help them. I didn’t regret what had just happened, despite my guilt. Sarcasm was my only defense against the effect he still had on me. He looked slightly hurt at what I’d said, confusing me even more. Whatever the truth about his situation, it obviously didn’t include casual affairs with women he’d just met. ‘Sorry,’ I said, feeling like a bitch.

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Wade finished dressing, pulling his hat down over his eyes to hide them. ‘No, it’s me that should be sorry. It’s my fault for allowing this to happen.’ Following him across the store at a safe distance, I was stunned as he walked out without a backward glance, allowing the door to bang shut behind him. Sliding the bolt across quickly, I dropped the blind, determined to shut the world—and especially Wade—out.

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Chapter 6 WADE The knowledge that Cindy had been the one who had run our marriage off into the ditch didn’t make me feel any less ashamed. Guilt, and a reluctance to think further on what had happened, made me desperate for a distraction. Thoughts of Martine haunted me, along with the knowledge that, despite how much I wanted to go to her, I could never let it happen again. Not until I was free. I got home a couple nights later to find Cindy almost on her way out of the door. I broached the same old subject again, asking her where she ran off to every night, unsure why I wanted to give her a hard time. She said she was meeting a girlfriend and planned to catch a movie. I made it awkward for her by insisting that I wanted to come along. Cindy complained and bitched for a few minutes before storming back into the bedroom, refusing to go out at all then because I would ‘ruin it for her.’ So we spent a quiet, frosty evening together, if you could call it together that is. Cindy only reappeared long enough to grab a bottle of wine from the refrigerator before slamming back into the bedroom. I took refuge in the den, confused by my own behavior but taking a kind of perverse pleasure that I could make her as miserable as I was. Why should she have what she wanted when I couldn’t? Much later, as I began to fall asleep in the recliner, she came to me. The best part of a bottle of wine had chased away her anger, and her inhibitions. I recognized the calculating gleam in her eye and tensed, ready for the inevitable.

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‘Coming to bed, honey?’ She had changed into a flimsy nightgown that she knew was an old favorite of mine. I wasn’t totally immune to Cindy. She knew me well, and what I liked and she used that power over me whenever she wanted to manipulate a situation to her advantage. But things were different now, in a way she had no way of knowing. I could see what she was up to and it made me sick to my stomach. Her idiot of a husband had made it hard for her to escape to the arms of her lover, so she would grit her teeth and spend a few minutes ‘sweetening’ him up. She’d used the same tricks before whenever I had questioned her at length about what she got up to. ‘Just let me watch the last quarter, and I will be in,’ I’d said, turning my attention back to the game and praying that she wouldn’t pursue it, that she wouldn’t make me push her away. She pouted then, before walking slowly across the room, blocking my view of the TV and forcing me to look at her. I didn’t move so she pulled her nightgown up over her thighs to straddle my lap. Leaning in, she draped her arms over the back of the chair, bringing her breasts level with my face and waited for me to touch her. I just wished she would stop and go back to bed. The idea of rejecting her made me feel bad but I wasn’t going to let her play me so easily this time. Cindy never did know when to quit so she stayed right where she was and just tried harder. Her groin sunk down onto mine and she began to grind against me as she dropped her lips to my neck, nibbling and sucking in the way she knew drove me crazy. Months of loneliness and longing had made me weak and I was disgusted with myself when my cock got hard. She felt it too and laughed in triumph as she sat back to look at me, so sure that I couldn’t resist her and would take any crumbs she threw my way. ‘Do you do this for him?’ I’d asked quietly, trying to keep the repulsion at both her and myself out of my voice. She recoiled, as if my words had assaulted her before sagging in defeat. ‘Get off me, Cindy,’ I finally said when it seemed she had no intention of making things any less uncomfortable between us.

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Stunned by my rejection, she sat down in the chair beside mine and asked what was wrong. I threw the beer I’d just picked up across the room in anger and it smashed off the wall, causing her to jump. I leapt to my feet to pace in front of her. ‘Fuck, Cindy. Don’t play games with me.’ ‘W-what do you mean?’ Hearing her voice shake with fear didn’t make me feel good. Taking a deep breath, I willed myself to calm down as I dropped to my knees in front of her. ‘Please, Cindy. Enough is enough. I know you are cheating on me with that guy. Why won’t you just admit it? Then we can both move on.’ For a fleeting moment, I could see in her eyes that she thought about telling me the truth but she chased it away, choosing instead to lie. ‘How many times do I have to tell you, Wade, that I’m not cheating on you?’ ‘Why are you still here? Doesn’t he want you? Has he told you not to give up your husband for him?’ ‘No!’ she shouted, but her eyes had gone brittle in anger. I sensed that maybe I had accidentally stumbled on the reason that she stayed with me instead of running off to the man she wanted. ‘Does he see other women? Is that it?’ She lost her cool then, pushing me away to jump to her feet. Again she’d said no, before realizing she’d answered a question about a relationship she’d always denied had existed up to that point. ‘I told you, there is nobody else.’ Cindy had gathered her wits quickly, taking advantage of my silence. ‘I am sick of this, Wade. I’m a good wife and many a man around these parts would be grateful for me.’ I tensed, ready for the tears and accusations that would follow, as they always did. ‘Maybe you want me to leave, Wade. Is that why you’re being so cranky?’ ‘I want us to be happy. If it means we have to be apart to achieve that, then so be it,’ I said, surprising us both when I didn’t jump to offer my usual reassurances. She stared at me then as if seeing me for

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the first time. ‘If you have found something that makes you happy, Cindy, then you owe it to yourself to grab onto it with both hands. Let’s face it. We both know it’s not me.’ She weighed what I said for a moment, before crushing any hopes I had that I’d made a breakthrough and that things were about to change. ‘I love you, Wade, and if I thought you would ever leave me I…I don’t know what I would do.’ The tears came then. Hard, soulwrenching sobs that I had never been able to ignore. I allowed her to cling to my shirt before finally wrapping my arms around her to calm her down, then sending her to bed with a promise I would follow soon. I stayed in the den for about an hour, waiting for her gentle snore to let me know the wine had sent her to sleep and that it was safe for me to join her. As I settled down for what would turn out to be an almost sleepless night, I replayed the conversation in my head, more confused than ever. What had I ever done so wrong that I deserved to be trapped in a painful relationship with one woman and tortured with longing for another? Next morning, I parked my truck in the shade of a southern oak draped in Spanish moss and pulled out my lunch pail. I sat on the flat bed to take in the view and enjoy the meal I had been forced to make myself that morning. Cindy had been sleeping off the effects of the wine and I’d been glad of the chance to slip from the house without having to deal with her again. Massive guilt over what had happened with Martine had made me difficult to live with the last couple of days. Not that Cindy cared much or even seemed to notice. The back-breaking work I did on old man Johnson’s farm gave me a welcome distraction from my thoughts. I was building a kitchen in solid oak from floor to ceiling and the chance to use the full range of my carpentry skills felt good, as did the substantial fee he was paying. I’d always been good with my hands and was proud of the way they could make something beautiful out of a gnarled, bumpy piece of

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wood. Usually I found the process soothing and cathartic and often small created wooden sculptures at home as a way of relaxing or shutting out the world in general and Cindy in particular. A beautiful piece of acacia sat on my worktable in the corner of our garage, waiting for me to bring it to life. It had caught my eye when I spotted it on the floor and I couldn’t figure out why I was so fascinated with it, until I realized it was the exact color of Martine’s skin. I didn’t know what it would become yet but I knew it would be for her, although she would never get to see it. When I left her shop after our encounter, I’d been damn near driven crazy by the thoughts whirling in my head. The experience had been like nothing I had ever known. I’d never been one to make a big deal out of sex. I mean, it’s all pretty basic. Some things feel good when you do them, so you do them some more. The idea that there was earth-shattering, mind-blowing sex waiting to happen if you could only meet the right person always seemed like a fantasy to me... until Martine. I’d been totally overwhelmed by her. Anything my limited imagination had managed to conjure up beforehand about how she would look, feel and taste had come way short of the reality. She’d been on fire and I had burned for her. That was the only way I could describe it. Kissing her had unleashed a desire, maybe even a need, to make her want me. My own pleasure had been secondary. I’d wanted to make her tremble and moan, and I had, more than once. The image of her honey-colored skin quivering in response to my every thrust or touch was one I would take to my grave. I knew it had been one of those defining moments in my life. The kind where you questioned everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself. I would never be the same and I didn’t thank her for it. She’d given me a heavier cross to bear than I already had. Now I also had to carry guilt, and a hunger for her that I could never allow myself to satisfy again.

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I shook away the thought, giving myself a mental slap for wallowing in self pity. Finishing my lunch, I welcomed the thought of the hard work that lay ahead of me that afternoon. By the time this day was over, I hoped to be too tired feel anything.

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Chapter 7 MARTINE The next couple of days passed uneventfully. No more dreams and no sign of Wade. My feminine ego felt slightly bruised by the fact he hadn’t been back, but I knew it was for the best. An affair with a married man wasn’t something that interested me no matter how hot the sex had been. I’d had a busy and profitable morning and had been about to close up for lunch when Cindy, one of my regulars, ran in the door, looking frantic with worry and begging for a reading. A few minutes later, I regretted agreeing to it. The cards didn’t lie. Problem was I had no idea how to break the news and wasn’t even sure if I should tell her. ‘You seen something, Martine?’ Cindy’s voice came out as only slightly more than a frightened whisper as her huge eyes stared pleadingly, trying to guess what I wouldn’t say. Her painfully thin body began to shake more than usual as the tears started to flow. There seemed no point in lying to her now. The damage was done. Damn! Why didn’t I think before I agreed to this? ‘Honey, we don’t know what it means.’ ‘Why what did you see? Tell me, Martine. Please.’ ‘See this card at the top?’ Cindy nodded hurriedly, urging me on. ‘This is the one dealing with relationships and love.’ ‘And?’ ‘And if it comes up facing away from the person asking the question, which would be you,’ I smiled, trying to take the sting out of the words to come, ‘then it’s a negative.’

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A sob caught in Cindy’s throat. ‘So he’s cheating on me?’ ‘You asked if he’s faithful. The reading suggests he isn’t.’ Cindy’s head dropped to the table. ‘That bastard,’ she sobbed. ‘Why is he doing this to me? After all the shit I put up with from him?’ ‘You know you should leave him, right?’ She didn’t answer. I looked down at her head, genuinely sad for her but also tired of the drama. Cindy used to come to me a couple times a month, asking a variety of questions that wouldn’t need an answer if she left the worthless son-of-a-bitch she was with. More than once she had been hiding bruises, blaming them on freak accidents when questioned. ‘Life is too short to be this unhappy, Cindy. Don’t waste your spirit by staying with someone who makes you miserable.’ She raised her head, smoothing the hair desperately in need of a bleach job away from her mascara-stained face with a shaky hand. ‘Do you think he’s sleeping with someone?’ I shrugged, knowing that there was more than one way to be unfaithful. Sex was just one of them. Love was another. Somehow, I didn’t think it would help Cindy to know that. Nelson was her world and she talked about him constantly. I sensed Cindy couldn’t handle the thought of him ever being in love with another woman. Not for the first time, I felt concern for her safety. ‘Darlin’, think hard about what you’re gonna do with this information,’ I warned. ‘With that temper of his, I wouldn’t be rushing around throwing accusations at him.’ Cindy shook her head. ‘He won’t do it no more. I warned him last time that I would get his ass thrown in jail if he touched me again.’ I didn’t believe a word of it but it wasn’t my business. She needed to realize for herself that men like him rarely changed. Looking at her watch, she suddenly scrambled to her feet. ‘I gotta go. Thanks for the reading…I think,’ she said with a half smile. Relieved at her attempt at humor, I hoped it meant she wasn’t too distraught. I watched as Cindy opened her wallet, letting the billfold

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part flap wide as she searched for money. My gaze drifted and then locked onto a photograph crammed into a transparent section of the bag. I leaned forward, heart beating steadily faster. Staring back at me was Wade’s face. ‘Who’s that?’ I asked, pointing to the picture. Cindy looked around in confusion for a brief moment before following my gaze. ‘Oh, that’s my husband,’ she said with a resigned sigh. ‘Handsome, ain’t he?’ I nodded wordlessly, shame at the pulse of heat between my legs, and too many thoughts swirling in my head, to risk opening my mouth at that moment. So his name wasn’t Wade after all. He was the infamous Nelson? I knew that shit had been lying to me. ‘He’s been following me around lately, snooping on me. I’m surprised he hasn’t turned up here yet,’ she said with a shrill false laugh, stopping suddenly as she saw the expression on my face. ‘You okay, sweetie?’ ‘Yes, sorry. I’m just a little tired.’ I got to my feet, guiding her towards the door without speaking again as I didn’t trust my own voice. She left quickly with a promise to sort out the mess she was in and return soon to let me know what she had decided to do. Dropping the blind, I locked up as soon as she was gone, unable to face the prospect of more customers. Heading upstairs to my little apartment, I willed myself not to think on what I had heard until I had a glass of wine in my hand. I took it to my favorite chair, a large wicker rocker passed down to me by my grandmother that fit in perfectly with the period features in the room. I’d managed to add a few pieces of French Colonial furniture to the things my mother had left me, maintaining an old world feel to the room that relaxed me, or at least it did when I didn’t have cheating, manipulative men to think about. So ‘Wade’ was actually Nelson, the Nelson that had been abusing Cindy all this time? My brain refused to acknowledge the truth. Why had he come to me? Had his original intention been to press for

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information or to warn me away from the wife he controlled with an iron fist, if Cindy’s stories were true? I shook my head in disbelief. Shit! I’d known he was telling me a pack of lies, from his name right down to his reason for being here. Wade, or rather Nelson, must have thought me a real idiot. Not only had he tricked me into being an unwitting accomplice to the ongoing abuse of his wife but he’d gotten himself laid too. My anger at him but it was nothing compared to the self-loathing I felt at that precise moment. Cindy had been complaining for months that she suspected Nelson of cheating on her. Just how many women had there been? Problem was that didn’t explain why he’d had the Veve. He’d implied that he wasn’t having a sexual relationship with his wife, but Cindy complained often about how she tried to please him—‘acting all whorish’ as she had put it. Hell, maybe it was another lie. Who knew what went on in that sick head of his? Still, I found it hard to reconcile the stories I had heard about him to the man I’d met. The man who had held back, not taking his own pleasure until he’d made me come, not once, but twice. I remembered the shock on his face as we had pulled away from each other. He’d seemed stunned by what had happened. I hadn’t pondered on it at the time, too wrapped up in my own thoughts and mortified at my behavior to care. How the hell I had gotten myself enmeshed in the middle of a destructive relationship between a domineering control freak and his pathetic doormat of a wife, I didn’t know. But I didn’t like it that was for sure. I dropped my head back, allowing my eyes to close, tiredness seeping in. The sleeplessness of the last few nights was catching up with me.

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Chapter 8 WADE My gut told me something was wrong as soon as I pulled onto the drive and noticed Cindy’s car was gone. She was usually careful to make sure she got home before me. The constant knot I had in my stomach these days twisted a little tighter as I let myself into the house, wondering if she had simply stopped caring if I knew what she was up to. I froze on the porch when I saw the state of the place. Had we been robbed? Letters and documents were strewn everywhere. Draws had been opened, their contents tipped onto the floor and table. I followed the trail of debris through the living room into the kitchen, which had been untouched. Deciding to check all the rooms, I was relieved to find that they had all been ignored until I reached our bedroom. The wardrobes and draws were open and empty. Not all of them, just Cindy’s. Her jewel box and all the junk she kept on the dresser like body lotion and perfume were missing. Everything of mine was exactly where it should be. Why hadn’t they touched my stuff? I checked the bathroom cabinet and found that half empty too. Even her diaphragm was gone. The evidence that she had left in a rush was everywhere, but I was still dumb enough to need the note I finally found stuck to the refrigerator to be sure. Wade,

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I’m leaving. Something a friend said to me today changed everything and I knew I couldn’t stay any longer. Please don’t hate me. Cindy I re-read the note countless times, trying to understand what she had meant about speaking to ‘a friend’. The only person she’d seen all day was Martine. Cindy had as much as told me that herself when she’d called me unexpectedly earlier. It occurred to me then that she’d probably only done that to make sure that I’d be out of the way and the coast was clear. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. Had Martine known all along that I was Cindy’s husband? Maybe she’d confessed. Or taken revenge for the way I had treated her. My manners weren’t great but I was a decent guy. The way I’d taken her—right there on the floor of the shop—wasn’t the way to treat a woman. The fact that I’d been out of my head with wanting her was no excuse. I’d wondered a couple of times if she’d been pissed about it afterwards. I guess I had my answer. It took a while before I realized that I wasn’t hurt or angry that Cindy was gone, just a little sad that I devoted my whole adult life to a woman who thought I deserved no more than a scrap of paper telling me she had taken the coward’s way out. Cindy and I were a wrong fit from the day we met. We’d come together as kids, more through mutual need than love, and I’d spent my life taking care of her since. The dumb jock I was back then had gotten her pregnant with a baby neither of us had been old enough to cope with. Her parents had pushed her to have an abortion and, when she had turned to me for support, I’d told her I thought they were right. She’d taken off that night, jumping on the back of some guy’s Harley to leave me standing alone outside her parent’s house. By the time I saw her again, she was in the hospital. The accident had been minor, leaving her with no serious injuries…but no baby either.

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Guilt at what had happened weighed heavily on my young shoulders and I devoted myself full time to helping Cindy out of the deep depression brought on by her miscarriage. Before long, her happiness seemed to depend solely on how much I could convince her she was loved and wanted. I’d made a commitment to her twenty years earlier at the age of eighteen. That commitment kept me trapped in a marriage with a woman who gave me nothing I needed but demanded so much in return. I began tidying the house, wondering what in hell Cindy had been looking for that caused her to make so much mess. She’d gone through the place like a whirlwind, throwing stuff everywhere, but that didn’t make sense. She organized everything and kept it where I could find it. She wouldn’t have needed to turn the house upside down if she was looking for anything in particular. Then it hit me. I knew for sure that it was Nelson who had been rifling through my personal stuff, probably looking for something Cindy had wanted. Had she been so desperate to leave that she’d brought him along to help? Maybe it wasn’t the first time. I knew Cindy didn’t love me but I’d hoped she respected me more than that. Maybe they’d even had sex in our bed? I lost the battle to keep my cool and threw the kitchen table over onto its side, kicking it a couple of times for good measure. Frustration burned in my gut. Why the fuck was I the only person who didn’t have a say in what happened? Cindy and Nelson, even Martine, had decided that my marriage was over and that I should be the last to know. Kicking off my clothes, I had a shower before grabbing my keys and slamming out of the house. Before the night ended, somebody was going to give me an explanation.

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Chapter 9 MARTINE It was dark outside when I opened my eyes again and I stared blindly out of the window for a few moments, gathering my wits and wondering what the noise was that had woken me. It came again shortly after—a harsh banging on the downstairs door. Wrapping a shawl around my shoulders, I tiptoed quickly down the stairs, pausing to glance at the clock as I did so. It was almost 10pm and I realized I’d slept all afternoon and long into the evening. Lifting the blind to peer out into the street, it amazed and annoyed me to find Wade, or rather Nelson, standing there. Anger at his audacity caused me to swing the door open wide, determined to confront him with my newfound knowledge of the mind-fuck games he was playing both with me and his wife. He brushed passed me into the room before I had a chance to speak, keeping his back to me for a brief moment, as if composing himself before turning around. ‘Did you tell my wife to leave me?’ Barely controlled anger made his voice quiver and his eyes bore into mine. I decided against shutting the door. ‘What?’ ‘Don’t play games. Did you tell her to leave me?’ I took a deep breath. ‘Look, Nelson—’ I began. He cut me off. ‘Nelson?’ ‘Yeah,’ I sneered, ‘surprised I know your name? I know all about you. Cindy has been seeing me for months, telling me about the shit you put her through.’ He began to shake his head, but I wouldn’t let

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him speak. ‘Don’t bother denying it. I’ve seen the bruises for myself.’ His eyes became cold and dead as he allowed me to speak, disgust scarring his handsome face. ‘Do you know how it felt today, sitting there, having your wife crying over you, wondering if you’d been unfaithful, and knowing all the time that I’d been part of her nightmare?’ I was shaking with anger and took a step forward, glaring at him in fury. ‘How dare you do that to her, or to me?’ ‘She wanted to know if I’d been unfaithful?’ His tone was incredulous. ‘What did you tell her?’ ‘Don’t worry; I was too ashamed to mention what happened between us. I simply read her cards.’ I shook my head, trying to erase the memory of our wild fucking that had slammed into my brain, causing my insides to pulse. ‘I didn’t even know I was talking about you until I saw the picture in her wallet.’ Some of the anger drained out of him, leaving an expression I couldn’t read on his face. ‘What did she say?’ I got instantly defensive. ‘Why do you want to know? So you can have more control over her? So you can beat her later for reaching out for help?’ He stared at me wordlessly, unused to women standing up to him, I guessed. ‘Do you think that makes you a man, treating someone who adores you that way?’ I knew I would make him angry but I couldn’t help it. I was disgusted at myself and him. The reaction of my body to his presence, even after I knew the kind of man he was, fuelled my newfound hatred of him. ‘I wouldn’t reckon so,’ he said, his voice cold and bitter. ‘Then why do it, Nelson?’ ‘Fuck!’ he shouted, scaring me as he slammed a fist into the wall. ‘I swear, if you call me that name one more time, I’m gonna lose it.’ Rooted to the spot by confusion as much as shock at his outburst, I watched him cradle his hand, swearing under his breath as he tried to calm down.

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‘Sorry,’ he muttered in my direction, dragging a hand through his hair. ‘It’s okay,’ I said, voice shaky. ‘What did you mean?’ Arms folded across his chest as if holding in the emotion, he raised his eyes to mine, tiredness etched across them. ‘I’m not Nelson,’ he said flatly. ‘Nelson is the guy she has been seeing for the last couple of months.’ I gasped, hands flying up too late to suppress the noise. So it was Cindy doing the cheating? I couldn’t believe it. ‘That’s the worst part of it all,’ he continued, ‘when I found out she had been to see you, I hoped it was for help with our problems, not because she was fighting to keep her lover.’ He shook his head, as if amazed at his own stupidity. ‘I came to see for myself what happened while she was here. I followed her for a day a few weeks back, wondering where she got to at all hours of the day and night.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘Turns out, if she wasn’t sneaking into Nelson’s bed while I was at work, she was either here or in Cane River, finding ways to keep hold of him.’ ‘So that’s why she got the Veve,’ I said, thinking out loud. ‘She had a few other things in her bag along with it. Some herbs tied up in a bag and something that smelled God-awful.’ I shuddered. ‘I hope she knows what she’s doing with that stuff. She’s playing dangerous games.’ ‘You really believe in all that?’ He still seemed skeptical. ‘Like I told you the other day, I’ve seen some things that can’t be explained.’ I guessed he hadn’t connected the dreams he’d told me about to the charm. I had no intention of making what had happened seem any more real by discussing it with him, so I kept my suspicions to myself. I felt a blush creeping up my face and looked away quickly. I changed the subject before the quizzical look he gave me turned into words. ‘I knew from talking to her that she seemed desperate to stay with Nelson. I just didn’t know she was that desperate.’ I

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regretted the comment, realizing how callous it must have sounded. ‘I’m sorry, Wade. This must be very painful for you.’ His reaction surprised me. ‘You know, it ain’t so bad now I know for sure what’s going on.’ He looked into my eyes long and hard, searching for something. ‘I guess I don’t care about it as much anymore.’ I didn’t want to analyze what that look meant, choosing instead to close the door that had remained open all this time. Avoiding his gaze, I walked passed him, gesturing that he follow. ‘Don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.’ Grandma’s rocker creaked as he lowered his huge frame into it moments later. I handed him some wine and sat on the sofa with my legs tucked beneath me, stealing a look at him as he near drained his glass. The soft light from the lamp bounced along his gleaming black hair and he looked clean and smart. Had he been hoping to impress Cindy when he found her? I asked where she was. ‘Damned if I know. I came home from work tonight and she’d packed some things and taken off,’ he said with a flippancy that wasn’t reflected in his eyes. ‘Left me a note saying she’d listened to your advice and knew she didn’t want to be with me anymore.’ I felt I owed him an explanation about my involvement. ‘I thought she had an abusive husband. I told her that she needed to get away from him.’ ‘Was Nelson beating her?’ he asked, anger etched on his face. ‘She never said as much, Wade. I guessed so because she had bruises she wouldn’t explain. You know, up her arms and legs?’ ‘Yeah, I saw them too. She told me for the longest time that she kept bumping into furniture. I knew I wasn’t hitting her so I figured she was telling the truth.’ He slammed his glass down on the table. ‘What an idiot, huh?’ ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ I said, annoyed and angry at Cindy for playing these games with all of us. ‘I fell for her sob story too.’

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He fell silent but the air almost hummed with the electricity his presence was generating. I tensed the muscles in my pelvis, savoring the heavy wetness there, wetness that had been building from the minute he’d arrived. I kept my eyes on him, opening my mouth on a sigh as I saw the answering heat in his gaze. I licked my lips, trying to stop the tingling that had begun the moment he’d walked in the door. He froze, wine glass half raised to his mouth, as he noticed my action, before putting it back down without taking a sip. Getting to his feet, he moved to join me on the sofa, taking my hand in his. ‘I owe you an apology, Martine. I acted real bad the other day.’ I tried to brush it away. ‘No need to apologize.’ I dropped my head, hiding from his penetrating stare. His nearness caused my heart to pound and I felt a little drunk. What was going on? Why couldn’t I breathe? Shaking my head, I tried to clear the fog clouding my brain and blocking out everything but the heat between us. I struggled to fight against his pull and the need to get closer to him but my body moved towards his as if with a will of its own. I heard his gasp of surprise as my hand flexed on his thigh, feeling the muscles bunch and release as I rolled them under my palm. My actions were confusing. The rational part of my brain was telling me to stop— this wasn’t the time for what I wanted to do to him, or with him— but it seemed beyond my control. I felt slightly light-headed as I leaned in to kiss his open mouth while popping the button on his fly, freeing the erection that had sprung to life as soon as I had touched him. ‘Martine…’ he started to say, before I slid my tongue between his lips and silenced any protest he may have been about to make. Taking my head in his hands, he pulled away. ‘You gotta slow down. I don’t want to lose control again.’ The blood rushing in my ears almost drowned out his words but I ignored them anyway as I worked to release him, dragging his jeans down just enough to give me access. Hitching up my skirt, I sat on his lap, moving my panties out of the way just long enough to ensure they

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didn’t stop me sinking onto his hard cock. I watched his expression change as he stared at me with a combination of lust and shock before his body gave a hard jerk in response to my efforts. As I sheathed him with my pussy, he groaned my name again and I saw in his eyes that he knew the battle was lost. I began to move against him, grabbing his hand and forcing it between the buttons of my blouse, giving him access to the nipple that ached for his touch. I hissed as his skin made contact with mine, throwing my head back in satisfaction as he squeezed my flesh. I felt the moment his restraint snapped. His free hand went to my hair and he pulled my head back a little further as he adjusted his position to bring our bodies closer together. The change in who was fucking who was subtle but powerful. Suddenly, I fell limp in his arms, unwilling and unable to stop him forcing me down onto his dick again and again. The air was driven from my lungs every time he slammed into me but I wouldn’t allow him to stop. ‘Is this what you wanted?’ he breathed into my ear, flicking his tongue inside before moving to hold my face in his hands. ‘Did you want me to fuck you again, Martine?’ I cried in frustration as he stilled his movements briefly, waiting for my answer. ‘Yes…yes. I want you to fuck me.’ I began to grind against him again in desperation. ‘Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.’ I dropped my head into the crook of his neck and sunk my teeth in as I felt him begin to move with me again. He hissed in response and folded his arms around my torso, trapping me against his body as his cock slammed into me over and over. Hunger burned through me and I was so close to coming I wanted to scream in frustration when it didn’t happen. Unable to wait any longer, I slid a hand down between us, finding my clit and rubbing as hard as I could. My body surged upright as the first waves of my orgasm hit both of us hard. Wade reacted to the feeling of my muscles clenching around him and began driving into me with everything he had, lasting a moment longer before following me.

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I fell from his lap immediately, landing beside him and quickly straightening my clothes as I wondered what the hell had gotten into me. I wasn’t ashamed this time, just surprised. Sneaking a look at Wade, I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw him sprawled against the sofa like he’d just been beaten to a pulp. He creaked open an eyelid at the sound and smiled sleepily in response. ‘Sorry about that,’ I mumbled, not meaning a word of it but feeling I should say something by way of explanation. ‘Don’t you dare apologize,’ he said, with an intensity that surprised me. ‘I needed to know I wasn’t the only one feeling the heat between us.’ ‘You weren’t the only one,’ I said without looking at him, beginning to feel a little shy under his gaze. He smiled again then, shaking his head in mock amazement as he tucked his t-shirt into his jeans and did up his fly. ‘Come here,’ he said quietly, holding an arm out to pull me to his side. The temptation to stay in his embrace was a huge one, but I couldn’t wait long before reminding him that he had more pressing matters to deal with. ‘What are you going to do about Cindy?’ I said to him as if I hadn’t just thrown him down and fucked his brains out. He sighed deeply. It was a sad sound that said so much more than words ever could. ‘I don’t know. She’s still my wife.’ A pulse beat in his jaw as he seemed to search his brain for a solution. ‘If this Nelson is a violent guy, I guess I need to find out if she’s ok.’ My heart sunk. Was he still in love with her? He answered my unspoken question. ‘Things haven’t been right between us in a long time, Martine. This isn’t the first time she’s cheated on me, but it’s the first time she’s actually run off with a guy.’ The half smile he tried to give me died on his lips as a thought occurred to him. ‘She may laugh in my face, but I have to check that she’s alright.’ ‘Have you been together a long time?’

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‘We met as kids, high school in fact. She’d had an awful childhood, abusive father, alcoholic mother too out of her mind to care that her child was being molested.’ I refilled his glass and he drained it again, as if to fortify himself against the memory. ‘She saw me as some kind of savior, a way out of her misery. It was flattering I guess, to have this fragile young woman look at me with such adoration.’ I began to wonder just how fragile Cindy actually was but I didn’t speak, sensing he just needed for me to listen. ‘My childhood hadn’t been much better than hers. It was worse in some ways. It seemed right that we’d found each other. Then there was a baby. Our baby.’ ‘Was?’ He nodded before replying and I could see the memory became painful for him. ‘Yeah, was. I don’t think she ever got over losing it. I tried to make things right but it didn’t take me long to realize that she had been seriously damaged by what she’d been through.’ It didn’t surprise me to hear Cindy had problems. Reading for her had been a liability sometimes. She’d over-reacted on occasion, so much so that I had to be careful when I saw something other than what she’d hoped for in the cards. ‘She’s one of those women who needs constant reassurance that she is worthy or desirable,’ he continued. ‘When I stopped giving her the amount of attention she thought she deserved she looked for it elsewhere.’ ‘Why did you stay?’ ‘I tried to end it a few times. I figured she didn’t know what she wanted but it sure as hell wasn’t me. Whenever I would tell her we were over, she would go crazy, swearing she’d end it with whatever guy she was seeing at the time and threatening to hurt herself if I left.’ ‘Do you think she would?’ I guess I knew the answer to that question. I had seen with my own eyes how desperate she could get.

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‘I couldn’t risk it, Martine. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let her down a second time and I did love her once.’ He dragged his hands through his hair in frustration. ‘I guess I always hoped things would go back to the way they were at the beginning.’ ‘I understand.’ There was nothing else I could say but I didn’t really understand, not one bit. Just then his cell phone rang, startling us both. The look on his face made it clear who it was on the other end. ‘Where are you?’ I got to my feet, annoyed that he had been so keen to speak to her. I heard him tell her he was on his way before ending the call. He surprised me by staying in his seat for a moment, the tiredness etched into his features. I could see he didn’t want to leave so I asked why he was going. ‘She’s crying, Martine. Says she’s made a terrible mistake and can I come get her.’ He must have seen the cynicism in my face because he jumped to his feet in defense. ‘Look, it’s over between us but he’s been abusive to her in the past. How can I just leave her there?’ I knew he was right. I’d seen the marks on her body. She would never be safe with a man like Nelson, but there was a part of me that raged at the way she treated her husband. I had only known him for a matter of days but he seemed like a decent guy and too good for her, from what I was hearing. ‘You better go,’ I said, trying not to sound judgmental. ‘You think I’m a fool, don’t you?’ ‘I understand, Wade, really I do.’ He moved towards the door before stopping suddenly. ‘Can I come back? To see you I mean.’ He seemed a little unsure of what my answer would be. I didn’t help by misunderstanding him. ‘Tonight? Won’t you be a little busy?’ He laughed. ‘I didn’t mean tonight, although if I had my way, I wouldn’t be leaving.’ His eyes took on a gleam that I recognized. ‘I meant in a couple of days, once things are settled.’ I nodded with a

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smile. He took that as an invitation to kiss me, almost chastely considering what had already passed between us. ‘Let me sort out this situation with Cindy then we can find out just what it is that’s happening here.’ Since I’d first seen him, the urge to do something had been overwhelming and I couldn’t resist any longer. I backed him up against the door, sliding my fingers up into his beautiful hair and letting it run through my hands as I grasped his head, pulling him down for a kiss. A real one. One that took it’s time to grow. The kind of kiss that leaves you breathless and panting, knowing it’s all you can have for that moment but promising so much more. By the time I stepped away from him, I was sorry I’d started something he didn’t have time to finish. Wade seemed as dazed as I felt and looked about to change his mind before I turned him around and pushed him away with a laugh. He grabbed me one more time, kissing me again before stepping through the door. He sucked in a breath as he shook his head, as if unable to believe he was walking away. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said, his voice full of throaty promise. As I climbed into bed later, sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep, his words came back to me. He could feel it too, the connection between us. His marriage was a huge complication and one I wasn’t sure we could overcome based on what he had said earlier. But for the first time in as long as I could remember, I was prepared to wait for someone.

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Chapter 10 WADE I found Cindy waiting on the corner where she said she’d be, surrounded by her belongings. A brief moment of compassion for whatever craziness had brought her to this moment was instantly chased away by anger. I was sick of the kind of games and drama that caused me to be rescuing my own wife from another man in the middle of the night. I pulled up and got out without speaking to her to begin throwing the stuff into the back of the pickup. For one insane moment, I thought she was expecting me to open her door. I stared at her then, and I guess the anger must have been plain on my face because she flushed and dropped her gaze before getting into the front seat alone. Climbing in beside her, I slammed the door and waited, nervous because I didn’t know which way things were gonna go. I prayed I would be able to keep a grip on my temper but a lot of that depended on what Cindy had to say. She didn’t speak, didn’t move, simply sat there crying softly, waiting for good old reliable Wade to make things right for her again. Fury began to burn in my chest, erupting in a loud curse as I slammed my fist into the door of the truck. ‘W…Wade? Please don’t,’ she cried, trying to reach for me. I slapped her hand away. ‘Don’t what?’ I shouted. ‘Don’t shout or don’t get angry? Don’t bother with my crazy wife anymore? Just what exactly is it you don’t want me to do?’

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‘I’m sorry,’ she cried. ‘Please don’t get mad at me. I just had a huge fight with Nelson and I can’t take any more anger right now.’ Her voice and body shook, making me feel guilty as I saw the distress she was in. ‘I know I’ve messed everything up and you have every reason to hate me but please, don’t shout.’ ‘Ok, ok,’ I said, not wanting to upset her anymore than she already was. We needed to talk but the front seat of my pickup wasn’t the place to do it. ‘I think the best thing for now is if I take you back to the house until we decide which one of us should move out.’ ‘What do you mean?’ Had I misunderstood? ‘Unless you have somewhere else you want to go?’ Maybe she was going to stay with a friend. ‘You said until we decide which one of us should move out.’ I wasn’t surprised to find out that she had her own best interests at heart. I didn’t care enough to fight about it anymore. ‘Look, if you’re worried, you can stay there for the time being. I can find somewhere to go tonight.’ I thought of Martine, sure she would let me stay, if only as a friend for now. ‘No, I meant why does one of us have to move out?’ Cindy looked at me as if I was the crazy one. ‘I’m back now. I told you I made a mistake. Things can go back to the way they were.’ Damn it if I didn’t start laughing. I mean, really laughing, hard. But it didn’t last long. What she’d just said sounded so insane that if I didn’t laugh I would have exploded. Still, the anger simmered just below the surface and I fought to keep it out of my voice. ‘Cindy, if you never listen to another word I say hear me now. This is over… we are over.’ She was stunned into hurt silence. That made me even angrier. Did she think I was such a sap that she could run around fucking other guys and then come back to me? I asked her. ‘I told you, it was a mistake.’ ‘Damn right. Your mistake and you can live with it.’ I wasn’t giving her an inch this time. ‘What went wrong? Didn’t he want you,

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Cindy? Did you try to force his hand by moving in with him? You can’t assume every guy is as big a fool as me.’ She fell silent. Thinking or calculating her next move probably. I took advantage of the lull by getting as much road behind us as possible. I had no desire to be anywhere near her. She could have the damn house for all I cared. I was done and there was no going back. I thought of Martine, back in the city, and the escape she offered me. She represented the change my life needed after years of misery. Who knew where it would lead but at least she wanted me. I could see it plain on her face every time we met and I sure wanted her. I liked the man I became when I was around her. Cindy wasn’t going to like hearing about Martine, but I knew that I didn’t want to lie about her. She was too important for that. I’d just resolved to tell Cindy after we got to the house when she dropped a bombshell. ‘Do you want to know the real reason Nelson threw me out?’ she said quietly, hiding her face from me by looking out of the side window into the darkness. ‘Does it matter? It won’t change anything now.’ ‘I… I’m pregnant.’ I jumped around to look at her in shock, taking my eyes off the road. She turned to face me before glancing through the windshield and screaming in fright. ‘Wade!’ Jerking on the wheel, I managed to avoid the tree I’d been about to hit before slamming on the brakes. The truck slid to a sudden halt and I started as a car following close behind sounded its horn angrily when it had to swerve to avoid me. The car stopped a short way ahead and I jumped instantly from the driver’s seat, hoping that the driver was male and would get out with a bad attitude, giving me an excuse to vent my frustration. I slammed the door shut and stalked towards them. The car took off instantly with a screech of its tires, leaving me standing in the road, glad whoever was in it had more sense than I did.

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I walked back to my truck and almost got in until I saw Cindy’s terrified expression. Fuck! It just wasn’t fair. Why now of all times? All those years we tried and tried to get pregnant with no luck. I began to pace the road, willing myself to calm down as my brain raced. Maybe it was Nelson’s baby? She’d been having sex with him way more than she ever did with me but what difference did that make? He knew, and he didn’t want her or the kid. Could I be strong enough to walk away from her even if she carried another man’s child? What if it was mine? The cruelty of the situation made me want to cry. I’d desperately wanted a kid with Cindy in the early days, partly to make up for what we had lost. For it to happen now, after what she had done to me, was too much to bear thinking about. I climbed back into the truck, warning her not to speak again until we got home. She kept her word, and the rest of the drive passed without any more drama. Neither of us said anything as we carried her belongings into the house before retreating to neutral corners. She found me later in the den, sitting in the dark with my head in my hands. ‘Wade? We need to talk.’ I didn’t look at her. ‘Whose baby is it, Cindy? Do you even know?’ ‘It’s yours,’ she said. ‘It’s your baby.’ My head felt like it was going to explode and I began to rub my temples, trying to ease away the tension. ‘How can you know for sure?’ ‘That’s the reason, Wade. The reason Nelson threw me out. He says he can’t have kids.’ My heart sunk at her words and I swear I could hear a jailhouse door sliding shut behind me, trapping me forever in a prison of my own making.

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Chapter 11 MARTINE Despite the promise, in both his words and his actions, he hadn’t come back, at least not by the time Cindy turned up a week later. I didn’t smile when she walked in, unsure at first of her reason for visiting. Did she know about me and her husband? Even having to ask myself that question reminded me just how sordid and dirty I had begun to feel since he had left me alone the other night to go to her. My initial happiness at the idea I might have finally found a man who excited me soon began to disappear when the hours since he had left turned into days. By the time Cindy appeared, I was in the worst mood. Frankly didn’t care if she knew what had happened, but there was a still a part of me that respected him for giving his marriage another try, even if that meant I lost out. No matter how little I thought of Cindy and the way she had treated him, it wasn’t my place to interfere. Still, I had to admit that it hurt to think of myself as his dirty little secret. Turned out I had no need to worry if she knew or not. Cindy was wrapped up in herself as usual. She’d barely said ‘hi’ before beginning to complain. ‘I need you to read for me again. I’m sure he’s cheating on me, Martine.’ My heart skipped a beat then and I scanned her expression for any sign that she was playing mind games with me. Fearing that the guilt was written all over my face, I dropped my head. ‘What makes you think that?’ I asked as innocently as I could.

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Cindy began cry. ‘He keeps disappearing on me. I ask and ask but he won’t tell me where he is and then he just gets mad.’ She scrubbed the tears away with the back of a hand. ‘Nelson don’t like people questioning him, especially women.’ Nelson! Hearing his name made me nauseous. She was still seeing him, still chasing him around like some lovesick kid. In the past, I would have sympathized with her but now I knew the truth. ‘Does your husband know about Nelson?’ Surprised at my change of direction, she seemed flustered for a moment. ‘What?’ ‘Does Wade know about your affair?’ Anger made me forget that she had never actually mentioned him to me by name. Cindy didn’t miss my slip up. ‘How do you know about Wade?’ I thought fast. ‘I saw his picture last time you were here, remember?’ If she didn’t believe me, it didn’t show. I guessed she was too wrapped up in her lover to spare Wade more than a passing thought. ‘Look, my life is complicated, Martine,’ she began to explain. ‘Wade doesn’t love me any more than I do him.’ The bitchiness came back into my voice. I couldn’t help it. ‘Well don’t you think you should end one relationship before starting another?’ The confusion in her eyes made me feel guilty. She had no way of knowing that my attitude was driven by jealousy rather than disapproval. ‘Why do you care?’ she asked suddenly. Her question made me realize things were getting out of hand. ‘You’re right. It’s none of my business.’ She smiled in relief. ‘Thanks, Martine. I… I just don’t feel up to talking about Wade at the moment.’ Cindy ran a hand over tired eyes. ‘It’s Nelson I’m worried about.’ I cut her off before she got the wrong idea. ‘I’m sorry, Cindy, but I can’t read for you anymore.’ I couldn’t tell her the real reason so I offered an excuse. ‘The answers you’re looking for aren’t in the cards.

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They can only offer guidance, guidance you have always chosen to ignore.’ She began to protest but I cut her off by walking to the door and holding it open. ‘I’m sorry but I have to close up now.’ Unsure of how to react, she froze for a moment before bursting into tears and running from the store. The temptation to follow her and apologize was overwhelming. It wasn’t in my nature to be callous and it didn’t sit easy with me, especially as I knew the truth about what I had been up to with her husband. Still, I couldn’t shake the bitterness I felt towards her, and Wade. I guessed he couldn’t know about Nelson. Or maybe he just didn’t care. Maybe he hadn’t been sincere when he’d asked to see me again. I’d thought he was at the time but who the hell knew? I was sick of thinking about it. I headed upstairs, preparing to spend another night alone in my tiny apartment and wishing I had never set eyes on Wade or his crazy wife.

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Chapter 12 WADE ‘Are you drunk?’ I’d just walked in from work to find Cindy lying on top of the bed fully dressed and assumed she’d decided on taking a nap until I saw the near empty wine bottle beside her on the floor. She waved a shaky hand in my direction, as if swatting me away. ‘Don’t be stupid. I’ve only had a couple.’ ‘Should you be drinking at all? I mean, won’t it hurt the baby?’ She sat up, annoyed at the question. ‘Baby… baby. I am sick of hearing about this damn baby. Is that all you can talk about?’ Cindy reached for the wine, about to refill her glass. ‘I’ve been home for a week now, and you haven’t once asked me how I feel,’ she accused. ‘How do you feel?’ I said, not even trying to hide the disgust in my voice as I snatched the bottle from her hand. ‘I feel like it’s all that you care about. Maybe you wouldn’t have wanted me back if it wasn’t for the fact I’m pregnant.’ I kept quiet, unable to disagree with what she’d said. She was going to need to learn that the days when I jumped to her every demand were over. It was as much my fault as hers. Over the years, her behavior had gotten worse and I’d usually done anything she wanted to avoid the hours of fighting and crying if I didn’t. ‘I’m taking a shower,’ I said, stripping off my work clothes and walking away from her before I spoke what was on my mind. There was no point in telling her that I hadn’t wanted her back and could barely bring myself to look at her and that the thought she had been

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sleeping with another man with my child inside her made me sick to my stomach. Or that I’d fallen in love with someone else and that I resented Cindy for keeping me from her. I stayed in the shower as long as I could, enjoying the way it numbed my thoughts and grateful for a momentary escape from the drama. The last few days had been absolute hell. I hated myself for the way I felt. The battle to put the past behind me and support my pregnant wife was one I wasn’t sure I could win. I knew she’d been having a tough time of it but how could I give her the reassurances she needed when my skin crawled every time she touched me? Thoughts of the way I’d treated Martine made me ashamed but I couldn’t risk seeing her again. I couldn’t control myself around her and doubted I would be strong enough to fight the urge to do what I wanted. Sure, she would hate me for the way I had acted but maybe it was for the best. The decision to stay with Cindy had been a fairly easy one once I decided that my happiness came second to the welfare and safety of our child. Cindy could barely take care of herself, never mind a baby. Finding her half drunk when I’d got home from work was a perfect example. The knowledge that she could still be drinking interrupted my thoughts and dragged me from the shower. I realized it was going to be one of those nights when I pulled back the curtain to find her waiting for me. ‘Why are you being so mean?’ she pouted, blocking my exit from the stall, forcing me to look at her as I gently moved her out of the way. ‘Jesus, Cindy. Give me a break will you?’ I buried my head in the towel, rubbing my hair roughly, trying to drown out her voice. ‘Don’t you love me anymore?’ she said, as she allowed me no escape by following me back into the bedroom. I finished drying off and balled up the towel in my hands, throwing it with as much force as I could into the hamper. It didn’t relieve the tension brewing in my gut, not one bit. ‘What do you want from me? In case you’ve forgotten, you left me just over week ago for

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a guy who beat on you while you were carrying my child. So spare me the neglected wife routine, ok?’ ‘Nelson never hit me,’ she protested. ‘Don’t you dare defend that fucker,’ I shouted, turning to face her. ‘I can take many things, Cindy, but if you think I’m going stand here and listen to that, you are crazy.’ She lay back on the bed, resting on her elbows. ‘Are you jealous, Wade?’ she asked, allowing her eyes to crawl over my naked body before lingering on my groin. Cindy was drunk and when she got drunk, she got horny. ‘If you’d let me, I would show you there’s no reason to be jealous.’ I turned to put on my clothing, ignoring her invitation. It was too soon for that—way too soon. ‘Just cut the crap, ok, sweetheart? You know as well as I do that if Nelson had wanted your ass, you wouldn’t be here now.’ She gasped as my words hit home then began to cry. ‘Wade, what has happened to you? When did you become so nasty?’ My anger disappeared and I felt like a bastard. No matter what she had done, the fact remained she was pregnant, and probably still hurting over being rejected by a man she had been in love with. ‘I’m just tired I guess.’ She heard the apology in my voice and made to move towards me. I turned away before she got the wrong idea, changing the subject. ‘Did you make the appointment with the doctor? We still don’t have a due date for the baby, do we?’ ‘Not yet,’ she said, casting her eyes downwards. ‘I’ll do it soon.’ Sighing in frustration, I picked up the wine, leaving her sprawled on the bed as I walked from the room, not wanting to upset her again by getting mad. Did she even want the kid? She sure wasn’t taking care of herself and didn’t seem interested in it all. In fact, she rarely brought it up. Maybe she resented her pregnancy and saw it as the thing that kept her from Nelson? I knew she could never get rid of it, not after what she had gone through when she was younger.

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I resolved to be kinder to her from then on. Maybe Cindy felt as trapped as I did.

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Chapter 13 MARTINE I approached Mama’s house uncertainly about a month after Wade’s last visit. She lived in a single storey cottage on an old plantation. The rest of the area and its buildings were now a national park but Mama had refused to move out, claiming that the house had been passed down to her by relatives. There’d been some legal moves to get her evicted a couple of decades ago but the case had been lost on some obscure technicality. Gossips claimed that Mama had put a spell on the plaintiff’s attorney. Whatever the truth, she won the case and nobody had ever tried to move her again. The rickety old building was barely standing, formed as it was of mud, mule hair and Spanish moss used as a filling between the posts. The weather-worn wooden boards on the outside seemed to be held together by nothing more than Mama’s willpower. I had visited once as a young girl and had been amazed to find out that she had refused to have electricity installed, relying instead on candlelight and the small stove she had in the brick fireplace. I began to question my motives for being there and hesitated before knocking sheepishly on the door. I’d woken earlier that morning with the overwhelming feeling that I had to see her. Once on her doorstep, I had begun to feel foolish, and a little scared. ‘Come in, mon cheri,’ I heard her say from inside the house. I turned the handle gingerly and entered the room, the creaking of the door heralding my arrival. The interior of the cabin was so dark it took my eyes a moment to adjust. I couldn’t see her at all until she

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lifted the edge of a blind, flooding her corner of the room with harsh sunlight. She smiled warmly, gesturing that I should join her at the small table situated next to the fireplace. As I got nearer, I could see the years had been kind to her. She looked the way I remembered seeing her last, from her small, bird-like frame down to the flowered housedress and headscarf. Her light brown freckled face had barely a wrinkle and her small, dark eyes still glowed with life. She had to be over ninety years old by my reckoning but she sure didn’t look it. A huge picture of Jesus dominated the wall above the fireplace and I smiled in remembrance of the way I used to think his eyes were following me around the room when I was younger. I’d been surprised to find out that Voodoo was linked very closely with the church in some parts of Haiti and that many of its believers were also devout Catholics. ‘I sure glad you came,’ she said in her soft spoken but heavily accented Creole, making me wonder if the decision to see her had actually been mine. ‘I got to warn you.’ Any notion I had of staying calm evaporated. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘The pretty man I sent you… the dark one?’ She chuckled heartily at the look on my face, showing all of the very few teeth she had left. I’d suspected Mama had been involved but a large part of me had dismissed it. I nodded to show I had understood. ‘He need help Martine. He in danger.’ She pointed to a chair, directing me to sit down. ‘His wife, she come to me, ask me to make her man love her. She tell me she want to leave her husband for this man.’ I finally found my voice. ‘Yes, I know what Cindy has been up to,’ I said ruefully. ‘But why do you think Wade is in danger?’ She pointed to a jug on the kitchen countertop. ‘Get us some bush tea an’ I tell you.’

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Turned out, Cindy had been to see somebody else for help with her problems, a man named Clairvius Douyon, a bokor or one who ‘serve the loa with both hands’ according to Mama and had the power to do good or evil—for a price. She said she knew because Cindy had shown her some herbs he had given to her and wanted to know what they were. The Loa were the spirits of the voodoo religion and there are many different ones, Mama explained. She told me that they are distinct beings with their own likes and dislikes, songs, dances and rituals and that they are served by their believers. ‘I warn her. I say don’t mess with that stuff,’ Mama continued. ‘He a bad man, make bad luck for her.’ She shook her head. ‘But she don’t listen to Mama. She go to him again. This time, ask him get rid of her husband.’ ‘Mama, how do you know?’ I asked. ‘I hear things, see things, Martine,’ she said mysteriously and without explanation. I realized for the first time that Mama liked her reputation, maybe even relished it. Still, recent events had convinced me that when she spoke, I should listen. ‘Go to him. Tell him he must leave. Bring him here to me.’ I shook my head. ‘He won’t believe me, Mama. He didn’t believe me about the Veve and he won’t believe me about this.’ ‘Just go to him. I find a way to help you.’ She struggled to her feet to walk me to the door. I tried to tell her to stay seated but she hushed me. I realized as we reached the entrance that she wanted to give me something resting on the counter. ‘Give him this, make him wear it. It will keep him safe until he come to me. Now go, Martine.’ I barely had time to put the small sackcloth pouch tied with string, known as a Gris-gris, in my purse before she pushed me out of the door with a surprising amount of strength considering her age and size.

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Sitting in my car for a few minutes, I wondered how the hell I was going to convince Wade of what I had just heard. I barely believed it myself but had to act on her advice. I wondered if Mama knew what she was talking about. She was very old after all. I had no choice but to do what she told me no matter how crazy Wade would think me. The idea of anything happening to him because I’d been afraid to look foolish filled me with dread. I started my car, trying desperately to remember the name of the bar Cindy had told me she drank at a couple times a week. I just hoped that one of the regulars would know where she lived.

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Chapter 14 WADE I’d woken to find Cindy staring at me in a strange way. She was sitting up in bed, arms folded across her chest, looking down at me with an unreadable expression on her face. ‘Are you ok?’ I asked, wondering what in hell was going on. ‘Is it the baby?’ ‘Who did you dream about, Wade?’ My sleep-confused brain took a minute to figure out what she was talking about. How did she know I had been dreaming? I hoped I hadn’t called out Martine’s name. The dream had been the usual one, the one that had haunted me almost every night since I’d last seen her. ‘I don’t remember,’ I lied. ‘Well, whoever she is, you sure liked her. You were moaning and groaning about wanting to fuck her,’ she said, mocking me. ‘Shame you ain’t so keen on sex when you’re awake.’ ‘I told you, I’m tired.’ About to stagger to the bathroom, I threw back the covers then decided against it as I realized I was still aroused. If I got lucky, Cindy wouldn’t notice, but since when did I get lucky? ‘She got you hard too. Must be quite a woman. I’ve been trying for weeks with no joy.’ Bitterness burned in my throat. Fighting to keep a hold of the anger and frustration that now seemed like a part of my personality was making me ill. I didn’t know how much longer I could live like this. Martine haunted my nights and Cindy haunted my days.

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I laughed off her comment and took refuge in the bathroom for as long as I dared, hoping she would be asleep when I went back to bed. Was I insane to stay with a woman I didn’t like, never mind love, anymore? For a moment a couple of days ago when she’d disappeared without explanation for an evening, I had been ashamed to realize that the thought she was seeing Nelson again actually made me happy. Maybe she’d finally get off my back and leave me the hell alone? That had been before I remembered that she was carrying my child, and that I could never be happy unless I was a part of the baby’s life and around to make sure it was ok. Next morning, her mood hadn’t improved so I gave her some space while I got ready for work. She found me in the kitchen, wolfing down some toast, just ready to leave when she stopped me with a weird question. ‘Wade, honey, can you be home at midday?’ Her calmness caught me off guard. ‘Sure. Do you want me to come to the doctor with you?’ I said, hoping Cindy had finally made the appointment she seemed strangely reluctant to sort out. ‘No, I haven’t gotten round to that yet. I need you here to co-sign some papers.’ ‘Papers?’ I said, hiding my irritation that she wanted to talk about something entirely different. If she didn’t sort it out soon, I was going to arrange it myself. ‘I decided to increase our life insurance now that we’ve got a baby on the way. The salesman is coming around later to finalize the contracts.’ The way she handled things confused the hell out of me. Why would she be worrying about something like that before dealing with the important stuff? I didn’t question her on it, grateful for the small step in the right direction.

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‘I won’t be able to stay long,’ I smiled, trying to be encouraging. At least she was thinking about our baby’s future. ‘Maybe half an hour?’ ‘Perfect,’ she said, kissing me on the cheek before standing in the doorway to wave me off with a smile. Anyone watching would have thought us a happy young couple, totally in love and excited about the future. I just wished it were true.

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Chapter 15 MARTINE I set off to find Cindy the day after my visit to Mama’s. It seemed sensible to wait until the afternoon as I doubted the bar opened much earlier than that. I need not have worried about finding her. Walking into The Hungry Hound, I had been forced to hide behind a pillar when I’d almost fallen over Cindy taking her drink to a booth. I got out as quickly as I could, checking she was still there as I slipped through the exit. She’d had a guy with her—Nelson, I guessed. Dear God, did the woman have trouble with her eyesight? Why did she prefer the charms of a short, wiry guy with washed out sandy hair and a pasty complexion to those of her drop dead gorgeous husband? Wade could have crushed him like a bug between his massive hands and it amazed me that Cindy could settle for what looked like a shrunken, faded version of the man she had at home. If I hadn’t known different, I would have put her attraction to Nelson down to his skill in the sack, but there was no way he could be better than Wade. I settled into my car, sorry that I hadn’t brought some refreshments to sustain me through what began to feel like a stake out. Surprised to find Cindy in a bar at two in the afternoon, I hoped it meant she was grabbing a few stolen moments with Nelson while Wade was at work and that she would be heading home soon. They appeared quicker than I had expected, forcing me to duck down suddenly as they walked towards my car. I kept low, watching

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them in the side mirror as they approached the red pickup parked behind me. Nelson gunned the engine and screeched out of the lot almost before I’d started my engine. Still, I managed to keep up with him, staying a couple of cars behind him like I’d seen them do in the movies. My heart was pounding hard and I realized, had the stakes not been so high, I would have been enjoying the adventure. He turned off West Airline Highway less than a mile from the bar, swinging almost immediately into a small cul-de-sac of houses. Stopping at the end of the street, I watched him pull up outside a large building occupying a corner plot. They wasted no time saying goodbye, in fact he drove away from her at breakneck speed. Had they been fighting? Risking a look at Cindy, I saw her walk happily through the front door, so I guessed not. Their home was what I expected, priced at the lower end of the market. Built of brick with vinyl sidings, the one level property had a two car garage and a couple of large oak trees in back. Still, the paint and brickwork were tidy and the lawn looked well kept. I thought about my own situation and realized that, even allowing for the huge cost of maintaining a historically important building, I’d been very lucky to have inherited the townhouse from my mother. My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a large vehicle coming up the street. For a moment I thought Nelson may have been returning but it turned out to be Wade. It seemed Cindy had timed her arrival perfectly, as had I. In fact, the whole thing felt weird, like how easily I had found her and how quickly all the pieces had fallen into place. It was hard to believe it was all down to luck. Not knowing what to do, I thought about sounding my horn or calling out to him but decided against it for fear Cindy could be looking out. It felt great just to see him again and I enjoyed watching him ease his long legs out of the cabin before stretching a kink out of his spine. It felt a little desperate of me to take so much pleasure in staring at him that way but I couldn’t help it. Before I’d been mad at him but now I was terrified. I realized how much I had missed him. It

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hurt to watch as he walked wearily into the house and out of view, when all I wanted to do was run to him and beg him to choose me, not her. But I wasn’t there for myself. There was an important reason for my visit and I had to speak to him alone, if I could only figure out how. A couple of hours passed without any sign of movement from the house and I began to get desperate. If the opportunity didn’t arise soon, I would just have to get up the nerve to tell him what I knew in front of Cindy. The thought that things may already have begun to happen in the house while I wasted my time hiding outside like a frightened kid galvanized me into action and I began to get out of my car just as the garage door opened. A small compact pulled out onto the street with Cindy at the wheel. She didn’t see me as she drove by and I waited until I saw her tail lights disappear around the corner before reopening my door. Running up to the entrance of the house, I tapped the door gently as my knees shook, both from excitement at the prospect of speaking to him again and nervousness at how he would react to what I had to tell him. Two minutes later, I’d begun to wish I was anywhere but there, shriveling under his angry glare. ‘She’s what?’ I stood in the middle of their diner surrounded by everyday, mundane objects like blenders and toasters, telling a story so outrageous that I began to wonder at my own sanity. His reaction to what I’d just said didn’t surprise me. ‘I didn’t believe it at first either and I knew you would think I was losing it if I told you. But I had no choice.’ He must have been able to see how sincere I was as some of the anger left his face. ‘Why are you so convinced this Mama knows what she is talking about?’ It was time for the truth but I wasn’t in a hurry to make him angry again. When he had first opened the door, his reaction had been

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cautious. I could only imagine what went through his head when he found me standing there. His shocked expression had turned to one of confusion and then anger as he’d listened to the words that had fallen in a rush from my mouth. I took a shaky breath. ‘It was the dreams, Wade.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Remember when you came back to the shop the day after your first visit?’ He tried to control his reaction to the memory but I saw the fire spark in his eyes and the color drain from his cheeks. It looked like I wasn’t the only one still feeling the after effects. I continued. ‘You told me about the dreams you’d been having that night? Well, I had one too where I dreamed about Mama. She tried to give me something. Wade, it was the charm. The Veve you found in Cindy’s purse.’ His dark brows knit together in confusion. ‘The same one?’ ‘Looked like it to me but I can’t be sure,’ I answered honestly. ‘Maybe Cindy mentioned it to you, or showed you before.’ I shook my head. ‘No she didn’t and even if she had, it wouldn’t explain the other dreams I had that night.’ The blush was creeping up my cheeks but I couldn’t allow my embarrassment to stop me. ‘I…I had the same dreams as you.’ ‘What do you mean? About us? You and me?’ He looked stunned for a moment before the cynicism returned. ‘Ok, I agree that is weird, but it doesn’t add up to proof.’ My nerves had been stretched to breaking point since I’d spoken to Mama the day before, and I’d had enough. ‘All right Wade,’ I shouted, my temper finally snapping. ‘Fuck it…and fuck you!’ ‘Calm down, Martine,’ he said, reaching out a hand to comfort me. I slapped it away. ‘Do you really think I want to be here, Wade? Trying to convince you of something that sounds so insane?’ I took a breath, trying to steady my voice so what I was saying made sense. ‘It took every ounce of courage I have to find you and tell you this.’

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‘Look,’ he began, struggling for the right words. ‘I can see you believe what you are saying. But how do you expect me to react?’ He closed his eyes on a groan as he ran his hands through his hair in frustration. ‘Even if I believed this—which I don’t—how does that add up to Cindy wanting to kill me?’ ‘I went to see Mama yesterday. I wanted to ask her about what had happened. Find out if she was involved.’ I took the seat he offered me. ‘I thought it was my idea until I found out she’d been expecting me.’ I smiled. I took his wary nod as an improvement on the outright disbelief he’d shown before, so I continued. ‘She said I had to warn you that Cindy had been to see her and someone else, someone who deals in much darker stuff.’ ‘Like what?’ I steeled myself for further ridicule. ‘Like spells. Bad spells. Dangerous ones.’ His disbelief was obvious but I had gone too far by then to let it stop me. ‘There’s more Wade. Cindy is still seeing Nelson.’ ‘How do you know?’ His eyes had narrowed suspiciously, and I wondered if he thought I was just trying to make trouble between them. ‘Well, Cindy has been to see me about Nelson since you went back to her that night.’ I ignored his derisory snort. ‘And then I saw it today with my own eyes. They’ve been together this afternoon at The Ugly Hound. In fact, he dropped her off just before you got home.’ I stopped speaking then, giving him time to weigh up the information. Two or three different emotions crossed his face before he finally reacted. The nerve ticking in his jaw gave me a moment’s warning that his anger had won out before he leapt to his feet, pacing briefly before slamming a fist onto the table, making the flowers on it tremble in their vase. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked me suddenly. ‘Doing what?’ Did he think I’d made it all up?

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‘Trying to bust up my marriage. Following my wife around and filling my head with these crazy stories.’ His anger was evaporating quickly as tiredness seemed to invade him. ‘Fucking with my mind.’ I bit back an angry retort deciding to reason with, rather than fight, him. ‘Look Wade. I understand why this is hard for you to take in, but at least you can find out about Nelson. That should be easy to check out. You caught her before, you can catch her again.’ That at least appeared to make sense to him and I could see he was thinking about what I had said. He stared at me for what seemed like an age before turning suddenly and grabbing the keys to his pickup. ‘If you’re right, then I know where she is,’ he said, striding through the door without looking back. ‘Are you coming?’ I heard him shout a moment later. I closed the door behind me as I ran after him, unsure as to why I was going with him so willingly. I told myself it was only because I needed more time to convince him that he could be in danger, not simply because I would go anywhere he wanted me to.

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Chapter 16 WADE I kicked in the door of Nelson’s trailer, almost laughing at his shocked expression as I reached across the bed and dragged him off my wife. I’d pulled up only a couple minutes earlier after killing the engine a ways down the street to coast to a stop just short of the little patch of dry, brown grass that passed for a lawn. After creeping up to a window, I’d peered through it briefly, hoping I didn’t see what a part of me knew I would. I punched him to the ground as Cindy grabbed at the sheet to cover her nakedness and began screaming abuse at me. I ignored her, relishing the chance to let her stud know what I thought of him. ‘Hit me, you worthless piece of shit,’ I taunted, daring him to get to his feet. ‘What’s up, buddy? You had no problem hitting my wife. Why don’t you try it with me?’ ‘I don’t need you defending me,’ Cindy screeched. ‘Nelson is twice the man you will ever be!’ Her face said that even she was having a hard time believing her own words while the subject of her devotion was cowering on the floor, visibly paling every time I looked his way. ‘There is no way I am going to let this animal raise my kid,’ I shouted at her, anger making my voice shake. ‘What is wrong with you, woman? How can you fuck around while you have my baby inside you?’

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Nelson recovered his voice. ‘Baby?’ he said, looking at Cindy for explanation. ‘There was never any baby, you fucking moron,’ she screamed at me, ignoring Nelson altogether. ‘I knew you wouldn’t take me back unless I gave you a good reason.’ Her words hit me like a punch in the gut. Even Cindy wouldn’t do something that evil, would she? ‘Why did you tell me you were pregnant and that it was mine? After what happened before, how could you lie to me about something like that?’ ‘I couldn’t think straight and didn’t know what else to do. Nelson said I’d been a fool to up and leave that way. You owe me, Wade. Nelson convinced me it wasn’t fair that you got the house and everything we built together, and that I should take some time and plan things properly, so I came back. I needed a good reason so I decided to tell you I was pregnant.’ Martine winced aloud, stunned by the cruelty in her words and we all turned to see her peering in through the open doorway. Her face had drained of color and she looked like she was going to cry. ‘What are you doing here?’ Cindy asked her. I didn’t give Martine a chance to answer. ‘Forget it, Cindy. You don’t get to call the shots this time. You get to listen.’ She looked like she was thinking of arguing but shut her mouth when she saw the rage in my face. ‘What I don’t get is why the hell you came back at all? If you wanted Nelson, why did you make up a baby to force me into taking you back?’ ‘I told you—’ ‘I know what you told me,’ I interrupted, ‘but I don’t believe you.’ Cindy flushed, flicking a guilty glance at Nelson before dropping her gaze without answering. ‘Martine told me that you had a plan to kill me but I didn’t believe her.’ Cindy looked at her accusingly. ‘What did she say? Whatever it was, it’s a lie.’

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‘I didn’t believe her either, until I remembered on the drive over here that you just got me to sign up for more life insurance.’ Cindy blushed, dropping her eyes so I couldn’t see her reaction to what I had just said and I knew in that moment Martine had been right. Crazy as it seemed, Cindy wanted me dead. ‘I still don’t believe the voodoo crap but the rest of what Martine told me is beginning to make sense.’ I turned to leave before I did something I’d regret to the sniveling piece of dirt still cowering on the floor, letting Cindy fend for herself. If she wanted that over me, she could have him and I didn’t give a damn. I looked at him closely, struggling to see what he had that Cindy wanted enough to make her think of killing me. ‘I don’t know what little scheme you and lover boy here cooked up between you but it isn’t gonna work. You’ve got until tomorrow night to pack your shit and get out of my house,’ I said, still shaking with anger. ‘I don’t want to see your face again.’ I picked Nelson up from the floor by his throat. ‘And if I ever hear you laid another finger on her, I’m coming for your ass,’ I warned, before throwing him back down where I found him, groveling on the ground. Storming from the trailer, I almost ripped the door off its hinges as I kicked it wide to leave. I turned back to check Martine was behind me but she teetered in the doorway for a moment, trying to warn Cindy that she knew what she had been up to. ‘Mama Susu told me what you planned to do to Wade. Is that why you wanted him to take you back, to give you a chance to use the spell on him?’ ‘I… I don’t know what you are talking about,’ I heard Cindy say. Martine ignored her feeble protest. ‘I’m just warning you. Don’t mess with things you don’t understand.’ ‘Get out!’ screamed Cindy. ‘You’re as crazy as that old woman you’ve been listening to.’ I could still hear her shouts long after Martine had slammed the door.

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I fired up the engine as soon as she reached the truck. Barely giving her enough time to close her door, I screeched off, spraying gravel behind me. ‘Where are we going?’ she shouted over the roar of the engine. ‘Damned if I know.’ She fell silent for a moment, and then began to laugh. My head snapped around to look at her. What the hell did she think was so funny? ‘I’m…sorry,’ she stuttered through her laughter. ‘I guess the tension of the last few days has gotten to me.’ Her hysteria deepened, spurred on by the bewildered expression on my face, I guess. She tried to stop, muffling the sound with her hands and almost got it under control until she saw the corner of my mouth twitch as I joined in the madness and threw my head back on a laugh. I pulled the truck into the side of the road, unable to concentrate. I don’t know why she’d started laughing but I felt high on life for the first time in years. Maybe it was the sense of freedom suddenly hitting me, or the closeness of a woman I had fantasized about night after night. Whatever the reason, I felt alive. The moment passed quickly, leaving us simply looking at each other. I lifted a hand to brush the hair away from her cheek, swallowing hard when I saw her eyes darken as they focused on my mouth. My thumb brushed across her lips for a moment until I gave in to my need and kissed her. She pushed me away almost instantly. ‘We need to talk,’ she explained, seeing that her rejection had confused me. ‘Take me home, Wade.’

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Chapter 17 MARTINE I realized sometime later, that I hadn’t yet given him the Gris-gris from Mama. I gasped suddenly, causing him to pull his hand away from its exploration of my pussy. ‘What? Did I hurt you?’ he asked. I shook my head quickly, smiling to reassure him. ‘I forgot to give you something,’ I said, sitting up to look around for my purse. His frustrated sigh let me know he wasn’t happy at the interruption. When we had fallen through the door together earlier, the ‘talk’ I had enticed him home with had been the last thing on either of our minds. Barely making it to the bed, he had actually ripped off some of my clothing in his desperation to get inside me. There had been no time for foreplay or seduction. We had both needed the same thing. And the quick, hard sex that followed had barely satisfied either of us. After a moment to catch his breath, he had turned to me again, determined to take his time and make me beg for him, it seemed. And I had been—begging that is—until I had remembered the talisman. ‘Mama gave me something for you, to protect you.’ If he hadn’t been so immensely turned on and focused at that moment, he may have laughed. In his current mood, my comment did nothing but annoy him. ‘And you have to give it to me now? Right this minute?’ He frowned down at me for a moment, before allowing his gaze to drift lower and become distracted again by the sight before him.

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Until I had spoken, he’d had his fingers buried deep inside me, caressing the sensitive spot I didn’t know I had until his continued rubbing against the front wall of my vagina began to make me buck and tremble against his hand. He moved towards me again, determined to continue. I tried to close my legs, tried to make him focus on what I was saying. ‘Really Wade. It’s important. Mama said—’ ‘I don’t care what Mama said,’ he growled as he hooked my knees over his arm and bent them up over my body, effectively pinning me to the bed and spreading my pussy wide. ‘All I care about this moment is watching you come,’ he said as he slid his fingers into me again. I had to tell him, needed to, but I couldn’t think, let alone speak, while he plunged in and out of me with his hand. I tried to wriggle away by turning to the side, but he reached over and pulled me back to where he wanted me, placing a heavily muscled arm over the back of my thighs to trap me there. It didn’t take much to make me give in to his will. I didn’t want him to stop what he was doing, and he sure didn’t intend to until he got what he wanted. The fierce determination on his face would have scared me a few days ago but now I knew him a little better. Wade and sex were a dangerous combination and it took a strong woman to resist him, and I sure wasn’t able to do it. I could feel his hard cock laying heavily against the back of my buttock as he kneeled over me. He dipped his head from time to time, flicking at my clit with his tongue as his fingers moved in and out. ‘Oh God, I want to fuck you so bad,’ he muttered hoarsely against my skin as he leaned over to bite at the back of a thigh. The vibration of his voice, combined with the words he had spoken and the action of his hand, just about tore me apart. I began to come, so hard it was almost painful. I felt the wetness pulsing out of me as my pussy began to spasm around his fingers.

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My hands flailed wildly, desperate for something to grab onto as I convulsed in violent jerks. I managed to reach the forearm that was pinning me to the bed and sank my nails into it, knowing I could hurt him, unable to help myself. I was torn between forcing him to stop and begging him to continue, the feeling almost too acute to bear. Just as I thought I could take no more and was about to cry from the intensity of it, the sensations began to wane, giving way to the last few pulses of my body and I began to recover my senses. Almost instinctively, he stilled his fingers, allowing my vagina to clench and release them gently as the last of my orgasm ebbed away. I collapsed back onto the mattress, exhausted and breathing raggedly. I groaned as he pulled out of me, missing the feel of him despite the fact I could barely think. I didn’t realize how much my legs hurt until he gently lowered them back down to the bed. The yelp I gave made him wince in sympathy and he rubbed my hips to help ease the ache out of them. ‘Jesus, Wade,’ I said, shaking my head before succumbing to a throaty laugh, ‘what did you do to me?’ His face appeared above mine, splitting into a shit-eating grin that told me he knew exactly what he had done. The humor in his eyes was chased away by his earlier intensity as he leaned down to kiss me hungrily. The knee probing between mine—encouraging them to part for him—reminded me that he was still very aroused. Desperate to have him inside me and give back some of what he had done to me, I didn’t want to tell him my legs were still sore until a groan I couldn’t suppress told him anyway. ‘That’s what I get for trying to be a stud,’ he smiled. ‘Are you ok?’ I gave him a happy nod, causing him to laugh and reward me with another searing kiss. In one sudden move, he rolled over my body to lie at my side, turning me away from him. Strong hands guided me into a fetal position as he wrapped his body around mine. He wasted no more time and I was almost surprised at the first, gentle thrust of

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his cock. Once he knew he was in the right spot, he didn’t hold back, pushing into me fully, and without further hesitation, on a throaty growl. He slid the arm he’d been lying on under my neck, wrapping it across my torso to clutch at a breast as he held me against his body. The other bit into my hip as he used it for leverage, forcing me backwards onto his thrusts again and again. The position couldn’t have been easy or comfortable for him, but it didn’t stop him fucking me relentlessly. His mouth lay against my ear and I could hear every breath, every dirty whisper, as he rode me. I felt the sweat break out on his skin where it seared to mine and then a chill at the loss of his heat as he moved away slightly to deepen the angle. If the increase in tempo didn’t warn me of his coming orgasm, then the teeth he sank into my shoulder did. His mouth released me on a groan of near agony as he began to come. Any attempt he had made to be gentle was forgotten as his cock slammed into me over and over, shaking my whole body. His frantic thrusting rapidly subsided into nothing more than shuddering jerks as he buried himself deep inside my pussy and spilled into me. He jerked to a stop, his breath hot against my shoulder as he struggled to recover. Long moments passed before he moved again, but only to nestle me back into his arms. His cock was still inside me and I knew one of us would have to move eventually but as I fought the heaviness in my limbs and my eyelids, I wondered if we could fall asleep this way. My question was answered as I felt his erection begin to subside and slip out of me gently. I gave a sleepy chuckle, and then the last thing I remember was an answering squeeze from the hand still on my breast followed by a gentle snore. As I struggled to open my eyes sometime later, I couldn’t understand why I was unable to move. Something had pinned me to the mattress. I realized it was Wade when a low, painful groan erupted from his throat and he lifted his weight off me long enough to

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insert his hips between my legs. I struggled to see his eyes from such close range. Was he even awake? I decided he must be very much awake as I felt his cock probing at my entrance. Momentarily annoyed by the idea that he thought he could just take me without even the smallest amount of foreplay, the objection I’d been about to voice died in my throat as he slid in to the hilt. My body welcomed him despite my irritation at being woken in such a way. He began to move, pushing in and out of me in slow, hard thrusts. My hands reached for his shoulders to pull him down to me, feeling a little isolated from him. His weight rested on his outstretched arms, allowing him deeper penetration but leaving me feeling cold and alone. I felt like he was masturbating inside me. I couldn’t move him. Wade had locked into position with his eyes closed, blocking me out while he took what he wanted. It didn’t feel right and wasn’t what I had come to expect from him. I reached for him again, lifting myself as much as I could from the bed to kiss at his neck and throat. The growl that erupted from him reassured me, until he grabbed my hands, forcing me back down as he pinned them over my head. I wasn’t really any happier but at least I had some contact with his body. He dropped his head into the gap between my neck and shoulder, and began to move faster. I couldn’t see his face at all then, so the noises he began to make didn’t alarm me at first. His heavy breathing began to get louder and louder with each thrust, until it became a groan of sheer frustration. He began to push into me frantically as if he couldn’t get deep enough. His voice sounded strange to my ears and I began to get afraid. Something was wrong. ‘Wade!’ I shouted, suddenly terrified. He didn’t seem to hear me, didn’t want to stop. He just got louder and pushed harder. I began to wonder if he really was still asleep. It had to be the only explanation for the way he was acting. I pushed at him with my body as I struggled to free my hands, calling his name over and over but getting

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no response. Finally I screamed, out of both fear and anger at being used in such a way. He leapt back, getting up to his knees. For a moment, I thought I had managed to get through to him and make him realize how badly he was treating me until the expression on his face stopped me cold. His eyes were dead, looking through me rather than at me. ‘Wade, what’s wrong?’ I asked, fear clutching at my throat as I saw his eyes roll back in his head moments before he fell forward, forcing the air from my lungs as he landed across my body. I screamed as I pushed him off. He was a dead weight and it was only the adrenaline brought on by my fear that gave me the strength to move him. As his lifeless body slumped to the floor at the side of the bed, I shouted his name again. Leaping down to kneel at his side, I checked for vital signs. His heart was still beating but his pulse so slow and weak I could barely feel it. And he was breathing, but in shallow, painful rasps. He began to mumble, almost undiscernibly and I leaned closer to hear what he said, smoothing a hand over his hair in a vain attempt to wake him. What was he saying? I couldn’t quite make it out. Finally, I heard a word I recognized, and it filled me with fear, causing me to back away from him in terror. ‘Clairvius Douyon, Clairvius Douyon,’ he said, over and over and as if in extreme pain. It was the name of the bokor that Mama had warned me about and Wade couldn’t have known it. I grabbed my robe and quickly searched for the gris-gris I had been too horny and stupid to remember, hoping it wasn’t too late. Approaching him nervously, I lifted his head, gently slipping the bag over it by the long cord. As it touched the skin of his chest, he reared up towards me, grabbing at my robe and pulling me on top of him. I fought to get away but he was as strong as an ox, trapping me easily against his chest as his voice got louder and louder and he began to shake violently. Unable to move or help, I had no choice but to wait until he let me go. Terror coursed through me and I began to cry.

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I had let him down. He was going to die. I just knew it. My loud sobs drowned out his words and it took a moment for me to realize he had stopped moaning. In fact, he wasn’t making any sound at all. He was suddenly much calmer. Maybe too calm. I whispered his name again, hoping fervently that the change in his condition meant the worst was over. Wade’s eyelids opened slowly and he blinked a few times before smiling sleepily and whispering my name. ‘Martine…’ He looked to be struggling to say more and I held my breath; afraid to allow myself to hope that he was okay and that it was over. A strange noise rumbled in his throat and for a moment, I thought he was choking. Then he smiled at me, and it scared me more than anything I had ever seen. The eyes staring out at me above the eerie grin didn’t belong to Wade. ‘Mama can’t save him,’ he said, in a heavily accented voice. I ripped myself out of his arms and scurried away, backing into a corner. What the fuck was happening? ‘It is already too late,’ the voice said, speaking to me through Wade. Crazy as it seemed, even considering what I had witnessed so far, that had to be the only explanation. He sat up abruptly, as if a bolt of electricity had gone through his spine. Scanning the room, his head turned slowly until his eyes finally found and settled on me. He smiled again and began to call my name in a dark, lilting voice. ‘Martine…’ he sang, ‘Martine…’ I ran for the door, unsure what to do but certain I was in danger if I stayed in the room with Wade. But it wasn’t really Wade. Something or someone had possessed him. I heard him jump to his feet and then the heavy fall of his footsteps behind me. I barely touched the door before he was on me, grabbing my arm in a strong hand, pulling me back towards the bed, still saying my name over and over in that eerie, singsong voice.

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Digging my heels into the floor, I fought as hard as I could but his fingers were like a vise around my wrist and my body weight was no match for his strength. ‘Please Wade, don’t hurt me,’ I cried desperately. The sound of my voice seemed to confuse him and he stopped trying to drag me across the room, dropping my hand as if surprised to find he held it. His vision cleared briefly, leaving the Wade I knew staring at me just long enough to whisper in a terrified and questioning voice, ‘What is happening to me?’ His mouth went slack as his head began to roll forwards…and then he fell…landing face down on the floor with a sickening thud. I screamed his name, sure the horrific fall must have broken his neck or back, but I got no reaction. He was out cold… maybe dead? It shamed me to realize I was almost too terrified to go near him but I had no choice. I had to try and help him. Taking a cautious step in his direction, I stopped and spun around in cold fear as I thought I sensed someone behind me. Just then, I heard a voice say ‘Bring him to me, mon cherie, quickly.’ The room was empty save for me and Wade’s motionless body. Had the voice been in my head? Whatever the explanation, it had been Mama’s voice and I had no intention of ignoring her again.

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Chapter 18 WADE Was I awake? Why couldn’t I move or speak? Martine had been screaming. I tried to get to her—help her— but all I remembered was waking to find myself standing in the middle of the room as she stared at me in terror. What was happening? Had I said that out loud or just thought it? My legs turned to jelly and I sank to the ground, unable to break my fall or stop myself, almost breaking my shoulder. The wind was knocked from me and I couldn’t suck in a deep breath. How long I had been laying there I didn’t know but I heard her leave the room and for a moment I began to believe I was still dreaming. She would never leave me like this. I lay there in the silence, listening for her return. Trying to move was a waste of time. I couldn’t lift my head or even move my eyes, never mind get up. Maybe I’d had a stroke or a seizure? Maybe this is what being dead felt like. No. Had I been having a nightmare? I struggled to remember it. Images swarmed in and out of my mind but I couldn’t be sure if they were a memory or just my imagination. Martine shouldn’t have filled my head with that voodoo crap. Damn Cindy and her tricks. After the day I’d had, it was no wonder my brain got fucked up. But it must be more than just that. I’d gone to sleep happy, maybe for the first time in years. So why had I woken feeling disturbed, terrified and damn near paralyzed?

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Martine came back finally. The relief I felt at the sound of her voice brought a lump to my throat. I felt a tear run down my face and over the bridge of my nose before dropping to the floor. I welcomed the feeling—dead men didn’t cry. Who did she have with her? Were they why she had screamed or the reason I lay on the floor like a helpless baby? I strained to hear what they said. She sounded calmer, but still upset. Maybe she’d found some help. They got closer, close enough that I could just make out who she was with. A big black guy she seemed to trust came to stand over me. I couldn’t make out his features as my eyes wouldn’t move his way. I felt him cover me in a blanket and then throw me over his shoulder as if I didn’t weight almost 200 pounds. Pain tore through my whole body with every step he took. The fall had done some damage and even breathing was near agony… so I blacked out.

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Chapter 19 MARTINE The streets were empty and quiet. Dawn threatened a city that hadn’t woken yet. I glanced over the seat at the silent and frighteningly still body of Wade where it lay slumped in the back of my car. My heart gave another lurch as I saw anew the condition he was in and put my foot down harder on the gas. Praying the cops didn’t see me, I drove as fast as I dared towards Mama’s house. Thank God my neighbor Ruben had still been awake when I frantically banged his door begging for help. He was a huge black guy, maybe seven feet tall, and built like a Clydesdale. To be honest, there wasn’t much difference between him and any linebacker you could name in the NFL. I often wondered why he had chosen the catering industry over what must have been a natural ability to crush heads as a pro-footballer. ‘Shit, Martine! That cat’s dead,’ he’d said with typical bluntness when he’d first walked into my apartment to find Wade sprawled naked across the floor. ‘You need an ambulance, or a coroner.’ ‘There’s no time for explanations, Ruben. He has a medical condition and I need to get him into my car and take him to a doctor,’ I lied. He hesitated for a moment as he looked from me to Wade and back again. Disbelief hardened his usually pleasant face as he tried to figure out what he was getting involved in. I’d grabbed at his shirt. ‘Please Ruben…please help me. I know it looks bad but don’t ask me to explain.’

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He was a gentle soul and I’d felt awful playing on his kind heart but I had no choice. Thankfully, it worked. Striding over to Wade’s lifeless body, he dragged the comforter from the bed, wrapped him in it and lifted him over a massive shoulder, as if he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes, before heading down the stairs. I threw on a jogging suit and grabbed Wade’s shirt and jeans from the floor before running to follow them. It had taken almost twice as much time to get away from Ruben as it had to get him to agree to help me. He’d been determined to come along, to protect me he’d said. I’d explained that I was grateful for his help but I had to go. Still, he’d insisted on taking the time to make me enter his cell number onto my phone ‘just in case.’ My attention snapped back into focus with a jolt as my car hit a pothole in the road and almost lost a wheel. I had to slow down if I wanted to make it to Mama’s in one piece. The last mile or so was agony, every instinct I had screaming at me to go faster than the road would allow. Finally turning the last corner, I saw Mama waiting on the porch, holding a candle as if looking out for me. Skidding to a halt in front of her, I ran up the steps to where she stood, shouting loudly that we needed help to get him out of the car. She gave me no greeting or reassurance, simply lifting her head to gesture over my shoulder. I turned to find two men who had appeared from nowhere carrying Wade towards the house. When I turned back Mama had disappeared inside. The men placed him on the table and left without a word, closing the door behind them. Mama had her back to us, working on something at the kitchen counter. I didn’t want to be disrespectful or question her, but so help me, if she didn’t turn around and help Wade soon, I knew I was going to lose it. ‘Patience, child,’ she said quietly, answering my unspoken thoughts. Finally she came to the table, stopping again to stare at Wade appreciatively. Under normal circumstances, I would have understood her fascination. Naked to the waist and sprawled over her

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table he looked like some kind of man buffet. ‘He sure is pretty,’ she said to herself, letting her eyes roam over him slowly. A horny old lady would have been plain funny at any other time, but I was about to explode. ‘Mama, please,’ I shouted, not meaning any disrespect but unable to hold on to my nerves any longer. The look she gave me almost shriveled my insides but I held her gaze, pleading silently. Her expression softened a little. ‘You need sleep.’ I shook my head and began to argue, but she had already turned to walk slowly away towards the back room of the house, expecting me to follow her. I paused a moment, weighing up the options. Eventually, I decided doing what she wanted would be the quickest way to get Wade the help he needed. ‘I won’t sleep Mama,’ I said, as she forced me to lie on top of her bed. ‘I’m too worried. Can’t I do something to help?’ She shook her head, turning away from me. ‘You will sleep,’ she said over her shoulder as she left the room. I tried to get up, tried to follow her but my body felt too heavy. Unable to even lift my head from the mattress, I struggled for a moment to hear what was happening. Nothing but the sound of Mama’s soft crooning reached my ears and I lost the battle to keep my eyelids open, sure I could feel the bed sway. I gave up trying to fight it and succumbed to the sensation of being rocked to sleep. What seemed like minutes later—but must have been hours— I became aware of someone calling my name. The sound seemed muffled at first, as if my head was underwater, but then the voice got louder and I turned towards it. ‘Hey,’ someone said softly, ‘I thought I was the one supposed to sleep like the dead.’ A few moments passed until the words and their meaning penetrated my brain. ‘Wade?’ I shouted, throwing myself into his arms when I found him lying in bed beside me. I clung on, squeezing as hard as I could to make sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks and that I’d really woken

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up. But I couldn’t rest in his embrace. I was too full of questions. Did he feel ok? What had happened? Where was Mama? The words tumbled from my lips in a rush. All the while I scanned his eyes for clues, touching his neck, face and shoulders, checking he was really there in front of me, very much alive and well. He winced before raising a hand in self defense. ‘Please, Martine, one question at a time. And turn down the volume, woman.’ He laughed softly to take the edge off his words. ‘You wouldn’t believe the headache I have this morning.’ It was the smile that did it. I began to cry, silently at first before jagged sobs tore from my throat and I fell onto to his chest in relief and exhaustion. Wade tried to comfort me as best he could by folding his arms around me but seemed to know I had to get it out of my system. The warmth and strength of his body gave me the kind of reassurance and security that no words ever could. Finally spent, I sat up and wiped my face with a trembling hand, giving him a small smile as he lifted my chin to stare into my eyes questioningly. I sighed shakily, letting go of the last of my tension and trying to clear my head. ‘I don’t want to go through a night like that ever again,’ I said. ‘Amen to that.’ He sat up, squinting as he looked around the room. ‘Is this Mama’s bed?’ ‘Yes. I wonder where she is.’ So many questions spun in my head, questions he probably didn’t have the answers for. ‘Do you remember any of what happened?’ ‘Not really. I was next to you one minute, trying not to fall asleep and wondering if I had the strength to make love to you again.’ His eyes gleamed at the memory until confusion set in when he tried to remember more. ‘Then as far as I know, I was asleep and trapped in the weirdest dream. Damn, it was awful Martine. I… I was hurting you…’

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I touched his shoulder in reassurance, deciding at that moment never to tell him what he had actually done and how much it had terrified me. ‘Can you remember anything else?’ He shook his head. ‘Nothing that makes much sense. There was a face. A guy I have never seen before. He said something— I think it was a name—over and over. He loomed above me as I lay in your bed, getting nearer.’ Wade shuddered, remembering more. ‘He was so close I could smell his foul breath as it wafted over me. His teeth were rotten, jagged stumps and I could see them as he opened his mouth wide, really wide, like he wanted to bite my face off.’ Wade stopped talking, staring up at the ceiling as if seeing it all again. ‘Was the name Clairvius Douyon?’ His shocked stare confirmed what I already knew. ‘How did you know?’ ‘You said it over and over, and it’s the name of the bokor Mama told me Cindy had visited.’ The color drained from his face. ‘So, do you believe me now Wade?’ He didn’t answer but then I didn’t really expect him to. I knew it would take some time for either of us to accept what we had actually experienced. ‘What happened then?’ ‘Just more dreams, weird ones, I guess. I don’t really remember them. The next thing I know, I am lying naked on Mama’s table,’ he said, looking through the doorway at it. ‘I asked for you and she brought me in here.’ He laughed. ‘The way she eyeballed me was scary, like she wanted to eat me alive. I sure didn’t want to go into the bedroom with her with only a blanket wrapped around me.’ ‘Mama may be old but she has an eye for the men. You had a lucky escape,’ I teased. ‘You don’t know how relieved I was to see you sleeping here. I wanted to wake you but she said you needed rest.’ I nodded. ‘I don’t know what she did to me. When I arrived last night I was almost hysterical with worry. She made me lay on the bed and the next thing I knew was when you woke me just now.’

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‘Same here,’ Wade said. ‘I guess when Mama tells you to sleep, you sleep!’ ‘So is it over?’ I whispered. ‘Damn, I sure hope so,’ he said. He brushed a finger across my shoulder, ‘What about you? How the hell did you get me here? Are you ok?’ I nodded, unwilling to tell him even the small amount I had decided to until I had a strong cup of coffee inside me. ‘We can talk on the way home,’ I said, getting up from the bed. ‘Come on, let’s go.’ Grabbing his clothes from the floor near kitchen table where I had dumped them in haste the night before, I threw them to him in the bedroom and took a moment to look around for Mama. Checking the yard and scanning up and down the dirt track yielded no results. It seemed rude and ungrateful to just leave but what choice did we have? She was nowhere to be seen. ‘No sign of her?’ Wade came to stand behind me, looking out of the door over my shoulder. I shook my head. ‘I guess we better close up and go.’ Driving slowly down the road a few moments later, I cast a look back towards Mama’s house, still a little concerned to leave without seeing her first. A movement caught my eye and I slammed on the brakes, turning around in my seat to stare back at her porch. Mama stood in the open doorway, watching us drive away. Unsure of what to do, I hesitated for a moment. She decided for me by giving a small wave and disappearing inside the house before shutting the door.

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Chapter 20 WADE I didn’t realize until we’d turned off the bumpy road that my body wasn’t aching at all. I rolled my shoulders and stretched out my back, amazed that the agony of the night before had gone. I told Martine. ‘Mama is a root doctor,’ she said. ‘As a kid, I lost count of the amount of times I heard folks say Mama had fixed their pain or cured an ailment.’ She tried to smile but I could see she was still exhausted. Her hand shook a little as she rested it on the steering wheel. ‘Do you want me to drive?’ ‘No, I’m ok. Why?’ I grasped the back of her neck, trying to rub away some of the tension she making her rigid. ‘Because you look like you are about to cry.’ She stopped the car, turning to me with haunted eyes. ‘Oh Wade. It was horrible.’ The tears started again. I could see she was still really upset and I’d been surprised she’d kept it together this long. ‘It’s over now.’ ‘But I let you down,’ she wailed. ‘Mama told me you were in danger. I should have made you wear the Gris-gris.’ ‘Hey. You tried your best, Martine. What happened was my own fault.’ I pulled her into my arms, kissing her hair. ‘I’m stubborn and stupid. But you still managed to save me. Nobody has ever fought so hard for me before.’ ‘I couldn’t have gotten you to Mama without Ruben’s help. We must thank him.’ The sobbing had stopped, leaving her sniffing as she

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caught her breath. ‘He’s my neighbor. Thank God he was strong enough to lift you.’ She smiled. ‘Yeah, I remember. He’s gotta be the biggest guy I’ve ever seen. Scared the shit out of me until I realized he was on our side.’ ‘You saw him?’ ‘I think so. My dreams and memories are still kinda jumbled.’ Struggling to piece together the fragments of the night before hurt my head. ‘I remember you screaming and then I fell. Then you came back with this giant of a guy and I guess I blacked out until Mama woke me.’ ‘You were conscious before that?’ ‘Kind of. I could hear stuff and see whatever was right in front of me. But I couldn’t move… couldn’t even turn my head.’ She shuddered. ‘Back in Haiti, legend is rife that people are often buried alive because of the kind of spell that Clairvius cast on you. They are dead by any means that their kind of rural medicine uses to check for life such as pulse and breath. There is probably brain activity but the small hospitals wouldn’t have the kind of equipment needed to check for it, so the patient is declared dead. The story goes that they are buried and then dug up by the person who cast the spell, to serve them as a kind of zombie and they can only ever be free when the spell caster dies.’ ‘Well, that first part sure sounds like what happened to me but I don’t buy all that zombie crap.’ She flushed a little and I reminded myself again not to dismiss what she said so quickly. Her belief in that crap had saved me and I shouldn’t brush it—or her—aside. ‘How come I survived it, Martine?’ ‘I put the Gris-gris around your neck as soon as I saw something was happening to you but not as soon as I should have. I was too scared to come near you at first.’ Her voice drifted away as if she had said more than she meant to. ‘Scared to come near me? Why?’

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Martine looked away, hiding her eyes from me. ‘You don’t remember anything?’ I shook my head. ‘Only what I told you about. Why? What happened?’ ‘Nothing. You were dreaming is all.’ She started the car again, trying to avoid giving me a proper answer. ‘It was pretty scary,’ she laughed, unconvincingly. I didn’t know why she’d lied but decided not to push it. She’d tell me when she was ready. It didn’t sit well with me that she didn’t want to talk about what happened but I figured she was trying to protect me from something. Cindy had lied too, but for totally different reasons. Like moving back home but only to make sure I was worth more when she bumped me off. I had no idea she hated me that much. For all our differences, I’d always believed we cared for each other. There seemed to be more to the story, much more, and it had a lot to do with Nelson. But I doubted I would ever get the truth from Cindy. What in hell had she gotten mixed up in?

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Chapter 21 MARTINE The last thing I expected, or wanted, to find when I got home was Cindy slumped in my doorway. She jumped to her feet as she saw us approach, almost knocking me out of the way to get to Wade. ‘Shit,’ I heard him mutter under his breath, irritated. ‘I am so sorry, honey,’ she said, blatantly ignoring my presence as she tried to embrace him. Wade recoiled in anger, holding her at arm’s length to look down at her in disgust as she spoke. ‘I got confused. Nelson had me all messed up. It was his idea.’ ‘So he suggested killing me and you just went along with it?’ His voice sounded calm but I could hear the suppressed anger. Cindy, on the other hand, seemed oblivious. Did she even know this man? I guess she still believed Wade wanted her back. Maybe he did. It occurred to me at that moment that I really had no idea who, or what, Wade wanted. ‘You two need to talk,’ I said, moving away from them to unlock the door to the shop. ‘Yes, my husband and I have lots to discuss,’ Cindy bitched, looping an arm through Wade’s for emphasis. If looks could kill, I would have dropped dead on the spot. Her hate-filled gaze lingered on me for a moment, before Wade’s actions got her full attention. He peeled her fingers off as if it pained to have to touch her and walked over to stand at my side.

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‘Why, Cindy? That’s all I want to know. What have I ever done to you?’ Disappointment tinged his words, making them sound sad despite the anger. ‘Sweetie, I told you,’ she wheedled, ‘it was Nelson’s idea. He made me do it. He said that if we had the money from the house and the life insurance we could move away and get married. I never wanted you hurt, Wade. I just didn’t know what to do.’ ‘But you would have killed me to be with him?’ She had the good grace to look ashamed as she shook her head, grasping for words. ‘It’s complicated. Nelson owes lots of money to some seriously heavy people and he came up with this idea. You know, make out you’d died, get the death certificate and all, and collect the insurance. Then, once we were long gone, we were gonna pay Clairvius to break the spell and set you free.’ ‘Then why did you come back? I mean, why the story about the baby?’ ‘There wasn’t enough money,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper as she hid her eyes. ‘The insurance didn’t nearly cover the amount Nelson needed. It was his idea to take the papers when we left the house that day and once we read through them, we realized we needed more, much more. So I had to think of a way to get you to take me back and for long enough so it didn’t look suspicious.’ ‘And you knew exactly what to say, right?’ He shook his head in derision. ‘You always knew how to play me Cindy.’ Wade’s eyes narrowed as a thought hit him. ‘So why didn’t Nelson just pretend to ‘die’? He could have gotten the heavies off his back and left me the hell out of it.’ He laughed without humor. ‘What, don’t have an answer for that?’ ‘W…we thought about it but Nelson said he couldn’t risk someone he knew seeing him ever again and these guys would never have stopped looking for him. It seemed easier. I mean it made more sense to pay off the debt, sell the house and go somewhere you would

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never find us. Get out of Louisiana once and for all with some money for our future.’ He turned away from her, as if needing a moment to control his rage before daring to speak. ‘And what made you think I wouldn’t have spent the rest of my life looking for our child or trying to make you pay for what you did to me?’ His look and the tone of his voice left nobody in any doubt what he thought of her at that moment. She nodded, as if agreeing with his unspoken feelings. ‘I know, and you’re right to hate me. Telling you I was pregnant was worst thing I could’ve done, but I wouldn’t have left you wondering, Wade. Once we got settled, I was gonna find a way to let you know.’ ‘Very big of you,’ he said with momentary sarcasm before his voice became hard and angry once more. ‘You should have killed me out right and put me out of my damn misery. At least it would’ve been over fast—not some long drawn out living hell where I didn’t know what the fuck was happening to me. I mean Jesus, Cindy. Were you actually going to bury me… put me in the ground?’ He shuddered. ‘Clairvius said—’ ‘I don’t give a fuck what Clairvius said. Save it. I am done with you and your lies.’ Placing an arm at my back, he turned as if to walk through the door. ‘The house is yours. You can have it as your part of the divorce. I hope you and Nelson are very happy. Can’t do much about the insurance money though,’ he added, mocking her. Cindy seemed taken aback for the briefest moment and looked like she wanted to argue. She held her tongue though, probably realizing she’d got about as much as she could hope for, given the circumstances. She dropped the contrite look she had been wearing since we approached, giving him a quick, curt nod in acceptance of his offer. The concerned façade had disappeared as soon as it was no longer useful. Damn, the woman was some piece of work and I marveled at how I had ever allowed her to take me in so completely.

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‘ I won’t involve the police this time but I’m gonna get a lawyer to put it all on record and instruct him that if anything ever happens to me, he is to take it to the cops. Now, are we done here?’ Wade said in a flat, beaten voice that it pained me to hear. Not needing an answer, he began to turn away again before her words stopped him. ‘Can you ask Mama to leave me alone? Please?’ she said to him, genuine fear in her voice. ‘Mama? What’s she got to do with it?’ ‘Last night, when you were supposed to… you know...’ Her voice dwindled away to a whisper. It looked like even she wasn’t comfortable admitting, that if things had gone to plan, Wade would be in the morgue. ‘Well, at about that time, I began to hear things in the house. You know, like strange voices.’ ‘You went back to the house last night?’ he asked. ‘Fuck, Cindy. I bet you couldn’t wait to be there, ready to get the news of my untimely passing and play the grieving widow.’ ‘What happened with Mama?’ I said, unable to wait while it occurred to him to ask. I understood his anger but I wanted to hear what she had to say. ‘Back off, bitch. I’m not talking to you,’ she spat, glaring at me as if she could happily rip my head off. ‘I’d be nicer to Martine if I were you,’ Wade warned. ‘From what I saw, Mama is very protective towards her.’ She held my gaze a moment longer before uncertainty at the truth of his words made her cautious. ‘I heard voices, calling my name, warning me to stay away from you,’ she explained to him. The experience had obviously shaken her badly and her voice lost some of its confidence as she continued. ‘Nelson said he couldn’t hear nothing but I ran through the house, trying to get away, trying to hide. I got into bed and put my head under a pillow, trying to drown out the sound.’ ‘You sure it was Mama?’ he said.

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‘Not at first. At first, I thought it was Clairvius, you know, double crossing me or just having some sick fun. But then it went quiet real sudden, and I looked up and found Mama standing at the foot of my bed.’ Cindy rubbed her forehead as if trying to erase the image from her memory. ‘I screamed and closed my eyes. When I opened them, she had gone.’ She looked at us in turn, waiting for a show of sympathy for what she had been through or some kind of reassurance I guess. I realized then that Cindy had been so used to leaning on us individually for support that she didn’t feel uncomfortable asking for more of it, even after what she had tried to do. ‘That’s what you get for messing with things you don’t understand,’ I couldn’t resist saying. I could see she wanted to lunge at me again but she held herself in check. ‘So will you talk to her and sort it out?’ she asked quietly. ‘My advice to you is to go see Mama yourself. If you can convince her you are genuinely sorry and intend to leave us alone, well, that may be enough for her,’ I said, although almost certain she had nothing to worry about. It wouldn’t hurt for her to spend a day or two worrying about what she had done. I left her with one final warning. ‘Clairvius is a very dangerous man. What you went through last night would be nothing compared to what he could do to you if he wanted to. Mama is more powerful but he is far more evil. Stay away from him, Cindy, and count yourself lucky that he didn’t finish the task you set him. You really don’t want to owe a man like that anything.’ I walked away then, sick of the sight of her and at the thought of what she had unleashed on her poor, unsuspecting husband. I dared not look behind me as I opened the door, still unsure if he would be strong enough to walk away from her for good. The feel of his hands circling my waist answered my questions and silenced my fears. He kicked the door shut with a foot, turning me into his arms

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and kissing me in full view of his seething wife before she walked away in disgust.

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Chapter 22 WADE I watched her move around the room nervously, straightening the items on top of various bookcases and tables. She wouldn’t look at me and the change in her confused me. ‘What’s wrong, Martine?’ She jumped at the sound of my voice and I bit back a curse. Why in hell was she scared of me all of a sudden? Everything had been fine until we got in to her apartment. Once we were alone, she’d become skittish and evasive. I’d given her some breathing room by suggesting we take a shower to freshen up. Despite a desperate urge to join her while I waited for my turn, I kept my distance in the hope she would calm down a little. It hadn’t helped. ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ she smiled, ducking her head so I couldn’t see her eyes. ‘Just tired I guess. Is that t-shirt ok?’ she asked, changing the subject. The only thing she had in the apartment that would fit me was a faded old Saints shirt, slightly too tight but at least it was clean. I nodded, determined not to let her distract me from the issue at hand. She had every right to be exhausted. The fact I wasn’t as tired as her amazed me but I knew the reason why. From the moment I’d found her asleep beside me earlier that day, the desire to have sex with her had been overwhelming. The day’s events had stopped me taking things any further but I’d been happy to wait knowing that soon, I would have her alone. The weeks without her had driven me crazy but my plan to show her what she did to my body, heart and mind would have to wait.

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How could I tell Martine I’d fallen in love with her when she seemed terrified of me? It looked like I was going to have to ask her right out if some of the stuff I thought had been dreams had really happened, and one part in particular. ‘Come here, Martine,’ I said, keeping my voice calm in case I made her even more nervous. ‘I want to speak to you about something.’ It relieved me when she came without hesitation. Maybe things weren’t too bad after all. At least I knew now she wasn’t actually afraid of me. Which meant something was bothering her. ‘Last night…’ ‘What about it?’ Her body had gone rigid on the sofa beside me and I knew my gut feeling was right. ‘Did I hurt you in anyway? Scare you maybe?’ I saw the tears shining in her eyes before she tried to turn away again. I lifted her chin, not allowing her to hide. ‘Please, Martine. The truth this time, ok? I can’t take any more lies. I don’t want to have to look at you and wonder what is really going on like I did Cindy. I know something happened last night and, if it’s what I think, then we need to talk about it.’ ‘Thanks for the comparison,’ she said, annoyance finally making her look at me. She was beautiful with her green eyes flashing that way and if the topic hadn’t been so important, I would have enjoyed sparring with her more. The moment passed quickly as remorse replaced the anger. ‘Sorry. You deserve better than that.’ She edged forward in her seat as she tried to make the words come. ‘They weren’t all dreams you had, Wade,’ she said quietly, unable to look at me. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry!’ My stomach turned at the thought I had abused her in any way. ‘Did I force… I mean, did I—’ ‘But it wasn’t you Wade!’ she interrupted, clasping my hands in hers and turning to me. ‘That’s how voodoo works. Your mind is taken over and your body isn’t your own. Clairvius had possessed you at that moment. At first, I thought it was you which is why I didn’t

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fight back.’ She laughed, surprising me. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I was pissed. You and I were going to have a serious talk about your caveman tactics in the morning.’ I tried to smile but I couldn’t. The fact she attempted to lighten the moment just made me feel worse. ‘Did I… I mean, did he hurt you?’ ‘Not really. You just rolled on top of me and started having sex. You didn’t force me or anything like that. You just didn’t give me a choice. I woke up as you were doing it. Like I said, I was more annoyed than hurt. Then, when I realized there had to be something wrong with you, I forgot my annoyance. My only concern was making sure you didn’t die.’ ‘That bastard!’ Despite the promise I’d made to myself to stay calm, anger rose in my throat, threatening to choke me if I didn’t let it out. ‘I’ll make him pay, Martine, I swear.’ I began to pace, wondering where Cindy was right at that moment and if she’d take me to find Clairvius. Sure, I was probably the last person she wanted to see but she owed me. Big time. ‘Wade, don’t be stupid. It’s not necessary. He didn’t hurt me at all. He just frightened me a little.’ She grabbed my hand as I passed, forcing me to sit down next to her again. ‘But you fought him off too. He had taken you over, made you act that way but, when I screamed, it reached you somehow. You stopped when you thought you had hurt me. That’s how I got away long enough to get the Gris-gris and put it on.’ ‘But are you going to think of him when I touch you, Martine? Will my hands remind you of him and what he made me do?’ I watched her eyes intently. I would know if she lied and I held my breath as I waited for her reply. ‘It wasn’t you, Wade. It didn’t feel like you or sound like you. I know what it’s like to have your hands and body driving me crazy. That’s how I knew something was wrong.’ She smiled as a blush spread on her cheeks. ‘I didn’t respond to you as wildly as I usually do. Normally, I can’t even think once you touch me…’

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I could see she told the truth. Her embarrassment made it clear that she meant every word. I just hoped I would be able to forget what Clairvius had made me do. I ached to touch her, to make her mine again and drive out the memory of him. But I was afraid. Afraid of the intensity she brought out in me. I couldn’t take the risk of hurting her again or seeing the fear in her eyes. Martine watched me raging inwardly with a small, sad smile on her face. ‘I know I have been acting strange but it’s not what you think. I wasn’t scared or hurt by what happened. I was more afraid of how you would react if you knew. I don’t want anything to come between us.’ Her words didn’t sink in. I stared into the face of a beautiful woman who I just couldn’t believe wanted me, even after what had happened. To see her look at me in such an adoring way felt unreal. Guys like me didn’t get this lucky. I opened my mouth to tell her, to find the words that would let her know just how much I was beginning to care for her, but she hushed me by pressing a finger against my lips, replacing it instantly with a kiss. She guessed what I had been trying to say. ‘Don’t tell me, Wade, show me,’ she said, pulling me towards her. I resisted. ‘But what if…’ The protest died in my throat as her finger wound its way across my cheek, over my neck and down, down to scratch agonizingly along the length of my fly. She followed the path of her hand with her mouth, flicking her tongue against my earlobe and nibbling at my neck as she headed southwards. I groaned as I squirmed on the seat beside her. Her face was in my lap and all I could see was the tangle of her hair where it pooled over my groin and thighs. Not being able to see what she doing was heightened my reactions and my body jerked as I felt her teeth graze over the denim covering my erection. Her hands worked at my jeans and within moments, my cock sprang free, almost brushing her face. I held my breath and waited for the first touch of her lips, a touch I had been dreaming of and fantasizing about since I first laid eyes on her. But it

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didn’t come. She got to her feet suddenly, leaving me there with a massive hard-on. My disappointment didn’t last long as I saw her head dip on a shy smile and she began to work on the buttons of her shirt. I watched in fascination as she stripped right down to her panties before she placed a hand on each hip and walked towards me with a sassy grin. I hadn’t seen this side of her before and I was kind of grateful. The time without her would have been even more unbearable if I’d had memories like this to torture myself with. She dropped to her knees between my thighs and didn’t tease me any longer. She took my penis in her hand instantly and paused for just a moment as she wet her lips before sliding them down over the head. Martine opened her eyes to look up at me, and I swore she knew she was fulfilling a fantasy that had haunted my dreams. I stretched my arms out along the back of the sofa, trying to keep my eyes on her sweet mouth as it slid up and down my cock but I couldn’t. My head kept hitting the back of the seat as spasm after spasm raced through me. I bit my lip and fought the urge to push deeper into her warm mouth. She placed one hand above the other, almost totally sheathing my prick, as she continued to lap and suck at me. All too soon, she stopped, crawling over me to straddle my thighs, allowing her hair to drag over my sensitized skin as her mouth made its way to mine. Martine slid her tongue into my still gaping mouth, touching it to the tip of mine just long enough to let me taste myself before she moved away to bite my neck. Her crotch pressed against my cock and I heard her gasp as she pushed against my hardness. A shudder went through me and I felt her muffled laugh against my skin. If she was trying to make me lose control, it worked. She sat up suddenly, looking down with a silly smile and lust-glazed eyes that were barely visible through her disheveled hair. The next thing she said set me free from my guilt and made me laugh out loud.

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‘Well, Wade. What’s a girl gotta do to get a fuck around here?’

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Chapter 23 MARTINE It worked! My attempt at seduction had worked and within seconds, my panties were ripped away and he was lowering me onto his hard dick. He watched my face through slightly glazed eyes, while I sank onto him inch by inch, and he bit his lip against the sensation. His hands at my hips dictated the speed and he shook from the effort it took not to bring me down hard and bury his cock deep inside me. My breasts swayed gently in front of his face as I helped him off with his t-shirt. Wade leaned forward to bury his face between them and the feel of his beard against my skin was incredibly erotic. I clasped his head, forcing him to stay there for a moment longer, but he couldn’t sit still, flipping me over to lay beneath him, his cock still inside me. Once he had me on my back, he lost control, grunting in satisfaction as he managed to penetrate me fully for the first time. I relished the sensation of being possessed by him again and this time, I knew there was no magic involved. No charms or voodoo. Just Wade, showing me with his body what he hadn’t yet managed to say in words. His orgasm was near when he pulled out of me, scooting down the seat to wrestle my thighs over his shoulder and sucked my clitoris into his mouth. His eyes burned my skin as they scanned my body and face and the intensity in them was the last thing I remember seeing as I felt him push a thumb into my swollen pussy. He changed position as I was about to come, continuing the stimulation with his hand as he pushed the tip of his cock inside me to shudder in time with the pulse

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of my orgasm. I felt my muscles pulling at him, trying to draw him in but Wade stayed where he was, looking down at the place where we were joined, slowing the movements of his hand as the spasms subsided. He shifted his weight forward, using it to slide his penis into me again as he lay on top of me. His arms scooped me nearer—under my back and over my shoulders to rest on my collarbones—pulling me as close as possible. I couldn’t move a muscle but I loved it. I could feel every breath he took, every movement of his body, every part of him. Wade dropped his head to my shoulder, biting into the skin as he began to move faster and push deeper. I filled my hands with his hair, turning his head to whisper into his mouth that I loved the feel of him inside me. He began to come as he struggled to respond, telling me that he couldn’t get deep enough… could never be deep enough. His broken words were the last coherent sound he made before shuddering gasps took his voice away. I held him tightly as he rocked against me, clinging on until his spasms subsided. My senses registered nothing but him as I lay there reveling in the feel of him inside, over and around me. We stayed there, in a tangle of limbs, for I don’t know how long. He moved a little, allowing me space to breathe, but I wouldn’t let him go totally. I still couldn’t get the idea that I had almost lost him out of my mind. The tears welled up again and I could do nothing to hide them from him. ‘It’s over now, Martine,’ he said, brushing the wetness from my face with a hand that he intended to be gentle but felt like a giant paw. ‘Thanks to you.’ He smiled. I returned his grin, wishing I felt brave enough to tell him that I loved him. I would. Soon but not yet. Not until we’d had a couple of days of peace and quiet and time to get to know each other better under normal circumstances. I pushed the thought from my mind.

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‘I hope Cindy will be ok. Despite what she tried to do to you, I don’t really want her to be unhappy.’ Wade nodded in agreement. ‘I know what you mean.’ ‘You know you’re gonna have to check on her.’ ‘Yeah,’ he said with a resigned grimace. ‘I know.’ I snuggled into him, squeezing his ass to distract him again and brighten his mood. ‘Why the hell did she get herself messed up with a guy like Nelson when she had you at home?’ ‘I wasn’t the same man with her as I am with you,’ he said, staring down at me as if he wanted to say more. He kissed me again before sitting up and stretching the kink out of his back. ‘Ooh! Poor Cindy,’ I said bitchily, succeeding in making him laugh. ‘Come here, witch!’

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PART TWO Bokor’s Pride

Chapter 24 Mama Susu knew her time was coming soon. With so much left to do, she didn’t want to leave, wasn’t ready to. Many people she cared about relied on her. ‘Martine and her man not safe without me,’ she fretted. She mixed the potion she worked on with a new sense of urgency, praying that her magic—and her determination to stay alive until her work was done—would be strong enough to protect them both from the storm to come. MARTINE I smiled at Wade as he slumped into the seat opposite mine. In the two weeks we had officially been together, I still wasn’t used to having a big, sexy redneck filling the back room of my shop. ‘How’s it going, sweetheart?’ he said, with an easy charm I was beginning to enjoy. The warmth of his smile and constant invitation in his dark eyes usually made a girl feel good. But not today. ‘Fine,’ I said, hiding from him as I ducked my head. Lifting my chin with a finger, he searched my face for answers. As always, he had seen through my deception. ‘Martine?’ ‘I am just a little tired,’ I lied. I couldn’t tell him the truth. Not yet. We’d barely begun to get over recent events. The last thing either of us needed was more drama. I changed the subject. ‘How was work?’

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His expression let me know I wasn’t fooling him for a second, but he let me get away with the obvious tactic. ‘Man, what a day. Johnson must have changed his mind a dozen times. Sure glad the job is almost finished.’ Wade’s work often meant he fell through the door in near exhaustion. A few minutes sleep in a chair and a hot bath usually revived him though and then he spent the rest of the night working just as hard at making me happy. Wade was talking to me but I wasn’t really paying attention. My mind wandered elsewhere. Maybe I should go see Mama? I sent another silent prayer, one of many I’d made recently, out to whoever was listening. Please don’t let my dreams mean something bad is going to happen. ‘Martine?’ His voice broke into my thoughts, dragging me back to the present. ‘You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders,’ he said, coming to stand behind me to rub the tension from my neck. ‘Why don’t you close up early and come upstairs with me?’ Smiling at the invitation in his hands and voice, I shook my head, telling him I had a one more appointment to get through and then I would be all his. ‘You know I’ll hold you to that, right?’ he whispered against my neck as his teeth grazed over my skin. ‘You better.’ I pushed him off with a smile before I changed my mind. Wade took a step back, and my insides churned as they always did when he looked at me that way. My resolve began to weaken as I let my eyes drift slowly over the body I began to know so well. His quiet, watchful expression and the casual tilt of his head gave no clue of the tension I knew coursed through him. If the bulge in the front of his jeans wasn’t giving him away, it would be easy to think him quite calm. But I knew all it would take was the slightest encouragement from me and he would pounce.

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‘You sure you want me to leave?’ he said in a warm voice that brought my eyes back up to his. He was an arrogant bastard, but with good reason. He knew I wanted him every bit as much as he wanted me. I imagined grabbing a handful of that glossy black hair of his and dragging his mouth down to where I needed it the most. Maybe there was enough time to ease the throbbing ache he had caused between my legs just by looking at me? Tearing my eyes away from him to check the clock on the wall, my question was answered as the chimes over the door heralded the arrival of my appointment. ‘Saved by the bell,’ Wade muttered quietly, giving me a grin as he slipped from the room and up the stairs, before the sight of a big guy with an even bigger hard-on scandalized the old lady I could see waiting patiently at the counter.

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Chapter 25 WADE I paced the floor of her apartment as I waited for her last reading of the day to leave. I was a slave to my desire for Martine and having to contain the heat building within me for the last fifteen minutes began to fray my nerves. Maybe it was just the rush of a new relationship making me hot for her all the time but I doubted it. I couldn’t imagine a time when I wouldn’t want her as much. We were a good fit. It was as simple as that. I’d never met a woman who could command such intensity from me. The loss of control scared me a little. At times, I felt too demanding, too greedy for her, although she matched my desire with her own time and time again. Hell, sometimes she even surpassed me. She could come all night long and still be ready for more, forcing me to beg for mercy and sleep. I used to love the way I could be totally open with her, showing her just how deep my desire for her went, but recently I’d begun to hold back. Forcing myself to stay put as I heard her climb the stairs, I waited for her appear. Seeing her always took my breath away as I was struck anew every time by the beauty of her heritage. The mysterious green eyes, honey skin and long, dark, curly hair of her ancestry were perfect for her job, making her look like a wanton gypsy, enslaving men with her sexy magic. I laughed at my poetic turn of thought, causing Martine to look at me in surprise. ‘What’s so funny?’ she asked with a smile.

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‘Me,’ I said simply. I wasn’t about to tell her what I’d been thinking. She already knew I was crazy about her. No need to show her just how crazy. A shadow passed across her eyes and she seemed lost in thought for a moment. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her that way recently. The last couple days, she’d looked strained. Probably tired from the nightmares she’d been having. Anger rose in my throat briefly as I remembered the fight we’d had when she had woken screaming and shaking in the middle of the night but refusing to tell me what had scared her so much. I guessed I’d hear about it when she felt ready. All I could do for now was chase that look out of her eyes. Reaching down to grasp her fingers, I began to reverse slowly towards the bed, taking her with me. She smiled, eyes bright with anticipation, as she allowed me to pull her into the gap my thighs formed as I sat down. My hands began to snake up under the hem of her skirt, then the back of her thighs, until they met the lace of her panties. Letting my fingers slip inside the fabric, I molded her ass to my palms, using them to bring her closer as I moved to slip my legs between hers. Resting my head on her abdomen, I groaned as her hands went to my hair. I looked up the length of her body, wanting to see the reaction on her face as I hooked my fingers underneath her and slipped one just inside the entrance to her pussy. I’d begun to learn what she liked and I knew not to push too far, too soon. The tremors rippling through her and down onto my hand told me I was in the right spot and a rasping groan left me in no doubt. Her head fell back and her fingers left my hair to clasp onto my shoulders, steadying her against the shaking of her thighs. Martine’s body decided when it needed more and she began to push down, wanting me deeper. Another finger slipped inside her easily, helped by the wetness oozing from her. She spasmed, jerking hard, before her legs gave way and she was forced to straddle my thighs.

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I couldn’t reach inside her anymore so I turned my attention to her breasts, baring them quickly while I slid my tongue into her mouth. Nipples the color of a dusky rose begged for my attention and I sucked first one, then the other, moaning against her skin as the pressure building in my balls became unbearable. Standing with her still in my arms, I turned and sat her down on the bed as I ripped my clothes off, sighing in relief as I freed myself from my tight jeans. Her eyes drank me in and my cock pulsed in response to the open desire on her face. Barely patient enough to wait until she’d stripped off the last of her clothing, I helped slip her panties off the ends of her feet then immediately slotted myself into the gap between her legs. Sliding my tongue across the inside of a knee, I trailed it further up her thigh, forcing myself to move slowly as I stared at the glistening skin beckoning me. The heady scent of her arousal fogged my brain and I couldn’t wait any longer to taste it. Holding her firmly, I flattened my tongue and ran it slowly over her clit. Martine bucked, as I had known she would, and I held on tighter and sucked her into my mouth. She was ready for me and within seconds was almost ripping my hair out as she forced me closer and ground against my face. Her hips began to move in time with my mouth, eventually taking over and setting the rhythm she wanted. Her legs went rigid and I knew she was about to come. Without warning, I slid my thumb inside her pussy and began to fuck her hard. Martine exploded around me, shaking and groaning as I sucked her relentlessly. Her muscles pulsed around my hand as moisture seeped out of her. Her cries subsided and I felt her begin to pull away, too sensitized to be touched any longer. I placed a last kiss on her thigh before crawling up over her body as she gasped for air. Sweat glistened on her skin, reflecting the orange light of a Louisiana dusk flooding in through the window. Transfixed as the sun rays danced over her body,

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I marveled at how someone so beautiful could want someone like me, but she did and I wasn’t about to push my luck by allowing my insane desire for her to take control. ‘Damn, you’re good,’ she laughed, kissing me as I got level with her face. ‘Why, thank you, ma’am,’ I said, doing my best Rhett Butler. God only knew how I could joke around when all I wanted to do was bury my cock inside her over and over again and make her scream my name. I’d resolved recently to take things more slowly. Martine had said more than once that she didn’t blame me for what happened before. I was still a little afraid of doing anything to bring the bad memories flooding back. She seemed confident that Mama could protect us and that nothing would come between us again…but I wasn’t so sure.

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Chapter 26 MARTINE He wasn’t getting off so lightly this time. Wade seemed to think that I needed a gentle, considerate lover after my ‘trauma’. His insistence on reigning himself in and suppressing the animal side of his nature caused a problem now, not what he had done while Clairvius had taken possession of him. I groaned beneath him, frustrated at his slow, measured thrusting. I wanted the old Wade back, the one that used to almost bruise my thighs as he slammed into me again and again. He resisted the pull of my hands on his ass as I tried to force him to fuck me faster, harder. Pushing him off, I forced him onto his back and straddled his cock, sinking onto it before he had a chance to control what was happening. For the first time in what seemed like an age, he filled me fully. I bore down, enjoying the sensation in the pit of my stomach, feeling him jerk in response to my pussy quivering around him. I fought off his hands as he tried to hold me, slapping them away. Spreading my legs further, I leaned back, impaling myself on him and began to stroke my clit. I wanted him wild and incapable of forming any thoughts of being gentle. I began to shake at the exquisite agony of holding him so deeply inside me as my muscles clenched and released him. Wade folded his arms behind his head with an indulgent grin, looking for all the world like he was humoring me. I didn’t buy it though, not for one minute. His eyes riveted to the movements of my hand and I could see the muscles of his stomach convulsing with the

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effort it took him to lie still as I bore down on him. Reaching behind me into the gap between his legs, I scraped my fingertips over his balls, smiling as he almost jolted from the bed in reaction. His head fell back against the pillows, and I watched the cords in his neck strain as he fought the shudders brought on by my touch. My pussy began to pulse a warning that I was about to come again and the sight of him writhing beneath me, teeth biting into his bottom lip as he jerked helplessly is all it took. I tried to keep my eyes on him, wanting to know he was watching me, but I couldn’t. My muscles sucked at him greedily and I heard him begin to groan and shake as if he felt it right down to his toes. I knew he was about to explode with the urge to pound into me and my orgasm had barely finished before he threw me onto my back and began to do just that. Finally… finally, he lost control. Massive hands pinned my upper arms to the bed as he strained above me, seeking the release he had been forced to wait for. His eyes bore into mine with an intensity I hadn’t seen in a while, as his face hovered mere inches above me. ‘Is this what you wanted?’ he ground out, the words barely audible over the sound of his ragged panting. I held his gaze. ‘Yes, I want this. It’s all I ever want—you inside me, fucking me this way.’ Wade could take no more. His head fell forward and he looked down to where his dick slammed into me over and over again and he began to come, not with the polite grunts and gasps I’d had to tolerate recently, but with a full blooded shout that it thrilled me to hear. Incoherent words and biting fingers told me how lost he was and I urged him on, telling him how good it felt. My big, beautiful, sweaty man collapsed on top of me, heaving and shaking, almost crushing me, but I had never been happier. My Wade was back. I wiggled my arms out of his grasp, brushing the hair from his flushed face. His eyes creaked open to stare at me in near amazement and I knew that he was totally spent for the first time in forever. A smile I couldn’t fight spread across my face.

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He knew what had caused it, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion before he relaxed and returned my grin. ‘You’re a tease,’ he said, kissing me on a laugh. My humor disappeared a little. ‘Well, it wouldn’t have been necessary if you’d believed me when I told you I was ok.’ His anger flared. ‘And I would believe you if I thought you were telling the truth, Martine. Look at the dreams you have been having recently. You won’t tell me what they are about or why the fuck they scare you so much.’ ‘Get off me, Wade.’ I pushed at his chest, furious that he could accuse me like this while still inside me. He had no idea what I was going through. ‘You wouldn’t believe me, whatever I said.’ He pulled out of me fast and moved to his side of the bed, anger making him punch his pillow flat before he put his head on it, but he didn’t speak. I sighed at the tension building between us. This wasn’t what I wanted. ‘Look, please don’t make this into some big thing when it really isn’t.’ ‘I want you to trust me, Martine.’ ‘But I already do. Don’t you know that?’ I said, as I put my head on his chest and waited for the comforting touch of his arm closing around my shoulder. He hugged me back without hesitation, releasing his anger on a shaky breath. ‘Yeah, I know,’ he said. But we both knew he didn’t. It was too early to stay in bed but I felt my eyes getting heavy. Truth was I’d had much less sleep than he realized. Wade’s fingers drew lazy circles on my shoulder and I gave in to the urge to sink into his chest and drift off.

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Chapter 27 WADE I woke just before dawn, wondering why she wasn’t in bed with me. The night before had been incredible. Martine had been right. The only way Clairvius and Cindy could win is if we, or make that I, let them come between us now. Not only had I survived the ordeal, but I’d found the love of my life. Why let fear spoil what we had? The minutes ticked by, forcing me out of the bed to go find her. Panic began to rise in my throat as I searched room after room with no success. Turned out, she was in the last place I looked. Her reading room was barely illuminated by the black candle burning in the center of the table she where she sat and she didn’t hear me come in. I peered over her shoulder, trying to understand what the hell she could see in the cards she had spread out before her. The weird pictures meant nothing to me, but she stared at them in something near to fascination. What was she looking for? ‘Did you find the answer you wanted?’ I asked, keeping my voice neutral. Martine leapt to her feet with a scream, spinning to look my way so fast, she knocked the table over. What the fuck? I ran to put out the small fire the candle had started when it landed on top of the lace table cloth. Martine came over to help me pick up the rest of the stuff strewn all over the floor but backed off when she saw the anger in my face, letting out a shaky breath. ‘Sorry about that. You surprised me.’ ‘What’s going on?’ I said, ignoring her excuse.

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‘What do you mean?’ I fought to hold on to my temper. ‘The dreams. The secrecy. This,’ I said, gesturing around the room. She tried to hide behind her anger. ‘I told you, Wade, everything is fine. I’m getting sick of talking about it.’ She left the room, hurrying up to the bed and showing me her back as I got in behind her minutes later. She shook my hand off as I tried to turn her towards me. I weighed my words carefully. ‘I’m not stupid, Martine. And I don’t like being lied to.’ She at least turned to face me then and I could see my words had gotten through. Sitting up, she clasped and released her hands a few times before turning towards me resolutely. ‘You’re right. It’s not fair to shut you out. I had another dream, like the other ones.’ ‘About what?’ ‘I see you, Mama and…and a man I don’t know.’ Her voice drifted off and I sensed it was the last part that scared her. I kept quiet, afraid she would withdraw again if I pushed her too soon. ‘They always begin the same way. We are having sex and I close my eyes. When I open them again, it’s not you anymore. Another man has taken your place. He is brutal and ugly and I want him to stop but I can’t make the words come out. I start to scream for Mama’s help but she doesn’t come. All I can hear is her voice. She is crying and telling me she is sorry.’ Her gaze focused on me again as the image cleared from her mind. ‘Then I wake up.’ I felt sick to my stomach. ‘It’s obvious what’s causing the dreams, Martine. You are still haunted by what happened.’ She shook her head, desperate to dismiss the idea. ‘No, that’s not it. I told you, I knew it wasn’t you trying to have sex with me that night. The minute I looked into your face, I could see something was wrong.’ ‘Clairvius may have been controlling me at that point, but it was my face and hands that terrified you. If you think this has nothing to

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do with what happened, then you are kidding yourself. Or trying to protect me.’ ‘Protect you from what?’ Her face drained of color and I knew in that instant there was more to it than she’d admitted to. ‘From feeling guilty over the fact you are still upset,’ I said, watching for her reaction. Her obvious relief made my gut tighten. She was still lying. I told her so, but she didn’t try to answer me or fight her corner. She simply leapt from the bed, running to lock herself away in the bathroom. I didn’t know what the hell to do. Part of me wanted to pound on the door and force her to tell me what was going on, but another part was scared to do anything for fear of making her more nervous. Damn that Clairvius. And damn Cindy too for bringing him into my life. The fact he’d almost killed me barely mattered compared to the damage he’d done to my relationship with Martine. I hadn’t been able to get over what had happened, even if Martine claimed she had. I wanted to believe her, but surely the dreams proved I’d been right to worry? Something had upset her for sure. Why else would she be reading her own cards and acting so strange? Finally, the bathroom door creaked open and she slipped into bed, wrapping her arms around me and burying her head into my shoulder. I could sense she didn’t want to talk anymore so I swallowed down the questions spinning around in my brain. I squeezed her tight, trying to show her with my body that I would protect her and that there was nothing to be afraid of. Especially not me.

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Chapter 28 MARTINE I felt good. For the last week, the dreams appeared to have stopped and Wade seemed back to his old self. Maybe he’d been right all along. He’d said fear lives in the dark and that by hiding what I was going through, I gave it more power. I laughed. Who knew he was so smart? I hadn’t told him everything. He didn’t know that, for a while at least, I’d felt like someone had tried to take over my mind and turn me against him. I’d thought whoever it was had been trying to make me afraid of Wade. The things he’d done to me in my dreams, using the body and hands that I love had been horrific. His face always morphed into that of a stranger eventually, but in the beginning, it was always him hurting me, humiliating me. It had been a battle to keep the two entities separate in my mind and that worried me. But maybe Wade was right. My encounter with Clairvius must have affected me more than I’d thought. I had no time to dwell on it. From the moment I’d opened the shop, the flow of customers was constant. By the end of the day, my already happy mood had increased, fueled by hours of fun, interesting clients and the money they brought in. By the time Wade got home, I was buzzing with energy and ready to hit the town. I sure hoped he could dance. The salsa club I used to be a regular at played the best Latin sounds in town and a part of my life I longed to share with him. He caught my mood, suggesting we make a night of it and have dinner first. We decided to eat at Ruben’s

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place. We owed him big time for the help he had given me that night, and Wade wanted to personally shake him by the hand. I locked myself in the spare room, dressing with excitement of a first date, which is what I guess it was. By the time I emerged, I’d piled my hair on top of my head with just a few stray curls falling down to caress my neck. My red silk dress, cut on the bias, clung to every inch of me and swayed around my knees seductively as I moved. Strappy heels and sparkly earrings made the outfit sexy but fun. I couldn’t wait to see what he thought. His reaction became the last thing on my mind as I sashayed out into the living room. Wade had shaved his beard off. My heart stopped as I saw the devastatingly handsome man waiting for me on the sofa. He looked a little shy, rubbing at his chin as I continued to stare at him with my mouth open. His eyes drifted lower, taking in my dress. ‘You look beautiful,’ he said, almost comically, like he couldn’t believe his luck. He stood to kiss me on the cheek, laughing softly as I continued to stare at his face in stunned silence. ‘You like it?’ I nodded, dropping my little bead purse onto the sofa before sliding my hands under the jacket of his black linen suit to cup his ass, bringing my groin against his and sliding my tongue between his lips as they parted in surprise. I felt his cock harden against my abdomen as the kiss went on and on. Right up until the moment he placed his hands on my hips and put some distance between us, I had every intention of dragging him to the floor and fucking his brains out. ‘If we are gonna make it out of here, we better leave now,’ he said, his voice strained. He didn’t want to stop any more than I did but he ignored my pout of disappointment, grabbing my hand with a laugh and dragging me out into the night. The meal was wonderful. Ruben and Wade got on like a house on fire. Things had been a bit awkward at first. After all, the last time they’d met, Ruben had been carrying Wade like a baby as he helped me get him into the car to take him to Mama’s, but they soon moved

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passed that. Turned out, they knew a few of the same people and had a love bordering on obsession for the Saints. Ruben loitered at our table for so long, we eventually invited him to join us. From that point on, they pretty much ignored me as they cemented their new friendship. But I didn’t mind at all. I was thrilled that the two most important men in my life got along so well. I’d known Ruben for years, due to the fact we were neighbors and members of a local preservation committee. Our businesses were in historic buildings and that brought with it some responsibility. Strangely enough, our friendship had really taken off after he’d asked me out and I turned him down. In the absence of a father figure or any siblings, Ruben had since become like a brother to me, giving me much needed support when my mother had died two years ago. He’d long since nominated himself as my unofficial protector. I gazed at his shaved head and wondered if he did it to make himself look older. He was in his late thirties but had a boyishly handsome face that didn’t match his physique. His hands looked like they could crush watermelons but he used them with surprising finesse in the kitchen. His restaurant was one of the best in town and usually booked weeks in advance. Once he’d seen me in the doorway, getting a table hadn’t been a problem. Wade caught my eye again as he threw his head back to laugh at something—probably obscene—that Ruben had just said. Damn, but he’s gorgeous, I thought, as if seeing him for the first time. His newly clean face sent my libido into overdrive as I imagined how it would feel on my neck, my breasts and between my legs. He caught me looking and paused, giving me a wink that told me he knew what I was thinking and he felt the same. Later, as we all walked to the door, Wade excused himself to the bathroom. Turning to me, Ruben gave me a bear hug—the only kind he seemed capable of giving—and told me how much he thought of Wade.

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‘He’s a keeper, Martine, even if he is stealing my dance partner.’ Ruben was an amazing mover despite his size. I often wondered why I had never been able to feel romantically towards him. In all other ways, he would have been a perfect boyfriend. I felt tears spring to my eyes and it surprised me to find out how much his approval meant to me. We were hugging again as Wade reappeared. After a final bawdy joke and a vigorous handshake, we left the restaurant and headed to the club. As expected, the music was pumping and hit us like a wall of sound as we pulled open the street door to the small venue. The interior was brightly colored but barely visible through the throng of hot, sweaty bodies spinning before us. Grabbing a drink at the bar, we ventured to the edge of the floor. I saw a few people I knew and waved at them happily, slipping my arm through Wade’s to let everybody know that I was with this big, gorgeous hunk of man. A few casual women friends stopped by, saying hello to me while eating him alive with their eyes. He smiled politely but stayed glued to my side, ignoring them to stare at me as I chatted. ‘I am going to have to keep an eye on you,’ I laughed as a particularly sexy girl began to dance directly in front of him. Wade returned her gaze with a small smile before dragging me against his body and kissing me deeply. By the time we surfaced for air, she had gone. The music started to get to me and I tried to drag him out onto the floor. ‘I’m not much of a dancer, Martine. I was prepared to try but I didn’t realize everybody would be so damn good.’ ‘I can teach you,’ I offered, unsurprised when he shook his head on a laugh. I tried to hide my slight disappointment. A male friend, and someone I’d danced with often in the past, came over to say hi. Slim, good looking but undeniably gay, Wade had no objection when he invited me out onto the floor. I felt a little guilty deserting him but couldn’t resist the urge to let my hair down.

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I fell into step with my partner, our familiarity with each other making our moves seamless. The up-tempo beat of the song had him spinning me around at one moment, only to dip me the next. My skirt flew up around my thighs, helped along by the extra effort I was putting into my moves because I knew Wade’s eyes were on me. By the time my partner returned me to his side, I was breathless, sweaty and totally exhilarated. Wade smiled indulgently as I swallowed down the last of my wine and fanned my hot face with a hand. ‘You looked wonderful out there.’ Thrilled at his compliment, I leaned up to kiss him. His hands went to my hips, pulling me close enough to feel his arousal. My eyes flared in surprise and I let out a naughty giggle. Dancing could wait. I had to get this man home.

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Chapter 29 WADE Man, what a night! I couldn’t have asked for more. We got home from the club still in high spirits. A few beers and some time away from here was exactly what we’d needed. Our relationship was great and worth celebrating. There had been too much drama already in the short time we had been together. I was hot for Martine by the time we fell in the door and she didn’t keep me waiting, dropping to her knees as soon as we entered the shop and slipping my cock into her mouth. I’d been hard for hours, almost from the first moment I’d seen her in that dress. I came almost instantly, bracing my hands against the wall so I didn’t grab her head and mess up her pretty hair. She left me standing there, catching my breath, to run upstairs ahead of me. By the time I found her, she’d started to run a scented bath and was trying to reach the zipper on her dress. ‘Whoa! Hold up. Let me do that,’ I said, rushing over to her. No way was she going to deprive me of finding out what she had on under that flimsy red thing. I’d been thinking about it all night. Her sexy laugh made my hands shake as I slid the zipper down as slowly as I could. The red lace thong and push-up bra were pretty enough but not what caught my eye. In the small of her back, glinting brightly as I exposed it to the light was a small, temporary diamante rose tattoo. I ran a fingertip around the outline, smiling to myself as her back arched in reaction to my touch.

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I turned off the bath we wouldn’t be taking yet and finished undressing us both in the bedroom, then pushed her forward onto all fours to slide into her wet pussy. Her moist heat told me she was ready for me and I didn’t hold back, pumping into her savagely, my eyes on her tattoo the whole time, mesmerized by it. Martine began to groan and push back against me, asking for more. I reached over her hip, sliding my hand between her thighs to rub her clit briskly. Her cries got louder and hoarser and I began to wonder just how much she’d had to drink. She was always vocal, letting me know what she liked or when she was about to come, but never like this. Her movements became frantic, as if she had to find release. I tried to keep up with her, tried to give her what she wanted, but she continued to grind against me in frustration. I gave up focusing on bringing her to orgasm with my hand and lifted her hips from the bed, deepening the angle as I leaned my weight into every thrust. Finally, I felt the first warning ripple from the walls of her pussy and I knew we would come together. My breath caught in my throat and I couldn’t make a sound as I began to spill into her. Martine was hard to hold onto as her orgasm took over. She flailed against me and started to moan words I struggled to understand, until she said one I heard loud and clear, and it almost stopped my heart. ‘Clairvius,’ she moaned, long and low. I held my breath, sure I couldn’t have heard right. ‘Clairvius,’ she said again. I pulled out of her fast, pushing her away and jumping to my feet. She shouted in protest, laughing as she fell forward. Turning to me for an explanation, the smile on her face died when she saw the look on mine. ‘What’s wrong?’ My brain wasn’t working right at that moment, caused both by my confusion at what had just happened and the fact that my body was still going through the last throes of a climax. Ten seconds earlier, I’d

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been coming, hard. Now I stood on shaky legs, gasping for air with my heart pounding in my chest. ‘Do you know what you just said?’ She looked confused. ‘You mean when I asked you what was wrong?’ ‘No before that,’ I said, getting irritated. ‘I…I don’t know. I was a little distracted.’ She laughed, nerves beginning to make her voice weak. ‘I called your name, didn’t I? Didn’t I?’ she repeated, eyes widening as she saw me shaking my head. ‘You called out a name, but it sure wasn’t mine.’ She didn’t understand. ‘You said ‘Clairvius’.’ ‘No way, you are imagining things, Wade. Why on earth would I mention his name?’ I didn’t answer her. She seemed so convinced, I began to wonder if I had heard right. No, that wasn’t it. I knew she’d said it. I’d heard it plain as day. I told her. She began to lose her temper. ‘I don’t fucking believe this. What has gotten into you?’ ‘I know what I heard,’ I said, shoving my legs into my jeans angrily. ‘Yeah, well I know what I said,’ she shouted, jumping to her feet. She ran into the bathroom, slamming the door. Again with the bathroom. How old was she? Twelve? I began to doubt she’d ever stand her ground and face up to any disagreement between us, no matter how important. As I stepped out into the night air a few minutes later, my head began to clear. Shit, it wasn’t like it made me jealous that she called out another man’s name although it didn’t make me happy. I understood how it could happen. He’d become the thing we didn’t talk about. The elephant in the room. This past week, we’d been happier. Part of me knew he was still in the back of both our minds but if Martine didn’t want to deal with

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it, what could I do alone? So I’d let it go, resolving not to mention him again. She seemed so lost in her own feelings and determined to pretend like nothing had happened. I felt I was going crazy. I was getting sick of being made to feel like I was losing my mind. Tonight proved I had a real reason to be concerned. I turned back towards Martine’s place, surprised to find how far I had walked in my anger. I didn’t expect a very warm welcome when I got back.

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Chapter 30 MARTINE ‘Shit!’ I shouted at the chair leg, as if it had let me walk into it on purpose. I rubbed my sore toe, almost in tears, but it wasn’t the pain making me want to cry. It was Wade. He’d returned last night, still adamant that he knew what he’d heard. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him. I was just convinced he’d been mistaken. That didn’t make sense either—their names were hardly alike. I knew for sure a bokor I had never met had been the last thing on my mind. I was so hot for Wade I was almost crazy with it. I wasn’t thinking about anything at all except how wonderful his cock felt and how desperately I wanted to come. If it wasn’t for the way it ended, the sex we’d had would have been the best so far. The happiness I’d felt for the past few days had disappeared. I hadn’t slept well after our fight, although we’d tried to talk it out before we went to sleep. Wade didn’t touch me again though, leaving me feeling cold and alone. Something he’d said kept niggling at me, refusing to be ignored. He’d asked if I knew what Clairvius looked like. When I told him I didn’t, save for the description Wade had given me himself, he suggested Clairvius could be the man in my nightmares. I’d laughed it off, telling him not to put his paranoia on me. Wade was the one obsessed by him. To tell the truth, I had no idea who it was. The dream always happened in darkness. I couldn’t see a thing in the blackness but I

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knew I was with Wade at the beginning. The transition from him to the stranger was always a subtle one. Wade would feel and smell differently, and become more aggressive. The hands that had been caressing at first would begin to hurt. The gentle lovemaking would turn into brutal rutting. I’d told Wade as much as I could about the nightmares, but not the part that caused my secret shame—that as the dream progressed, I began to enjoy the abuse he gave me. To my horror, I would begin to moan in ecstasy. I would urge him on, begging to be fucked harder. I’d be punished for my pleas with a hard twist of my nipple or a painful tug on my hair. As aroused as I’d become, the abuse always sent a shiver of electricity through my pussy and I would begin to come. As I shuddered to completion, I could hear a voice calling me awful names that made my insides squirm and my orgasm all the more earth-shattering. My eyes would open to find Wade looking at me through a window, pounding on it in anger and fear. It wasn’t Wade inside me. I would turn in panic trying to find out who it was, but I could never quite see. As the nightmare ended, I’d find myself alone and trapped in the darkness. I would think of Mama and beg her to free me from the clutches of the dream. That’s always when I heard her voice, crying softly that she was sorry. None of it made any sense to me. I knew how happy Wade made me. There was nothing I wanted—either in bed or out of it— he didn’t do for me. The only dark spot was his obsession with Clairvius. The day had been a slow one, leaving me nothing but time to think and worry. I’d tried to read my own cards again but it never worked. I was too close to the problem to make any real sense out of what I saw. This thing had the potential to ruin our relationship unless I could convince Wade that he was imagining things, and causing problems where there were none. Maybe the time had come to visit Mama for some advice. I decided to visit later in the day and spent the last part

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of the afternoon taking advantage of the lack of customers by cleaning the shop while I had the time. I can’t remember the exact moment I became aware of someone watching me. The hair on the back of my neck began to rise and I spun round, expecting to find someone peering through the window. I jumped as I came face to face with a man, standing right at the counter behind me, mere inches away. In the moment of confusion, my eyes went to the door chimes I used to let me know when people had entered. They hadn’t made a sound. ‘Can… can I help?’ I said, trying to compose myself. The tall, dark-skinned man in the crumpled blue suit didn’t answer. His black eyes peered into my face, as if remembering it and I began to squirm under his scrutiny. ‘I was just about to close up for the day,’ I said, instantly disliking him. Suddenly, his face split into a smile, exposing a gold tooth in the middle of a row of black, rotting stumps. ‘Don’t be afraid, Martine,’ he said, his Cajun accent so strong I could barely understand him. ‘How do you know my name?’ I asked, made all the more nervous by the tone of his voice. Deep and resonant, I felt it in my chest as it rumbled over me. His thin, almost frail body didn’t look capable of creating such a sound. His laugh mocked me. ‘Is it a secret?’ ‘No,’ I smiled through my nerves, realizing how silly the question had sounded. ‘I just don’t think we have met before.’ I waited for his answer. His eyes raked over my body in bold arrogance. ‘Oh, we have met, mon cheri.’ ‘You must be mistaken,’ I said, moving towards the door and opening it in the hope he would leave. ‘I am sure I would remember.’ He walked towards the exit, stopping as he got level with me. ‘Oh, you remember, Martine,’ he said, face mere inches from mine. ‘You just don’t know yet that it was me. But you will.’

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Again, his eyes traveled over my body freely, as if he knew it intimately while his finger traced a line down the side of my face until I slapped it away, turning my head to escape the hot, foul breath assaulting my nostrils. ‘I think you’d better leave.’ He laughed again, leaning nearer, and I closed my eyes in fear. ‘Sweet dreams,’ he whispered against my cheek. My heart lurched and I turned blindly, hands raised, ready to push him away, but he wasn’t there. I looked around the room in confusion. Had he gone? I checked the street, scanning both ways before rushing back inside the shop and locking myself in. Who the hell was that? My brain provided an answer instantly but I rejected it. It couldn’t be him. Could it? Mama would know…and she would know what to do. I grabbed my bag and went to find her.

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Chapter 31 WADE The guy began to bug the hell out of me. Cindy’s lawyer straightened his stained tie, undid the only button on his rumpled suit and moved in for the kill. ‘My point is, Mr. Farrell, your wife is owed for the emotional and mental torture she endured during your twenty-year marriage.’ I didn’t speak, couldn’t in fact. If there was any emotional and mental torture going on, it sure as hell wasn’t Cindy experiencing it. She dropped her head, refusing to look at me. Hell, even she knew it was a low blow and experience had taught me there wasn’t much she wouldn’t do. I tore my eyes away from her, forcing myself to focus on her slime bag lawyer. ‘She cheated on me repeatedly and then tried to have me killed. I thought it was damn decent of me to give her the house. Isn’t that enough?’ He cleared his throat. ‘My client feels that you drove her to find comfort in the arms of another man when you began withdrawing affection. Mrs. Farrell also feels that you used your position as the primary wage earner to control her, forcing her to stay rather than face the uncertainty of a life without a home and a means of support.’ I laughed. I couldn’t help it. ‘Do you think I could have a word with my wife in private?’ I said, once I could speak again. ‘I don’t really want to be left alone with him,’ she said, voice quivering convincingly.

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‘Cut the crap, Cindy.’ I grabbed her lawyer by the elbow and steered him from the room. ‘It’s me you are talking to now so you can just drop the bullshit routine.’ I shut the door on him, ignoring his protests. ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Wade. Nelson won’t like hearing you forced me to be alone with you.’ ‘Well he knows where to find me if he wants to do something about it.’ I hoped for both our sakes he didn’t. I needed the release that beating the crap out of him would give me. Things weren’t going well with Martine and, whatever Cindy had done to me, she didn’t deserve the abuse I suspected he inflicted on her. Ten minutes alone in a room with him would relieve me of a few demons. Cindy could still read my emotions and knew when to change the subject. ‘So what did you want to talk about?’ Did she need to ask? ‘What are you playing at? Wasn’t the house enough for you?’ ‘I have rights, Wade,’ she said, sitting up straight in her chair. ‘We spent our whole adult lives together. You don’t get to just walk away.’ I leapt to my feet. ‘You have a selective memory when it suits you, honey. Do I need to remind you about all the affairs? Or your plot to kill me?’ ‘I explained that, Wade. Why do you try to make it sound worse than it is? Clairvius was just gonna use some drug on you so it seemed you had died. Like a zombie potion.’ I stopped listening. Did she think me stupid? Or was she just scared I would go to the police? ‘Spare me the details. I heard all this before. You were just gonna leave me like that long enough to get the life insurance money to pay off Nelson’s gambling debts,’ I mocked. ‘The story doesn’t add up. Someone would have had to sign the death certificate, which at my age would mean an autopsy.’ The color drained from her face. ‘An autopsy I would have felt every second of because I wouldn’t actually have been dead.’

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‘No!’ The idea seemed to horrify her. ‘We had a doctor lined up. He… he was just gonna sign the papers.’ ‘So what were you going to do with my body? Keep me somewhere until it was time to release me from the living hell you’d condemned me to? Or were you actually going to bury me alive and let me lie in a wooden box, hearing the dirt hitting the lid of my coffin while I slowly suffocated to death?’ ‘I wouldn’t have buried you,’ she said in a whisper, seeming upset and confused. Maybe she hadn’t thought it through. Or maybe it had all been Nelson’s idea. The bottom line was Cindy and her lover would have killed me, one way or the other. She began to cry. ‘You must really hate me if you think I am capable of that, Wade.’ ‘You told me you were pregnant,’ I shouted, angry that she would try emotional blackmail after all she had done. ‘When you had that miscarriage years ago, I let you blame me for it. All this time, I carried that guilt even though you were the one who jumped on the back of a motorcycle with that guy and tore off into the night.’ ‘You wanted me to have an abortion, Wade. Everybody did.’ I could barely hear what she said through her tears. ‘Well, you all got what you wanted in the end, didn’t you? After the accident, I lost the baby anyway.’ ‘I didn’t say you should have an abortion, I just wanted you to think about it. Jesus, Cindy. We were eighteen years old.’ ‘Good old Wade,’ she said, mocking me, ‘always the sensible one.’ ‘What?’ She dried her tears. ‘Do you know what it felt like to be me? Knowing it was my fault the baby died and that you were only with me out of a sense of guilt?’ ‘It wasn’t like that, Cindy.’

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‘Yes, it was,’ she said sadly, ‘but I didn’t care. I loved you so much I was prepared to put up with anything to keep you. After a while, I managed to convince myself that you really loved me.’ Now I was confused. ‘I did love you.’ ‘You loved the person you thought I was. Not the stupid young girl who hated herself for trying to trap you with a baby.’ Her words took a moment to sink in. Trap me? She’d gotten pregnant on purpose? After all that had happened, I guess it didn’t surprise me. All I felt was sorry, sorry for the mess her young life had been and the foolish kid who felt it was his job to make things right. Her laugh sounded bitter. ‘So, my big plan worked. I got my man. What I didn’t know then is that every day for the rest of my life, I would have to look at you and know what I did. In the end, I began to hate you for it.’ For the first time, I understood. ‘We were young,’ I said, unable to find the words that would make any of what I just heard seem reasonable. ‘What’s past is past.’ I looked at her, crying and shaking in the chair, and found it hard to feel anything but pity. Sure, I was still mad as hell but all I really wanted was out of there and away from the craziness that being around her always meant. ‘Look, Cindy. Leave that jerk. Dump Nelson and I’ll give you what you want,’ I said, warming to the idea. ‘I’ll pay the alimony if it means you can start over without him.’ ‘I love him. And he loves me. The real me, not some fantasy I made up. I can’t leave him, Wade.’ I would never understand her attraction to him but, if that’s who she wanted, who was I to interfere? ‘So, no deal?’ I smiled. ‘No deal, but I will drop the alimony claim. Nelson will just have to get a job.’ She smiled, seeming happy that she’d come to a decision. ‘You look well. I begged you for years to shave that damn beard off. Life with Martine must agree with you.’

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I checked her face for sarcasm but found none. She seemed genuinely pleased for me. ‘Yeah, it’s great,’ I said, and left it at that. The bitch in Cindy would love to hear things weren’t going well, if only to satisfy her feminine pride. A knock at the door told me her lawyer wanted back in, terrified he might lose his retainer if his client managed to work things out on her own, I guessed. Cindy and I said goodbye for what could be the last time. There was no reason for us ever to see each other again. I left without looking back, closing the door finally on a chapter of my life that should never have begun.

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Chapter 32 MARTINE Fear began to knot in my stomach. For the third time in the last week, I’d been to Mama’s house in Cane River, only to find she wasn’t there. Where had she gone? Her door was never usually locked and I tried the handle again in the hopes she’d been back since I last visited. I peered in through the cracked, dirty windows, straining to see into the dimness. Her furniture was still there, as was the huge picture of Jesus over the fireplace that used to terrify me as a kid. I craned my neck to try and see into all of the corners, fearful that I would find her slumped on the floor somewhere. ‘She’s gone,’ said a child’s voice from behind me, somewhere in the bushes across the dirt track from her house. I spun around, scanning the foliage for the source. ‘Hello?’ I shouted, standing on my toes to see further. ‘What do you mean gone?’ The bushes rustled and moved as someone ran away in the opposite direction. ‘What do you mean?’ I shouted louder, my instincts warning me not to follow them. I got no reply. Dusk had begun to fall by the time I drove home, unable to see the point in hanging around any longer. Mama’s house was miles from anywhere and I’d been surprised that someone else had even been there at the same time as me.

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She’s gone. What the hell did that mean? Gone as in moved away or on vacation? My heart sunk to my boots. Maybe they’d meant gone as in dead. Was that why she was saying sorry to me in my nightmares? Because she couldn’t help me anymore? I got tired of thinking about it. Exhaustion began to take over and I barely managed the drive home. Wade had finished work early and was in the process of cooking us dinner as I walked in, but his act of kindness just added to my desperation. He’d been much happier since severing all ties with Cindy after their meeting earlier that week and seemed relieved it was over. He deserved to be happy and I simply couldn’t bring myself to tell him I thought something was seriously wrong. The nightmares had intensified and now I had a pretty good suspicion that my tormentor was Clairvius Douyon. The knowledge that Mama was no longer around to protect us made it seem even more likely. What happened when a Voodooienne died? Did their magic live on? We ate the meal in silence. His pasta sauce wasn’t bad at all. Once again, I found myself feeling ashamed at making so many assumptions about him when we’d first met, based on his appearance alone. Wade was a sensitive, kind man with an artist’s soul—drop dead gorgeous, a wonderful lover and he could cook. All he asked for in return was for me to be honest with him. Guilt and tiredness started to gnaw at my insides. I couldn’t finish my meal. ‘I’m sorry, Wade, do you mind if I eat the rest of this later?’ ‘Sure, no problem. ‘What’s up?’ he said, eyes scanning my face in suspicion. ‘Just tired I guess. I’m gonna lay down.’ I knew, if I hung around a moment longer, he’d be able to see through my deception, eventually breaking me down. He gave me the space I needed, leaving me to lie alone in the bed, listening to the sounds of him clearing away the dishes. I stayed there

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for hours, afraid to sleep but not ready to face Wade and his endless questions. I feigned sleep when he came to bed, long before I finally gave up fighting my tiredness and I surrendered to whatever the night would bring. For once, I had no need to be afraid. I woke the next morning after a long, dreamless sleep, to find half the day had gone. I splashed some water on my face and quickly scraped my hair into a ponytail. Jeans and a t-shirt were all I had time to put on before I rushed down to open up the shop and apologize to the small group of appointments waiting outside. After getting rid of a couple of them with the promise of a free reading the next time they came, I rushed the one remaining customer into the back room. I didn’t give them the best service but they seemed happy with my reading and left quickly, finally leaving me time to catch my breath. I’d just come back down to the shop with a much needed mug of coffee when the chimes let me know there was another customer. I turned with a smile that froze on my face when I found the man I suspected to be Clairvius closing and locking the door. I struggled to put as much bravery into my voice as I could. ‘Hey! Don’t do that.’ His cold smile did nothing to make me feel any better. ‘Come now, Martine. Is that any way to treat a friend?’ He removed the Panama hat and light blue suit jacket he’d thrown on top of matching pants and a ragged t-shirt. With his thin, emaciated body he looked more like a tramp than a powerful bokor. ‘You’re not my friend. I don’t know you and you don’t know me.’ I tried to step around him to unlock the shop but he blocked my path. ‘Oh but you do know me. Why pretend that you don’t?’ His eyes burned into mine. ‘Clairvius?’ I asked in a whisper. His deep chuckle of satisfaction made my blood run cold and I could tell he loved hearing me say his name. ‘Ok, so I know who you are. What exactly do you want?’

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He began to approach me, forcing me to back up until I touched the counter and could escape no further. ‘You.’ I leaned back to scan his face, desperate to see what he meant. ‘What?’ He grabbed my wrist, holding it tight and began to pull me behind the curtain at the back of the shop. ‘Come here. Let me show you.’ ‘No!’ I dug my feet in, wrapping my free hand around the counter to stop him dragging me with him. He let go of me suddenly, sending me sprawling to the floor. Planting one of his huge feet on either side of my body, he leaned down to glare into my face. ‘You love your man?’ he asked in a sing song voice – the same one I’d heard the night he’d possessed Wade. The memory made me want to gag. ‘You want him to stay safe?’ I nodded, unable to make a sound as the implication of his words sunk in. He made sure he left me in no doubt. ‘Then don’t make me angry, Martine. He would pray for death to escape the agony I could inflict on him. Do you want that?’ ‘No, please don’t hurt him,’ I said, getting to my feet as he took a step away, satisfied that I wouldn’t resist further. Clairvius smiled again, what he considered charm oozing from every pore. He led me gracefully by the hand into the back room, pulling a chair out and helping me to sit down. ‘I want you, Martine.’ He removed his hat and coat and took a seat opposite me, blocking both my view of the shop and any chance of escape. ‘Why me? We’ve never even met,’ I said. Again he laughed. ‘You forget, I possessed Wade that night.’ His eyes roamed over me once more. ‘I know how your skin feels and the sweet smell of your arousal. I know how it feels to be inside you.’ ‘No!’ Bile rose in my throat as I jumped from my seat, sending the chair clattering across the floor. He simply laughed as if amused by a mischievous child. I put my hands over my ears to block out the sound but it seemed to be inside my head. I began to shake violently.

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‘Don’t be afraid. Soon, you will want only me. I feel your reaction when you dream about me. I made it good for you Martine,’ he continued with a satisfied grin. ‘Last night, while your boy made love to you, it was my name you called.’ I couldn’t understand. Wade had been right? I’d actually said Clairvius name. It didn’t make sense. I knew I wasn’t thinking about him. I didn’t even know for sure who he was until just now. Why was this happening? Again he seemed to read my mind. ‘I cannot forget that night. To be joined to someone so intimately, to experience the exquisite sensation of making love to a beautiful woman… Just to be torn from her by the meddling of an old, crazy Mambo.’ ‘Mama,’ I whispered her name. Clairvius had been inside Wade’s body until I used the Gris-gris bag she gave me to chase him out. Her magic had saved Wade’s life. That magic that could still have power. ‘You can’t hurt him, Clairvius. Mama watches over him and she is stronger than you,’ I said, less confident than I sounded. ‘Was stronger, Martine.’ I shook my head, rejecting his words. ‘The old woman you put so much faith in can’t help you any longer. She is dead and her spells died with her.’ He twiddled the pinky ring he wore, bored with the conversation, as if he hadn’t just given me devastating news about someone I cared for deeply. ‘So your beloved Wade is at my mercy… as are you.’ I sank to my knees, tears beginning to stream down my cheeks. What did he want from me? Why would he torture me this way and threaten the man I loved? He answered as if I had spoken the thoughts aloud. ‘It’s simple. I always get what I want. I may have to wait but I always get my way.’ He stood, gathering his coat and hat. ‘We don’t have time today. Your man is on his way home.’ I looked up at him in confusion before spinning around to look out of the window. ‘He will be here soon. You can say goodbye to him tonight.’

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‘Why must I say goodbye? If you want me then just take me. Why must I leave him?’ He stepped away, turning just before he reached the door. ‘Because I want him to suffer. He fought me and my possession of him. Mama is the reason he is still alive but he is the reason I didn’t get to finish what we started. His love for you stopped me and I hate him for that.’ His eyes burned with anger, and I didn’t doubt just how much he despised Wade. His demeanor changed almost instantly, catching me unawares. ‘Besides, I have a reputation to protect.’ I began to cry anew. ‘I don’t want to live without him Clairvius…’ ‘Oh I know, mon cheri. It is exactly the reason you will do as I say. One day—if you please me well enough or when I tire of you— he can have you back. That’s if he still wants you once he sees what you have become.’ The ease with which he ripped my life to shreds made me angry. ‘I would rather die first,’ I said, voice filled with revulsion. He ignored my words as if I hadn’t spoken at all. ‘I must go before the fool arrives and spoils my fun by trying to protect you. You have two days, Martine. Don’t make me come and get you.’ He left the threat hanging over my head as he scribbled an address onto a piece of paper and then strolled through the door, leaving it open.

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Chapter 33 WADE ‘What the fuck do you mean I have to leave?’ Martine seemed to think I was just gonna slope off with my tail between my legs but she was damn well going to have to give me an explanation first. I’d come in to find her packing the few things I had into a bag, refusing to look at me as she said I had to get out straight away. ‘I said, what do you mean?’ ‘You’re not stupid, Wade. Figure it out for yourself.’ My initial anger at her words only lasted a second. This wasn’t Martine. She was trying to make me angry and push me away. I just didn’t know why. I kept my voice calm. ‘Maybe I am stupid. Why don’t you spell it out for me?’ She continued to pack, walking around the apartment with purpose, removing every trace of me. ‘Things are moving too fast between us,’ she said, head low. ‘I need some space.’ ‘And you discovered all this since this morning, right?’ I wasn’t buying it. She raised her eyes to mine, and what I saw there just didn’t make sense. She seemed sad rather than angry, and absolutely terrified. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just the way I feel right now.’ I played along, scared to push her into doing something rash. ‘Ok, I can accept that. I don’t mind moving out but it doesn’t mean we can’t see each other, does it?’ Again, she hid her eyes. Damned if she wasn’t dumping me. ‘We’ll see.’

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My patience ran out. ‘Why are you doing this?’ I shouted, hurt and confused. Martine started to cry. ‘Please, Wade, just leave. I can’t explain anymore.’ ‘You haven’t explained at all,’ I said, too angry to be moved by her tears. Years of being manipulated by Cindy’s emotions meant I wasn’t easily convinced. I just never thought I would need to be wary of Martine in the same way. ‘You are ripping my heart out for no reason except that you feel like it, but you don’t think you owe me an explanation?’ She fell on the bed, sobs making her body jerk as she hid her face from me again. I felt bad. She wasn’t like Cindy. I remembered that and sat beside her, running a hand over hair as I tried to find out the truth behind her decision. ‘What’s going on? You can tell me, Martine. Whatever it is, we can deal with it.’ For a brief moment, I thought she would tell me, but I saw her reject the idea before she spoke. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ ‘Try me,’ I said, pulling her up to look at me. ‘You’ve got nothing to lose, baby. I’m not going anywhere without a damned good reason.’ She tried to pull away but I held on. ‘I know there is more to this than you are telling me.’ Martine stared into my eyes and I saw in that moment that she still loved and wanted me. Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks as she raised a hand to my face, stroking the hair from my forehead. She kissed me softly and I could tell she was saying goodbye. ‘I’m sorry Wade…’ Pain made my voice harsh. ‘Don’t be sorry, just be straight with me. What the fuck is going on?’ I guess I know I gave her no choice but to get angry. She’d tried coldness, then emotion. Aggression was all she had left. ‘I don’t want to be with you anymore,’ she screamed. ‘Don’t you get that?’ ‘So that’s it? Just like that, it’s over?’ I jumped to my feet, forcing her to stand with me. If she wanted to treat me like this, she could

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damn well look me in the eye as she did it. ‘You told me you loved me—’ ‘I do…I mean, I did.’ Her voice trailed away again and, if it wasn’t for the actual words coming out of her mouth, I could have sworn it hurt her to say them. My arms folded around her as I tried to connect with her one last time. ‘I know you love me. What we have doesn’t come along more than once in a lifetime. Why are you denying how you feel and pushing me away?’ ‘One day, you will understand, Wade.’ She shrugged out of my embrace, putting some distance between us. ‘Don’t make me keep saying it. Please, just go.’ ‘Why?’ She shook her head, trying not to say the only words that would make me walk away but I persisted. ‘Why, damn it.’ Martine folded her arms protectively, as if scared how I would react. ‘I am afraid of you. Since that night when Clairvius, or rather you, attacked me.’ ‘No,’ I shook my head, rejecting her words. That couldn’t be it. We’d gotten closer since it happened. No way could she have faked the reaction of her body when I touched it or the look in her eyes every time she saw me. ‘Cut the crap. What’s the real reason?’ ‘I told you. Every time you touch me I remember what he did to me that night. How he hurt me. I’ve tried to forget, pretend it didn’t matter, but I can’t.’ My confidence started to wane. ‘But we talked about this. It was the one worried about the effect it had on us. You said we were ok. Why would you lie?’ ‘I was scared to be alone at first, but now I realize that the only person I need to be afraid of is you.’ She stared at the hands clenched in her lap. ‘You know that’s not true.’ ‘How can you be sure? It happened before and now it’s you in my dreams, hurting me night after night. Maybe they are a warning.’ Her

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voice got cold and she used it to shut herself away from me. I could tell by the look on her face that it didn’t matter whether I believed her or not. It was the only explanation I would get. I had to try one more time. ‘That’s bullshit, and you know it.’ Martine got to her feet. ‘I am going for a walk. Don’t be here when I get back.’ I tried to follow her as she left the room but she ran almost blindly, tripping out of the door in her rush to get away. I thought about chasing her for a moment but realized it could only make a bad situation worse. Who in hell knew how she would react in her state of mind? Whatever the truth, she wanted me out. For now, I had no choice but to do as she asked.

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Chapter 34 MARTINE By the time Friday dawned, I was barely functioning. Clairvius had given me two days and they were almost up. Before the night was over, I would have to surrender to him. I’d spent the time since Wade left researching, scanning every book at my disposal and every source on the net for a solution. Nothing had been of any use. If anything, what I found made me more desperate. Root magic is as individual as the person practicing it. Only they knew what would break a spell they had cast. Voodoo wasn’t something you could just pick up. It had to be passed down from one generation to another. Maybe Wade could still be under Mama’s protection, even if she had died. I just couldn’t be sure. The whole of the previous day had been spent at Mama’s shack, sitting in my car, hoping and praying that she would appear. Maybe Clairvius had tried to trick me and she was still alive and well. Maybe she’d gone out to collect roots or visit a client. Her house was so remote that not another living soul passed by in the whole time I waited there. I walked around the area, hoping that maybe I’d find the kid who had called out to me last time. My desperation increased as my hope diminished. The light had long since faded before I reluctantly drove away, still checking in my rearview mirror as I left until the house was out of sight. After a fitful night’s sleep, I stayed in bed, unwilling to begin a day that could only end badly. My mind drifted to Wade. I hoped he was ok.

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Wade. Even thinking his name caused a painful reaction. The time I’d spent trying to find answers the previous day had at least stopped me thinking about him and what I’d done to him. I doubt I will ever be able to forget the hurt in his eyes when I threw him out. Even as I said the worst thing imaginable in an effort to push him away, he was still trying to understand and help. Saddest thing of all was that he knew I was lying. God only knew what he thought. I must have fallen asleep again because I awoke to a loud knock on the shop door. I scanned my brain lazily, trying to remember which of my clients I’d arranged to see that day. Whoever it was, they would have to come back another time. I had enough problems of my own. The knocking continued, forcing me from the bed. I threw a shawl around my shoulders and peered down into the street through lace curtains that hid me from view. My eyes landed on a sickeningly familiar figure and I leapt away from the window, hoping he hadn’t seen me. Clairvius continued to bang on the door, making my head ache as my nerves jumped in time with the sound. Look across the street I heard the words and spun around to check the room behind me. I was still alone. Drawn back towards the window, I raised my eyes… and saw Wade stepping from the sidewalk, staring curiously at the man on my doorstep. Opening the window in the hope I could distract Clairvius before he saw him, I found his eyes already on me. An evil smile crossed his face and he cocked a finger casually in Wade’s direction, pointing farther down the street. I followed it with my eyes and my heart stopped as I saw the bus mere feet away from him. ‘Wade!’ I screamed. From that moment, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. He stopped at the sound of my voice before seeing my look of terror and turning to follow my gaze. His arms crossed over his face in a futile attempt to stop the bus hitting him.

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I closed my eyes, unable to watch as the man I loved died in the street like a dog. I heard a screech of tires, the sound of metal crunching, and then silence. My heart beat loudly in my chest and I couldn’t bring myself to look as I began to cry silently. ‘Martine!’ Wade was calling me. I had to look, had to be brave enough. He could be on the ground, terribly hurt and needing me. I turned toward the sound and, with a big intake of breath, forced my eyes to open. Confusion stopped me understanding the scene below. The bus was on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road, embedded in a metal railing. Neither had suffered much damage and I could see that the driver and occupants had begun milling around in reaction. Screams of shock began to rent the air joined by a loud hiss from a busted radiator. Wade…where was he? I scanned the street before leaning through the window to look down at my own house. I heard his knock at the door at the same time as my eyes found him and I breathed again. He was ok. Thank God, he was ok. His head hung down and he looked about to collapse. One hand had braced on the wall, steadying his shaking legs. I heard the dry heaves racking his body as he reacted to adrenalin coursing through him, brought on by his near death experience. About to go to him, I stopped in my tracks as I heard a laugh behind me in the room. This time, sure I wasn’t alone, I turned quickly trying to find him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Clairvius’ reflection in my dressing table mirror, standing right behind me. As I jumped away, I heard him laugh again. When I turned, nobody was there. My legs gave out and I collapsed onto my bed, shaking violently. Wade continued to pound on the door and call for me. Tears streamed down my face as I forced myself to stay put. The near miss had been a warning that was clear. No matter how much I wanted to go to him,

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his very life depended on my staying away and giving Clairvius what he asked for.

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Chapter 35 WADE I didn’t have time to wonder why Martine wouldn’t answer the door to me. The guy I’d seen outside her place was all I could think of, despite the fact I’d almost been hit by a bus that seemed to come out of nowhere. The road had been clear. I was sure of that. Shit, maybe I was going crazy? The adrenaline began to drain out of me, leaving my legs weak. I sat down in the street, unable to care what the people passing by thought. Why had that guy drawn my attention so much? I didn’t see his face but for some reason, I felt I knew him. My head started to throb and I rested it against the cool glass of Martine’s shop window. The pain intensified and I closed my eyes against the brightness of the afternoon. The agony was nothing compared to the torture I’d been going through. Two days earlier, my life had been damn near perfect. What crazy set of circumstances had brought me to this very moment, sitting on the sidewalk, lovesick for a woman who didn’t want me anymore? Tonight, she will be mine. My eyes snapped open. I was alone but I’d heard a voice as clear as day, and it was a voice I knew. He was here somewhere. I turned my head, squinting against the pain and the light as I searched for him. A battered Oldsmobile approached, catching my eye because it slowed to a crawl when it drew level. The window slid down as it

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went by, revealing Clairvius’ smiling face. I’d only ever seen it in my head the night he’d possessed me, but I would never forget it. ‘Tonight, I take your woman,’ he shouted with a laugh, making an obscene flicking gesture with his tongue, simulating what he would do to her. Still shaky legs did their best to support me as I made a lunge for the car door, every intention of dragging him out. Clairvius toyed with me for a moment, slowly down just enough that I got a fingertip to the handle, before stepping on the gas and moving out of reach. Finally, I leapt for the side of the vehicle, managing to get a hand in the open window. Clairvius latched onto it, laughing as he put his foot down hard and began to gain speed. My plan to beat the crap out of him was forgotten as my priority changed to saving my neck. My legs were unable to keep up with him, making my feet drag on the ground. The back tires began to scuff the heel of my work boots and I knew he would keep going until I fell under his car. Using the strength in my free arm alone, I managed to haul myself up high enough to brace my legs against his car door and wrench myself free. I landed inches away from the wheels as he sped off, spraying me with grit as I rolled into the gutter. I stretched carefully, checking for damage before getting to my feet at the thought that he could come back. A sharp pain in my knee told me I’d landed pretty hard but it seemed to be my only injury. I limped away from the small crowd that had gathered around me, refusing their offers of help and assuring them I was ok. Returning to my pickup where I’d left it parked across the street from Martine’s shop, I climbed inside. As soon as the door closed I began to shake, sucking in ragged breaths as the aftereffects of the past few minutes began to take their toll. Slumped with my head against the steering wheel as my heart pounded in my chest, I began to think over what had happened.

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Pieces of the puzzle that my life had become began to fall into place. Clairvius was up to something and, whatever it was, it involved Martine. What had he meant by ‘Tonight she will be mine’? She would never go to him willingly, I was sure of that, which meant he had some kind of hold over her. More voodoo and mind games? I rejected the idea. Whatever was going on, Martine wasn’t under anybody’s spell. She’d seemed terrified and very aware of her actions. Clairvius had to be the reason she’d thrown me out like trash. We’d only been together a short time but I knew her heart. Martine wouldn’t have treated a dog the way she’d treated me without a damn good reason. I was pretty sure my close call with the bus hadn’t been an accident. Clairvius’ taunts made that clear. It wasn’t a coincidence that I’d been drawn to Martine’s door at the same time as him. He’d wanted me to know about his plans and torture me with the knowledge that I could do nothing about it. But why me? Why Martine, for that matter? Neither of us had ever met him. I looked across at her shop, seeing Martine’s outline through the curtains at her bedroom window, watching me still. If she didn’t come to me at a time like this, then it had to be because she couldn’t. Shit, even Cindy would have taken pity on me after what had just happened. Martine was in trouble, Clairvius was involved, and I had to find a way to help her, but how? Mama would know. I fired up the engine of my truck, before turning it off again seconds later. The first thing Martine would have done was talk to her. It was probably where she’d run off to the previous day. If she was still terrified and under Clairvius’ control then Mama may not have been able to help. The only other person she could have turned to was Ruben although I doubted it. He still didn’t know the full story about the events of the night she’d gone to him for help. As far as he knew, I’d simply been ill. Time I filled him in on a few details.

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Reaching in my pocket for my cell phone, I fully expected Ruben to react to what I was going to say in much the same way I had when Martine first told me about root doctors and voodoo. But five minutes later, I felt a little better. I had an ally. What I needed was someone with the same powers as the bokor who’d tried to kill me and force my woman to have sex with him against her will. What I had was a 7 foot tall, 300 pound friend who would do anything to protect her. It would have to be enough.

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Chapter 36 MARTINE My hands shook as I put on the plainest underwear I owned and some old sweats. I might not be able to control what would happen but I could make sure that bastard didn’t get the extra kick of thinking I’d dressed up for him. Clairvius would be in no doubt I was an unwilling victim. I reminded myself to be cautious. There was a fine line between resisting him enough to make the experience as unsatisfying as possible, and annoying him enough for Wade to suffer the consequences. Waiting for night to fall was hard. My heart pounded in my throat as I thought of what lay ahead. I tried to quell my fears. Clairvius wouldn’t be the first person I’d slept with against my better judgment. As a younger woman, I’d often accepted sexual advances from unsuitable guys, mistaking them for the male affection I’d missed out on due to an absent father. It hadn’t taken me long to find out that it wasn’t what I was looking for. That was part of the reason I loved Wade so much and would do anything—even this—to protect him. He was everything I had ever wanted in my life. Sex was the most obvious connection between us but it wasn’t the strongest. Wade made me whole. It was as simple as that. Thinking about him brought me to the window to check that his truck was still gone. After the near miss earlier, where Clairvius had decided to remind me just what he could do if I refused to co-operate,

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Wade had sat outside my building for a couple hours. Every part of me wanted to go to him and explain but I couldn’t. I’d seen Wade chasing Clairvius’ car down the street in an attempt to get at him, fearing he’d go under the wheels at any second. I don’t know what had caused the reaction, save for the fact he could have remembered him from the possession. Wade said he’d seen his face clearly that night, would never forget it in fact. I prayed he didn’t realize the connection between Clairvius and me. Wade would try to save me but only make things worse for both of us. Not that things could be much worse. I was being forced to give myself to a man I hated and feared while being kept away from one I loved. I had no idea how long it would take Clairvius to tire of me and his games. Would it be days? Weeks? My stomach lurched at the prospect that it could be longer, much longer. The man was evil. Part of me suspected that he would delight in keeping Wade and me apart forever, long after he’d finished with me, just out of spite. That part of me also knew that I could never allow that to happen. I would end my life before I’d spend the rest of in purgatory. ‘Mama, where are you?’ I cried aloud. She’d always been there for me in the past. If I’d ever needed her at all, it was now. ‘Where are you?’ A warm breeze blew in through the open window, wafting over my face. I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation of being caressed. The faint scent of lily took me back to Mama’s bosom. She always smelled of lilies. I’m sorry, baby I heard her voice in my head. Tears streamed down my face at the sound. She knew what was happening and she was telling me she couldn’t help me or stop it. Another part of my nightmare had come true. Suddenly a gust of wind swept through the room, making the curtains billow and small trinkets topple in its wake. My hair whipped my face as I turned my head to look out of the window, surprised to

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find the trees in the street outside were still. It ended as soon as it begun and, as the noise died down, I heard a rustling sound from the cabinet beside my bed. The pages of the book I had been reading earlier had been blown open and fluttered back down to rest. About to turn away, my attention was drawn by one last page turning slowly, as if an invisible hand leafed through the tome. The book of spells was one of many I’d read over the last couple of days, trying to find a way out of my predicament. I scanned the page quickly, unsure of what I was supposed to be seeing. The chapter on sex spells hadn’t helped at all at first glance. There obviously wasn’t much call for magic to stop someone wanting you. The page I looked at dealt with impotence, not something Clairvius seemed to suffer from. About to close the book, a paragraph at the bottom seemed to leap out at me—how to get revenge on a cheating lover. This spell seemed more interested in causing impotence rather than curing it. I read quickly, hopes rising and falling as I realized I could only get the essential ingredients needed, such as a bodily fluid from the intended victim, when it was too late. There wasn’t time to gather the river stones needed either but maybe it would stop him coming back for more in the future? I had to be careful. He could never find out that I had caused his problem or Wade would suffer the consequences. Turning the page, I found another suggestion that seemed a little too simple but could be worth a try. The worst it could do was to give me a little ray of hope and keep my mind from the night ahead. Minutes later, I’d found the only vegetable in my kitchen and fashioned it into a phallic shape. I followed the rest of the instructions carefully before putting it into the freezer, as directed. The brief moment of empowerment didn’t last long as I realized how damn silly the whole thing seemed. Maybe there was some truth to it all. Root medicine was based on simple plants and the potions made from them, but I was sure it took a skilled practitioner to make it work. The

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knowledge and power the mambos and bokors had couldn’t be learned from a book. I grabbed my keys after checking the street outside my window one more time. I couldn’t delay any longer. I had to find the courage to begin a new, but hopefully short, chapter of my life. The bottle of bourbon I kept for special occasions burned my throat as I took a large mouthful, forcing myself to swallow it. It didn’t make me any braver but the fire in my belly was a welcome change of sensation from the knot of dread I’d been carrying for days. I didn’t give myself time to think, taking one more swig before leaving the sanctuary of my little house and stepping out into the night.

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Chapter 37 WADE Following Martine’s small compact car without being seen was no mean feat once we left the bright lights of the city. As the roads began to get narrower and the traffic began to dwindle, it became easier for her to spot me behind her. Dropping back as far as I dared, I had to scan the fields and trees on the horizon for signs of her headlights. Where the hell was she going? I’d moved my truck earlier in the day, realizing she’d kept checking the window to see if I was still watching. Seemed like she wasn’t gonna make a move until the coast was clear. I’d thought she would head out to Mama’s place until she turned off the route with a sudden, rash maneuver that almost scared the shit out of me. Had she been drinking? Finally, about ten minutes after we left the city boundary, the lights of her car stopped moving, telling me she had arrived. Waiting until she had switched them off, I drove around the last bend as quietly as I could, turning my lights off as I saw her car in the distance. Parking the truck, I ran towards the small, isolated house she had entered, thankful for the cover of darkness. The building was much the same as Mama’s, barely more than a shack, but at least it had electricity which would make it easier to see the inside. I couldn’t tell if I made too much noise as I crawled up to the window but I hoped not. My heart was beating so loudly in my ears it drowned out every other sound. I had to hold my breath in order to hear their conversation.

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‘You were wise not to make me wait any longer.’ Nausea burned a path through my gut as I heard the voice that had haunted me all day. She replied so quietly I couldn’t make it out. Clairvius laughed. ‘Yes, I thought you would like that. Wade is very lucky to have escaped with his life.’ Fuck! My worst fears had been realized. Martine was alone with him and the bastard was taunting her. I prayed I would be able to hold onto my fear and anger long enough not to jeopardize her further. I had to wait and see what was going down first. My gut told me I already knew but my brain refused to accept it. I risked a quick look over the window ledge. Martine had frozen in the middle of the room as Clairvius pranced around her, sizing her up as if she was a piece of horseflesh. My fingers tightened on the frame. I had to keep my cool. The hold he had over her had to be a strong one, one that she wasn’t able to fight. I had no doubt Martine would have spoken to Mama. If she couldn’t help her, then nobody could. My own safety didn’t matter but I had to be careful. Who knew what Clairvius would do? Whatever it was, I couldn’t handle him alone and guarantee her safety. A quick glance at my surroundings confirmed that we were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles of blackness. The only other signs of life were the frogs and insects I could hear nearby, telling me we were close to a river. There was no one to ask for help. It was time to call for backup. Scurrying back a few yards, I rang Ruben, praying that he would be around. He answered on the first ring, as if he had been waiting for my call. I told him to get his ass out here. He didn’t hesitate, getting the directions from me in between barking orders at his staff as he told them to get his Jeep around to the front of the restaurant. ‘Thanks, man,’ I said, unsure how much help he would be but grateful he would be there for me.

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‘Hey, our girl’s in trouble,’ he answered, summing it up. ‘Wade, don’t do anything foolish until I get there, ok?’ I hung up after promising that I would wait. We both knew I wouldn’t. By the time I got back to the window, Clairvius was running his hands over her body, pinching her every now and then and laughing when she pulled away. Anger drove me to my feet and I raised a fist to bang on the glass until I saw the look on Martine’s face. His back was to me and she had seen me over his shoulder. Her eyes widened in fear and she shook her head almost imperceptibly, mouthing the word ‘no’. Clairvius moved in front of her, blocking my view, before going to a table against the back wall. Her eyes found mine again as soon as they could and what I read in them told me all I needed to know. She planned on sacrificing herself. Martine mouthed ‘I love you’ and then turned her back on me, following Clairvius into a room at the rear of the house. I panicked, totally unsure of what to do next. What might be about to happen couldn’t possibly be as bad as my imagination made it, but I wasn’t gonna take the risk. I needed a distraction, something big enough to stop him doing whatever he had in mind. Killing me wouldn’t take him a second, leaving him free to do whatever he wanted to her. Sprinting down the road to my truck, I leapt in, banging my knee on something. The glove box had fallen open. My hand stilled as I moved to slam it shut on a curse. Reaching inside, I pulled out the small, sackcloth bag tied with string. It was the Gris-gris Mama had given Martine, the one that had saved my life. I hadn’t seen it for weeks or given it a thought. Why had it turned up here? It couldn’t be coincidence that I’d found it. Putting it around my neck, I had no time to think on how much use it would be. Protected or not, I had to make my move and live—or die—with the consequences. I gunned the pickup into life, the mere fact it started without any trouble making me feel sure that Mama was truly with me, helping us in some way. Flooring it, I drove the short distance to the shack then

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swung sharply, aiming for the front wall. I hit the brakes as late as I dared, hoping I would do enough damage to demolish the front of the house without endangering Martine. The wooden sidings gave way easily but the stone chimney was closer than I bargained for and my truck hit it hard, sending me flying forwards as it came to a violent halt. The sound of breaking glass and a blinding pain in my head told me I’d hit the windshield. I fell back into my seat, trying to focus through the haze and the blood clouding my vision. I saw Clairvius running towards me with Martine following behind, still wearing her clothing. The knowledge that I hadn’t been too late made me smile as the world began to get black and I felt myself falling.

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Chapter 38 MARTINE For one horrifying minute, I thought Wade was dead. His groan of agony as Clairvius dragged him bodily from the crumpled wreckage of the Isuzu allowed me to breathe again. My relief didn’t last long. Within minutes, he’d been tied to the broad beam in the center of the room that supported the roof. Wade sat on the floor slumped against the wood, his hands restrained behind it as Clairvius slapped him viciously a couple of times to try and wake him. The ice cold water thrown in his face brought him round with a start. Moments before Wade had driven his truck through the wall, Clairvius had begun to remove his clothing. Surprise at his flaccid state had shown on his face and he’d been about to accuse me of something when the ear-splitting noise had sent him running. Wade’s eyes began to clear as the water helped wash the blood from his face. He stared from one to the other of us in confusion before memory slammed back into him and he lurched forward, struggling to get to his feet. Clairvius kicked him in the ribs, forcing the wind out of him, making him crumple again. ‘Leave him alone,’ I screamed, trying to run to him. ‘I’ll give you what you want. Just don’t hurt him anymore.’ Clairvius pulled me back, wrapping my hair around his fist to stop me moving. ‘Your big, brave man tried to save his woman,’ Clairvius taunted, nudging Wade with a foot to stop him slipping into unconsciousness again. ‘I won’t kill him yet. He can watch while I take you.’

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‘No! If he dies, I have no reason to give you what you want. You said you would leave him alone if I came to you.’ ‘Don’t do it, Martine,’ Wade slurred, shaking his head to clear it. ‘He can’t hurt me. Mama—’ Clairvius laughed. ‘Mama’s dead.’ Wade looked to me for confirmation. I nodded, saddened that he finally believed in her powers after all this time, when it was too late. The hope dimmed in his eyes. Clairvius became impatient, dragging me back towards the bedroom. ‘Let her go, you fucker,’ Wade shouted, pulling at his tied hands as he tried to stand. ‘Martine, fight him. Don’t let him do it.’ I began to struggle. Giving myself to the evil bokor without Wade’s knowledge was one thing but I wouldn’t make him watch. I had no idea how Clairvius would react but I’d begun to doubt that he would keep his promise to leave Wade unharmed. We had nothing to lose. Clairvius began to get violent, shoving me back onto the bed. I could hear Wade’s bellow of rage echoing off the walls around me and it gave me strength. Clairvius came forward and I lunged for his eyes, nails tearing the skin on his face. He leapt to his feet, staring down at me in anger as he wiped a hand across his cheek, smearing the blood away. His expression changed and I knew we were in trouble. Turning away abruptly, he walked back into what was left of the front of the house and reached up inside the brick chimney. The glint of bright metal brought me running towards him. I latched onto his arm, using my body weight to try and stop him from swinging the machete he held. His aim suffered and I screamed as the blade embedded in the wooden pillar, missing Wade by inches. Clairvius turned, slapping me across the face with the back of his free hand, sending me flying across the room. By the time I scrambled to my feet, he had the blade at Wade’s throat.

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‘You want me to cut him?’ he said, using Wade’s hair to pull his head up, exposing his neck further. ‘You want to watch as I slaughter him like a pig?’ ‘No!’ I screamed, running forward until I saw Clairvius move the blade closer, nicking the skin. A thin ribbon of blood flowed down Wade’s throat, staining the neck of his t-shirt. For the first time, I noticed the piece of string tied around his neck. Whatever it held remained hidden inside his clothing, but I knew it was the Gris-gris. Clairvius seemed satisfied that he had us both under control, letting go of Wade and standing up, gesturing towards my body with the blade. ‘Take off your clothes.’ I hesitated until he threatened Wade again, annoyed at my disobedience. ‘Take them off…now.’ Despite the knowledge that he would probably kill us both anyway no matter what I did, I didn’t want to be the reason he cut Wade’s throat. Giving Clairvius what he wanted seemed the only way to play for more time. My hands shook as I unzipped my hoodie, revealing the thin tank top I wore underneath. The torture in Wade’s eyes hurt more than the humiliation so I closed mine to shut out the image. My hand went to the waistband of my pants and I struggled with the knot. Clairvius got angry and threatened Wade again, making me scream at him in fear and frustration that I couldn’t get them off. Wishing I could take the words back, I watched as he let go of Wade and walked towards me, tip of the blade pointing at my abdomen. ‘Get away from her,’ Wade shouted, pulling at his bonds again as he tried to stand. ‘I’ll kill you if you touch her, Clairvius. I swear to God.’ He ignored Wade, pulling the tie of my pants out straight before cutting it with a rough jerk of the knife. The fabric began to slide down my legs as Clairvius used the blade to push them over my hips. Shame burned through me as I stood there in my underwear with his eyes on me. My fingers itched with the urge to slap the sickening grin off his face.

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Without warning, he grabbed a shoulder and spun me round, pushing me forward over the table. I struggled to right myself, but he pinned me down with his weight. Wade began to alternate between screaming abuse at him and begging me to fight. ‘Get off her, you bastard,’ Scared in case his attention returned to Wade, I made sure Clairvius wasn’t having an easy time of things. I kicked and fought as hard as I could, making it impossible for him to remove my underwear, undo his own clothing and keep hold of the machete at the same time. I managed to turn over, then lifted my legs to plant my feet firmly in his chest and shove him away. He fell backwards, almost tripping over Wade’s feet. Wade took the opportunity to kick out at him and managing to knock the blade from his hand. Clairvuis stepped out of his reach then bent to retrieve it, raising his arm with a shout of anger and running towards me. I screamed as I threw myself backwards across the table, unable to take my eyes off the machete as it whistled passed my face, missing me by inches. ‘Come get me, you cocksucker,’ Wade shouted, trying to avert Clairvuis attention. ‘Come on, you worthless piece of shit. What are you waiting for?’ Clairvius ignored him, coming to stand over me and lifting his arm again. This time, he would not miss… A crack of thunder ripped through the sky, sounding louder due to the fact that much of the front of the house had been torn open to the elements. The lights in the small shack flashed uncertainly for a moment before going out. Absolute darkness closed around me and I couldn’t see a thing. Unsure what to do, I stayed put, awaiting Clairvius’ next move. His angry curse gave me an idea of his location. He’d moved away. The shuffling of feet and the sound of a drawer opening told me he’d gone to the other side of the room. I pulled my track pants up and began to inch forward, hands stretched out in front of me blindly.

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If I could just get to Wade, I may have been able to untie him before the lights came back on or Clairvius returned. A series of lightning flashes illuminated the shack, the first one allowing me to see Clairvius against the back wall, searching for something. The second one showed the figure of a woman standing beside him. I froze in terror. The sound of a match being struck, followed by its sudden glare made me scream in alarm. Clairvius chuckled to himself as he lit the candle, finding my fear amusing. Soft light began to fill the room, and I looked around for the figure I had seen before noticing that there was something wrong with Clairvius’ face. Horrified by what I saw, I backed away, falling over Wade’s legs. Clairvius laughed again, crouching down to where I lay with my arms wrapped around Wade’s torso. Pulling a piece of twine from his pocket, he put the candle down to tie my hands around Wade’s body. ‘You scared of the thunder?’ He laughed, when I screamed as he brought his face closer to mine. I heard Wade gasp as Clairvius came into view. His skin was melting, running down his face as if made from the same wax as the candle he’d been holding. Fat, brown globules of flesh slid down his cheeks, exposing the muscle underneath. His macabre smile began to slip as he looked from one to the other of us, registering our reaction. Grabbing the candle he got to his feet, walking slowly towards the mirror over the fireplace and beginning to groan in anguish as his reflection came into view. Clairvius touched his skin, trying to push it back into place. ‘No, I did nothing to offend the Loa,’ I heard him shout in fear as he started as if he saw something reflected beside him, something nobody else could see. ‘No Baron Samedi. Mama has lied to you. I would never hurt a child.’ He swiped the candle away, too scared to look any longer as he pleaded for his life with the Loa of death and resurrection, also known in his benevolent form as Ghede, protector of children. If Clairvius

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had used his powers to harm a child, the Loa would ensure his punishment was swift and brutal. I watched as the candle rolled across the floor, still alight, before coming to rest under a window. The flimsy curtains danced above it as the heat began to rise. A wayward piece of thread hanging from their hem caught fire, leading it up to the rest of the fabric and engulfing them in seconds. Flames began to crawl across the walls and ceiling, licking their way across the wooden surfaces as the dry tinder began to ignite. ‘Hey, untie us,’ Wade shouted, trying to get Clairvius attention. ‘The gas tank is gonna blow.’ The bokor didn’t move, his eyes still riveted on his reflection as if in a trance. His mouth moved silently and he shook his head, arguing with a voice that only he could hear. The flames crackled and popped as more and more of the wood caught alight, helped by the trail of gasoline leaking from the wreckage of Wade’s truck. Only the fresh night air, coming in through the hole in the side of the shack, stopped the fumes igniting and turning the room into a fireball. Burning embers dropped around us as thick, rancid smoke filled the air. We began to cough as our eyes streamed. Every breath hurt as the air in each gasp got thinner and thinner. Wade’s eyes began to close and I watched his lips move as he fought to stay conscious, his words lost in the roar of the fire surrounding us. I knew what he’d been trying to say. ‘I love you too,’ I said, hoping he could hear me over the roar. My fear lifted as I continued to stare at him, my head beginning to swim. I took in as much detail as I could. His loving eyes and handsome face would be the last thing I would ever see. Screaming as a deafening crash rent the air, I was sure that either the roof had caved in on us or the Isuzu had exploded. Suddenly, there through the smoke, I saw Ruben trying to fight his way through the burning timbers.

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‘Untie her first,’ Wade shouted over the roar as Ruben crawled to where we lay. Once my hands had been freed, I turned to undo the knots holding Wade but I couldn’t. The rope was too thick. ‘Stand clear,’ Ruben shouted, picking up the machete from the place Clairvius had dropped it. The rope gave way on the first blow. Wade struggled to his feet unsteadily, his head injury and the smoke making his legs weak. Ruben checked that Wade could walk unaided, then picked me up and barreled through a gaping hole in the wall. Turning to look for Wade as soon as my feet hit the ground outside, I was relieved to see him coming through the gap right behind us. ‘What the fuck?’ Ruben shouted as a pair of hands appeared on Wade’s shoulders, stopping him from escaping the burning building. Ruben reached out, latching onto Wade’s hands and using his brute force to wrench him free of whoever held him. The effort sent them both rolling to the ground. I ran to them, helping Wade up before turning to see what was happening behind me. Clairvius stood in the gap, silhouetted by the orange glow of the fire raging behind him. Time slowed down as he tried to take a step out into the open air. His body seemed to hit something, as if an invisible barrier surrounded the house. He began to struggle against an unseen force, grasping on to the edge of the hole to stop himself being dragged backwards into the inferno. Clairvius’ eyes found mine and he began to laugh. The sound chilled me to the bone and I couldn’t watch as I saw his fingers begin to lose their grip. Wade wrapped his arms around me as I spun into them. ‘We gotta try and help him,’ I heard him say to Ruben. ‘No matter what he has done, I can’t just stand here and watch him burn.’ Ruben took a step towards the house before the sound of the truck finally exploding sent us all running for cover. I spun around in time to see the house fold in on top of Clairvius like a deck of cards, groaning in protest as air and dust billowed out of the wreckage.

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All three of us stood in shock, watching the pile of wood that used to be a shack burn quickly. The rain promised by the storm began about ten minutes later, forcing us into the shelter of Ruben’s Jeep. Fat drops turned into a downpour, making the burning embers sizzle as the flames finally went out.

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Chapter 39 WADE ‘What did he say?’ Martine pounced on me as soon as I walked through the door. I’d just been to Ruben’s place, after a call from him letting me know that he’d spoken to the police from Clairvius’ parish. Whatever they had said concerned him enough that he didn’t want to tell me over the phone. ‘It’s ok,’ I assured her. ‘Something weird has happened. That’s all.’ ‘Oh God, Wade.’ Martine looked nauseous. ‘I thought this was over. What did the police say?’ I delayed as long as I could, getting a glass of water to soothe the irritation in my throat. It had been a couple of days since the fire but I could still taste the acrid smoke in my mouth. Martine lost her cool. ‘Damn it, Wade. Tell me what’s going on.’ ‘It’s not that big of a deal, I guess. Ruben said he stuck to the story we all agreed on, telling the police that he and I had been passing when we saw the shack on fire and that somebody was trapped, which is why I drove my truck through the wall. He told them that the building collapsed soon after and we hadn’t managed to get to whoever had been inside.’ ‘Didn’t they believe him?’ ‘Well, not exactly. The Sheriff told him he must have been mistaken.’ I took a breath, knowing the next thing I said would freak her out. ‘They didn’t find a body.’

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Martine didn’t seem to know how to react. I watched as a million questions formed in her mind. ‘But, how can that be true? We saw him inside Wade, watched as the building collapsed in on him. Do you think he may have been burned so badly that they just haven’t found his remains yet?’ ‘I doubt it. They know how the fire started. They found the remains of the candle. The fire department seemed satisfied that it was the cause.’ She sank down onto the bed, stunned into silence, which had been pretty much the same reaction I’d had when Ruben told me. It just didn’t make sense but, whatever the reason for it, it meant we were off the hook and no longer had the worry of explaining how my pickup had become embedded in what was left of the burnt out house. ‘I think we’re gonna be ok, Wade,’ she said, after a while. ‘Don’t ask me how I know, but I am sure he’s gone.’ ‘Me too,’ I said truthfully. ‘I don’t know why they didn’t find him but there’s no way anybody escaped from that house.’ ‘He would have come to get us by now if he could,’ Martine said. ‘Clairvius didn’t like to lose.’ ‘Well he picked on the wrong woman then,’ I joked, putting my dukes up to fight her, trying to lighten the mood. I got a smile for my efforts, and she let out a shaky breath, as if clearing any thoughts of him from her mind. The knot on my head where I’d banged it began to throb, bringing me down to sit beside her. ‘I went and got an X-ray too. No permanent damage. For once in my life, having a thick skull is a blessing.’ She didn’t find my joke amusing, concern making her frown when she saw me rubbing the injury. ‘Poor baby.’ The cold cloth she fetched to press against my head felt good. She felt good. We hadn’t really gotten close since the night of the fire. At first, we’d been too exhausted and dirty to do anything but shower and sleep. The previous night had been spent simply recovering from what we’d been through and talking it over, both

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with each other and Ruben. Clairvius had been fucking with her mind and I got angry every time I thought about what she’d almost had to do to try and save me. ‘How are your wrists?’ she said, bringing one up to her lips and kissing the place where the rope had burned deepest. ‘Still hurting?’ ‘Not anymore.’ My voice was croaky, both from the fire and the effect her attention had on my body. She kissed the other wrist before putting it down and unbuttoning my shirt. ‘And your poor ribs,’ she cooed, exposing my torso and kissing the bruise left by a painful kick. ‘Anything else hurting, baby?’ she said provocatively. ‘There is one other thing.’ I laughed at her reaction. Her hands flew to her face in mock horror, before pushing me back with a sly smile and unbuttoning my jeans. Martine’s concern had turned into a game of seduction and I loved her for it. She always seemed to know exactly what to do and when to do it. I felt desperate to turn my brain off and simply feel something for the first time in a few days. I also wanted to make her incapable of feeling anything but me. But I’d had to wait. She didn’t need anyone else trying to force their attentions on her before she was ready, even me. Waiting for her to make the first move had been a necessary torture. I took the lead, needing to show her how I felt. Her strength and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds made me so proud. ‘You are amazing, Martine. I love you so much.’ ‘I will never forget how hard you fought to save me,’ she said, tears making her voice weak. ‘I just hope I’m worthy of such devotion.’ ‘You know you are.’ I told her with my mouth, hands and body how much I wanted and needed her. When I pushed into her swollen wetness, she was totally ready for me and kept her eyes on mine as I inched inside. Her pussy seemed to welcome me in, closing around my cock so sweetly that I almost came straight away.

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We stayed in that position, locked together for many moments. Martine’s body jerked around me as I stared at her wordlessly, reveling in the feeling—one I’d feared I would never experience again. Breathing hard, she began to writhe beneath me, urging me on with the slight thrust of her hips. I gave her what she wanted, making her gasp as I pulled out of her as far as I could before slamming into her again, both of us groaning at the resulting tremors. Martine’s hands went to my hair, pulling me closer as I began to move in and out of her. Our bodies had joined from shoulder to hip and she barely let me withdraw enough to thrust. I was left with no choice but to rock against her and she began to respond to the friction against her clit. Reaching down, I grabbed one of her thighs, opening her wide so more of my groin pressed against her nub. She bit my lip as her hips rose from the bed and she ground against me to make her orgasm come. I felt the undulation of her muscles around my cock and knew I couldn’t hold back much longer as the sights and sounds of her climaxing for me—because of me—made me even harder. ‘Fuck me, Wade,’ she demanded as the last of the spasms faded away. I didn’t need asking twice. With her legs thrown over my shoulders, I began to pound into her, desperate to come but not wanting the feeling to end. Her hands found my ass and she dug her nails into my flesh as she forced me to plunge into her again and again. The pain tipped me over the edge and the last thing I remember is trying to tell her I loved her but being unable to speak as I shuddered through my climax. As we lay together after, I thought of Clairvius and what he had tried to take from me. I pulled Martine closer, needing her touch to remind me that he had lost and we had won. No matter what he tried to do, he would never have what we had. My bond with the beautiful gypsy lying beside me wasn’t just a sexual one. She was my soul.

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Chapter 40 MARTINE The journey to Mama’s house about a week later was a somber one. Wade had insisted on coming along, convinced she had helped us fight Clairvius in some way, despite my assurances that she had died. ‘The thing I don’t get,’ he continued to say, long after I thought our earlier conversation had ended, ‘is the way I found the Gris-gris again. I hadn’t seen that damn thing in weeks. Why did I find it there? And at that precise moment?’ ‘I don’t know, Wade.’ I laughed. ‘This makes a change—you trying to convince me of Mama’s powers.’ He wouldn’t let it go. ‘Ok, what about the bus? There’s no way that driver could have swerved in time and not only manage to miss me but not injure any passengers.’ Wade had a point. ‘Maybe the protection of the Gris-gris hadn’t worn off yet, or maybe Clairvius just wanted to give us a scare?’ ‘That doesn’t explain his car. Only a miracle stopped me going under his wheels.’ ‘Ok, ok. I admit, it’s all very weird but can we please stop talking about how many near death experiences you had? I have been doing my best to forget about it.’ I wasn’t angry but it would suit me if we never discussed it again. ‘Well, some strange force made me come to the shop that day at that precise moment,’ he said stubbornly, but sounding like he was about to let it drop. Thank God.

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Still, regardless of whether she had helped us or not, she had done enough by bringing us together. The bunch of flowers we planned to lay at her door reminded me of her. Wildflowers mixed with pretty ferns—totally natural and unassuming—but absolutely charming. Like her. I wished I knew for sure what had happened to her. Did she have family? Had she been given a proper burial or just gone out into the woods to die? Part of me realized I may never know for sure, just as I may never know what happened to Clairvius, although I felt far less concerned about him. The dreams had stopped and, for the first time since I had first heard about Cindy’s plan to kill Wade, I had a sense of peace. Stepping onto her front porch a little later, I felt tears prick my eyes as I kneeled to lay the flowers at her door. Wade placed a comforting hand on my shoulder, giving it a little squeeze. ‘She knows you’re here.’ I looked up into his eyes, thankful both for him and to Mama for bringing him into my life. The greatest gift I had ever been given was here by my side and she was the reason. Our journey hadn’t been an easy one but it had been worth it in the end. Mama had known we would come through it together. Wade helped me to my feet and we began to walk back to the vehicle Ruben had loaned us, stopping as we heard a door opening. There, on Mama’s porch, stood a beautiful young woman in her late teens. The flowery shift she wore skimmed her thin body and her hair was in cornrows, highlighting her beautiful brown complexion and large, dark eyes. Her feet were bare. ‘Hello,’ I said, stepping forward carefully, as if scared she would disappear. ‘Is Mama here?’ She shook her head, eyes moving from me to Wade, lingering on him for a moment as a small smile lit her face. ‘She’s gone,’ she said finally, dragging her attention away from the tall, handsome man at my side.

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‘Gone?’ ‘Passed on,’ she said bluntly but with kindness in her eyes. ‘We had her brought back home after she died. We buried her in Haiti.’ Part of me should have been prepared for the news but it still shocked me to have it confirmed. ‘How did it happen?’ ‘Just got old,’ said the girl, her expression hinting at more she couldn’t say. ‘She didn’t suffer, Martine, so don’t you go worrying yourself about that.’ She had wisdom beyond her years, this thin scrap of a girl who couldn’t be more than eighteen. Who was she anyway? A member of her family? I thought I could see a resemblance. When I asked if she’d been related, she nodded but offered no explanation of exactly how. ‘She asked me to come take care of things after she’d gone,’ she said. I began to cry for the loss of a woman I never really took the time to get to know. The kind stranger reminded me of her so much, it was eerie. Wade turned me into his arms and smoothed my hair as I wiped away the tears. ‘Mama wouldn’t want you to cry,’ I heard her whisper, turning to find that she hadn’t moved from her position in the open doorway. Loud shouts from inside the house drew my attention for a moment and she turned to scold the two small boys I could just make out behind her. They ran passed her giggling, out into the yard, making a beeline for the pickup. Her eyes followed them with an indulgent smile. ‘You better watch your truck, Wade,’ she said quietly, nodding in the direction of the boys already clambering up into the driver’s seat. ‘Hey,’ he called with a laugh as he ran over to them. ‘Get out of there.’ The kids were tiny, maybe no more than two or three and looked to be twins, but they giggled in excitement as the large man approached.

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‘You shouldn’t upset yourself,’ she said to me, bringing my attention back to her. ‘You will make the baby sad.’ I stared back at her wordlessly. What baby? She chuckled. ‘You didn’t know yet, did you?’ ‘No. I mean, of course not. I’m not pregnant.’ ‘We’ll see,’ she said with a casual shrug before turning to call the children. ‘Come now. Wash your hands for supper.’ They complied immediately, running away from the new playmate they had found in Wade. His attempts at controlling them had descended into a chaotic tickling match, leaving him breathless and happy as they ran to their mother. ‘They’re great kids,’ he said, coming back to my side. ‘Yes,’ she smiled, hugging them to her thin frame as she dipped her eyes, suddenly shy under Wade’s scrutiny. ‘Come see us all again soon, ok?’ With that, the girl stepped into the house, turning and giving us both a friendly wave before shutting the door. My mind raced as we walked back to the car. Pregnant? Could that be the reason for Ghede’s intervention that night– he knew Clairvius could harm my unborn child? ‘Did you hear what she said to me?’ I asked Wade minutes later as Mama’s house became nothing more than a dot in the rearview mirror. He shook his head. ‘Why? What did she say?’ I decided not to tell him. Not yet. ‘Oh, nothing important. I just wondered if you could hear our conversation over the noise you were making with those kids.’ I laughed, secretly thrilled that even children seemed to love him. ‘Weren’t they great?’ he said, settling back into his seat happily. ‘You know, I think I’d make a good father.’ I thought he would too but it seemed freaky that he’d chosen that exact moment to mention it. Another thought hit me like a bolt from the blue. ‘Wade, how did she know our names?’

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He stood on the brakes, turning to mirror my look of confusion. As if in unison, we turned to stare back down the road in the direction of the shack. . ‘You don’t think…’ I couldn’t finish my sentence, sure he would laugh at me. He caught my thoughts. ‘It couldn’t be. Could it?’ I didn’t answer him, my brain refusing to accept the insane notion. Had she found a way to come back? Even as I rejected the idea, my eyes landed on something glinting on the floor of Wade’s truck. ‘I thought you gave this back to Cindy,’ I said, holding the Veve up to the light. ‘I did. What’s it doing here?’ I turned again to stare back down the road at the distant shack one last time before Wade fired up the engine and slowly drove away. Looking down at the Veve nestled in my palm, I knew without a doubt that my finding it had been no accident. Mama had given us the answers we needed. The young girl with the beautiful boys would be part of our lives. Of that I was sure. Wade’s eyes shined with the memory of what had happened the last time we’d had the Veve. The cheap tourist trinket probably had no powers whatsoever, but it meant the world to me. ‘Strange that something like that brought us together,’ he said, smiling into my eyes. I smiled back, deciding not to tell him how much more I’d discovered for the time being. Something had brought us together, but it certainly wasn’t the Veve. And it wasn’t voodoo either. But it was a kind of charm. Mama’s Charm.

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Epilogue The girl opened the jar, disturbing the sediment of twigs and herbs and causing them to swirl through the murky brown fluid made partly of holy water and precious oils. She undid the small parchment scroll she’d been about to place inside and frowned at the list it contained with a sigh. ‘Best I put the baby too.’ She added a girl’s name to Martine and Wade’s before dropping it into the potion she had made to protect them all from bad spirits. She swirled it around, smiling as the gold tooth inside the jar swam into view. The girl placed the vessel in her pocket. She would hide it later, just before midnight, during the dead time—the time for doing good— in the safest place she knew. She felt the jar vibrate against her hip. ‘Hush now, Clairvius,’ she said. ‘You can rest soon.’ Happy with her work, she crooned softly as she put away the ingredients of the potion before crossing herself under the portrait of Jesus. She moved to admire the new, young body given to her by The Loa in the mirror. The girl had been on her deathbed when the spirits had been called to her, about to die and leave her babies alone in the world. Ghede had intervened and now, the children still had their mother and Mama would live on. She turned to close the blinds and, spotting Wade’s truck disappearing over the horizon, she smiled again. ‘That sure is one pretty, dark man…’

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THE END WWW.LuxieRyder.Com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR I live in a beautiful part of the Southwest of England with the husband I married on St Valentine's Day this year and our dog. We have our own small business which allows me to work from home and leaves plenty of free time for my hobbies. My first experience of writing was creating what is known as 'fan fiction' on the Internet forum of one of my favorite artists. Lots of my readers gave me really positive feedback and encouraged me to write more and take things further. Without them, I would never have had the confidence to submit a manuscript. I enjoy the process of writing and creating characters I would like to meet and situations I would love to be in.

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