Running both hands over his cropped hair, he closed his eyes tightly. First it was Gage offering to set him up with a woman, and now his mother giving him advice about what he should do with Hannah. He wasn’t looking to remarry, and he suspected it was the same with her. If her husband hadn’t died, there was no doubt they still would be together. She’d spent too many years married to the same man to disregard those memories and begin all over with another man.
St. John opened his eyes, staring at the document he’d pulled up on his computer. Cursing under his breath, he saved it. He was more annoyed with himself than his mother. The phone call had shattered his focus, resulting in his losing valuable time compiling research for his book project. Despite not having a definitive deadline, he didn’t want to spend more time than necessary before he sat down to begin writing.
He left the office and walked into the gym to work out some of his frustration on the heavy bag. Forty minutes later and drenched with sweat, he lay on a towel on the bench in the steam room, and when he emerged he’d successfully pushed the conversation he’d had with his mother to the farthest recesses of his mind. Playing cards later that night was what he needed to help him not to dwell on the women in his life.
* * *
Mark Fitzsimmons hosted the poker game in a second-story apartment with a lacy wrought-iron gallery overlooking Bourbon Street. Cases of beer were stacked up in a corner of the living room. All players were required to donate beer, Mark’s beverage of choice, and he provided the appetizers and cigars. Table stakes for each game was a virtual one hundred dollars, and once the winner accumulated one thousand virtual dollars, they would begin again. It was more an exercise in skill than winning or losing actual money.
Mark placed his cards facedown on the green felt, and then rested massive arms on the table. “McNair, we’re waiting for you.”
St. John, biting on the cigar stub clenched between his teeth, stared at the cards he’d been dealt. A pile of colorful chips was stacked next to his left hand. He glanced across the table at the former marine drill sergeant sporting a military haircut. Mark admitted when they sat together at the reunion that he’d moved out of his home and rented the apartment after discovering his wife had been involved in an ongoing affair with their bachelor neighbor.
“I’m trying to figure out my next move.”
“No shit,” drawled George Pinkney, a high school science teacher.
Mark glared at him with laser-blue eyes. “What you’re trying to figure out is how to clean us all the hell out.”
Tommy Jensen, a sports reporter for the Times-Picayune, blew out a perfect smoke ring and then tossed his cards on the table. “I’m out.”
Mark’s cards joined Tommy’s. “Me, too.”
George tossed his cards on the pile with the others. “Same here.”
St. John placed the cigar stub in an ashtray, and then fanned his cards. Reaching out, he scooped up the chips. “Thank you very much.”
Rising slightly from his chair, George stared at St. John’s cards. “Straight flush. I think we made a mistake inviting you to play cards with us.”
“You still have a chance to clean me out in the next round,” St. John countered, smiling.
The doorbell shrilled loudly throughout the apartment and Mark, pushing back his chair, stood up. “That must be the food.”
George wiped his dark brown shaved pate with a napkin. “I think after some sustenance we’ll be better in better shape to whip the professor’s ass.”
Tommy also stood up. “Suck it up, Pinkney. McNair trounced our asses and that’s just it.”
St. John hid a Cheshire cat grin as he rose and walked over to the open casement window and out onto the balcony. It was Saturday night and Bourbon Street was pulsing with energy from locals and tourists crowding into and spilling out of the many bars and restaurants, all under the watchful eyes of law enforcement. He could see why Mark, as a civilian running his own security company, had chosen to live on the infamous street with strip bars, flashy music clubs, and sex bars. Many of his employees worked undercover at various businesses to protect customers and owners alike during the nighttime debauchery.
Once people discovered St. John was from New Orleans, they usually asked him about open containers of alcohol allowed on the streets; he explained that as long as the alcohol was in a plastic cup and not in a glass it was permissible. He’d made it a practice never to request a “go cup.” Image and reputation were always first and foremost, and St. John knew his future tenure at the college was contingent upon a strict moral clause in his contract, which prohibited public lewdness and/or intoxication.
Playing cards with the men with whom he’d shared classes brought back memories of when they were young and believed they were invincible. Mark had grown up in a military family and enlisted in the Marine Corps months before graduating, while he and Tommy worked on the school newspaper together; the boy everyone called Jimmy Olsen covered all the school’s sporting events and it was inevitable he would eventually become a sports reporter. There were occasions when Tommy would dress like the iconic Superman co-star to further his image as an aspiring journalist.
He found it ironic the four of them had married the girls they were dating in high school, and now, forty years later, none was with the same woman. George had lost his wife to cancer six years ago and hadn’t bothered to remarry. Tommy had married and divorced his high school sweetheart after more than twenty years of marriage, once she found the strength to tell him she was gay. Mark’s wife had cheated on him. And although he’d cheated on Lorna, the reason behind his actions was totally different.
St. John had long ago accepted that he’d been an adulterer. His wife’s alienation of affection was grounds for an annulment or divorce, yet he’d chosen to remain in the sterile union. He felt as if he’d been released from a prison without bars within minutes of Lorna broaching the subject of divorce. Once she explained why she was leaving him, his relief turned to rage because of her inability to trust or love him enough to tell him of her fears.
“Hey, McNair, come and eat,” Mark called out.
He returned inside, awed by the amount of food on the table in the dining area. There were trays of fried chicken, catfish fritters, popcorn shrimp, dirty rice, and boudin balls with accompanying sauces. “Do you guys eat like this every time you get together?”
George patted his rounded belly over his New Orleans Pelicans tee. “Why do you think I’m carrying this corporation up front?”
“Cut the bullshit, Pinkney,” Mark drawled. “You looked like that even before we started playing cards. Give me thirteen weeks and I’ll have you looking like McNair.”
The science teacher glared at Mark. “If you’d wanted to continue as a badass drill instructor, then you should’ve stayed in the Marine Corps.”
“Thirty years of active duty and another ten as a reservist is all I have to give to my country.”
Tommy picked up a plate and began filling it with rice and catfish. “I’m going to eat while you dudes beat your gums about big waistlines. McNair, are you joining me?”
St. John smiled. “Hell, yeah!” He hadn’t eaten since earlier that afternoon, and he had no intention of denying himself the dishes from which wafted the most mouth-watering aromas. He, along with the others, filled their plates, and then sat down at the table with frothy mugs of beer.
Leaning back on his chair, Tommy rubbed his slightly rounded belly. “I think I ate too much. Fitz, you’re going to have to schedule these get-togethers further apart or we’re all going to have to start working out every day.”
“You work out?” Mark asked.
Tommy nodded as he smoothed back several strands of salt-and-pepper hair off his deeply tanned forehead. He was an avid boater, and when he wasn’t covering a sporting event, he could be found on his boat sailing and fishing along the Gulf.
“Yes. I started a couple of months ago after I met Nicole.”
George set down his
mug. “You’ve been holding out on us.”
Smoothing back his hair, which St. John recognized as a nervous gesture from his youth, Tommy said, “I’m not holding out. I just hadn’t mentioned her before. She lives in Shreveport. She’s a school nurse. Nicole lost her husband to diabetes two years ago, and I suspect she’s still in love with him, so I’m not putting any pressure on her to make what we have permanent.”
St. John patted his back. “Good for you.”
“Are you thinking of marrying again?” George asked Tommy. The reporter nodded. “What about you, McNair? You thinking of tying the knot again?”
St. John shook his head. “No. Once is enough.”
Mark stared at St. John over the rim of his mug. “Not even if that woman is a very attractive widow who just happens lives in the Garden District?”
An expression of incredulity settled into George’s features. “Does this widow happen to be one Hannah DuPont?”
“Bingo!” Mark drawled. “I saw our brilliant professor with the lady in question when they were having a very intimate dinner in Broussard’s courtyard.”
Tommy rested a hand on St. John’s shoulder. “Now who’s holding out? I thought I was imagining it, but you two did look rather cozy at the reunion.”
St. John resisted the urge to fling off Tommy’s hand. “Hannah and I are friends.”
Removing his hand, Tommy met St. John’s steady stare. “You guys were friends back in school.”
“We’re still friends.”
A slight smile parted Mark’s lips as he lifted his eyebrows. “Now, that’s a friendship I wouldn’t mind having, only with benefits. I must admit I once had the hots for Hannah. So much so that I asked her out, but she told me she was seeing someone. I didn’t believe her until that naval midshipman showed up at prom with her.”
George nodded. “What I could never understand was why she transferred from her hoity-toity school to one across the tracks if not to remind us that she was better born and bred.”
“It wasn’t that at all,” St. John said in defense of Hannah. “Did you ever think she was sick of being with a bunch of spoiled, stuck-up girls who looked down their noses at people like us?” Hannah had confided why she’d left McGehee, and he wasn’t going to betray her confidence.
It was Tommy’s turn to nod in agreement. “You’re right, McNair. I had a few classes with her, and not once did she ever act superior to the rest of us. I see why you two have remained friends.”
St. John wanted to tell Tommy he and Hannah were very good friends, friends with the distinct possibility of them becoming lovers. The conversation segued from relationships to sports to local politics. They played another round of poker and Tommy won the pot. Mark recorded the winning totals, promising to contact everyone with several dates after Labor Day.
St. John drove back to Marigny, whistling a nameless tune. If Mark saw him sharing dinner with Hannah, then it was just a matter of time before all who knew them would know they were seeing each other. And dating her openly fulfilled his need to have an ongoing relationship with a woman.
Chapter 16
Hannah took a step back, admiring her handiwork. She’d set the table in the kitchen with a hand-crocheted tablecloth over a rose-pink liner. The bone china, painted with tiny rosebuds, was one of eight complete sets purchased by the mistresses of DuPont House over more than two centuries. All told, there were more than a dozen sets, many with missing or broken pieces. Silver, engraved with a bold D in Edwardian script, and crystal water, wine, and cordial glasses and white damask napkins embroidered with DP, along with silver candlesticks, complemented the elegant table set for two.
One of her first tasks as a young girl was learning to set a formal and informal table. She’d come to differentiate between a fish and salad fork, and soup, fish, and demitasse spoons. Her mother said it was necessary, because once she married and ran her own household, she wanted her to be the perfect hostess. At the age of eight Hannah did not want to concern herself with hosting dinner parties when she much preferred to curl up on the window seat in her bedroom reading her mother’s collection of Nancy Drew books in addition to Little Women, The Secret Garden, and Little Lord Fauntleroy to being thrust into adulthood with all that went along with it. However, Jefferson’s birth provided a respite for Hannah from her mother’s constant scrutiny. Clarissa was over the moon because she’d given her husband a male heir who would carry on the family name.
Hannah made her way over to the sink and misted an assortment of flowers she’d picked from the garden. For as long as she could remember, flowers purchased from a florist had never graced any table in the historic house. The well-maintained garden provided the occupants of DuPont House with whatever they needed year-round. Fruit trees, aromatic herbs, and vegetable beds with tomatoes, peas, a variety of berries, and flowers in varying hues from snow-white to deep purple, succulents and grasses created a riot of harmonious color and continuous bloom for many generations.
After arranging the flowers in a vase, she set it on the table as a centerpiece, opened the oven to check the internal temperature of the turkey, and then went upstairs to shower and change for dinner. Hannah had revised her menu several times over the past few days until finally deciding to offer an appetizer of stuffed mushrooms; a classic Caesar salad would follow, and then she would serve roast turkey with potato salad and asparagus. Dessert was the traditional Southern strawberry shortcakes. She’d prepared the shortcake dough squares and planned to put them into the oven when St. John arrived. That would give her time to bake and then cool the individual cakes before filling them with chilled strawberries and whipped cream.
She couldn’t remember the last time she cooked for someone other than herself. After Robert’s heart attack they rarely dined out because of his restricted diet, and when she did prepare meals for him, they were much too bland for her taste.
Hannah glanced at the clock on the microwave, smiling. It was one-fifty. She had more than an hour to shower, shampoo her hair, and dress before St. John arrived. Whenever she thought about him, she felt like a young girl about to embark on a date with a boy she’d loved from afar for years. There were times when she chided herself for thinking of him in that way. Neither of them were teenagers. But in a moment of reflection, Hannah wondered if perhaps she had always been in love with St. John and that was why he’d been in her erotic dream.
Her marriage may not have turned out the way she’d wanted, yet she never regretted marrying Robert, because of Wyatt. Becoming a mother and knowing her son was dependent on her, she had made the best choice she could.
She climbed the back staircase, her steps light as she walked the hallway to her bedroom. The harder she tried to resist the truth, the more it nagged at her. She was in love with St. John. Had been in love with him for more than half her life, because she now recognized there was something so special about him and that fate had brought them together at a time when she needed him most.
* * *
The callbox chimed and the image of St. John’s car appeared on the security monitor. Hannah swore under her breath. She’d forgotten to open the gates. She tapped the button on the console before walking out of the kitchen to open the front door. Vertical lines appeared between her eyes when she walked onto the porch to find him removing something from behind the driver’s seat. Her gaze lingered on his off-white, short-sleeved silk shirt he hadn’t bothered to tuck into the waistband of a pair of tan linen slacks. A pair of brown woven leather sandals completed his casual look.
“Oh, how beautiful.” St. John had brought a moth orchid plant in a pot painted with delicate Chinese characters.
Mounting the steps, he leaned over and brushed a kiss over her parted lips. “You look and smell delicious.”
“So do you,” she countered. He was always well groomed and stylishly dressed—traits she admired in a man. “Please come in.”
St. John glanced down. “Is it safe?”
“Stop it,” Hannah
chided. “Smokey won’t bother you if you don’t bother him.”
“I just want to make certain I won’t be attacked.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “It would serve you right if he did attack you for messin’ with him.”
St. John walked stepped into the entryway. “By the way, where is he?”
“He’s in the parlor sitting on his window perch.”
“Where do you want me to put the plant?”
Hannah glanced at him over her shoulder. “Please bring it in the kitchen.”
* * *
St. John stared at the flowing gauzy fabric of the cobalt-blue sundress floating around Hannah’s ankles. Narrow straps crisscrossing her bare back revealed an expanse of lightly tanned skin, indicating she’d spent time in the sun.
His gaze shifted from the ballet flats to the tousled waves grazing the nape of her neck. He wondered if Hannah knew just how sexy she was with little or no effort. Even Mark had admitted he’d had the hots for her back in high school. St. John kept himself deliberately busy so not to think about her. He had not figured out why was drawn to Hannah, other than because he could be himself whenever they were together. He didn’t have to censor or edit himself.
“Something smells wonderful.”
“I’m roasting a turkey.”
He followed Hannah into the kitchen. She’d tuned a countertop radio to his favorite satellite station featuring slow jams. His gaze shifted to the splendid table set for two with china, silver, and crystal. “I’d like you to help me host my family reunion.”
Hannah took the plant from him, setting it on the windowsill alongside a collection of potted herbs. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not kidding. Besides, you already know Eustace, his daughters, and now Gage, so you’ll fit right in.”
A look of indecision settled into Hannah’s features. “I don’t know, St. John. My friends from New York will be here at that time and—”
The Inheritance Page 20