A Time to Keep

by Rochelle Alers

  “Mama?”

  Moriah Harper turned at the sound of the familiar voice, her green eyes widening behind her mask. “Shiloh, darling,” she said, smiling.

  He cradled her to his chest and kissed her cheek. “You look beautiful.” Acknowledging her date for the evening, Shiloh extended his right hand. “Augustine.”

  The older man shook his hand, his lips twisting into a cynical smile. “Shiloh.”

  Augustine Leblanc, aware that Shiloh didn’t approve of his intentions toward his widowed mother, had decided incurring the younger man’s wrath was worth the risk to convince Moriah to attend the fund-raiser with him.

  Shiloh released Augustine’s hand, but did not drop his hostile glare. The son of a bitch is taunting me, he thought. His other arm tightened around Gwen’s waist, the warmth of her body burning his fingers through her dress. Within seconds Shiloh had dismissed Augustine in his mind.

  “Mama, I’d like for you to meet Miss Gwendolyn Taylor. Gwen, my mother, Moriah Harper.”

  Gwen moved away from Shiloh before she did something she would regret later. She wanted to kick him for putting her on the spot, because this was the first time she’d ever met a man’s mother on their first date.

  Recovering quickly, she offered her hand. “It’s nice meeting you, Mrs. Harper.”

  Moriah shook the hand of the petite woman with a lush, curvy body. She’d tried imagining what Gwendolyn Taylor would look like, and had failed miserably.

  “It’s my pleasure, Gwendolyn. And please call me Moriah.”

  Gwen liked Moriah immediately. She was friendly and unpretentious. “I’ll call you Moriah only if you call me Gwen.”

  Moriah’s rose-colored lips parted in a warm smile. “Then Gwen it is.” She looped an arm through Augustine’s. “This is my friend, Augustine Leblanc.”

  The older man nodded to Gwen. “Miss Taylor, you don’t sound as if you’re from down here.”

  The instant she opened her mouth everyone knew she was an outsider. “That’s because I’m not from down here.”

  Moriah fanned her moist face. “Where are you from, Gwen?”

  “Boston.”

  “Are you here on holiday?” Augustine asked.

  Gwen noticed Augustine had said holiday instead of vacation. Shiloh had mentioned the region’s isolation, so she assumed some European customs and vernacular still persisted more than two hundred and fifty years later.

  “No, I’m not. I’ve just moved here.”

  Moriah’s expressive eyebrows lifted as she stared at Shiloh. “Where are you living now?”

  “St. Martin Parish.”

  “Where in the parish?” Augustine asked.

  “Bon Temps.”

  The masks covering the faces of Moriah and Augustine wouldn’t permit Gwen to see their shocked expressions. Moriah recovered first. Her smile was dazzling. “Have you sampled any of our Cajun cuisine?” she asked, deftly changing the topic.

  “I’ve had a poor boy—I mean a po’boy at the Outlaw.” The three shared a smile.

  Moriah tapped her fan against her palm. “What about red beans and rice, peppers and grits or Creole shrimp and eggplant?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Moriah flicked open the fan with a quick snap of her wrist. “That settles it. You must come for dinner next Sunday. You will bring Gwen when you come, won’t you, Shiloh?”

  He glared at his mother. “Why don’t you wait for her to either accept or decline your invitation, Mama?”

  Moriah ignored her son’s reprimand, and smiled sweetly at Gwen. “Should I expect you, my dear?”

  Gwen struggled to hide her confusion. What did Moriah expect her to say? No, I can’t come? No, because her attempt at matchmaking is anything but subtle. No, because I don’t need to spend any more time with your son than necessary. And no, no, no because Shiloh Harper wasn’t a man she could date and relate to as a friend. Three pairs of eyes stared at her, the silence lengthening between them and making her uneasy.

  “Yes,” she said after a pregnant pause.

  Exhaling audibly, Moriah pressed her palms together. “Good. You will bring her, Shiloh, won’t you?”

  He rolled his eyes at Moriah. “Yes, Mother, I’ll bring Gwen with me,” he said through clenched teeth. “Please excuse us, but we must circulate.”

  Shiloh shouldered his way through the crowd filling up the ballroom. He reached for a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and handed it to Gwen before he took one for himself.

  She rested a hand on his sleeve. “You don’t have to take me to your mother’s.”

  He frowned at her. “Why not?”

  “I can go alone.”

  His frown vanished. “You think my mother coerced me into agreeing to bring you?”

  “Well, she did put you on the spot.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “She’s playing matchmaker, Shiloh.”

  “Moriah’s being Moriah.”

  “What’s that suppose to mean?”

  “You’ll find out after spending a couple of hours with her.” He touched his flute to Gwen’s and took a sip. The champagne was excellent.

  Gwen moved closer to Shiloh. “Why are you being so evasive?”

  A sensual smile softened his mouth. “Why are you so suspicious, darling? What you see is what you get.”

  “And I happen to like what I see, darling,” crooned a sultry feminine voice.

  Gwen turned to find a masked woman cradled in an embrace with a man who, although masked, reminded her of Shiloh. They shared the same hair texture, jawline and chin. He was an inch or two taller, his body larger, bulkier.

  “Your woman is shameless, little brother.”

  Ian Harper dropped a kiss on his wife’s braided head. “I wouldn’t have her any other way. Well, big brother, have you forgotten your manners? Aren’t you going to introduce us to your lady?”

  Shiloh glanced down at Gwen and found her staring up at him. “Gwen, this masked man is my younger brother Ian, who also happens to own the Outlaw. And the beautiful woman with him is my sister-in-law Natalee. Ian, Natalee, Gwendolyn Taylor.”

  Gwen shook hands with Ian, then Natalee Harper. When she’d asked Shiloh about a Mrs. Harper, he’d confirmed there were only two. Moriah was the first, and she’d just met the second one. Natalee, a statuesque beauty with flawless mahogany-brown skin, was stunning in a black-and-red silk cheongsam. Her neatly braided hair was secured in a chignon on the nape of her long, slender neck.

  “Your jewelry is exquisite, Gwen.”

  Gwen rested a hand over the blood-red stone resting in the valley of her breasts. “Thank you.”

  Shiloh listened to the exchange between Natalee and his date. Gwen’s jewelry was exquisite, but he’d found her more ravishing than the world’s most expensive bauble. She claimed a natural lush beauty that literally took his breath away.

  Natalee’s gaze narrowed. “Do I detect a slight New England accent?”

  “Boston,” Gwen confirmed.

  Natalee’s vermilion-colored lips parted as she displayed her perfectly aligned white teeth. “I’m from Worcester. How long will you be staying in Acadiana?”

  “I hope for a long time,” she answered, smiling. “I’m now living at Bon Temps.”

  Natalee shook her finger at Shiloh. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you, brother love. You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend, and one who happens to be a homegirl.”

  Gwen’s attempt to explain she wasn’t Shiloh’s girlfriend was preempted by a deep voice coming through speakers. “Gentlemen, please seat yo’ ladies. And will the officers of the Bayou Policemen’s Benevolent Association please take their seats on the dais.”

  “If you’re not doing anything tomorrow, I’d love for us to have a girls’ night out,” Natalee said as Ian took her hand.

  “What time do you want to get together?” Gwen asked, not seeing Shiloh’s frown.

  “I’ll come and pick you up around eight,” Nat
alee offered.

  Gwen smiled at her. “Okay.”

  Shiloh curved an arm around Gwen’s waist, directing her to a table positioned directly in front of the dais. His fast-talking sister-in-law had thwarted his plan to introduce Gwen to Cajun and zydeco music. He pulled out a chair and seated her. Leaning over, he splayed his fingers over her back. “Don’t run away, Cinderella.”

  She stared at the luminous eyes that had darkened to a mossy green. Her eyelids fluttered as she inhaled the intoxicating fragrance of his cologne warmed by his body’s natural scent.

  Gwen felt a vaguely sensuous light pass between them that filled her whole being with a wanting so foreign it frightened her. She wasn’t a novice when it came to men, but there was something about Shiloh Harper that made her feel like a virgin about to embark on a journey that would transport her from innocent to wanton within seconds if she were to lie with him.

  “I can’t run,” she whispered.

  His eyes widened. “And I don’t want you to.”

  “Sheriff Harper, we all waitin’ for ya,” the voice boomed again.

  Heads turned in their direction, while hundreds of pairs of eyes watched St. Martin Parish’s sheriff straighten slowly and make his way to the dais. He sat, staring boldly and longingly at the woman whose beauty and vitality drew her to him like a powerful magnet.

  Gwen hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until she pulled her gaze away from the man who’d come out of the night to calm her fear of the unknown.

  She, Gwendolyn Taylor, purportedly a strong, independent black woman, found herself falling for a lawman in a region of the United States where counties were parishes, where the number and differing species of wildlife outnumbered the residents, and where the racial and ethnic mix was as varied as the cuisine imbued with a distinctive flavor summed up in the phrase, Laissez les bon temps rouler!

  Was she, or could she let go of her inflexible rules and regulations to let her good times roll?

  She stole another glance at Shiloh who’d leaned closer to the man on his left to listen to what he was saying. Without warning, his gaze shifted and he stared at her. A knowing smile softened his mouth, and she returned his smile.

  Yes, you can, the silent voice in her head taunted seductively.

  Within seconds, conservative, sensible and levelheaded Gwendolyn Paulette Taylor decided to discard the resolutions she’d set down for herself four years before.

  She was ready for Shiloh Harper, and ready to let her own good times roll!

  * * *

  A gangling man with a drooping white mustache stepped in front of the podium and a minute later silence descended over the ballroom. He cleared his throat before leaning closer to the microphone.

  “For those who don’t recognize me, I’m Rene Vacherie, sheriff of Lafayette Parish. As president of the Bayou Policemen’s Benevolent Association for Needy Families, I would like to welcome everyone to what has become a yearly event wherein we all give a little more of ourselves to help the less fortunate.

  “I’ve been threatened with bodily harm from my brethren sitting behind me that if my speech runs more than ten minutes, they’re going to resort to an extreme type of punishment that will change me from a baritone to a soprano in zero to twenty seconds.”

  Everyone laughed while the seven officers hung their heads in what could be interpreted as a gesture of shame and remorse. A female officer, waiting for the laughter to subside, held up her hand.

  “I keep telling the guys that I don’t want to be the only woman sitting up here.” Her statement elicited another round of laughter.

  Rene placed a hand on his hip, and rolled his eyes. “Do they make pumps in a size fourteen?”

  “I’ve got a pair in my closet,” a very masculine voice called out from the back of the ballroom.

  Yvette Vacherie, who sat across the table from Gwen, shook her fist at her husband. “If I find you wearing women’s shoes, then you can kiss thirty-two years of marriage adieu, Rene Valjean Vacherie.”

  Gwen laughed so hard she had to put her hand over her mouth. And she wasn’t the only one who found herself with tears in her eyes.

  Rene sobered long enough to introduce the members of his board, each of whom came to the podium to say a few words. Gwen’s heart turned over when it was Shiloh’s turn to speak. A secret smile stole across her face when she heard gasps from a table behind her.

  “I’m willing to bet I could gobble him up in six bites or less,” came a muffled feminine voice.

  “I’m not selfish, Mindy. Mama only wants a little piece,” another voice whispered.

  He’s hot and mine for the night. The thought had popped into Gwen’s head, unbidden.

  Shiloh adjusted the microphone. “I’m Shiloh Harper, sheriff of St. Martin, and I’m proud to announce that our parish’s fund-raising efforts have far exceeded this year’s goal. Several of our families have been hit particularly hard because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and many of our military reservists have been deployed to the Middle East. Last night we received a check from an anonymous donor who earmarked the funds to cover four years of college for Xavier Jefferson, Jr. who’d recently lost his father, Captain Jefferson, in Afghanistan.”

  Shiloh’s penetrating gaze swept over the room as everyone rose to their feet, applauding. He stared at Augustine, who was gazing longingly at Moriah. He froze, realization dawning. His mother, who was Xavier’s godmother, had gotten Augustine Leblanc to write a check for the premed student’s college tuition.

  Augustine turned from Moriah and stared at Shiloh. Raising his right hand, he touched his forehead in a mock salute, smiling when Shiloh returned the barely perceptible gesture. The two men had called a truce—at least temporarily.

  Shiloh relinquished the podium to Rene who asked Father Raymond to offer the benediction as the wait staff stood ready to serve the two hundred gathered at the damask-covered tables.

  He left the dais as soon as the speeches ended, taking his seat beside Gwen. Reaching for her hand under the tablecloth he gently squeezed her fingers. Her hand was freezing. The mansion was cool, but not so cool that she would require a wrap.

  “Are you cold?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Then why are your hands so chilled?”

  Gwen leaned against his shoulder. “Cold hands, warm heart.”

  Shiloh let go of her hand, removed a stud on his dress shirt, then reached for her left hand. He didn’t give her time to react as the heat of his body warmed her icy fingers.

  “How’s that, darling?”

  “Shiloh, no!” she gasped, as he tightened his grip on her delicate wrist. Shifting slightly on her chair, she met his gaze. Her breath caught in her throat as she slumped against the tufted back, her eyelids fluttering. What she saw in the gold-green eyes spoke volumes. He didn’t have to breathe a word because the deep-set luminous orbs communicated what she was feeling, had felt since the first night he’d come to Bon Temps to check on her.

  His lids came down, hiding his innermost feelings as a sly smile parted his lips. “Better, darling?”

  “Yes, Dr. Feelgood,” she whispered after an interminable pause.

  Chuckling under his breath, Shiloh let go of her hand and replaced the shirt stud as waiters set out plates of broiled and fried fish fritters with accompanying sauces, carafes of wine and crystal pitchers filled with iced tea, water and soft drinks.

  Gwen leaned closer to Shiloh, her bare shoulder pressing against his muscled one. “You’re going to have to identify a few of the items on my plate.”

  Picking up a fork at his place setting, Shiloh identified the corresponding varieties of shellfish on his plate. “Scallops, fried clams, shrimp tempura, soft-shell crabs, oysters, conch, and frogs’ legs.”

  She wrinkled her nose, grimacing. “Frog legs.”

  “They’re delicious with beurre noisette.”

  “Lemon butter sauce or not, I’m not eating them.”

  “I
didn’t know you understood French.”

  “Actually, I don’t,” she admitted. Gwen told him about her trip to Paris. “Yours truly loves to eat, so the first thing I learn when traveling to a foreign country is how to order food.”

  Angling his head, Shiloh stared at Gwen’s enchanting profile. Even with the mask concealing most of her face he was still enthralled with her. She was the complete opposite of the women he’d found himself drawn to in the past. The women he’d dated before were very tall and thin, though he had no preference as to their complexion.

  However, Gwen Taylor wasn’t tall and she wasn’t thin. And she wasn’t a type. She was an enigma, a mystery woman who lived by her own rules. He viewed her as an independent career woman in her mid-thirties, unmarried, childless, who did not appear to be remotely interested in hooking up with a man. And if he had to sum up her motto, it would be: I can do it myself.

  “Careful with that,” he said softly when he saw her dip a broiled shrimp into a spicy hot sauce.

  Gwen cut her eyes at him. “I can handle this.” Her burgundy-colored lips parted in a smile when Shiloh reached for a water goblet. “Are you thirsty, darling?”

  He shook his head. “No, sweetheart. I’m just standing by in case you’re going to need to put out the fire that’s about to start in your mouth.”

  She grunted softly. “Keep waiting.” Their gazes met and fused as she popped the shrimp into her mouth. It took her more than a minute to chew and swallow the flavorful morsel. She was hard pressed not to laugh at Shiloh’s stunned expression. “What’s the matter, darling?”

  He blinked once. “I…I just thought you couldn’t…well wouldn’t be able to eat something that spicy.”

  “Why not?”

  He took a deep swallow from his water goblet, then set it down on the table. “Because you’re from Massachusetts I assumed your taste in food would lean more toward bland dishes.”

  “Oh, really? You’ve got Bay State jokes. And just what is it you think I eat?”

  “Corn pudding, chowders and kidney pie.”