by Hailey North
"Well, well, back at last I see."
Meg started to yank her hand free at the sound of Dr. Prejean's voice but Parker clasped it tight.
"Hello, Prejean,” he said, his voice none-too-warm.
The doctor made a point of staring at their joined hands. "Teensy was feeling just a bit stronger so I left her in the salon with the visitors and came out for a pipe." He pulled a pipe from his jacket pocket and began filling it.
Meg wondered how long Parker was going to hold her hand. It felt good, and natural, as if her hand belonged in his. Was he holding her hand because he wanted to? Or was he using her to make a point that Prejean couldn't push him around?
"I've been thinking about doctors for Gus," Prejean said.
"He doesn't seem sick to me," Meg said.
"He's not," Parker said.
"With Teensy's blood in him and with all he's been through," Prejean said, "it's best to put him in therapy. Think of it as a preventive measure."
The pressure on Meg's hand intensified. Parker said in a dangerous voice, "Teensy's blood runs in my veins, too."
Prejean gestured with his still unlit pipe. "You're an anomaly, Parker. Always said so."
"Why, thank you, doctor," Parker said. He glanced down to where his hand covered Meg's, then slowly let go. "Sorry," he murmured, not sounding sorry at all.
Meg clasped her hands together, thinking how cold they felt as soon as Parker released her.
"Join me on the porch?" Prejean said, looking straight at her.
"Thank you, but I don't smoke."
"I'll puff in the opposite direction." He was eyeing her like she was a prime guinea pig. Meg couldn't help but feel he wanted to psychoanalyze her or perhaps to win her over to his point of view regarding Gus.
"She's expected in the Great Parlor," Parker said. "If you'll excuse us."
Without waiting for the doctor's response, Parker turned and Meg followed. Parker's hostility to the doctor was clear and readily understandable to her. Besides, given the choice, five minutes by Parker's side was worth more to her than an hour's free treatment with any doctor.
As they reached the double doors of the parlor, Meg hesitated.
Parker must have sensed her stage fright. "There aren't so many people left now. It'll be okay."
"It's a little like being in a fish bowl," Meg said. "And I'm the new fish and everyone's swimming around to take a look."
"Can't blame them for that," Parker said. "Jules always did have good taste."
Meg blushed. She started to mumble a thank you but Teensy pounced on them in the doorway.
"How was my little grandbaby?" Teensy's eyes were open way too wide, her mouth too brightly smiling. She wore a tailored black silk dress with a hem that almost swept the floor.
"Gus is fine," Parker said.
Meg nodded, wondering where Gus had gone. He wasn't with Parker, he hadn't been in the library with Grandfather and Teensy's comment confirmed he'd escaped her notice. She'd go check on him as soon as she could gracefully excuse herself. All the same people from the afternoon were in the room, plus several other couples. Bolstering herself, she listened to Teensy ramble on about her grandbaby. To hear her talk, you'd think Gus was still in diapers.
She shook hands and smiled with the visitors, grateful that Parker remained by her side. She found it hard to keep the names and faces straight. They all said the same sorts of things. Sorry for your loss. What a tragedy. To be taken from you when you were just married. You were married only recently, weren’t you?
Feeling like the biggest impostor ever, Meg held her own, but just barely. Another blonde, almost as beautiful as Miss Laisance but slightly less aggressive, had managed to sidetrack Parker.
As soon as Meg had met the last of the visitors, she murmured an excuse and slipped from the room. At least with Gus she felt she possessed an honest purpose. Trying to help the youngster deal with his loss gave her a reason for her presence in the house. Teensy didn't need her and Dr. Prejean must have known that when he'd called Meg at the hotel that morning. The doctor clearly liked to meddle in the family's affairs and his call to her had no doubt been prompted by that trait, one she could tell Parker despised.
Had it only been that morning? It seemed like weeks since she and Jules had left Las Vegas. She was caught in a time warp where the most amazing things happened.
Amazing things, indeed, she repeated to herself, thinking of the way Parker had been looking at her earlier and of the intimate reflections they'd shared in Gus's room. Only yesterday she'd agreed to help Jules save his family business from his greedy brother Parker. And today, she admitted, if she didn't watch her p's and q's she'd find herself falling under Parker's spell.
Gus wasn't in the other downstairs rooms. She peeked out on the porch and saw the bobbing glow of the doctor's pipe but no sign of Gus.
Grandfather Ponthier had been direct and to the point with her in their discussion in the library. He'd wanted to know when Jules had intended to send for her children. Meg, in turn, had been stumbling and evasive, finally coming up with a weak "at the right moment."
Perhaps she should have confessed then and there, but she still thought she could exit from the Ponthiers' lives gracefully and spare the family the knowledge of why Jules had married her. Of course, she still had no facts on the buyout Jules had described, but clearly he had wanted badly enough to take the extreme measures he had employed. Not that it's any of your business, she scolded herself, heading up the staircase. Sign your shares over and let the Ponthiers decide their own fate.
Grandfather had ordered her—yes, that was the best word to describe his brusque behavior—to send for her children, but she'd put him off. She did so by using at least a partial truth, telling him she didn't want them to have to live through another funeral so soon after their own father's death.
That had won him over. For all his bossiness, he had a good heart. That had shown when he'd thanked her for helping with Gus, letting her know that as much as he admired Parker he attributed Gus's return to the family to Meg's intercession.
Meg knocked on the door of Gus's room. No one answered. She turned the knob and cracked it slightly. "Gus?"
"Go away and leave me alone."
She heard muffled tears then the slamming of a door. "It's Meg. May I come in?"
"I told you to go away!" The voice was even fainter. He'd probably shut himself into the bathroom.
Well, he hadn't said she couldn't come in. She pushed open the door. A bedside lamp burned but other than that the room was dark.
"If you come one more step closer I'll—I'll—"
Meg paused, waiting for him to finish his sentence.
A door flung wide and Gus stepped out, not from a bathroom, but from the closet. His face was splotchy, his eyes puffy. "I told you to go away."
"I know," Meg said, "but I wanted to make sure you were okay before I did."
"Why?" He rubbed at his eyes.
"When I'm sad, I want someone to check on me." Meg moved slowly forward.
"Well, I'm not sad." He stuck his chin out at a defiant angle.
"Then maybe you can comfort me."
"Why?" He sounded less angry and slightly curious now.
"Because it makes me sad when I feel someone in pain." She sat on the side of one of the twin beds.
He edged closer. "You mean me?"
She nodded.
He flung himself onto the bed. His feet bounced against the comforter. He still had on the heavy hiking boots. "I don't need anybody."
"Well, just in case you decide you do, you come find me, okay?"
Gus had folded his hands on top of his chest. Meg thought he looked eerily like a body laid out in a casket and wondered if he realized the posture he presented. She sighed and let her shoulders sag and her head drop into her hands, feeling sad for him, for Jules, and for her own children who had also lost their father.
He sat up and, sticking out a hand, patted her on the shoulder. "It's ok
ay to be sad."
Twelve
It's okay to be sad.
Two nights later, Parker wandered down to the library around midnight. They'd buried his brother that afternoon, saying good-bye with pomp and ceremony before he joined his father in the family mausoleum at Metairie Cemetery.
Old New Orleans had rallied around the Ponthiers before and they did so again; as scandalously as both Jules and his father had lived, just as decorously was the equally outrageous son laid to rest.
Even though CeCe had flown in from San Francisco for the event, Gus had ignored his former stepmother and clung to Meg throughout the wake and service. Marianne had sent a wreath as large as the casket, but had not bothered to fly back from Switzerland, a point not lost on Gus, whom in the early moments of the wake Parker had found stabbing at his mother's floral offering with his prized WalMart pocketknife.
Parker hadn't interfered. Meg had returned soon after from the ladies room, taken one look, and held out her hand.
Gus had handed over the knife, though with great reluctance.
That he did it at all amazed Parker.
Meg had said in a soft voice, "It's not the flowers you're angry at,” and slipped off with Gus in search of a Coke.
Crossing the room towards the refuge of his desk, Parker wondered who it was he was angry at.
Jules for wasting his life and getting himself killed?
Their father for doing the same thing?
Teensy for looking at him as if she couldn't figure out how the wrong son had died?
Himself for thinking such a horrible thought?
Parker dropped into his leather desk chair and swiveled to the right. In his line of vision stood a suit of armor Jules had picked up on one of his junkets to France. As the library served as an office away from the office for all the Ponthier men, the room represented their range of tastes.
Uncomfortable with the empty eyes of the visored armor, Parker shifted to the other direction, only to find himself staring at the portrait of four generations of the Ponthiers Teensy had commissioned when Gus was born.
She'd never liked the result and Parker had salvaged the painting.
Grandfather had been vibrant, Parker's own father showing the wages of his sins. Jules held Gus in his arms, the child's fat cheeks bracketing a smile. Parker stood to the far side of his grandfather, away from Jules.
Which was fitting. They'd never gotten along, never come together as brothers. Parker exhaled a long breath. As messed up as his brother's life had been, he'd done one thing right. He and Marianne had created Gus.
Studying the chubby baby in the portrait, Parker wondered whether he would ever know what it meant to be a father.
He cut short his dismal thoughts and switched on the computer; perhaps he'd check the overnights on the London and Tokyo exchanges. That should occupy his mind.
Anything was better than the weight pressing on his spirits, threatening to smother him like a soggy rug snuffing out a flame.
The computer whirred and clicked as it performed its startup routine, checking its internal elements. The virus scan software flashed its progress across the screen, reassuring all was safe to proceed.
Parker stared without seeing at the monitor. Instead of the program manager with its array of tools and services, he saw Jules's body as he'd viewed it at the morgue.
A computer virus created havoc by entering a system and multiplying itself until eventually all the disk space had been claimed. Jules's addiction to drugs had done the same thing. After gaining a hold, its demands had replicated themselves, increasing exponentially as the habit grew.
And ultimately it had brought Jules to a crashing halt.
Parker sank his chin onto his hands, his elbows propped on the surface of the desk, trying to erase the images of his lifeless brother that filled his mind. For all his faults and foibles, Jules had possessed a nervous energy that kept him charging about and produced a charm that attracted people to him like bead-seekers to a Mardi Gras float.
That Jules was no more.
Parker thrust his chair back from his desk and jerked his body upwards, out of the seat and towards the fireplace. Rubbing his chilled hands together, he concentrated on lighting the fire that some considerate and knowing person had laid earlier. Parker suspected Horton, who'd orchestrated the work necessary for the Ponthier household to deal with the solicitous stream of visitors who'd made their way through their doorway over the past several days.
Horton would have guessed Parker, who suffered from sleeplessness, wouldn't close his eyes nor rest his head on his pillow this night.
A strip of kindling caught and held. Steadily the flame inched its way, then suddenly the piece curled and flared and fell in a scatter of fire onto the log beneath.
Parker stared at the sparks, letting their light and fire consume his visions of his brother. In a crackle and spurt of heat, the log caught and began to burn.
Think of something else, he told himself. Think of something good. Think about something that gives life, rather than takes it away.
Parker closed his eyes. The warmth from the fire began to chase the chill from his body. Raising his arms, he rested them outstretched on the mantel, his forehead on the cool marble.
The image of Meg standing by his side for the endless hours of that day and evening flickered to life. There had been so many people through the house Parker had wanted to bolt the doors by eight o'clock. Many of the visitors had come out of curiosity as well as custom, Parker had suspected, curious to see this outsider whom Jules had brought back to New Orleans the day he'd died.
Meg nodded and thanked the mourners for coming. She hadn’t talked much, not even to Parker. But she'd been there beside him, steady and calm and bright-eyed.
Teensy had picked out the black suit Meg wore. Parker knew this because his mother had complained to him that she'd never met a woman so uninterested in shopping. She'd also marveled that Meg hadn't wanted to wear the Ponthier pearls, an earring and necklace set that contained more diamonds than pearls.
She'd finally yielded to the earrings and against her pale complexion and dark hair, the jewelry looked better than Parker had ever seen it. Not even Marianne, whose goal in life was that of fashion plate, had shown them to such advantage.
Parker raised his arms over his head and stretched. Then he smiled. Between the fire and thinking of Meg, he was beginning to feel much better. It didn't take away the loss, but he could begin to feel as if life would go on.
And it could be even better.
The black suit had a prim high collar but the jacket hadn't concealed the swell of Meg's breasts or her narrow waist. And the proper knee-length skirt might have attempted to avert attention from her legs, but the snug fit showed the curve of her derriere to advantage.
Parker wondered what she did for sport. With a body like that, she had to be into something vigorous. He hoped she played tennis. With a smile, he realized he'd have to ask her.
Ask her what, Parker? His smiled faded. What was he thinking? Meg was Jules's widow. Widow, you fool. Like she's going to be interested in you.
But the funny thing was, he felt she was. Which was his pride, of course. Parker Ponthier, the man who only had to crook a finger and any woman in the city would come running. He grinned ruefully. Of course she was nice to him; he was her brother-in-law. And she valued family, that was clear by her standing by his side as the mourners had called at the house. And by the way she looked after Gus.
Yeah, Parker, she's interested in you.
He turned his back to the flames. The front of his body had more than enough heat. Heat that only built as he let his mind drift to the pleasant what-if of a woman like Meg standing by his side not just for one day, but day after day.
Headed back to the staircase from the kitchen, a mug of warm milk in her hand, Meg paused.
Light filtered from the doorway of the library.
Parker.
It had to be. Couldn't be anyone else.
Teensy had been put to bed with a sedative. And Grandfather had chugged several bourbons and disappeared to his room at an early hour.
Not too long after the funeral, Meg and Parker had been left along with Mathilde, Amelia Anne, and her husband to greet the friends who'd stopped by to express their condolences.
Parker, who'd stoically helped carry his brother's coffin, had refused any numbing liquor. Now, Meg sensed, Parker would be sitting up late, his only companions the ghosts of his memories.
She inched forward, the dim yellow light beckoning her.
In the morning, she was going home. She had enough cash for a one-way ticket to Las Vegas. If they needed her to sign any legal documents or sit in on the family business meeting, she'd come back. But her children needed her. And she needed them. The life she'd made for herself was in Las Vegas.
Her only regret was leaving Gus behind.
She stopped just outside the library door, then with the mug clutched dose to her chest, peered in.
The sight of Parker, his chin propped on his hands, his eyes closed, pain etching his forehead, prompted her to admit that leaving Gus behind was not her only regret.
Parker pushed back his chair and crossed the room to the fireplace. He knelt by the fire. Meg saw the flicker of a match, inhaled a faint drift of the sulphurous sting. A fire crept to life, licking at the kindling.
He must be planning an all-night vigil.
Sitting up with thoughts she sensed weren't pleasant. Even though he'd been the picture of civility throughout the day, he'd held himself apart. He kept his true feelings locked within him, presenting to the world what he needed to in order to do the right thing.
That stolidity had helped her manage the ordeal. Since she'd gotten herself into this predicament, she felt it her duty to see it through as gracefully as possible. She'd stayed close by him, murmuring polite responses to the callers' words of sympathy. Rather than her usual talkative self, she'd followed his example and been grateful for his presence.
She'd never met a man like Parker.
And, she thought with a reluctance greater than she'd ever known, she wasn't likely to again. He exhibited a curious mixture of old world courtesies and an assumption of rightfully and naturally being in charge of any situation. Except for Gus; he didn't seem too sure of how to interact with his nephew.