Bourbon Street Blues

by Maureen Child

  “Please.” Parker stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. And maybe he hadn’t. At least, not the real woman beneath the facade. “No doubt you did your homework and somehow found out I’m healthy. What you were planning was, to get pregnant. To trick me into fathering your child.”

  “What?”

  He smirked. “You should work on your delivery. You don’t really have ‘shocked outrage’ nailed yet.”

  “You bastard.”

  He flinched at the whispered oath, but buried his guilt under the layers of anger still cloaking his soul. “Ah, now the fury. A little late, but very effective.”

  “How can you even say that to me?”

  He didn’t want to look into her eyes. Didn’t want to see the hurt there. Didn’t want to feel badly about inflicting that pain. Because if he did, he might start forgetting about why he was so pissed. And God knew, he couldn’t afford to let down his guard again.

  “You’re a piece of work,” he said, determined to keep the righteous fires burning within. He checked his pants’ pockets, then slanted wild glances over the floor until he spotted the keys that had fallen free. Grabbing them, he straightened and gave her a slow, disgusted look. “But damn, you’re really good. You almost had me believing—”

  “Are you even aware of how insulting you are?” Her question came in a deliberately calm tone. But he could see her body nearly vibrating with tightly banked emotions.

  “I’m suddenly aware of a lot of things.”

  “I don’t think so,” Holly said, taking a step toward him. She had to yank the quilt up and out of her way again.

  She looked like a rumpled goddess about to toss lightning bolts at a sinner.

  “I don’t think so at all,” she accused him. “You know, birth control isn’t a hundred percent effective even at the best of times.”

  “Maybe,” he said tightly, “but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a condom explode.”

  Her full, tempting mouth flattened into a grim slash of disappointment. “And so you’ve cleverly deduced that I somehow engineered that. Wow. You found me out. You discovered my ‘evil plan.’” She rubbed her hands together and would have twirled a moustache if she’d had one. “I’ve been planning this for years. Ever since the last bastard I trusted turned me inside out, in fact. See, he left those condoms behind and I’ve been saving them for a night just like tonight.”

  He jerked his chin up. “This isn’t a joke.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s too important to be a joke. And now that you’ve found me out, I think I should get a little applause for how well my ‘plan’ turned out. I worked like a dog on those condoms, Parker. Every day I put each of them in the microwave for twenty seconds.” She held up a hand when he would have spoken. “Not too long, or they’d melt. Just long enough to mess with their molecular structure. To break down the latex content a little at a time so they’d shatter at just the right moment.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but she rushed on again before he could. “No, no. I’m just getting to the good part. I waited and planned and schemed. Not just any rich man would do, you know. It had to be you, because you’re just so bloody perfect.”

  He winced.

  “First I seduced you by going to your place of business every day just to stare at you—” She stopped. “Oh, wait. I didn’t do that. You did.”

  Parker frowned at that reminder and started to feel just a little uneasy at the way he’d been acting. “Holly…”

  But she wasn’t finished.

  “Then, when the time was just right, I made sure you chose the weakest of the condoms—couldn’t leave that to random chance now, could I? Then, all I had to do was force you to make love to me. To hold you at gunpoint and take advantage of your virtue. You fell right into my wicked clutches.”

  “Very entertaining.” He glared down at her and swallowed back what might have been a very tiny nugget of regret.

  “Makes as much sense as your version,” she snapped. “Why, it absolutely amazes me that you’re able to walk around upright while balancing a head that big on your shoulders.”

  He didn’t want to feel guilty. Didn’t want to rethink his position. It made his world a lot safer—a lot more comfortable if he just kept thinking that she’d tricked him. Then he wouldn’t have to risk caring. Now what he had to do was get out of here.

  “That’s it. I’m done. I’m leaving.”

  “Damn right you are.” She stalked past him, kicking the hem of the quilt out of her way as she stomped across the room to the hallway and the living room beyond. He was right behind her.

  “And trust me on this, Parker James, if tonight’s little episode does result in a pregnancy—God help me—I won’t ask anything of you.”

  “Right.”

  Holly spun around to face him again. She was shaking with the strength of the anger and disappointment and regret rushing through her. How had the night turned into such a mess?

  She’d felt, for a few glorious moments, that they’d connected on a deeper level than the physical. But clearly, that had been just her own little fantasy.

  “Whatever you think of me,” she said, steadying her voice deliberately, “I want you to know I resent everything you said to me tonight. And one of these days, when you wake up and remember what an ass you were—you’re going to wish there was a way to apologize to me.”

  She yanked the door open. “But just so you know…there isn’t.”

  He didn’t speak. For a few seconds, it looked as if he wanted to, but then he thought better of it and stormed out. Holly stood at the open door and listened to his hurried footsteps on the stairs and the slam of the door as he left.

  Only then did she close her own door, careful not to slam it herself. She turned the lock and leaned back against the solid wood. A well of grief opened up inside her and she closed her eyes against the sharp, sweet ache of it. How did she do it? she wondered. How did she manage to pick men who only wanted to stomp on her heart?

  And why did she keep allowing it to happen?

  One hand dropped to her flat belly and a shiver danced down her spine. Opening her eyes, she stared up at the ceiling and really thought about what had happened tonight.

  Pregnant?

  Surely not.

  Her luck couldn’t possibly be that bad.

  “HE LEFT HER apartment in the Garden District at—” the private detective checked his notes “—three forty-three in the morning and went directly to his own residence. He didn’t leave again until this morning when he reported to work at James Coffees.”

  Frannie leaned back in the Louis XIV chair and eyed the man sitting across from her in a splash of morning sunshine. An older man, Antoine Martin was a retired detective from the New Orleans P.D. He’d opened his own investigation firm four years ago and come highly recommended by both Justine and several other friends. He was discreet, thorough and fast.

  Of course, the information he was bringing her didn’t make Frannie feel like breaking out in song, but it was information she would need if she wanted to hang on to Parker.

  And she did.

  “Excellent,” Frannie said, smiling at the man who sat watching her through careful blue eyes. “Now, I want you to watch the redhead.”

  “Ms. Carlyle.”

  “Whatever.” She waved an impeccably manicured hand. “Keep an eye on her. See where she goes. Who she sees. What she does when she’s not singing. I want to know everything about her…past, present and future.”

  “Got it.” He stood, tucked his phone into his jacket pocket and headed for the front door. “I’ll have a report for you in a few days.”

  “Perfect,” she murmured as she lifted her Meissen tea cup and took a delicate sip.

  “YOU WOULD HAVE DONE better to stay clear of that man,” Shana said, watching Holly with a guarded eye.

  “Oh, you don’t have to tell me that,” Holly assured her, and picked up a still steaming hush puppy. Popping it into her mou
th, she chewed, sighed in bliss and shook her head. “Shana, you are the world’s best cook.”

  “So you say every time you want to change the subject.”

  “Guilty.” Holly dropped into her place at the Hayes’ kitchen table. “Don’t suppose you’ll let me get away with it just this once?”

  “Don’t suppose I will.” Shana set the plate of hush puppies in the center of the table and took a seat opposite Holly. “You think that I can’t tell just by looking at you something’s changed?”

  Holly looked down at the tabletop. To stall, she grabbed another hush puppy and nibbled at it. She hadn’t been lying. Shana’s hush puppies were phenomenal. “Sometimes you’re too intuitive, you know?”

  “A mother’s best weapon.” She folded her hands on the table and waited.

  Holly knew Shana’s patience. She’d been at the business end of it many times over the years. The woman could outwait anybody. And with just a knowing look from her, the most stoic person in the world would be spilling their guts sooner or later.

  The woman had missed her calling. She should have been a police detective. There wouldn’t be an unsolved crime in the county. That patience, those steady, knowing eyes, would coerce confessions out of the most hardened criminal.

  “You slept with him, didn’t you?”

  Holly winced. “Sleep wasn’t a big part of last night’s festivities, but yeah. I did.”

  “And now you’re thinking it was a mistake.”

  “God, yes.” She leaned back in her chair, popped the rest of the fried dough into her mouth and chewed.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time a woman’s made a mistake with a handsome man.”

  “True enough.”

  “However, he’s not Jeffrey, you know.”

  Although it shouldn’t have, her acuity startled Holly. “Sometimes you’re almost eerie.”

  Shana laughed, a low, throaty sound that rippled through the kitchen and settled over Holly like a warm blanket. This room held so many good memories. The warmth. The family. The laughter and, yes, even the tears spilled here—memories she desperately needed at the moment.

  And Shana was at the heart of it all.

  “It’s not magic, honey. A mother knows when something’s wrong with her child. That’s all.”

  In spite of everything, Holly felt a little better.

  “I know he’s not Jeff,” she said softly. “But, well, we had this huge fight after we— After we had sex, something happened and he started shouting and then I yelled back at him and finally, he just left.”

  “Uh-huh. So now, you’re thinking that he’s just another Jeffrey. That he set you up, used you and then tossed you aside?”

  “No.” Holly scowled thoughtfully. “I considered it last night, I’ll admit. But by this morning, I knew it wasn’t true.”

  “That’s good. Instincts are usually on target.”

  “My instincts suck,” Holly admitted. “I never saw Jeff for what he was.”

  “You had blinders on back then, girl. You wanted to be in love. Wanted that fairy-tale ending most children dream of.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, you weren’t looking for love at all. And yet, it seems you found it.”

  Holly visibly started. “Who said anything about love?”

  “I believe that was me.”

  “It sure as heck wasn’t me!” Holly jumped up from her chair as if she’d been scalded. Her insides jittered and twisted, and she slapped one hand to her belly to settle them down a little so she could think.

  Of course, that hand on her belly brought other thoughts to life, so settling down didn’t seem to be an option.

  Pacing helped. The heels of her boots clacked against the linoleum as she marched to the kitchen sink, did an about-face and marched right back again. Brain racing, heart pounding, she kept walking back and forth, over and over again. Through it all, Shana said nothing. She simply sat there, watching her, waiting for Holly to sort out her thoughts and find answers on her own.

  At last Holly stopped and leaned against the counter’s edge as if she simply didn’t have the strength to support her own body.

  “I don’t want to love him,” she said, her voice flat, emotionless.

  “I can understand that.”

  “Seriously, Shana. He’s rich, he’s irritating. He jumped down my throat last night over something that so wasn’t my fault. He wouldn’t listen. He said some really ugly things.”

  “And were you quiet and kind and standing there mutely like a target?”

  “No.” She smiled wryly. “I gave back as good as I got, but the things he was saying, Shana—it was irrational. He kept accusing me of trying to trap him—” Her lips twisted. “Like he’s some great catch that women all over New Orleans are lining up to get a shot at.”

  “Were you trying to trap him?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then why let words spoken in anger define how you’re feeling about the man?”

  “Because he was an idiot.” Her nails tapped indignantly against the countertop.

  “True. But if you’re looking for someone who never makes mistakes, you’re going to be mighty lonely.”

  “Maybe lonely is better.”

  Shana snorted. “You don’t believe that at all.”

  “Be easier if I did.”

  “Nobody said life was easy.”

  “I thought he was different,” Holly muttered, and folded both arms across her chest, holding her hurt close. She could still see Parker’s accusing eyes as he’d looked at her. She could still hear his voice and the ugly words he’d thrown at her.

  Everything about it hurt.

  More than she wanted to admit.

  “You thought he was different, but still, a part of you compared him to the man in your past.”

  “I guess.”

  “Maybe he was doing the same thing.”

  “Don’t think he has a man in his past,” Holly murmured.

  “Smart aleck.”

  Frowning, Holly met Shana’s dark, all-seeing eyes. “Why are you on his side?”

  “I’m not.” Shana stood, walked over to Holly and gave her a tight hug. “I’m on your side. Like always. I’m just saying that I think there’s more to what you’re feeling than simple anger. And a lot of it is because of what Jeffrey did to you. What he made you feel.”

  “That’s over and done with.”

  “I don’t think so.” Shana cupped Holly’s cheeks in her hands. “Oh, he’s gone and you don’t love him anymore. But he cut you deep. On a level no man had ever touched before. He made you doubt yourself. Made you treat everyone around you with the suspicion you never showed him.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And if you continue to judge all men by the measure of the one who hurt you—then he’s not over and done with. And you’re still letting him decide how you should feel.”

  Holly sighed and leaned into Shana’s comforting embrace. “I hate when you’re right.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  TUESDAY MORNING, Parker still felt like a man on the edge.

  He hadn’t drawn a single easy breath since Saturday night. Since he and Holly had ended their night with a battle. Just remembering everything that had been said made him wish he could change the way things had gone. Change the way things had ended.

  He buried himself in work, putting in a full day at James Coffees and overseeing the jazz café every night, and when he finally did manage to get some sleep, he saw Holly’s face in his dreams.

  Shuffling a stack of papers, he stared down at the printed lines and saw only black smudges against the white. How the hell could he concentrate on anything when he kept seeing Holly’s eyes flashing with anger, widening with shock and hurt?

  If he could do it, he’d kick his own ass.

  Parker dropped the papers, leaned back in his chair and gave up the pretense of working. Damn it, he’d reacted all wrong that night with Holly. He knew she hadn’t planned to have the
damn condom break. He knew, logically, that she wasn’t the vicious manipulator that Frannie had been. And yet, he couldn’t quite make his heart believe that completely.

  He owed Holly an apology, but he didn’t trust himself to go see her. Because he still wanted her. Besides, after all he’d said to her, there was no way she’d let him get within ten feet of her, anyway. And who could blame her?

  He jumped up from his chair and turned to stare out the window, focusing on the expanse of deep blue water that stretched out to the horizon. Banks of storm clouds hovered in the distance, as if gathering their forces for an assault on the city. Whitecaps smashed against the hulls of the ships heading into the harbor.

  A storm rose up inside him, as well. For ten years he’d been married to a woman who’d lied with an ease that came with long practice. He’d learned to be distrustful and it wasn’t an easy thing to change.

  Hell, he wasn’t sure it would be a smart move.

  Wasn’t he entitled to protect himself? To guard his heart?

  “Looks like you’ve got some dark thoughts today.”

  Parker turned around abruptly and forced a smile as his father entered his office. A short man with a generous belly and an easy smile, Kemper James strolled across the room, hands in pockets, shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Frannie, isn’t it?” His father shook his head gloomily, sank into one of the chairs opposite Parker’s desk and sighed. “It was a mistake, Parker. Insisting you marry that woman. I want you to know how much your mother and I now regret ever putting you through it.”

  Parker sat at his desk, tamping down the emotions raging within. “You didn’t know. And it’s as much my fault as anyone else’s. I could have said no.”

  “You wouldn’t have. I knew you’d do as I asked.” Scowling, he added, “In my own defense, though, I was sure that the marriage would turn out all right. For both of you. Worked well for your mother and me.”