Cole Dempsey’s Back in Town

by Suzanne McMinn

  Suddenly he pulled away from her, and their gazes crashed, dark and wrenching, for what seemed like an eternity. Then she blinked and drew back from him. He could see her retreating, the walls coming back up. Solid and impenetrable.

  She wanted him, and he wanted her. And they weren’t going to do a damn thing about it. It would hurt too much. There was no going back. They’d gone down this road before and it had ended painfully. They’d been too young, too wounded, too…everything. It was too late to pretend they could start over.

  And neither of them had to say it.

  “Please just go,” she whispered.

  And he did.

  Insane.

  That’s what she had to be. She’d freaking lost her mind. She’d let Cole kiss her.

  Who was she kidding? She’d kissed him back.

  Bryn swept angrily at the scattered glass on the floor of the entry hall, pushing the shards into the dustpan. The pieces glittered in the dawn light streaming through Bellefleur’s front windows. She was furious with Cole, but more so with herself. He could invade her house but he couldn’t invade her, not unless she let him.

  And she’d let him.

  No more. Lips grimly set, she carried the bin of shards down the corridor to the kitchen. This morning, the cuts in her foot were but a distant ache. Worse was the sting of regret.

  The memory of Cole’s burning kiss.

  The weakness of that moment in the moon-shrouded bedroom frightened her. How little it had taken to sweep away her resolve. It was as if this one man had the power to switch off her internal controls. And all it took was one fragile beat in the dark for the clock to swing back fifteen years and put her at his mercy.

  From now on, she had to keep her head on straight, her heart solidly shielded. The last time they’d been together had ended with disaster, and they could end up right back where they’d started if she wasn’t careful. He’d demanded then that she believe his father hadn’t killed Aimee, and he was demanding the same thing now. She’d felt as if she had to choose between her parents and Cole, and in her grief, she’d made the only choice she could. He’d threatened, in the most horrifically literal way, to dig up the past. She had a new life for herself and a business to protect and build. His needs had no place in her life.

  But what if Cole was right? What if Aimee’s killer was still out there?

  It was too terrible to contemplate, but she couldn’t get it out of her mind. And the real question was what was she going to do about it? He wanted her to help him by revisiting the past, and the mere thought of doing anything of the sort made her feel sick.

  And yet somewhere deep inside she feared she’d have no choice—and not because of Cole’s threats. How could she live with the knowledge that Aimee’s killer could be walking free in Azalea Bend?

  She dumped the glass shards in the trash then put away the broom and dustpan. The aroma of baking sweet potato muffins filled the kitchen. Coffee was ready. She should pour a cup, place a muffin and juice on a tray and take it up to Cole’s room. It was part of the package at the Bellefleur Bed and Breakfast.

  The oven timer dinged. She set the hot sweets on a rack to cool and went to the downstairs office.

  It wasn’t quite 8:00 a.m. Drake would still be in his apartment overlooking the exotic art deco capitol building. She picked up the phone and dialed his number.

  “I’m sorry to call so early,” she said when he picked up. “I know you must be getting ready for work.”

  “Is something wrong?” Drake asked immediately.

  “No.” Bryn took a difficult breath, let it out. “Yes. It’s just that Cole told me something last night. I don’t know what to think about it. I guess I want to know what you think.” She felt swamped by a sudden reluctance. Cole’s mission in Azalea Bend was already tearing her apart. She hated to hurt Drake, too. But Drake had as much at stake in this mystery as she did. The murders and Maurice Louvel’s trial entangled all their families. “I want you to tell me it’s crazy.” She realized as she said the words aloud that it was exactly what she craved to hear. She trusted Drake, and she desperately needed perspective. Drake’s father had been dead for several years, but his name was still revered in St. Salome Parish. And Drake’s ambitions for the governor’s house rested, in part, on his family’s reputation.

  “What is it, Bryn?”

  She swallowed the lump of regret in her throat. “He’s here to clear his father’s name. He’s determined to prove Wade Dempsey didn’t kill Aimee. According to Cole,” Bryn went on, “the original forensic report from Randol Ormond would have cleared his father, but it was suppressed. And the document was altered.”

  She didn’t have to point out that the person who would have suppressed it was Hugh Cavanaugh.

  “My father wouldn’t have done that.” Drake’s voice was curt, but she knew the anger wasn’t directed at her. It was meant for Cole. “If he’s come back to throw around the same wild charges he made fifteen years ago—”

  “Maybe it’s not so wild now,” Bryn interjected. “He’s seen Randol Ormond. Cole says he gave him the original report.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I have a committee meeting this morning, but I’ll be at Bellefleur this afternoon.”

  “Thanks. Wait.” The note on her desk calendar caught her eye. With everything that had been going on, she’d almost forgotten. “I have the St. Salome Garden Club booked for a tea at four. Can you make it before then?” Hiring out the mansion to community groups was one of her latest ideas to generate income.

  “I’ll be there by one. And Bryn?”

  She waited.

  “If Cole Dempsey does anything to hurt you, I swear I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”

  Bryn’s stomach hurt when she hung up the phone. She’d never heard Drake talk that way before. The brick, Drake, the kiss in the night— She hadn’t even told Drake about the brick incident. There was no point in upsetting him more.

  Cole Dempsey had been back in town one night and the whole world had already tilted off its axis.

  She got up from the desk just as a knock came on her partially open office door. Emile Brouchard looked in, his short, stiff white hair crowning his square-jawed, sun-beaten face. He wore, as usual, a neat pair of workman’s overalls with tools poking out of every pocket. He was sixty-five years old, but still vigorous even in semi-retirement.

  “Hey, Mr. Brouchard.” She attempted to infuse cheeriness into her voice. The last thing she wanted to do was let anyone, even Emile Brouchard, know anything was wrong. He’d managed the Bellefleur grounds for as long as she could remember, until the money had run out and the gardens had fallen into disarray, and even then, he hadn’t quit completely. When it had become clear that Patsy Louvel would never come back to the main house, he’d planted her treasured camellias all around the cottage, watering and tending and pruning without ever expecting a dime in pay.

  His younger sister Mathilde had been her mother’s maid in the old days, and Bryn had scraped together enough cash to hire them both back part-time. Emile worked a couple days a week keeping the wilds at bay in the gardens, at least to some degree. Mathilde came in weekly to help with some of the cleaning.

  “I knocked on the door, but you must not have heard me,” he said. “I saw the broken window. I was worried about you, so I came on in—”

  “I left it unlocked for you. We had…an incident last night.”

  Mr. Brouchard gave her a worried look from beneath his bushy brows. It reminded her of the way he’d looked at her once when he’d found her hiding in the gardens after she’d broken one of the fragile china angels her mother so cherished. Mr. Brouchard couldn’t keep her out of trouble, but he could give her a piece of the candy he always had in his pocket and make her feel better for a few minutes.

  Candy wasn’t going to help now.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Bryn sighed. “Just a little vandalism. I think. I
hope.” She really didn’t want to delve into the details. “I’ve got muffins in the kitchen,” she offered brightly.

  “I hear you have a guest,” he said narrowly.

  “Melodie told me she ran into you last night at the Kwik Pak.”

  “Cole Dempsey. The boy must be all grown up now.”

  Oh yeah. Cole was all grown up.

  “That little incident last night didn’t have anything to do with Cole Dempsey coming back to town and staying at Bellefleur, did it?”

  There was no point hiding the truth from Mr. Brouchard, she realized with a sigh. He knew too much about her family and Cole’s. She could spin the story to visitors who might come to tour the mansion today and see the broken window—it was open weekdays from nine to four, and the tours actually brought in a goodly amount of cash, albeit erratic. But spinning to Mr. Brouchard was a waste of time.

  “Someone threw a brick through the window. With a note. Not a nice note, either.”

  “It’s not my place to say it, Miss Louvel, but I’m going to say it anyway. That boy staying at Bellefleur is trouble. St. Salome Parish doesn’t forget anything. Or easily forgive.”

  She thought about the note that had been attached to the brick. It wasn’t fair that people blamed Cole for what his father had done, but she couldn’t blame him, too. It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t responsible for his father’s crime.

  And she couldn’t stop the doubts he’d planted from creeping into her thoughts.

  “He’s here to clear his father’s name,” she said softly. “It’s not going to get better.”

  Somehow she wanted Mr. Brouchard to tell her she was wrong. He didn’t.

  “I can be staying here on the premises for a few nights, if you’d like,” Mr. Brouchard offered. “Just in case there’s any more trouble.”

  She shook her head. He was energetic as ever, but he was still sixty-five years old. Somehow, she couldn’t quite see Mr. Brouchard being any protection from the town’s bitterness toward Cole. “That’s sweet,” she said, not wanting to hurt his feelings. “But I’ll be all right. There aren’t many murders in Azalea Bend. I know kids here tell scary stories about the girl who was attacked by a crazy killer one summer night. They say Wade Dempsey’s ghost is in the woods and all kinds of stupid stuff. It’s our own little not-so-urban legend. No doubt news of Cole’s return has reached everyone in town by now. It was probably some bored kid’s sick idea of a prank, that’s all.”

  Mr. Brouchard watched her with concern. He wasn’t buying that theory. And she wasn’t surprised he wasn’t happy with Cole staying at Bellefleur. Emile Brouchard had observed firsthand the destruction of her family over the past fifteen years.

  Tension tightened her shoulders as she returned to the kitchen. Like it or not, she had to take the tray up to Cole and face him and whatever came next.

  Chapter 6

  Her feet felt as if they weighed fifty pounds each as she trudged up the steps with the laden tray. She decided just to knock and set the tray on the floor in front of his door, coward that she was. He’d been right that the conversation they’d begun last night wasn’t over, but she wasn’t in any hurry to finish it. She needed to think. She was still reeling from Cole’s charges, the new information about the forensic report. And his kiss.

  Particularly, her reaction to it.

  Her reaction to him.

  The door opened just as she lifted her fist to knock.

  “Morning.” He looked deliciously, adorably rumpled, dressed in faded, worn jeans and nothing else. She had to force her eyes off his bare chest and tamp down the spear of rebellious desire that reminded her that her reaction to him last night hadn’t been an anomaly.

  “I brought you some coffee, juice and a muffin.” He took the tray. Their fingers brushed and his serious eyes caught hers. That was all she needed—more physical contact with Cole. “I’ll fix a full breakfast downstairs, if you like. Plantation-style.”

  “This will be fine. I’m going out early.” He watched her, and she could see the concern in his eyes and something else—regret? It was just the faintest flicker, then he turned away to set the tray down. His broad bare back was tanned, as if he spent a lot of time outdoors, which surprised her since he was clearly a successful attorney. But he wasn’t spending all his time behind a desk, that was for sure.

  He came back to where she stood in the doorway.

  “I’ll get that window fixed for you,” he said.

  She blinked, realizing she’d been just standing there, staring at him. Then what he’d said registered.

  “You don’t have to do that. I’ll call someone—”

  “It wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t here, Bryn.”

  She couldn’t argue with that point, but she didn’t like accepting favors from Cole.

  “We still need to talk,” he added quietly.

  “We’ll talk when Drake gets here.”

  His gaze sclerosed. “Drake Cavanaugh?”

  She nodded. “He’s going to drive in this afternoon from Baton Rouge. He wants to see the forensic report. So do I. We’ve all got a stake in this, Cole. We’ll talk then. Together.”

  Whether she liked it or not, they did have to talk. For Aimee’s sake. But she needed the buffer of Drake’s presence. And the perspective of someone she trusted. She couldn’t trust Cole. She couldn’t trust herself with Cole.

  “Good,” was all Cole said in response.

  She had no idea what he was thinking. Then, surprisingly, he told her.

  “About last night,” he began.

  And, oh God, she was pathetic, because her stupid heart wanted to hear what he had to say. What had happened to the pep talk she’d given herself just that morning about keeping emotionally detached? All Cole had to do was open the door and his inky, brooding magnetism reached out and sucked her in. All the rational reasoning in the world couldn’t stop her heart from pounding, her palms from sweating.

  His gaze seared her, then he said, “It was inappropriate, and I take full responsibility for it. I’m a guest in your home.”

  Inappropriate? She didn’t know how to respond to that. Here she was, her body heating just from looking at him, and he had the composed restraint to refer to kissing her as if it were a mere social faux pas.

  She should be glad, dammit, that he recognized that kiss as a mistake. It would make the next two weeks a hell of a lot easier if he didn’t kiss her again.

  “I hadn’t given it another thought,” she managed blithely. “Don’t concern yourself.”

  He wasn’t the only one who could play it cool.

  Not that her knees weren’t shaking all the way down the stairs.

  The land rolled out flat and murky on either side of the two-lane highway into Azalea Bend. Crawfish ponds, rice farms and sugarcane ruled here, and the huge Louvel sugar mill still loomed on the horizon just outside town, even though Cole knew the plant had been closed for years, the sugar production moved to another mill fifty miles away.

  The Louvels were no longer the biggest employer in St. Salome Parish.

  Azalea Bend wasn’t suffering from the Louvels’ loss, though. Rather, it had been reborn with an annual Zydeco Festival, slated to begin that evening and run through the weekend. More signs along the side of the road promoted historic tours of Courthouse Square. Driving in to the heart of the old town, Cole couldn’t help but be impressed by the restoration of numerous commercial establishments and public buildings. The town square had been spruced up with delicate creamy shades of paint and carefully manicured gardens. Many of the buildings displayed signs boasting Ici On Parle Francais—French Spoken Here.

  But the very fact that Azalea Bend had learned to preserve and feed off its history only reinforced the knowledge that it didn’t forget or forgive the past. Cole inched his black Cobra to a stop in front of the J. C. Barrow housewares and hardware store that covered nearly a block downtown. A sense of surrealism overtook him as he walked into the hundred-year-old store. H
e’d been in the building a thousand times, if he’d been in it once. J. C. Barrow stocked everything from big-mouth cookie jars and cast-iron skillets to galvanized steel and lumber.

  He recognized the short-statured old man in the painter’s overalls and battered cap near the front even before he turned.

  “Good morning, Mr. Wegand.” Cole stuck his hand out.

  The weathered face of the hardware-store owner creased in confusion as he pivoted and took in Cole’s face. His hair had grown whiter over the years, but it still stuck out from his head in the same untamed tufts that, combined with his squinty black eyes, made him look like a cunning elf. He spit a load of tobacco juice in a cup before he set it down on the counter and took Cole’s hand in a firm shake.

  “Do I know you, young man?”

  “Cole Dempsey. Wade’s son. Used to come in here with my father all the time fifteen years ago. Before the murder.” No sense pussyfooting around. He was there to rock the boat.

  George Wegand’s eyes narrowed and he ended the handshake abruptly. “Well, you don’t say. You’re Wade’s boy.” He studied Cole for a long beat. The sound of men talking in the back of the store filtered toward the front. A clerk at the register watched curiously even as he took an order for electrical supplies over the phone. “Passing through Azalea Bend?”

  “Not exactly passing through,” Cole replied smoothly. “I’m staying at Bellefleur.” That raised a bushy white brow from Mr. Wegand. “I’m a criminal defense attorney in Baton Rouge.” He whipped out his business card and held it out. Mr. Wegand didn’t take it. “I’m investigating the murder of Aimee Louvel. I intend to clear my father’s name. I’ve got a lot of questions, and I’m looking for people with answers.” He laid his card on the counter. Mr. Wegand was getting it whether he wanted it or not.

  Mr. Wegand picked up the cup again, kept his dark gaze trained on Cole long and hard, then spat before he spoke. “I’m going to give you a piece of advice because I liked you once and nothing that happened back then was your fault. Folks in this town aren’t going to like it if you go around asking questions. Go back to Baton Rouge and forget about Aimee Louvel.”