After the Night Read Free Page B

patted her butt. "Don’t get your feathers ruffled, chérie. All you have to do is change clothes. The rest of you looks beautiful just as you are."
    She smiled, pleased by the compliment, and calmed down. "When can we do this again?" she asked as they left the summerhouse.
    Gray laughed aloud. It had taken him most of the summer to get into her pants, but now she didn’t want to waste any more time. Perversely, now that he’d had her, much of his ruthless determination had faded. "I don’t know," he said lazily. "I have to report back to school soon, for football practice."
    To her credit, she didn’t pout. Instead she tossed her head so the wind lifted her hair as the Corvette streaked down the private road toward the highway, and smiled at him. "Any time." She was a year older than he was, and had her own share of confidence.
    The Corvette skidded into the highway, the tires grabbing asphalt. Lindsey laughed as Gray handled the powerful car with ease. "I’ll have you home in five minutes," he promised. He didn’t want anything to interfere with her engagement to Dewayne, either.
    He thought of skinny little Faith Devlin, and wondered if she’d made it safely home. She shouldn’t be wandering around alone in the woods like that. She could get hurt, or lost. Worse, though this was private land, the lake drew the local high school boys like a magnet, and Gray had no illusions about teenage boys when they were in a pack. If they ran across Faith, they might not stop to think about how young she was, only that she was a Devlin. Little Red wouldn’t have a chance against the wolves.
    Someone needed to keep a closer eye on the kid.

Two
     
    Three Years Later
    "Faith," Renee said fretfully, "make Scottie stop. He’s driving me crazy with that whining."
    Faith put aside the potatoes she was peeling, wiped her hands, and went to the screen door, where Scottie was slapping at the screen and making the little snuffling sounds that meant he wanted to go outside. He was never allowed to go out by himself, because he didn’t understand what "stay in the yard" meant, and he would wander off and get lost. There was a latch high on the screen, where he couldn’t reach it, that was always kept fastened to prevent him from going out by himself. Faith was busy with supper, though likely only she and Scottie would be here to eat it, and couldn’t go out with him right now.
    She pulled his hands away from the screen and said, "Do you want to play ball, Scottie? Where’s the ball?" Easily distracted, he trotted off in search of his dogchewed red ball, but Faith knew that wouldn’t occupy him for long. With a sigh, she went back to the potatoes.
    Renee drifted out of her bedroom. She was dressed fit to kill tonight, Faith noted, in a tight, short red dress that showed off her long, shapely legs and somehow didn’t clash with her hair. Renee had great legs; she had great everything, and she knew it. Her thick red hair was brushed into a cloud, and her musky perfume clung to her in a deep, rich red scent. "How do I look?" she asked, whirling on her red high heels as she attached cheap rhinestone earrings to her earlobes.
    "Beautiful," Faith said, knowing it was what Renee expected, and it was nothing less than the truth. Renee was as amoral as a cat, but she was also a startlingly beautiful woman, with a perfectly formed, slightly exotic face.
    "Well, I’m off." She bent to brush a careless kiss over the top of Faith’s head.
    "Have fun, Mama."
    "I will." She gave a husky laugh. "Oh, I will." She unlatched the screen and left the shack, long legs flashing.
    Faith got up to latch the door again, and stood watching Renee get into her flashy little sports car and drive off. Her mother loved that car. She had driven up in it one day without a word of explanation about how she had gotten it, not that there was much doubt in anyone’s mind. Guy Rouillard had bought it for her.
    Seeing her at the door, Scottie returned and began making