Sins of the Storm by Jenna Mills Page B

not-so-subtle warning for Camille to stay away.
    “You son of a bitch!” she hissed now, as she’d been unable to do all those years ago, when fear had paralyzed her, made her weak even as she tried to be strong.
    She’d never realized that in playing his game, she’d all but handed Marcel Lambert sure victory.
    “Shoot me!” she dared, and this time she moved, took a long step toward him. “Go ahead, do it. Shoot me.”
    His laughter was soft. “You know that’s not what I want.”
    “You don’t scare me,” she said with another step, and then she smelled it, the trace of cigarette smoke—and the whiskey.
    Just like that night so long ago.
    “Because you can’t hurt me,” she said. “And we both know it. If you do—”
    “Camille!”
    The voice slammed into her, had her spinning toward the door. “Jack! Don’t—” But it was too late. The loud crash broke through the darkness and he was there, charging into the room.
    “I have a gun!” he shouted.
    Then a grunt, a thud. Footsteps racing from the room. Silence within.
    Camille lunged and dropped to her knees, reached for Jack, until she found him sprawled just inside the door. “Jack. My God—”
    “Maudit fils de putain!” In one svelte move he was on his knees and running his hands along her body. “Sweet Mary, are you okay? Did he touch you? What the hell—”
    “I’m fine.” She kept her voice steady, even as part of her started to shake. “He didn’t touch me.”
    But Jack did. Jack touched her, slid his hands along her arms to her neck, her face. He held her there, his hands against her cheeks, and even without light, she could see the primal gleam in his eyes.
    “It was a trick,” she said. “He wanted me alone…thought he could scare me.”
    “Who?”
    She swallowed hard, knew she had to tell him. “The man from that night,” she said. “The one who chased me.”
    For a moment silence screamed between them, stillness, as they kneeled a heartbeat from each other in the darkness of her father’s study. The warmth of Jack’s breath feathered over her, the erratic riff of his heart punished.
    “He was here,” Jack finally repeated, and the words were cold and furious, brutal.
    Maybe it was the edge to his voice, the way he’d charged in without one clue what he would find. Or maybe it was the lingering echo of the thud, that moment when she knew he’d gone down.
    Or the fact he’d stayed with her, he’d reached for her, made sure she was okay…while Marcel Lambert got away.
    It could have been any of those things, or none of those things. But in the end it didn’t matter. In the end there was just her and Jacques, again, and she lifted her hands to his.
    “He wanted the map,” she whispered.
    Jack swore lowly and creatively, purely in Cajun. And all that cold she’d been fighting for longer than she cared to remember, started to slip away.
    “Kinda makes you wonder why, doesn’t it?” About the map—and the warmth. “If that stained glass window really broke…why is Lambert so hot to get his hands on my dad’s map?”
    Around them, the stillness extended. Even the cicadas had fallen quiet. “He’s not going to win,” Jack muttered. “So help me God that bastard is not going to win.”
    “No,” Camille said. “He’s not. That’s why I’m here, Jack.” That’s why she had to write the book.
    He pulled his hands from beneath hers without warning, and stood. “Come on.”
    Through the shadows, she saw him reach for her. From the moment she’d decided to write Sins of the Storm , she’d known this man, Jacques Savoie—not Marcel Lambert—would be her biggest challenge. She’d known how easy it would be to slip into roles of the past, she the adoring little girl hanging on his every word. She’d known, and she’d prepared.
    But now all those plans crumbled, and she put her hand in his and let him help her to her feet.
    The wince just kind of happened. It was dark, there was no reason he should