Free Hall, Jessica by Into the Fire Page B

glanced at the window. "I slipped and
fell."
    His black eyes narrowed. "You never fell in your life."
    As the voice calling her name grew closer, a wrenching sob
exploded from her throat. "I can't face him, not like this." She
clutched at him, her small hands frantic. "Help me, please, Caine."
    He wanted to go and rearrange Jean-Delano Gamble's pretty face,
but he settled for pulling her back into the shadows with him. He kept an arm
around her waist as he watched the window. As long as Jean-Del stayed away from
Sable, Caine wouldn't interfere. If Gamble came in after her, well, then all
bets were off.
    Outside, footsteps pounded along the pier and then stopped just
outside of the shack. "Goddamn it, Sable! Have you lost your mind? How
could you do that to my friends?"
    Caine pulled her closer, wanting the college boy to come in the
boathouse, willing him to go away for her sake.
    "Last chance, Sable," Gamble shouted on the other side
of the shack's wall. "Do you hear me? You come on out here now and talk to
me, or we're finished."
    Caine felt the change in her, how her shaking stopped, the way she
tensed her shoulders. She carefully eased away from his arm and stepped toward
the window.
    He couldn't let her do it. He'd heard stories from her cousin on
what Gamble and his friends had done to her at that fancy college. She might
love him, but he didn't deserve her. No one did.
    Before she could answer him, Caine grabbed her, clamped his hand
over her mouth, and hauled her back. She struggled, but he held her easily.
"No more of this, Isabel," he murmured next to her ear. "You let
him go now."
    Outside Gamble kicked something, and wood cracked. "Look at
this pissant place. This is what you want? The swamp and the gators and
chopping fish bait all day? Is that why you threw mud at my friends? Because we
don't have to live like this?"
    She stopped struggling.
    "Fine." Another kick, and something hit the water with a
splash. "I'll go back and clean up your mess. You just stay the hell away
from me."
    When his footsteps died away, Caine took his hand from her
mouth. "There, now." He went to check the window. "He's
gone."
    "Why did you do that?" she asked him, her voice remote.
    He'd done it because he loved her, more and harder and deeper than
Jean-Delano Gamble ever would. But he could never tell her that. He was just a
swamp rat who worked for her father. "Look at yourself. Look what he's
done to you." He gestured at her dress. "Your daddy told you how it
would be."
    She didn't say anything. She simply stared at him.
    Awkwardly Caine touched her cheek. "He ain't good enough for
you, chère."
    She caught his hand and pulled it away from her face. "You're
wrong. I'm not good enough for him."
    Caine almost laughed. "How do you figure that?"
    "It doesn't matter how smart I am, or how hard I work, or how
many scholarships I get. I'm trash. I can buy a dozen pair of white gloves and
they'll still know." She tore at her dress with angry hands. "I can't
get the stink of the bayou off of me."
    Something pierced his heart like an invisible dagger. "It
ain't nothing to be ashamed of."
    She held up a fold of her dress. "Does this look proud to
you, Caine? I wanted to dress like those other girls at school. I wanted to be
like them. I hate what I am." She let go of the ruined material and rested
her brow against the window, staring out at where Jean-Delano had been.
"Now he does, too."
    The next day Caine had quit working for Remy and had gone deep
into the bayou to fish and trap alone. He'd built himself a shack, and then a
boat, and then a living. Those hard, lean years had been the making of Caine
Gantry, and when he had saved enough, he'd returned to start his own outfit on
the fringe of the Atchafalaya. He'd managed to forget about Sable and that
night.
    Until she'd come back, too.
    Her plans for her fancy community project had infuriated Caine.
She didn't care about the people of the bayou; she just wanted to hand out
charity and run