The NOLA Heart Novels (Complete Series)

by Maria Luis

  Nathan popped an anxious bubble. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Lizzie shoved him out of the way with an elbow to his waist before grabbing a stack of plates out of the cupboard. “Don’t make me get my compact mirror and show you, brother dear.”

  “A compact, what?”

  His younger sister snickered. “Don’t change the subject. You’re smitten.”

  Nathan wasn’t smitten. Hell, he didn’t do smitten—ever. He was in lust. Big difference. One involved his heart and the other his cock, and drinking in the sight of Jade definitely had him hardening in his pants. Not that he would tell his sister that. “I’m not.”

  “Then why haven’t you said a word to her since she came through the front door?”

  He stared down at toffee-colored hair, which was all he could see since Lizzie was nearly a foot shorter than him, even while wearing the murder weapons she called shoes. “Did you or did you not steal her away to introduce her to Mom and Josh?”

  With one hand gripping the plates, Lizzie condescendingly patted him on the cheek with the other. “‘Steal,’ Danny? I did no such thing. Like I said—smitten.”

  Nathan’s gum chewing kicked into overdrive, and he nearly bit his tongue. He knew better than to enter an argument with Lizzie because he never won. It was a hard fact that younger sisters did not employ reasoning skills.

  “Give me those plates,” he muttered.

  Lizzie gave them up easily, which should have been his first warning that she was up to no good. He’d only taken two steps in the dining room’s direction when she hollered, “You might want to wipe that drool from your chin!”

  Then, in pure womanly fashion, Lizzie dismissed him and focused all of her attention on the newcomer. “So tell me, Jade,” his sister exclaimed brightly, “What do you think of Louisiana so far?”

  Nathan took that as his cue to get the hell out of dodge. As he set the dining table, he trained his thoughts on everything but Jade. Since he’d cancelled on going to the V.A. tonight, he’d have to go tomorrow—if he got out of work early enough. Which was debatable. There were still two cases that needed his attention, including one homicide that had been linked to a known drug dealer on this side of the river, in Algiers. Neither case, however, belonged to Nathan exclusively.

  “This is quite the spread.”

  He’d been so intent on not noticing her presence that he hadn’t even realized she’d sidled up next to him. Instinctively he inhaled the fragrance that was Jade Harper. Clean, fresh. No cloying rose scents like his mother, or men’s cologne like his sister. Jade smelled like she’d just stepped out of a steaming hot shower.

  Do not go down that road.

  Clearing his throat, Nathan ran his fingers through his hair. “My mom is big on dinners.”

  “I can see that,” she replied with a soft laugh. “Must be a mom thing—mine’s the same way.”

  Jade moved forward, innocently trailing her fingers along the back of the wooden chairs. He was being punished. As she glided her fingers over the wood, Nathan easily imagined her gliding her fingers over somewhere far more interesting.

  “Have you had a good time in N’Orleans so far?” he asked, desperate to make conversation that wouldn’t inspire thoughts of the two of them together. She wasn’t, and couldn’t be, one of the women he casually saw. “How long have you been in town?”

  Her dark eyes found him. “Since yesterday.” She paused at the opposite end of the table. “I’ve already earned myself a ticket.”

  That stopped Nathan’s wandering thoughts. He propped his elbows on the back of a chair. “A ticket to what?”

  She winced, and the motion threw her ponytail into a soft sway. “Not exactly to what, but for what.”

  This was getting interesting. “Already making a name for yourself in town, Miss Harper?” He’d meant for the words to sound teasing, but she averted her gaze and he muttered a curse beneath his breath. He hadn’t intended to . . . Nathan ran his tongue along the front of his teeth, then sucked in a small breath. “What’d you get in trouble for?”

  “I may have, you know . . . ”

  Nathan grinned slowly. “I can’t say that I do,” he murmured, enjoying the way her onyx-colored eyes flashed. “You might have to spell it out for me real slow. Maybe letter by letter.”

  To his delight she matched his stance, planting her elbows on the back of the chair. She pitched her voice low, too. She might have been trying to mess with him, but little did she know that verbal sparring was his favorite activity outside of the bedroom.

  “You may have to learn to follow my speed, Danvers,” she said. “I’m half Cuban and talking slow doesn’t come easily.”

  Cuban. So the golden glow of her skin was natural. For some reason Nathan felt pleased. From the slightly off-skew tilt to her ponytail to the tennis shoes she wore on her feet, Jade Harper screamed au natural. He’d always been partial to women who let their natural beauty shine. Call him pragmatic, but there was something nice about not having to worry about which body part you’d find temporarily tattooed with red lipstick.

  “Are you fluent?” he asked. He made a mental note to ask her about the ticket later.

  “Sí. If my sisters and I hadn’t picked up Spanish there would have been hell to pay from my mother.” She paused, cocked her head to the side, and then wryly added, “You don’t disappoint Lucia Harper unless you’ve got a death wish.”

  Something in her tone made him think that she’d done just that. And while he wanted to know more, Nathan understood all too well that some comments weren’t invitations to dig deeper. So, he did what he did best: diffused the situation with humor.

  “I tried to learn French in school—didn’t go so well.” Nathan gave her his trademark humor-me grin. “Thought I was telling a girl in class that I liked her dress; turns out I’d said that I liked her mustache.”

  Jade pressed a hand to her mouth, but she was too late. Laughter spilled forth. And it wasn’t the girly, tinkling sort, either. It was contagious ha-ha-has that had Nathan laughing right along with her.

  “In case you’re wondering, it didn’t go over so well.”

  Her hand slipped from her mouth to the base of her throat. Nathan imagined placing his lips there, tasting—no. No tasting. No touching. No thinking about tasting and touching. The urge to go for another stick of gum grew but he was already two deep in the hole.

  “How badly did she take it?” Jade asked, oblivious to his Rated-R thoughts.

  He pretended to think on it. “Let’s just say that when I tried to apologize, I made the mistake of telling her that her mustache wasn’t that awful.”

  Jade made a hissing noise through her teeth. “That bad, huh?”

  “Her mustache or my apology?”

  Laughing softly, she lifted her hands, palms to the ceiling. “Both?”

  “Well, the mustache thing wasn’t actually an issue. The apology came back to haunt me senior year when I asked her for a dance at the prom and she proceeded to tell anyone who would listen that I had a small . . . package.”

  Her gaze darted down the length of his torso to the chair shielding his hips from view. Her cheeks bloomed a pretty pink and he couldn’t resist poking a bit of fun. “You want to ask, don’t you.”

  Her gaze jumped to his. “I, well”—she threw a wild glance around the room—“I mean, I’m not going to ask . . . Unless you want to show, I mean, tell me?” Once more her gaze fell south, and the blush flushed even darker. Her fingers went to her mouth as though she could physically keep the words on lockdown.

  But she’d fallen right into his plan. He purposely drew his brows together like her answer confused him. “What am I showing or telling you?”

  “Your—” A finger jutted out and pointed down at the general region of his “package.”

  Nathan let his gaze drift down before he kicked up a corner of his mouth into a grin and folded his arms across his chest. “Now, Jade, we’ve only just met.”


  Her mouth dropped open. “What? You’re the one taunting me into asking about the size of your package.”

  Victory thrummed in his veins. “Not where I was going with that. I thought you wanted to know if she ended up dancing with me. The answer to that is a negative, but thanks to all the other girls wanting to find out if what Kasey had said was true, they were all willing to take a swing around the ballroom with me.”

  It took a moment to sink in, but Jade realized that she’d been had. You didn’t grow up with two sisters and escape becoming the victim of pranks. But, Díos mío, she was almost tempted to ask if he would show her his package.

  And that would never do, because Jade had a plan. A plan that did not involve men like John Thomas, and certainly not flirtatious men like Nathan Danvers. With his tousled black hair and his warm smile, Danvers appeared to be the sort of man a girl married before popping out two-point-five kids, buying a pair of yellow labs, and then trading in a convertible for a mini-van.

  The permanent yoga pants and the “world’s best mom” bumper stickers were a given.

  Her gaze skipped over his broad shoulders, the thick column of his neck, and up to his masculine features. Even now his full mouth was tipped into a teasing grin, and his gray eyes were steady and expressive, despite their cool color. Hot and smoky as opposed to cold slate, maybe. Or like—stop thinking about his eyes!

  She needed to change the conversation before she lost control altogether. There was only so much a girl could take when she was starved for good sex. Something told her that bad sex was a particular worry that wouldn’t be an issue with Danvers. If he had her girl parts needy with just the thought of seeing his “package,” small or large, she could only imagine that seeing it firsthand would be life altering.

  “Do you think dinner might be ready?” Jade asked, noting the moment that he realized she was desperate for some air. It worried her, how expressive his gaze was, and that she could—without trying—read him so well, so fast.

  One muscular shoulder lifted. “Probably so.”

  “Maybe I’ll go see if your mom needs help.” Please, please need help, lest I jump your son’s bones, Beth Cartwell. “Or your sister.”

  His eye twitched at the mention of Lizzie. “My sister always needs help.”

  Lizzie decided then to stage her appearance, and from the annoyed expression on her face, she’d definitely caught Danvers’ comment. “I heard that, you know.”

  He shrugged. “Not anything you haven’t heard before.”

  It was Lizzie’s turn for the eye twitching. “Aren’t you supposed to be nice to me in front of our guests?” she hissed, though she didn’t try very hard to lower her voice. Jade wasn’t sure Lizzie even knew what using her “indoor voice” meant.

  Danvers turned toward Jade, a twinkle in his eye that she was already beginning to recognize. That twinkle begged her to play along, and although she theoretically should have snubbed her nose at him after his prank, she found herself game for whatever he had planned. She gave a subtle dip of her chin and the wide grin he gave her was nearly blinding in its sexiness.

  Involuntarily, Jade squeezed her legs together. It just wasn’t fair that he was so classically handsome—add his charm into the equation and, ay, Jade felt more than a little off-kilter.

  “Lizzie—”

  Before Danvers had a chance to get a word in, Beth Cartwell came bustling into the dining room, oven mitt on one hand and spatula clasped in the other. The spatula was pointed at her son, thrusting forward like an accusing finger. “You didn’t say hello to me, Danny.”

  Chagrined, Danvers wrapped an arm around his mother and drew her into a hug. He planted a single kiss on her cheek. “Hi, Mom.”

  Beth hummed approvingly. “It’ll do.”

  Beth’s dark hair, peppered through with splices of gray, shone under the light as she popped her head back into the kitchen, nearly slapping Lizzie in the face with the spatula. Lizzie ducked, but couldn’t quite hold herself steady on her stilettos.

  Jade watched as Danvers stuck out a hand to balance his sister.

  “Thank you,” Lizzie said, gratefully.

  “I know.”

  The eye twitching started up again. “You suck, you know that?”

  Beth Cartwell swung the spatula down between brother and sister like a machete, and both siblings launched apart. “Nobody sucks in this house,” she warned with another wave of the spatula.

  An itch started at the bridge of Jade’s nose, a telltale sign that she was seconds away from laughing. Beth Cartwell might not have a drop of Cuban blood in her, but her personality was the spitting image of Lucia Harper. Something about that comforted Jade.

  Josh Cartwell stalked into the dining room, looking much the same as Jade’s own dad, at least in the way of build and temperament. A little grumpy, perhaps—years in law enforcement tended to have that effect on a person. With sharp eyes, he took in the scene before him.

  “Give me the spatula, dear,” Josh murmured with an outreached hand.

  His wife glanced over, heaved a small sigh, and complied. “Are the boudin balls done?”

  “Just finished. We should get to eating while everything is still hot.”

  Jade’s confusion must have showed on her face because the entire Cartwell/Danvers clan turned to her with eerily excited faces.

  “Have you never had boudin balls before?” Lizzie asked as she snatched Jade’s hand and dragged her into the kitchen. “Wait, no, don’t tell me. Just grab a plate and let’s get this show on the road.”

  A plate was promptly shoved into her hands. Jade was barely given a chance to look over the buffet Beth had cooked up, as Lizzie hustled her down the line of pots and pans, pointing out this and that, that and this, until her plate was loaded and heavy.

  “Last but not least”—Lizzie grabbed tongs off the counter and dug into a new container—“fried boudin balls.”

  Three were dropped onto Jade’s plate, one of which teetered precariously on the slim width of an asparagus. “I think . . . ” Tipping her plate to the left, the fried ball of God-knows-what rolled back into place. “I think that maybe one or two would be enough.”

  Lizzie promptly placed another one on the plate.

  Well, then.

  They all decamped to the dining room table and took their places. Jade found herself seated across from Danvers and next to Lizzie. She poked at the “boudin ball” with the tip of her knife.

  “It’s just casing stuffed with sausage,” Danvers told her quietly, after catching her attention with a gentle tap of his foot against hers under the table. “Try it.”

  Manners should have had him retreating to his own section of the table, but he stayed right where he was with his shoe pressed alongside hers. Her heart thundered in her chest.

  With his encouragement fueling her courage, Jade cut one of the fried balls in half, stabbed one side with her fork, and popped it into her mouth. Spice and sultry flavors erupted, before finishing off with the soft crunch of the lightly fried shell. It was delicious, especially now that she knew she wasn’t actually eating testicles.

  She said as much to Danvers, and then hid her laugh with a sip of water when he nearly choked on one of his own boudin balls.

  “Touché,” he grunted.

  Jade grinned, secretly thrilled that she’d managed to throw the player off his game. “May I claim a point?”

  His slate-colored eyes narrowed at the challenge. “We’re playing for points now?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Lizzie said as she shoveled a spoonful of gumbo into her mouth, her gaze fixed on Jade and Danvers like they were a TV show she couldn’t turn off. “Danvers cheats, Jade. Don’t sink to his level.”

  Jade glanced at the man seated across from her. “You cheat?”

  “Only on days that end with Y.”

  She snorted. “I suspected more originality from you.”

  “My stepson is nothing if not funny,” Cartwell said from the head of
the table. But there was an edge to his voice, like he didn’t think Danvers funny at all. A single glance at Danvers revealed a similar tension flattening his mouth.

  Wanting to dial down the awkwardness level by about a hundred, Jade said, “I think you’re funny.”

  “Don’t encourage him, Jade,” said Lizzie as she reached for the loaf of French bread. After ripping off a slice, she dabbed it in her bowl to soak up the juices. “Nothing good can come from it.”

  Maybe Lizzie knew better than she did—after all, Jade didn’t actually know Nathan Danvers from a hole in the wall—but Jade couldn’t stop herself from tapping his foot under the table and throwing a grin his way.

  And then she went and ruined everything by saying, “I think only good things can come from it.”

  Danvers’ full mouth quirked up in a flirtatious grin, Beth and Josh Cartwell continued the conversation without them, Lizzie made a comment about feminism, and Jade . . .

  Jade had stepped into the fire. And she quickly, quickly needed to figure out how to get herself out.

  5

  Carrollton Neighborhood, New Orleans

  The next morning, Jade stood in front of her mirror for a healthy pep talk.

  “Do not be una idiota,” she warned herself while standing in cotton panties and a matching bra. Her wet hair hung in wild curls down her back, and a droplet of water trickled down her arm before she flicked it away. “You have a dream, Jade Lucia Harper. Don’t get sidetracked by a pretty face.”

  Sure, the flirtation was harmless. Nathan Danvers probably flirted with everyone—he certainly seemed the sort. It wasn’t like she was special or anything like that. But, strangely, it wasn’t his easygoing smile that had stayed front and center in her dreams all night, but rather the quiet tension radiating from him when they had all sat at the dinner table.

  Flirting with Danvers was a distraction she couldn’t afford; hoping to unravel his secrets was a distraction she had no reason to pursue.

  She gave herself one more finger-wag in the mirror before donning what she deemed was her no-nonsense outfit: black slacks, plain black heels, and a white button-down shirt. Thirty minutes later, she pulled her blow-dried hair to the top of her head in a smooth ponytail, swiped a light gloss on her lips, and put on a pair of pearl earrings.