by Geri Krotow
You deserve to let your hair down. You’ve been through so much.
Her inner whiner needed to shut up. Poppy’s idea of letting loose was watching a Hallmark Channel movie and eating organic air-popped popcorn on the nights after she’d had a particularly difficult client.
Clients. She didn’t have any left, unless she’d hallucinated her most recent cancelations. But she still had the dream deal with her Attitude by Amber franchise, and by the time her products hit over 4400 outlets in North America alone, the public would have forgotten all about her Plaza meltdown.
A twangy song with a hard rock beat started to rattle the bar and it felt like the whole place moved to it.
“Come on, Poppy!” Sonja screamed from the band’s stage, pointing at her.
“Can’t!” She shook her head and pointed at her drink, holding Sonja off. No way was she getting on that stage, in front of all these drunk patrons.
“I’ll hold that.” Brandon’s voice was in her ear and he was next to her. She jumped back and stared. He held out his hand for her drink and she spotted the other guys in the wedding party behind him. So much for a girls’ night out.
She handed him the glass.
“You can have it. I never drink from a glass I’ve left unattended.” Shoving past him, she wound through the sweaty sea of partygoers and joined the bridal party in a line dance. She could do a Southern shimmy with the best of them. At first she felt good, on the verge of enjoying herself after months of internal badgering. It was almost possible to believe that she was as young and free as she’d been the last time she’d line danced with Sonja. They pivoted in perfect unison, laughing in sheer delight at how in sync they still were. The sandals were killing her feet but she didn’t care. Although the next time she danced in New Orleans she vowed to do it with cowboy boots on.
“Welcome to the Boudreaux wedding party!” The singer of the band called out over the rollicking beat and Poppy cheered along with the other women, hands up high as if to keep the ceiling from caving in. This was what a wedding was all about. Pure celebration. It was what she’d wanted at hers, but all the fun, spontaneous ideas she’d come up with had gotten the kibosh from Will. Of course, he’d already been involved with Tori and had no intention of going through with his marriage to Poppy.
The reminder of her shattered heart was all the space her ugly anxiety needed.
No, no, no. Come on, not now. Not here.
The room grew too small, her dress too tight. She tried every tool she knew. Deep breaths, tapping her sternum, picturing she was in her happy place. But her happy place—the vision she’d used to short circuit her anxiety for the past two years, her dream wedding with her dream groom—was gone.
Poppy panicked.
* * * *
Brandon didn’t know what possessed him to be nice to the Poppy chick. Jesus, she was a pill. And it wasn’t because she wasn’t falling over him like he was used to women doing. He could have her eating out of his hand given the right circumstances—there was a palpable sexual chemistry between them. But she’d been standing on the outskirts of the fun, sipping that tourist cocktail, in her fancy New York City clothes, with the saddest eyes. She’d reminded him of how he felt when he tried to be a salesman for his bigger boats, pitching to CEOs or celebrities. Out of place, a catfish not only out of water but far from the mud it was most at home in.
He tried to make it look like he wasn’t watching her dance from the corner of his eye, that his focus was on Henry and the other groomsmen. Poppy sure knew how to shake it to all kinds of music, not just the electronic beats from the uppity club scene he remembered from his sojourns to New York. He wasn’t only watching her body move, though. It was a delicious package, that bod of hers, but he found himself mesmerized by her face. She carried herself like a woman who’d accept nothing but the very best in life, but her expression screamed “I’m hurting.” Did he see her pain because it was the same kind of visceral knife-on-bone pain he was in?
And her breathing—he’d noticed it on Henry’s dock, when they’d met. The little hitches of breath that made her ample breasts quiver under the gauzy sundress she wore. The sundress exposed the start of her cleavage, the creamy skin of her chest. Shallow breathing was something he understood well—it was what always preceded the panic attacks that had plagued him through college. They were at their worst right before important exams, and right after his first long-term girlfriend unceremoniously dumped him for a more outgoing, socially fluent rugby player.
As the band pumped on with a throwback millennial hit, Poppy’s effortless steps were no longer in line with the other gals’ and he watched as she looked like she was going to pass out. And she kept doing this weird thing with her fingers, hitting herself on her sternum and then in the area between her mouth and nose.
“Excuse me. Move.” He shoved past the gawkers, drooling as they enjoyed the show. The wedding party women were all beautiful and liquored up to the point of demonstrating their most sensual body movements and had attracted quite the crowd. He reached Poppy, at the end of the line, just as she sank into a squat, her fingers frantically beating out some Morse code on her temples. He touched her shoulder. “I’ve got you.”
She looked up and he knew she didn’t see him, not really. He leaned in close. Her pupils were dilated and her mouth was open, but instead of gulping the air her body needed, she was panting and looked like she was on the verge of tears. He hauled her up by her upper arms and pressed her against him, knowing the shock of a practical stranger holding her might shake the panic away, if only for a few moments.
“What, why—wait a minute.” Poppy was back, her mouth curled in a shadow of the snarls she’d cast his way all night. “Let me go. I’m fine.”
“In a minute. Let’s get some air.” She didn’t argue and in fact leaned against his side when he put his arm around her lower back, his hand covering her hip bone—Jesus, he was going to go to hell for noticing how fucking sexy she was, in the midst of her suffering—and half walked, half carried her out of the bar. Charles Street was crowded with partygoers and he took her hand, made direct eye contact. “You okay? Can you walk?”
Her answering nod was imperceptible except for the way it made a blond lock fall across her eyes. She didn’t brush it away and he saw her chest do the shallow breathing routine again. “I’ve got you, Poppy. Let’s take a stroll and find a quieter place. You’re all right.”
* * * *
Poppy struggled with her embarrassment and frustration that this stranger—well, okay, not a complete stranger, as she knew it was Brandon and holy fuck he was one sexy dude—was witnessing her at her absolute worst. Her anxiety had been a thing of the past, so she thought, and since it hadn’t acted up even when her fairytale wedding and life had blown up, she’d assumed she’d outgrown it.
Wrong.
“Where are we going?”
He held her hand and she grasped his back—if she was going to make a fool out of herself, then she’d earned this one reassurance. Human touch that relayed strength and a sense of compassion she hadn’t picked up from the man who’d pulled his swamp boat next to his uptight, socially conscious brother’s pier.
Was this Brandon really the same asshole she’d been avoiding all night?
“Not sure. For now, I have a place in mind where you can chill out, take some time to get grounded and come back to yourself.”
“And then what, you’ll resuscitate me with a night I’ll never forget? Let me guess, all the girls tell you that yours is the biggest ever?”
He squeezed her hand but didn’t let go. “Nice to have the real Poppy back. Five minutes ago I would have sworn you were on your way to passing out.”
Shame she hadn’t experienced in years came rushing back. She tried to tug her hand out of his but he wouldn’t release it. Relief flooded her senses. “Thank you. You didn’t have to take care of me.”
“I’m not taking care of you, believe me. Just giving you the space to take care of yourself.” He let go of her hand and guided them to a large wrought iron gate that he pushed open. “Follow me.”
She walked a step behind him, taking in the overwhelmingly dark, heavily perfumed space of what she guessed was someone’s private garden. Huge white blooms the size of dinner plates wound their way up the side of an arbor. “Is there a house in here somewhere?”
His laughter was brief, gone as soon as it reached her ears. He stopped and turned, forcing her to halt. “It’s a residential garden, yes. But most folks don’t even know it exists. These brick walls make it look like any other colonial building.” He patted said wall before he reached out his hand to her. She couldn’t see his eyes even in the bright moonlight; the round opal disc hung in a cloudless night over his left shoulder, the dark shape of his head framed by a gazillion stars. But she saw his hand, the way the moonlight reflected off his upturned palm. She shouldn’t want to take it again, to accept his offer of strength, maybe even compassion. Men weren’t to be trusted and she knew this in the depths of her being. And it wasn’t as if she needed his reassurance to keep the anxiety at bay; as quickly as the attack had rushed her it had subsided like a rogue wave that brought her back to shore after sucking her under just long enough to let her know she was in trouble. But she wasn’t on a familiar shore or even in a familiar land.
She took his hand again.
Chapter 3
“We shouldn’t be here. This is a private residence, isn’t it?” Her voice came out softer than she meant. They walked along a graveled path, through arbors of wisteria and beneath oaks draped with veil after veil of Spanish moss. It was hard to believe that only a brick wall could mute out the blare of the French Quarter. She supposed the lush fauna had something to do with it, too.
Brandon’s hand gently squeezed hers, a quick pulse.
“It’s okay, trust me. The owners are friends of mine and I happen to know they’re out of town this weekend. I’ve been here plenty of times, night and day, when I needed to get away from the noise.” Did he mean for his voice to sound like a caress on the night breeze?
“What do you mean by ‘noise’?” All she heard were groans and chirps, but what kind of animal made them she had no idea.
“You know, noise. People talking too much. Internal pressure stuff.” He stopped and looked at her. “Do you need quiet to work, or can you solve problems with music?”
Poppy wished she could see his eyes in the dark. Was this man really being nice or mocking her, patronizing the Yankee who’d fallen into her own pile of shit?
“I never thought about it. There always seems to be music in my studio, and at the events I work.”
“Henry said you’re some kind of fashion director?”
Poppy laughed. His drawl made the question sound as if he were a NASA scientist interviewing an alien. “I’m a personal stylist. I help people get the look they want or need for their special day or for their life—whatever that is for them.”
“And you get paid for that?”
“Yes. If you’re very good at your job.” And she’d been very good. Until the last few months, when she hadn’t even known if it was what she wanted anymore.
“Are you? Good at your job?”
“I’m okay.” She tugged her hand from his. This was ridiculous. “I’m fine now, Brandon. We can go back.” Her stomach twisted at the thought of going back to the crowded bar, but she caught her breath. Calmed down.
“Do you really want to do that, Poppy?” His voice lowered and with their hands no longer connected, he stepped closer, shrinking the space between them to inches.
“Honestly? Hell, no! I want to be in my room, curled up and sleeping like a rock. But this isn’t about me, it’s about Sonja. And Henry.” She wondered if Sonja had told Henry she was pregnant yet. Was she really planning to marry a man before she let him know she was pregnant?
“They aren’t going to miss either one of us. The night is getting late and they all have a limo ride back to the house. If you want to go back home now I can make it happen.”
“Do you run your business like this? Coming off as the nice guy but really just manipulating everything to your advantage?”
“Why would taking you back to Henry’s river house be to my advantage, Poppy?” His voice was impossibly low and as rough as the gravel they stood on. This was a man used to getting his way—she’d dealt with enough of them in New York. Knew the way they never took no for an answer. Knew how easily they threw you aside when a younger, more nubile college intern appeared.
“Let me guess, Brandon. I mean, Gus. You think that you have the magic potion in your wand that will make it all better for me?” She motioned to his crotch, figuring he didn’t see her hand in the dark.
He grabbed her hand and it wasn’t a gesture of comfort this time. She froze, wondering if he was going to put it on the spot she’d referenced. She’d met men who would, who got off on ridiculous banter and a vulnerable woman, casting themselves as a sexual savior.
When instead he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles, she experienced the kind of lightning bolt insta-lust she’d only ever read about or watched in romantic comedies, her version of girl porn.
“I don’t do fix-it sex, and I most certainly don’t take advantage of jet-lagged, post-almost-panic-attack women.” He dropped her hand. “Decide what you want, Poppy.”
“I want to go back to the house.”
“Done.” He fished his phone out of his back pocket and tapped open an app. “We’ll have a car outside of the gate we entered in no more than five minutes.”
* * * *
Brandon helped Poppy step down onto the boat from the pier, a small part of him thrilled that she’d accepted his hand as she wobbled in her too-high heels around the French Quarter and garden. And that she trusted him as he helped her onto the deck. He hated that small part that resented that he gave one shit about the welfare of this stranger. Close enough to stranger.
“Next time, you’d be best to wear more practical shoes.”
“These work for me.” She looked down at her strappy leather concoctions that, while totally impractical, made her legs and feet too attractive. Too sexy. The sandals drew too much attention to her smooth calves, and up her thighs, and made him wonder what was under her sundress at the apex of her legs.
Not that he didn’t know. He knew, of course. In fact he considered himself a pussy expert. But he didn’t know Poppy’s pussy.
Fuck. So not the time for this. His life was enough of a mess. He couldn’t bring a woman into the picture now, even if it were for just one night or one wedding weekend.
“Do you need any help getting us out of here? No? Then great—I’ll be up in that seat if you need anything.” She pointed to the chair farthest from the helm, as far distant as she could be from him on the swamp boat. Her humor was tempered by her recent anxiety and yet it warmed him. Something about Poppy spoke to his soul.
“Enjoy the ride.” He untied the lines from the pier cleats and neatly wound them onto the boat’s deck before sliding behind the wheel and starting the engines. He knew these waters as well as he knew how to build a boat. All through his childhood he’d learned each tributary to the Mississippi, each offshoot of Lake Pontchartrain. So he was able to allow his mind to wander, to meditate, even, as he cruised the boat at an easy speed toward Millersville where Henry had bought his house. It figured Henry had purchased a lot on the water, same as Brandon had. Only Brandon’s house was in New Orleans, and Henry’s was an hour’s drive north, twenty minutes by boat. It was closer to their parents’ in the almost exact middle between the New Orleans office and their family’s main law office. Brandon was happy for his brother and for the life of him couldn’t figure out why he gave two shits about Henry’s financial status or apparent eas
e of life. Sure, Henry hadn’t ever faced bankruptcy, had never had to live in a dingy one-room walk-up in downtown New Orleans. But Henry’s life had been molded and shaped by their parents, specifically their father, since day one. Brandon had a freedom that Henry never would.
At least, until this week when he found out Jeb had absconded with Boats by Gus’s entire financial portfolio. The dead weight that sat in the bottom of his gut was starting to turn rancid, discontent with simply staying silent. The initial denial of the now most certain betrayal by his best friend and practical brother had worn out.
You’re a fucking coward.
Was he? Yeah, probably. He hadn’t mentioned one word to anyone about it yet. Hadn’t called in the authorities. Because of the company’s current two-week hiatus from direct sales, he was able to focus on the production of boats that had already been ordered. Except he didn’t have the funds to pay his employees at the factory and distribution warehouse. As for Jeb, the idea of taking legal action against his best friend and business partner still bothered Brandon. The anger he knew he should be feeling wasn’t there yet. As if by waiting and ignoring that his entire life’s work and savings was gone he’d somehow figure out that Jeb was playing an elaborate prank. Or needed the money for something grand and worthy, that he’d be back at any time and redeposit the funds.
“It’s cold up front.” Poppy’s voice spooked him. He’d been so deep in his sucky prospects he hadn’t noticed she’d moved. She kneeled on the bench near him, her arms wrapped around herself.
“It won’t be much warmer here. There’s a jacket on the bench there if you want it.” A waft of her scent, something to do with jasmine, brushed his nose as she maneuvered behind him to get it. “You don’t have to be all Gumby, getting around me. I’m not going to take advantage of you.” He needed to call his lawyer in the morning. Take action on the Jeb situation.