by Patricia Kay
“Maybe not, but they’re completely nonexistent in my family,” she said. She peeled the onion and began chopping it.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
Her shoulders stiffened. “No.”
Jack wished he knew her well enough to get up and rub the tenseness out of her shoulders. He wished he had the right to comfort her. He wondered who the guy was who had hurt her so badly. Because it was obvious to Jack that Nicole was hurting. Jack decided whoever the guy was, he had to be a first-class jerk to let Nicole get away.
Nicole finished chopping the onions and scraped them into the pot. They hissed as they hit the hot olive oil. Immediately the kitchen filled with the aroma of frying onions. Jack watched her, enjoying the way her jeans clung to her nicely rounded rear as she moved about. Even though he’d never had any desire to settle down, he could see that some aspects of being married might be nice.
The microwave dinged, and she took the meat out. “What?” she said when she saw how he was looking at her.
He grinned. “I was just thinking how nice it is to sit here and watch you do all the work.”
“Chauvinist!” she said, but she grinned.
“So tell me about Patinville,” Jack said. He was genuinely curious about Nicole, but he also hoped something she might say would help him in his search for information about Elise.
“Oh, it’s a typical small town. One main street, one bank—no, that’s wrong—two banks, one pharmacy, one big grocery store, one high school.” She grinned at him over her shoulder as she worked at the stove. “The only thing it’s got a lot of are churches.”
“What do your brothers and father do?”
She stirred the frying onions with a wooden spoon, then lowered the heat and dumped in the various sauces. “They both work in the family business.” She added several spices to the mixture in the pot.
“Which is?”
“A roofing and home improvement company. My father started it years ago, and now Norman—he’s the younger of my brothers—runs the place and does all the administrative work, and Neil—he’s the older brother—is in charge of the crews.”
“Sounds like it’s successful.”
“It is.” She bent down, pulled another pot from a bottom cupboard and walked over to the sink, where she began filling it with water.
“What did you do when you lived in Patinville?”
“After I graduated from high school, I went to work for a local real estate agency as a receptionist. Then, for about six months, I worked at our company as the bookkeeper.” She turned off the water and carried the filled pot to the stove. She set it on a back burner and turned on the heat under it. “But when I realized I was pregnant with Aimee, my father arranged for me to go to Lafayette and stay with my Uncle Justin and Aunt Lisette until I had the baby.” She extracted an iron frying pan from the cupboard. Within minutes, the ground meat was cooking.
Jack sniffed. She might not be a great cook, but her concoctions were beginning to smell good. His stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten lunch.
“Do you like mushrooms?” she asked.
“I like anything that likes me.”
“Good.” Soon a couple of cans of sliced mushrooms had been added to the sauce.
Her voice turned softer. “Uncle Justin and Aunt Lisette are both such sweeties. They were wonderful to me.” She opened the refrigerator and knelt, then began pulling things out of the vegetable keeper. “They don’t have any children of their own, so they’ve always been very good to me and my sister and brothers.”
Yes. When Charles had told him so many stories about the Cajun people, one recurring theme was the closeness of their family life. Jack could see it was true. Cajun families were definitely tight. They took care of their own, and loyalties ran deep.
Nicole took all the vegetables to the sink, where she began washing them. As she cleaned them, she half turned so she could see Jack. “That’s enough about me. Tell me about your family. You have a twin sister—”
“Yes. Jenny. Jennifer Harriett Forrester Wharton. My mother’s name is Harriett. The former Daughters of the Confederacy debutante, Harriett Cornelia Jackson.” He grimaced. “My father’s name is Alan, so they named me Jackson Alan. My family’s big on family names.”
“What’re your parents like?”
Jack thought for a minute. “Well, mother’s president of the Women’s Forum. She’s a past president of the aforementioned Daughters of the Confederacy, and she’s a member of the board of directors of St. Phillip’s Hospital in Houston. She’s also a mover and a shaker with the arts council and the opera guild. She likes stuff like that.” She had always liked stuff like that, Jack thought. Much more than homemaking. And a whole lot more than children. Jack pushed the thought away. It was no longer important to him. He’d quickly learned to depend on himself and no one else. Except for Jenny, he had no real ties with his family.
“And your father?”
“Like your father, he owns his own business.” Jack saw no need to mention that Alan Forrester, Inc. was the largest accounting firm in Houston, handling accounts that totaled in the hundreds of millions.
“Doing what?”
“He’s an accountant.”
Nicole smiled. “Somehow you don’t seem like the son of an accountant.”
“And what are sons of accountants like?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Thin and pale with thick glasses on their noses?”
Jack laughed. “Come on, Nicole. That’s a stereotype.”
“I’m just teasing you.” She began to break up the lettuce she’d washed and put the pieces in a salad bowl.
“I think your water’s boiling,” Jack pointed out.
“Oops. I forgot it.” She opened the package of spaghetti and added it slowly to the boiling water. Then she stirred it, adjusted the heat and left it to cook. She went back to preparing the salad.
“Do you want me to do that while you do something else?” Jack offered.
“No. You’re company. Just sit there.”
Jack decided now was the time to reintroduce the subject of Elise—while Nicole was mellow and busy with her cooking. “Have you thought of anything that might be useful to me in tracking down Elise Arnold?”
Nicole, who had been cutting up a tomato and adding it to the salad bowl, stopped and turned to face him. Her dark eyes studied him. “You still think there’s a connection between her and me, don’t you?”
Jack heard the disappointment in her voice. He sighed. “I’m sorry, Nicole. I can’t help it. I believe you when you say you don’t know anything, but all my instincts tell me Elise belongs to your family. Somewhere there’s a link. I mean, come on, you’ve got a huge family. Surely there might be branches of it you don’t know anything about. Someone has got to know something.”
He met her gaze squarely. The kitchen seemed very quiet all of a sudden. From the living room, Jack could hear the muted noise of the movie Aimee was watching, and from the stove the soft bubbling sound of the boiling water, and from the wall the ticking of the kitchen clock.
He waited.
With a small shrug of defeat, Nicole said, “Okay. What can I do to help?”
* * *
“That was a wonderful meal,” Jack said, sighing and patting his stomach.
“Thanks.” It was amazing, she thought, that she felt so comfortable with him. Well, maybe not entirely comfortable. He was too attractive, and she was too conscious of the awareness simmering between them, to be completely relaxed.
But she liked him.
She enjoyed his company.
And she sure liked looking at him. Surely there was no danger in looking.
She looked at him now as he leaned back in his chair. She wondered if she’d be sorry she’d agreed to help him. She knew she shouldn’t have. She knew she should have given Jack Forrester his walking papers this morning. In fact, she should never have let him talk her into getting into his car at all. That would have been the san
e, sensible, safe way to act.
But Nicole had never been a person to play things safe. Despite the mistakes she’d made, despite her vow that she’d never again be taken in by charm or good looks or sex appeal, despite her pledge to find a man who would give her and Aimee security and a settled home, Nicole had a streak of daring in her.
She loved adventure.
She loved excitement.
And she loved taking chances.
Aimee yawned. Nicole glanced at the clock. “I can’t believe it! It’s already after seven.” She stood, walked around to Aimee’s chair. “Come on, sugar. It’s time for your bath.”
Jack stood, too.
“No, just sit there. Relax. Let me get her settled in the tub, then I’ll be back.”
But when she’d filled the tub with a few inches of water and tossed Aimee’s bubble bath in, she could hear him rattling dishes and pots in the kitchen. She finished undressing Aimee, put her in the tub and dumped in her rubber toys, then said, “Now you play for a few minutes, okay, sugar? I’ll leave the door open, so I can see you.”
“Where you goin’, Mommy?”
“I’m going out to help Jack.”
Aimee giggled. “Jack Rabbit!” She had a bubble on the end of her nose.
Nicole stooped and kissed Aimee’s forehead. “I love you.”
Aimee giggled again.
Nicole walked out to the kitchen. Sure enough, Jack had already cleared the table and was filling the dishwasher. He turned at her approach and grinned. He’d found her apron and tied it around himself. There was something awfully sexy about a gorgeous guy wearing an apron, Nicole thought.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said.
“I wasn’t sure what you wanted to do with the leftovers, so I left that for you.”
As she put the leftover food into plastic containers, Jack finished cleaning up the rest of the kitchen. Within minutes, everything was neat.
“You do good work,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind having you around every night.” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she realized her mistake.
“And I wouldn’t mind being around every night.” Nicole could feel her cheeks warming.
Jack untied the apron and laid it over the back of a kitchen chair. He walked to where she stood, stopping only inches away. She refused to meet his gaze.
“Nicole,” he said softly. “Look at me.” He touched her chin, lifting it.
Nicole’s heart pounded wildly as she looked into his eyes.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured. “I didn’t know any woman ever blushed anymore.”
“I—” Oh, God. She felt like a fool. Hadn’t she learned anything?
He rubbed her chin with the pad of his thumb. Her pulse went haywire. And her stomach felt as if a bunch of mice were running around inside it.
Jack’s eyes darkened, and she recognized the desire she saw there. The same desire echoed deep within her. She swallowed. The kitchen was very quiet.
He bent his head. Nicole closed her eyes.
Just as his lips touched hers, Aimee called, “Mommy! When are you coming in?”
Heart pounding, Nicole jerked away from him. “I... I must go to her.” She left him standing there and rushed to the bathroom.
By the time she finished bathing Aimee and putting the child into pajamas, Nicole had gotten her wildly careening emotions under control. When she and Aimee emerged from the bathroom, Jack was no longer in the kitchen. She heard the sound of the TV coming from the living room and decided he’d gone in there.
Sighing with relief—she still wasn’t ready to face him— she took Aimee into her room and put her to bed. The bedtime ritual took about fifteen more minutes, and the cowardly part of Nicole hoped Jack might get tired of waiting and be gone by the time she was ready to join him.
“Good night, chere. ” She kissed Aimee’s soft cheek, inhaling the smell of sweet soap and sweet child.
“ ’Night, Mommy.” Aimee reached up and put her arms around Nicole’s neck.
“I love you,” Nicole whispered.
“I love you,” Aimee whispered back.
“It’s you and me...”
“’Gainst the world.” Aimee finished their private mantra.
Nicole kissed Aimee one last time, then gently pulled free. She tucked the covers around the little girl, stalling, thinking about Jack out there in the living room. Remembering how she felt when she’d known he was going to kiss her. Wondering if he’d try to kiss her again.
“Where’s Raggedy?” Aimee said.
“Here she is.” Nicole reached for the doll, handed it to Aimee. “Good night,” she said again. She snapped off Aimee’s bedside lamp.
She walked out to the hall, pulled Aimee’s door halfway shut. She stood there for a moment. Smoothed down her hair. Retucked her blouse into the waistband of her jeans. Wet her lips.
Okay, don’t you think you’ve stalled long enough?
Taking a deep breath, Nicole walked slowly down the hall to the living room.
Jack sat on one of the love seats, his back against the armrest and his legs up. They were too long for the length of the love seat, so he’d propped them up on the other armrest. He had found her photo album and was looking at it.
He looked completely at home.
Trying to speak nonchalantly, Nicole said, “Well, you look comfortable!”
He looked up, gave her a teasing smile. “I figured I deserved a rest after all my hard work in the kitchen.”
Those eyes of his would be her undoing.
Nicole sat on the other love seat. Jack swung his legs down, turned to face her. The smile still lingered in his eyes.
Nicole squirmed. If he kept looking at her like that, she would never be able to maintain her composure.
“Well,” she said brightly, too brightly. “Have you decided what your strategy’s going to be in your investigation?”
His eyes twinkled. Oh, so that’s the way it’s going to be, they seemed to say.
Nicole wanted to look away, but she knew if she did she’d lose whatever advantage she had. And she had to stay in control. On guard. At all times. Because it would be all too easy to forget that Jack Forrester was a transient in her life. That one day soon he’d pack up and go home. That if she wasn’t very, very careful, he’d take a big chunk of her heart with him when he went.
“I thought I’d spend tomorrow at the library. I decided to go with your idea and check all the phone books for other cities in Louisiana.”
“You’re going to check out every Cantrelle? That’ll be an enormous job!”
He shrugged. “I don’t see what other options I have.”
“Have you tried the social security office?”
“I tried them first.”
“And?”
“Nothing useful. The first social security number assigned to Elise Sonnier Arnold was issued nine years ago— in Houston.”
“Jack, how old is Elise?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Only a couple of years younger than Nicole herself. “So at nineteen, she got her first social security number...”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you tell me her mother died when she was nineteen?”
“Yes.” Jack, who had still been holding the photo album, shut it and placed it on the coffee table. He leaned forward, arms resting on his knees.
“Did you check the death records in Houston? To see if her mother died there?”
“I thought of that, but I turned up nothing.”
“What about the New Orleans records?”
“Again, nothing.”
Nicole sighed. “Frustrating, isn’t it?”
He grinned. “Now you know exactly how I feel.”
“I can see why you were so persistent once you found me.”
“I might have been persistent anyway.”
Nicole decided to ignore his innuendo. “Back to my earlier question. What do you want me to do while you’re labori
ng at the library?”
“Could you possibly check the rolls of the Louisiana Bar Association for me?”
“Sure. For what?”
“Well, for starters, just get me a list of all lawyers named Cantrelle.” He frowned in thought. “I don’t suppose the names of the people who work for the law firms might be listed, too?”
Nicole shook her head. “That’d be impossible. Staff changes take place daily.”
He nodded. “What time tomorrow do you think you’ll have the information?”
“Hard to tell. It depends how busy I am.”
“How about if I just pick you up after work again?” Nicole started to shake her head. It wouldn’t do to get in the habit of depending on him.
“Aw, come on. I don’t want to bother you by calling you at work...”
The trouble with doing sensible things was they were usually the least interesting of the available options.
Taking her silence for acquiescence, or maybe just pressing his advantage while she was in a weakened state, he said, “I’ll be waiting at the curb at five o’clock.”
“Better make it five-fifteen. I hardly ever get out right on time.”
“Well, now that we’ve settled that..." He stood. “I guess I should be going. You’ve probably got lots of things to do.”
She stood, too. “Yes.” She really didn’t have anything that urgently needed doing, but she still had enough sense of self-preservation to grasp the straw he’d handed her.
“Thanks again for the meal. It was great.”
She walked with him to the front door. He turned to face her. She looked up, into his eyes.
And was lost.
Again.
He moved a step closer. “Nicole...” His voice sounded husky and laden with unspoken meaning.
Nicole opened her mouth to answer, but the answer died on her lips.
In the next moment, Jack drew her into his arms, and this time, when his lips descended to meet hers, they reached their goal. The kiss started slowly—just a soft brushing of cool, firm lips—first this way, and then, angling his head, settling more firmly, with more demand.