Midnight Bayou

girl.”
    “Good idea.”
    He hunted up Lena, found her in a clutch of people. The red of her dress was like a sleek tongue of flame over her dusky skin. He imagined his reaction to it, to her, transmitted clearly enough as he saw that knowing and essentially female look come into her eyes as he stepped toward her.
    He turned slightly and held out a hand to her grandmother. “Miss Odette, would you dance with me?”
    “Day hasn’t come when I’ll turn down a dance with a handsome man.”
    “You look wonderful,” he told her when they took the floor.
    “Weddings make me feel young. I had a nice talk with your mama.”
    “Did you?”
    “You’re wondering,” she said with a chuckle. “I’ll tell you we got on just fine. And she seemed pleased when I told her I saw how you’d been raised up right the first time I met you. She paid me back the compliment by saying the same about my Lena. Then we chatted about things women often chat about at weddings, which would likely bore you—except to say we agreed what a handsome young man you are. And handsome young men should find more reasons to wear tuxedos.”
    “I could become a maître d’. But they get better tips when they have a snooty accent, and I’m not sure I could pull that part off.”
    “Then I’ll just have to wait until your own wedding to see you all slicked up again.”
    “Yeah.” He looked over her head, but Lena had moved on. “This one’s working out pretty well anyway. I was a little panicked that the storm last night would screw things up.”
    “Storm? Cher , we didn’t have a storm last night.”
    “Sure we did. A mean one. Don’t tell me you slept through it.”
    “I was up till midnight.” She watched his face now. “Finishing the hem on this dress. Then I was up again ’round four when Rufus decided he needed to go outside. I saw lights on over here then. Wondered what you were doing up at that hour. Night was clear as a bell, Declan.”
    “I . . . I must’ve dreamed about a storm. Pre-weddingstress.” But he hadn’t been up at four. Hadn’t been up at all, as far as he knew, after midnight—when he’d walked through the house to turn off all the lights before going to bed.
    Dreams, he thought. Wind and rain, the flash of lightning. The yellow flames of the fire in the grate. Pain, sweat, thirst. Blood.
    Women’s hands, women’s voices—Effie’s?—giving comfort, giving encouragement.
    He remembered it now, clearly, and stopped dead in the middle of the dance.
    He’d had a baby. He’d gone through childbirth.
    Good God.
    “ Cher? Declan? You come on outside.” Gently, Odette guided him off the floor. “You need some air.”
    “Yeah. Southern ladies are big on swooning, right?”
    “What’s that?”
    “Never mind.” He was mortified, he was awed, at what had happened to him inside his own dream. Inside, he supposed, his own memories.
    “Go on back in,” he told her. “I’m just going to take a walk, clear my head.”
    “What did you remember?”
    “A miracle,” he murmured. “Remind me to buy my mother a really great present. I don’t know how the hell you women get through it once. She did it four times. Amazing,” he mumbled, and headed down the steps. “Fucking amazing.”
    He walked all the way around the house, then slipped back in for a tall glass of icy water. He used it to wash down three extra-strength aspirin in hopes of cutting back on the vicious headache that had come on the moment he’d remembered the dream.
    He could hear the music spilling down the steps from the ballroom. He could feel the vibrations on the ceiling from where dozens of feet danced.
    He had to get back up, perform his duties as best man and host. All he wanted to do was fall facedown on the bed, close his eyes, and slide into oblivion.
    “Declan.” Lena came in through the gallery doors, then shut them behind her. “What’s the matter?”
    “Nothing. Just a headache.”
    “You’ve been gone nearly an hour. People are asking about you.”
    “I’m coming up.” But he sat on the side of the bed. “In a minute.”
    She crossed to him. “Is it bad?”
    “I’ve had worse.”
    “Why don’t you just lie down a few minutes?”
    “I’m not crawling into bed on my best friend’s wedding day—unless you want to keep me company.”
    “It’s tempting. Seeing a man in a tux always makes me want to peel him out of it.”
    “Maître d’s must just love you.”
    “There now, you made a stupid