Angel at Risk

by Leann Harris

  The inside of the house was as well taken care of as the outside. The simple furnishings looked as if they were from another era. Suddenly, Angie realized that these pieces were a history of Jean-Paul’s family. The hand-carved rocker in the corner could easily be a hundred years old, but the bright cushion on it had been made by hand in the last few years.

  An overhead fan moved the air in the room and Angie noticed all the windows and doors were open. The little house had no air-conditioning.

  Jean-Paul walked to the cherrywood table and set the suitcase on the surface. She stumbled over the large rag rug in the center of the airy room. Suddenly, Angie felt drained and utterly weary. Her knees turned to jelly, and she collapsed into one of the dining room chairs.

  “Why don’t I get us something to drink before we explore the contents of the suitcase?”

  Angie peered up at Jean-Paul. Either he was the most observant man she’d ever come across or he was psychic. Either way it made her nervous that he seemed so in tune with her and her feelings.

  “That would be nice.”

  He disappeared. “What would you like?” he called from the kitchen. “I have Cajun coffee, but I don’t think that would appeal to you. I have some white wine or brandy.”

  “Water would be fine.”

  He didn’t reply but reappeared a few minutes later carrying two large glasses of iced tea. “If I can’t convince you to drink coffee or wine, at least I can give you some tea fixed Louisiana style.”

  She accepted the glass from his hand, grateful for his consideration. The cold, sweet liquid flowing down her throat felt heavenly, and for an instant she reveled in the pure pleasure of it.

  “Ah, Angel.”

  At the sound of Jean-Paul’s voice, her gaze flew to his. He studied her, his green eyes hot with a passion that she didn’t want to define.

  “There is inside of you a Cajun, waitin’ to come out and enjoy,” he whispered in a tone so intimate that Angie wanted to close her ears and rush from the room.

  His assertion hit home. All her life she had seemed somehow out of step with the people around her. She loved her hometown, loved the crisp, vibrant colors of autumn, the quaintness and history of Easton. But here, in this hot, humid place, a part of her soul had sprung to life. The rhythm of life here sang to her, and little things that she wouldn’t have ever considered doing in Vermont, such as chugging down the iced tea and then wallowing in the cool feel of it, she found herself doing automatically here. And it scared her.

  “Do you want to open the suitcase so I can see what you found?” she asked.

  He shook his head, obviously disappointed that she refused to respond to his observation. He opened the case and motioned for her to begin sifting through the items.

  At least two dozen letters and a photo album were inside. She picked up several of the envelopes and studied the writing on the outside. Instantly, Angie recognized her mother’s handwriting. With trembling hands, she pulled out the sheets of paper and began to read.

  Jean-Paul watched carefully as Angeline went through the letters. Her eyes grew moist and the turmoil in her heart was clearly reflected in her expression. He stood and walked to the window, knowing that if he sat there a moment longer, watching her unveiled reactions, he would pull her into his arms and try to erase her hurt.

  Damn, he didn’t need or want this protective emotion she brought out in him. A mere three hours earlier Angeline Fitzgerald had been a stranger who wandered into Mirabeau with the wildest story he’d heard in the past year. He knew nothing about her, except that her coming was going to cause trouble for him and for this town.

  And yet he wasn’t willing to throw her to the gators. The lady resurrected things in him he’d thought long dead.

  He ran his fingers through his hair.

  You are a fool, Jean-Paul, he told himself.

  Glancing over his shoulder, he saw her wipe away a tear. Oh, yes, he was a fool. But that wasn’t going to stop him from helping her.

  She was connected with Roger, but how? He glanced at the suitcase. Maybe the answer was there.

  He moved back to the table, retrieved the photo album and opened it. The pictures on the first page were of a baby, held in the arms of the woman Angeline had identified earlier as her mother.

  “Angeline.”

  She looked up at him. Her eyes were bright with tears.

  He held out the album to her. “I think we should look through this together.”

  She glanced at the photos and her brow furrowed. “Those are pictures of me as a baby.”

  “Oui,” he gently replied.

  She took the book. As they went through the snapshots, Angeline explained each one. There were numerous pictures of Marianna with the Fitzgeralds. On the last page was a duplicate of the picture Angeline carried in her wallet of herself, her mother and Marianna.

  Angeline closed her eyes, and her fingers absently moved over the back inside cover of the album. “Jean-Paul, it feels like there’s something hidden here.”

  He took the album from her and carefully examined the paper glued to the back cover. There was a slight crinkling at the top, as if it had been reglued to the cardboard. Retrieving his pocket knife, he loosened the edge and tugged it away from the backing.

  “Is there anything there?” she asked, craning her neck to see.

  “It appears some sort of paper has been stuffed in here.” He pulled it out of its hiding place. “I think there’s more than one sheet.”

  Unfolding the pages, they stared down at Angeline’s birth certificate. Marianna Courville was listed as her mother. The place of birth: Boston. In the space for the father’s name was typed Unknown.

  Jean-Paul shook his head. That had to be a lie. He was certain the woman he knew and called friend would know the name of the man who had fathered her child. For some reason, Marianna had chosen not to list it.

  He looked at Angeline. She was ghostly white. “Show me the other page, Jean-Paul,” she whispered.

  He took a deep breath and set the birth certificate aside to reveal a copy of Angeline’s adoption by Sarah and Thomas Fitzgerald.

  Angie stared at the damning document. “Adopted,” she murmured.

  Her voice sounded odd to his ears. “Angel.”

  “Yes.”

  The detached, faraway look in her eyes worried him. She was pulling into herself, wounded and bleeding from the emotional blows dealt to her, and he knew that if she was ever to heal, she had to give voice to her pain.

  He placed the paper on the table, knelt beside her chair and grasped her hands. “Talk to me, Angel.”

  Angie tried to yank her hands out of Jean-Paul’s, but he refused to let her go. “What do you want me to say? Do you want me to talk about all the times I asked Marianna about her childhood and how she would always turn the conversation away from herself? Or maybe you want me to tell you about the countless times I wanted to visit Marianna and how my mother always had a logical excuse why I couldn’t go.”

  Her hands tightened on his until her knuckles were white with the tension.

  “Or which of the other countless lies would you like me to tell you?”

  She bent over their clasped hands, fighting the shattering pain. Her body began to tremble. “Oh, Mama, why?”

  Jean-Paul could no longer stand idly by and watch her go through hell. He rose and pulled her into his arms. And held her.

  She clutched his shirt in her fists and tugged. He could physically feel her battling the wrenching tears.

  “Let go, mon coeur,” he whispered in her ear. “Don’t fight what is good.”

  With a final tremor, she surrendered to her grief.

  He cupped the back of her head and drew it down to his shoulder. His sweet, little northern wren had endured too much. Her whole world had been blown apart. Nothing she knew as truth in her life when she came to town this morning remained.

  The devastation she felt he could easily identify with. He remembered the day
he’d been arrested at his office for drug possession and corruption, with his colleagues witnessing his humiliation. His world had come crashing down on him much as Angeline’s had today. But what had been the bitterest part of the entire incident was that he’d been innocent. Someone had set him up and he’d taken the fall.

  His pain mingled with hers. His hand moved from her hair to wipe away the moisture from her cheek. Her eyes met his and Jean-Paul was lost to everything but bringing comfort to this woman.

  His lips softly brushed hers. Angeline moaned and her mouth followed his. Rejoicing at the invitation, he settled his mouth firmly on hers. The salty taste of her tears mingled with the sweetness of her lips. It was better than any wine he’d ever had, and more intoxicating. His tongue ran across the fullness of her lower lip, then traced the seam of her closed mouth.

  “Open for me, Angel. Let me in.”

  She gasped and he slipped his tongue into her mouth. With light strokes he tasted the inside of her cheeks, the roof of her mouth, tangled his tongue with hers.

  Shyly, she returned the caress. Her response raced through him like a flash fire.

  The muscles in his arms contracted and he pressed her closer to his body. All logical thought shut down and he felt as if he’d been hurled a thousand years back in time and stripped of all outward trappings of civilization. The raw emotion he experienced shook him to his core. He knew what lust felt like. This feeling surpassed that weak emotion.

  His instinct for self-preservation kicked in and he set Angeline away from him. She looked confused and vulnerable. It took a moment, but her disorientation disappeared, and her cheeks turned hot pink. Turning away from him, she walked to the window. With trembling fingers, she wiped away the remaining moisture from her face, then tried to smooth back the fallen strands of golden hair into her braid.

  “I hope you’ll forgive my behavior.” A small hiccup interrupted her. “I’m not known to give in to my emotions. I never cry. Twice in one day...” She lifted her shoulder.

  Damn, he hadn’t meant to embarrass her, only to offer comfort. Well, his good intentions had been incinerated in the flames that flared between them.

  “Think nothing of it. As you said, the circumstances were extenuating.”

  She stole a glance at him as if to assure herself that he wasn’t making fun of her. His expression must have reassured her, because she faced him again.

  She took a deep breath. “Those documents solve part of the mystery. I now know that Marianna was my mother. And that I was adopted by the Fitzgeralds.”

  He nodded. “What was in the letters?”

  A tender, little smile curved her lips. “I haven’t read them all. But the ones I did read were just one mother relating to another mother all the things her child had done. First word, first step, first day at school.”

  She moved to the table and touched the documents. “There are still too many questions left unanswered, Jean-Paul.”

  Questions, he knew, that were as explosive as the information they’d just uncovered. “And which questions are those?”

  Angie laid the papers on the table. “My birth certificate doesn’t name my father. Why do you suppose that is?”

  He had his own theory, but at this point he didn’t want to share it with her. Instead, he said the first thing that came into his head. “Perhaps Marianna didn’t know the father’s name.”

  “Rape?” she gasped. “Are you suggesting that I’m a product of rape?”

  That possibility had never occurred to him. “Non, that thought never crossed my mind.”

  “Then are you suggesting that Marianna had a one-night stand and didn’t bother to ask the man’s name?” She didn’t give him the opportunity to answer. “No. The woman I knew never would’ve done something like that.” Tapping her mouth with her finger, she continued, “Maybe she had a reason for not naming the man. Maybe she didn’t want him to find out. What do you think?”

  What he thought was that this lady was one smart cookie. In spite of the trauma she had been through, she hadn’t given herself over to pity. Instead, she was fighting back, trying to discover the mystery surrounding her birth. “I think you’re right.”

  “But why would she do that?” She began to pace.

  It was only a matter of time before she came to the same conclusion that he had. Her father was a Boudreaux. She stopped in front of the wall mirror by the front door and looked at herself. Her eyes met his in the reflection.

  “Jacqueline,” she whispered. “I’m a dead ringer for her. That leads to only one conclusion. My father was a Boudreaux.” She whirled to face him. “That’s what you think, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “It’s the only logical conclusion, chère.”

  “But you said that Roger was—”

  He couldn’t stand the horror dawning in her eyes. He caught her shoulders in his hands. “Roger has a son who was close to Marianna’s age. He could be your father.”

  This time Angie refused to give in to the hysteria pounding in her head. There were questions that needed to be asked and she needed a clear head to voice them. She pulled out of Jean-Paul’s grasp and walked to the table. Picking up the adoption declaration, she studied the piece of paper that had upended her world.

  “You know, the arrangement Marianna had with my parents was unusual for the time. They had what in today’s terms would be called an open adoption—except I didn’t know I was adopted. So that means it was probably a private adoption.”

  He moved to her side and took the document from her hand. “I think your reasoning is sound. I don’t think any states were allowing open adoptions thirty years ago.”

  Being reminded of her age, she couldn’t help but wonder how old Jean-Paul was. The hair at his temples had turned gray, and there was a certain look of weariness in his eyes that spoke of suffering beyond his years.

  She must have been staring, because he smiled. “Are you wondering how old I am, hein? I’m thirty-six, but sometimes I feel like a hundred.”

  That he answered the question that had been floating in her head made Angie nervous. She didn’t want this man to be able to read her mind, because if he knew the effect he had on her, she’d be lost.

  Remember the last time you gave in to your feelings, a voice in her head taunted. You were played for a fool, and the entire town witnessed your stupidity. She, the admired and dignified English professor, had fallen head over heels in love with a con man who had swindled her out of thousands of dollars.

  Shoving away the painful memory, she tried to recall what she’d been talking about. “So, we both agree that my adoption—” The word seemed to catch in her throat. She coughed and went on. “The adoption was probably a private one.”

  He nodded.

  “So how did Marianna get together with Sarah? I mean, if you’d ever seen the two of them together, you’d know what good friends they were and how much they enjoyed each other’s company.”

  “A lawyer?”

  Angie sank down onto the couch. There was a memory at the edge of her mind, teasing her.

  “What is it, Angel?”

  “I remember something. It had to do with a basketball game. My parents were watching TV and Tulane was playing. Mother said she was glad that Marianna had talked her into going to that basketball game or else she wouldn’t have met my father.” Excitement hummed through her. She grabbed Jean-Paul’s arm. “What if they were college roommates?”

  “That’s a possibility. Marianna had a university degree. I remember seeing her diploma, but I can’t recall where it was from.” He picked up the phone on the end table and punched in a number. “M’dame Eleanor, this is Jean-Paul again. Angeline and I have come across another mystery you might be able to solve. Do you happen to remember where Marianna went to college?”

  Angie watched him carefully as he talked. He nodded. “Is that so? Do you recall if Marianna ever mentioned her roommate’s name?”

  Angie bit her lip, wishing she could hear th
e old woman’s answers. Finally, he bid her adieu. The instant Jean- Paul hung up Angie was on her feet, waiting for him to speak.

  “According to M’dame Eleanor, Marianna went to Tulane. And although she couldn’t recall the name of her roommate, she knew the girl came from the northeast—Vermont or New Hampshire.”

  “Yes. We’re on the right track.”

  Before he could reply, her stomach growled. Angie’s hand went to her middle, and she tried to smile her way out of the awkward moment.

  Jean-Paul leaned back against the cushion of the sofa and studied her. “When did you last eat?”

  “At home this morning.”

  “And what time was that?”

  “Five.”

  He shook his head and muttered something in French. He stood and caught her hand. “Come.” He didn’t release her but pulled her along behind him into the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?”

  He stopped and grasped both her arms. “You are always so full of questions. Are you sure you aren’t a lawyer?” The twinkle in his eyes eased the tension in her.

  “The reason I’m always so full of questions is that you always expect me to follow you blindly, without any explanation.”

  He raised one hand and traced the line of her jaw. “That’s trust, Angel, and so far you don’t trust me.” The mirth had left his expression.

  With the memory of her fiancé’s betrayal and her parents’ and Marianna’s lies fresh in her mind, she said, “At this moment, Jean-Paul, I find it hard to trust anyone.”

  His thumb moved over her chin to trace the line of her bottom lip. “Too much has happened, hasn’t it, Angel? Don’t fret. I have just the thing for you.”

  The picture that filled Angie’s head made her gasp.

  Jean-Paul chuckled, a knowing, masculine laugh. “Non, chère, that is not what I had in mind.” He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Gumbo.”

  She jerked back. “Gumbo?”