Before Jackson had stated with such certainty that Luc had been putting out the fire, she’d actually considered the possibility that he’d been involved in setting it. The problems that had been plaguing the hotel had begun a few months after Luc had come to work here. Charlotte’s assistant had gone as far as suggesting that Luc was deliberately causing trouble so that he could make himself look good when he helped solve the problems. Yet hotel security had investigated him and hadn’t found anything untoward. And Charlotte trusted Jackson’s take on the situation—he’d always been a good judge of people.
She really hadn’t wanted to suspect Luc of trying to hurt the business. He was an excellent concierge as well as a pleasant and charming young man. He was terrific with Daisy Rose, too, and Charlotte’s mother and sisters had grown quite fond of him. It would have upset them if it had turned out that their faith in him was misplaced.
She touched her fingertips to his sleeve above the bandage. “Is this injury bothering you? If you want to take some time off, I’ll understand.”
“No, I can’t even feel it. I don’t need time off, it’s the other way around.”
“What do you mean?”
“I realize we lost customers because of the fire. I’d like to offer a portion of my wages as a way to help out.”
Startled, she dropped her hand. “That’s very generous of you, Luc.”
“It’s the least I can do, Charlotte. I know I haven’t been here long, but you’ve all been so nice to me….” He cleared his throat. “You’ve treated me like part of the family.”
She smiled. Many of the hotel’s employees had expressed the same sentiment. It was one of the factors that had allowed the business to flourish as long as it had. “I’m happy you think so.”
“I didn’t expect it to happen when I took this job, but I feel as if I’ve finally found where I belong. You and your sisters and Miss Anne have taught me a lot about loyalty.”
“That’s good. We—”
“I never had any sisters or cousins around when I was growing up,” he said, his tone growing more urgent. “But if I had, I know I would have wanted to protect them.”
“Protect?” Her smile wavered. “Luc, what are you trying to say?”
The bell that sat on the concierge’s desk chimed softly. A stocky gray-haired man was standing in front of it, his fingers drumming impatiently on the wood as he looked around the lobby.
Luc glanced at the customer and cursed under his breath. “I promise I’m going to do my best to watch out for all of you,” he said firmly. “But, please, you need to be careful.”
Had he heard about the knife in her desk? she wondered. She’d done her best to keep that quiet, but it was possible word of the vandalism had spread. “Let’s talk in my office,” she said, reaching for her briefcase. “You appear to have more on your mind.”
The bell chimed again. Luc’s cheek pulsed as if he were clenching his teeth. “I would like very much to talk with you, Charlotte, but it will have to wait. I have too much to do first. I’m sorry.”
Concerned, she watched him return to his post to deal with the customer. The stocky man started speaking as soon as Luc reached him. They were too far away for her to discern the conversation, but from the expression on Luc’s face, it couldn’t be good. She tucked her briefcase under her arm and started across the lobby, intending to lend her assistance before they lost another guest.
The next thing she knew, she collided with a very solid, very male body. Her briefcase went flying as she brought her hands up to steady herself.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Even before she heard the voice she recognized who this was. The contact muddled her thoughts, just as it had the last time. And despite where they were and what was happening, the same mindless reaction raced through her body. Her pulse leaped, her breathing sped up and her senses filled with the tantalizing scent of warm male skin. “Jackson,” she murmured. “Please excuse me. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
He clasped her elbow. “I don’t mind. Are you on your way in or out?”
She struggled to think. “Neither. I was going to help…” She glanced past his shoulder. Luc and the guest he’d been talking to were nowhere in sight. Whatever the problem had been, it appeared Luc was handling it.
She shifted her focus to Jackson’s chest. He was wearing his beat-up denim jacket again, and somehow her hands had slipped through the open front and splayed on his shirt. A pleasant warmth tingled through her palms as she felt his chest rise and fall with his breathing. The top few buttons of his shirt were unfastened, baring the base of his throat. Along with the scent of his skin she caught the clean tang of the hotel’s soap.
“Charlotte?”
She dropped her hands quickly, realizing he was still waiting for her reply. “Well, it looks as if I’m on my way out.”
He bent over to retrieve her briefcase. “Are you through for the day?”
“If I can manage to get out the door without mowing down anyone else.”
“I thought you lived here. Doesn’t your family still have that apartment over the bar?”
“It got downsized in the last renovation, so my mother lives there on her own now. I have a place in Faubourg Marigny,” she said, holding out her hand for her briefcase.
Instead of giving it to her, he used it to gesture toward the front entrance. “I’m on my way out, too. I’ll walk you to your car.”
She hesitated. “Thanks for your offer, but it isn’t necessary, Jackson.”
“I’m not planning to argue about the security issue with you again, if that’s what you’re worried about. Mac told me he and Tyrell stepped up surveillance of the hotel.”
“Oh?”
“I just want to talk to you, that’s all. We got off on the wrong foot yesterday and I’d like to remedy that, so if you’re not busy…” He paused. “Or do you have a date?”
The absurdity of the question almost made her laugh. She? Have a date? She hadn’t made the time to go out with anyone in longer than she cared to remember.
Could that be the reason she was having such a strong physical reaction to Jackson? Extended celibacy, along with stress and fatigue? That didn’t make sense—celibacy had never bothered her before. She shook her head and finally met his gaze.
It jarred her to see the blue eyes of the teenager she’d known so well looking at her from the face of a man. His hair was endearingly tousled as usual, one lock stubbornly dipping across his forehead as if he’d combed it with his fingers. A hint of beard stubble darkened his jaw, making the lines beside his mouth and the hollows beneath his cheekbones appear even more masculine. How did he manage to look boyish and rugged at the same time?
Only a few minutes ago she’d been eager for a bath and her bed, but the thought of being alone no longer appealed to her. “Actually I’ve been hoping to get a chance to talk to you, too,” she said, moving toward the door. “The way we left things yesterday was…”
“Damn awkward,” he finished for her.
She couldn’t disagree with that, she thought, stepping outside.
After the sedate graciousness of the hotel’s interior, entering the street was a shock to the senses. The night was alive with movement and laughter. A woman in a spangled dress hawked Mardi Gras masks that had been stacked on a stick. Horse hooves clacked against the pavement as a calèche full of tourists rattled past a long black limousine. Buskers performed to clusters of onlookers, and a cacophony of music from at least four different sources echoed off the old buildings. Enveloping it all, the scents of fried shrimp and spilled beer drifted on the breeze, along with the underlying tang of the river.
Jackson inhaled slowly, his eyes half closing. “This is just how I remember it.”
She knew immediately what he was talking about. “I know what you mean. There’s nothing quite like the atmosphere of Mardi Gras.”
“Yeah, I’m glad I get the chance to soak it in while I’m here. You’re lucky,
you see it every year.”
“As strange as it sounds, I don’t normally get the time to enjoy it. It’s mainly business for me.”
“It used to be the busiest time for the hotel when your parents ran things, too,” he said.
“I hadn’t realized how hard they worked back then. What I remember most were the colors. And all the movement. It seemed as if everything was in perpetual motion.”
“And the music.” He tilted his head as if to follow one melody in the mix. “The city was always full of music, but this time of year it explodes with it.”
Of course he’d remember that, she thought. Musical talent ran in his family; Jackson had inherited his love of music from his scandalous grandmother. He’d also inherited her long, supple fingers. And like his grandmother, he had chosen a career that had taken full advantage of those marvelous hands…
He was carrying her briefcase in his left hand, Charlotte realized. She looked at his right. He held it loosely by his side. The dark line on the back was barely noticeable in this light, yet now that she knew what to look for, she could see that there was something odd about the slack angle of his thumb.
“Go ahead and ask if you want,” he said.
She glanced up to find him watching her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.”
“It’s okay, Charlotte. I’m not used to my limitations yet either, so I don’t expect you to be.” He pressed closer to her side as a group of people brushed past them. “We never tiptoed around each other before. I can’t see any reason to start now.”
He was right. They’d always been honest—they hadn’t known any better. “Is it all right to move your hand around like that?” she asked. “Shouldn’t you be wearing a sling or some kind of support?”
“Not at this stage. It will have to be completely immobilized after surgery, though.”
“Does it…hurt?”
“The upside of nerve damage is that I don’t feel much.”
“I would like to say I’m glad for that, but I’m not glad about any of it, Jackson. It’s just not fair.”
“I gave up expecting fair a long time ago. One of the first things I learned with my NGO work is that fate doesn’t play favorites.”
There seemed nothing more to add to that, so they started walking toward the lot where Charlotte had parked. “Have you seen your friend at Tulane yet?” she asked.
He nodded. “He’s going to do some more tests the day after tomorrow to gauge how much healing has taken place on its own.”
“Could it heal on its own?”
“Not anymore.” He sidestepped a pair of giggling young women who were weighed down with ropes of beads over their breasts. “That’s why I waited as long as I did to get treatment,” he said. “With an injury like this, it’s best to give the nerves a chance to regenerate. Everything that could already did.”
“Surgery could repair it, right?”
“I have to believe that, Charlotte.”
Although he spoke softly, his voice was threaded with steel. It was a stark contrast to the merriment that whirled around them.
“But Yves is too smart to make promises,” Jackson continued. “His initial diagnosis is that I mucked myself up good. He’s considering prescribing a gris-gris.”
“He sounds like a character.”
“He is that, but he’s also a brilliant doctor. His research into nanotechnology and laparoscopic neurosurgery is cutting-edge stuff.” He glanced at her sideways. “No pun intended.”
She knew he’d meant to make her smile, but she couldn’t, not about this. “I hope everything works out for you, Jackson. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know. Same goes for me. I hope you work through your troubles, too.”
They drew near the nightclub at the end of the block. The wail of a saxophone spilled through the open doorway, adding yet another layer to the melody of the street. Charlotte waited until they had passed and the noise had faded before she spoke again. “I want to apologize for my behavior yesterday,” she said. “It was inexcusable for me to be so touchy about the hotel.”
“I’m glad you were. Otherwise you might still be trying to treat me like a stranger.”
Put like that, she couldn’t regret what she’d said, either. It felt good to be able to talk to Jackson like this again. “Well, I am sorry,” she persisted. “You were only trying to be my friend.”
“Stop apologizing. I do tend to stick my nose in where it’s not wanted,” he said wryly. “And speaking of that, I’m guessing that your family doesn’t know how bad things are with the hotel finances. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been bottling things up that way.”
“You guessed right. They know our finances are precarious, but they don’t know how close we are to losing the hotel. I’ve been shielding them from the full extent of the problems.”
“Because of Anne’s heart condition?”
“That’s the main reason, yes.”
“And because the hotel means more to you than it does to the others.”
She closed her hand into a fist and gave his chest a light thump. “I can’t believe you still know me so well. It’s been two decades.”
He paused under the streetlight on the corner and tipped up her chin with his knuckle. His gaze moved slowly over her face. “I know who you used to be, but I’m not sure about this person you are now.”
“Have I changed that much?”
“Some. When did you start straightening your hair?”
“My hair? I’m surprised you noticed.”
Still using his knuckle, he brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. “I remember winding your curls around my fingers.” One side of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “I also remember getting your hair tangled in my watchband one night when you were trying to sneak past your papa.”
She gave a startled laugh and touched his arm. “Oh, I remember that. I was so late I thought I’d be grounded for life if I got caught. You wanted to break your watch apart so I wouldn’t cut my hair.”
“Your hair was so beautiful, I couldn’t let you lop it off.”
“And I couldn’t let you break that watch. You won it at the science fair.”
“So you ended up tucking my watch into your curls and wearing it to bed.”
“It worked. I didn’t get grounded, but I had a heck of a time combing that watch out in the morning. Thank goodness Renee helped.”
He smoothed his palm along her hair. “So when did you get rid of the curls?”
“Oh, ages ago. I think it was before my divorce.”
His smile dimmed.
What was it about Jackson that made her speak without thinking? Charlotte looked at her hand where it still rested against his arm. And why did she always seem to end up touching him?
A group of people staggered past them from the direction of the nightclub, their voices raised in slurred conversation. Someone stumbled into her shoulder, giving her a good excuse to start moving again.
Jackson remained silent until they had rounded the corner and were within sight of the parking lot. “I should probably tell you I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you and Adrian,” he said.
“It’s all right,” she began.
“But I won’t say that because I’ve never lied to you, Charlotte. I didn’t like Adrian.”
“You hardly knew him.”
“I didn’t move in the same circles as he did, but I recognized his type.”
It had taken Charlotte five excruciating years to recognize what type Adrian Grant really was and another three before she’d finally divorced him. Her stubbornness hadn’t been due to loyalty to the man she’d married, it had been from an unwillingness to let go of her dreams and face reality.
Still, she’d never spoken about Adrian to anyone. It was too humiliating. “At the risk of making things awkward again,” she said, “I’d rather not discuss my marriage or my ex-husband with you.”
“No problem. It’s not a topic I would enjoy either. But whi
le we’re on the subject of the past, there’s something I want to clear up.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t hate the hotel.”
“Jackson…”
“After all the time we spent together when your family lived there, it was like a second home to me.” He slowed his steps. “That’s why I didn’t consider staying anywhere else when I came back to New Orleans.”
“Yes, I suppose we both grew up there.”
“I have a lot of good memories in those walls, in spite of how it all ended.”
Each time she tried to throw some distance between them, he somehow made it dissolve. Yes, she wanted to answer. We have more good memories than bad. I was your Charlie and you were my best friend…and my first love.
Charlotte realized with a start that they had reached the entrance to the lot. She could see Desmond, the attendant, dozing on his stool in the kiosk, his head resting against one of the glass walls. The sounds of the Quarter’s ongoing party were fainter here, lending an air of hushed intimacy to the darkness.
How many evenings had she and Jackson spent strolling along these darkened streets like this, prolonging their time together? They’d always been loath to say goodbye.
But that was half a lifetime ago, she reminded herself.
“Which one’s yours?”
“Mmm? Oh, the beige sedan near the light pole.”
He put his palm on the small of her back as they walked through the lot. “As I recall, you used to dream of owning a Corvette like your papa’s.”
“The sedan’s more sensible. It gets excellent gas mileage, too,” she added, although she didn’t know why she felt it necessary to defend her choice of vehicle.
There were plenty of things she had dreamed about as a teenager that she knew better than to want now.
So it was only a sentimental longing that made her want to step into Jackson’s arms and linger over their goodbye. Merely an echo of the past that made her want to feel his fingers in her hair again. Just a side effect of the memories. Nostalgia. Stress. Habit.
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