Volume One: In Moonlight and Memories, #1

by Julie Ann Walker

“And I know you hated his guts because he called you out for being exactly what you are. So what the hell happened out there?” He points his stogie at Maggie. “Did you lure him with promises of giving him a taste?” He glowers at Luc, the whites of his eyes mottled red as he shakes with rage. “And then did you kill him?”

  “You’ve said what you came to say.” I move to stand in front of Luc and Maggie. “Now I think it’s best if you get back in your truck before you do something you’ll regret.”

  He steps back, tossing his cigar on the ground and stomping it out with the toe of his boot. “I’ll show you regret.” He points at me, and then he includes Luc and Maggie in the gesture. “I’m going to make all of you regret being born.”

  Spinning on his heel, he stomps to his truck. After revving the engine, he lays on the gas and peels out down the street, leaving twin strips of rubber and dark, acrid puffs of smoke in his wake.

  “That guy is the asshole of an asshole’s asshole,” Luc mutters.

  I reach for my flask. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Taking a huge swallow, I hope the liquor does more than dull the pain in my head. My nerves could use some TLC from Gentleman Jack too.

  “He’s never going to let it go.” There’s a tremor in Maggie’s voice. “And I don’t blame him. Dean was his son. He has a right to know what happened and—”

  “If he were any other man, you’d be right,” Luc mutters darkly. “But he’s not. He’s him. He’d never give us a fair shake.”

  The stiffness of his jaw and the slight twitch of his right eye are the only indications of how mad he is. He’s always been able to control his temper. I envy him that.

  Maggie swallows and blows out a shaky breath. “He nearly stopped me from buying the bar, you know.”

  “What?” I frown at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I think he got to the old man who owned the building before me.” Her complexion has drained of color. “The deal was all set to go through, but at the last minute, the seller pulled out. He never told me why, but two days later I saw him eating dinner with Sullivan at Muriel’s Jackson Square.”

  “That sonofabitch,” Luc hisses.

  I share his sentiment, asking, “So how’d you change the old man’s mind?”

  “I didn’t.” She shakes her head. “He died three months later, and his kids ended up selling to me.”

  I salute the night with my flask. “Then all’s well that ends well.”

  “Maybe.” Her eyebrows pinch together as she worries her bottom lip with her teeth.

  Oh, Maggie. My lovely, gracious, tenderhearted girl. Times like these make me afraid for her. The world is big and mean. It has a terrible habit of chewing up sweet things like her and spitting them back out.

  Which is one more reason why I have to stick to The Plan. I need to do everything I can to make sure she’s taken care of, protected. Always and forever.

  “Lord.” She presses two fingers to her temple. “What a night, huh?”

  A hard ball of remorse goes bouncing through my chest. “Sorry, Maggie.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I think we both know it is.”

  “No. It’s not. I promise you, it’s not. Everything is okay.” She reaches for my hand. The soft coolness of her palm reminds me of the first time she slid her hands under my shirt and touched my stomach. My muscles quivered. My skin rippled with goose bumps.

  Fool that I am, I close my eyes and pretend for a few seconds that what she says is true. That everything is okay.

  That I’m okay.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ______________________________________

  Maggie

  It’s completely possible for good things to come from bad experiences.

  Never thought I’d say this, but thank goodness for Todd Dungworth. Ever since that train wreck of a Friday night, Cash and Luc have been texting me daily. Nothing grave or grandiose. Just a few sentences to ask how the bar’s doing, or to tell me what they’ve accomplished on Cash’s house. Enough of an opening that I was able to invite them over tonight without it seeming like I’m scheming.

  Which I totally am.

  I might not know what the heck to do about Cash. But Luc? I’m going to see him happy and settled if it’s the last thing I do.

  “Dat roux smells ready, cher.”

  When I asked Jean-Pierre to join the group of guests for tonight’s dinner party—which will include Eva and Lauren. See? Scheming—he not only agreed, but also declared he would come early, sit at my kitchen table, and drink my wine while I did all the work.

  He wasn’t kidding.

  “Unless you want to get up and help me, then mind your own biscuits.” I frown at him over my shoulder.

  “Just sayin’.” He takes a leisurely sip of wine.

  As much as I hate to admit when he’s right, he’s right. I turn down the fire under the mixture of butter and flour and add the onions, bell pepper, celery, and spices to the pan.

  I’m no chef. But I can whip up a pretty decent crawfish étouffée when I set my mind to it. Add that to some rice with fried okra on the side and then finish it all off with a flambéed bananas foster—Jean-Pierre’s favorite—and voilà! Dinner is served.

  Checking the clock on the microwave, I see I have ten minutes before my guests arrive. Perfect. The crawfish will be done by then. Now, to switch from cooking music, which is toe-tapping jazz, to dinner music, which is soft, smoky blues.

  Pulling my phone from my pocket, I scroll through my music library until I find the playlist I’m looking for, a compilation of artists like Magic Slim & the Teardrops and Buddy Guy. Hitting play, I smile when the first sweet, twanging guitar chords slip from the Bose speaker sitting on my windowsill.

  “Mmm.” Jean-Pierre hums his approval and then sings the first line to “How Unlucky Can One Man Be.”

  “Will you set the table?” I ask him. Then, I make kissy noises at Yard, who is sitting beside me, patiently waiting for any morsel I might drop.

  Jean-Pierre sighs dramatically. “If I must.” As he lays out the napkins and flatware, he asks, “So who you hopin’ he chooses?”

  “What do you mean?” I dump the raw crawfish tails into the pan and check to see how the rice is coming along.

  “Luc. I know ya said you saw Lauren makin’ eyes at him at Jelly Bean’s second line, but what about Eva? She’d be a good match, no? Both of dem are so pretty. Imagine da babies dey would make.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “It would be complicated with Eva. What if they did hit it off, and then things didn’t work out between them? Would they try to make me choose sides? I couldn’t do that. I love them both. And it would kill me if they ever hurt each other.”

  “Hmm.” He’s finished setting the table and has resumed his seat as well as his wine consumption. “And Cash?”

  “What about him?” I fluff the rice with a fork and turn off the burner beneath it.

  “He got a drinkin’ problem, dat one.”

  “He’s got a head injury that he medicates with whiskey.” I’m quick to come to Cash’s defense. “That’s different.”

  “Is it?” Jean-Pierre arches an eyebrow.

  I turn, hands on my hips. “Yes. One requires a lifetime of AA meetings and working The Steps, and the other will right itself once his brain heals and he’s not dealing with so much pain.”

  That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway. But when I say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous.

  “Besides,” I add, twisting back to stir the étouffée, “Luc and I have already decided we’re going with him to his next doctor’s appointment. I want to hear about his condition with my own two ears. I think he might need a second opinion.”

  “Does dis mean you’ve decided to let him off da hook for leavin’ ya da way he did?”

  “No.” My stirring becomes faster. “Absolutely not. He’s still got some explaining to do, but…” I trail off and glance over my shoulder. When I spy Jean-Pierre’s
expression, I frown. “I told you not to give me that look. I can take care of myself.”

  “Can ya?” he asks. “Me, I worry for ya, cher. He hurt you once, and since ya don’t know why, der’s nothin’ stoppin’ him from hurtin’ ya again.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?”

  “So why haven’t ya asked him what happened to make him go, mais yeah?”

  Why, indeed.

  “I haven’t really had an opening,” I say, but that’s only part of the truth.

  The whole truth is that I’m scared. What if Cash left because of me? Because of something I said or did? Because he was simply tired of me or sick of my hero worship?

  Knowing that would ruin everything, all those beautiful memories I hold so dear.

  A jarring ring fills the room since my cell is connected to the Bose speaker through Bluetooth. Yard barks his displeasure. Leonard, who’s been crouched under the kitchen table nibbling on Jean-Pierre’s shoelaces, hisses and runs to join Sheldon inside an empty Amazon box in the living room.

  I disconnect from Bluetooth and thumb on my cell. “Hey, Eva! You here already?” After listening for a second, I cut off the call and ask Jean-Pierre, “Mind opening the gate? Sounds like everyone’s arrived at the same time.”

  “Da super needs to fix dat damn buzzer,” he grumbles.

  “It’ll get fixed. Eventually. You know how these things work.”

  He purses his lips in annoyance. “Ya mean at a snail’s pace?”

  Everything in New Orleans seems to move more slowly than in other places. Slow boats chug up the Mississippi. Slow folks have slow Sunday suppers filled with family and friends and slow conversations. Even the names of the trees sound slow and sweet on the tongue: mimosa, wax myrtle, sycamore.

  Jean-Pierre takes his wine with him when he leaves, and I turn my Bluetooth back on.

  By the time I’ve dished up the main course and sides, my tiny apartment is packed. I try introducing Lauren to everyone, but they’ve already introduced themselves to her. Yard yips happily because…company! More hands to scratch his ears, pat his belly, and feed him scraps under the table. And Leonard and Sheldon have taken refuge under my bed.

  Within minutes, we’re at the table, full glasses of wine in hand, the lovely bouquet of flowers Luc brought grinning at us from a vase on the hutch. And the conversation? In typical Big Easy fashion, it starts on the subject of music, quickly moves to food, and by the time dessert rolls around, we’re sharing childhood memories and laughing and hollering like we’ve all been friends forever.

  “Anyone interested in taking this show out on the balcony?” I say after Luc and Eva help me clear the table and stack the dirty dishes in the sink. “The weather’s beautiful, and if we ask sweetly, we might convince Jean-Pierre to run upstairs and grab his fiddle.”

  “Only if Luc agrees to accompany me on da guitar.” Jean-Pierre is feeling the effects of his third glass of wine. His eyes are overly bright, and his smile is crooked.

  “You don’t gotta ask me twice.” Luc turns to eye my guitar. “Maggie? Mind if I borrow yours? I left mine back at Cash’s.” His dimples pop, and I swear both Eva and Lauren sigh like Disney princesses.

  Five minutes later, I’ve added two dining room chairs to my outdoor furniture, and my guests follow me onto the balcony. Everyone except for Jean-Pierre. He’s still upstairs trying to find his fiddle case in that pigsty he calls an apartment.

  Twice a year, I help him clean up and organize the place. It’s not like he’s dirty—his kitchen sink and bathroom toilet get a weekly scrubbing. It’s just that he’s incredibly messy. There are records stacked everywhere, piles of sheet music, heaps of clothes—mostly clean, but aggravatingly unfolded—and tons of tchotchkes and doodads on every horizontal surface. He’s never met a piece of folk art or a kitschy coffee mug that he didn’t like.

  He calls it artistic squalor. I call it a neat freak’s nightmare.

  After we all settle in on the balcony, Eva says, “While we wait on the inimitable Jean-Pierre, let’s play a game. It’s called My Worst. We pick a topic, any topic, and everyone has to name their worst experience with it. Like, for instance… My Worst Date.”

  Lauren laughs, her blond hair shining in the light cast by the lanterns on the table beside her. I took a look tonight. She definitely does not have a bad butt. Hard to tell about the boobs, though.

  “I come from Pascagoula, Mississippi,” she says. “In my neck of the woods, romance consists of takeout barbecue and long, slow walks through the fishing-lure aisle at Walmart. Every date I’ve been on qualifies as my worst.”

  That gets a laugh from the group.

  I glance at Luc to see if he realizes I wasn’t lying when I told him Lauren was funny. But he’s concentrating on the guitar and not her.

  “My worst date,” Eva says, “was with a guy who had the unfortunate name of Harold Bahls.”

  “Old Harry Bahls.” I chuckle and settle deeper into the chaise, loving this story.

  “Harry didn’t only have an unfortunate name. He had unfortunate breath.” Eva is reclined in the other chaise, all long and slim and looking like royalty in her black jeans and red blouse. If I didn’t love her so much, I’d be green with jealousy. “I mean, it smelled like something crawled inside his mouth and died. Anyway”—she waves an elegant hand through the air—“so we were at dinner and I was trying not to look at him. When I looked at him I couldn’t take his breath. But then he started coughing up blood.”

  Luc stops strumming to stare at Eva.

  “Turns out, he’d had an emergency tonsillectomy two days before, but he was too much of a gentleman to cancel the date.”

  “Oh, how awful for Harry Bahls.” Lauren makes a face. “It’s impossible not to use both his names, isn’t it?”

  “What happened?” Cash prompts.

  “He’d developed a terrible infection,” Eva explains. “We spent the rest of our date in the ER. I would’ve given him a second chance. You know, once the antibiotics kicked in and cleared up that nastiness he had going on. But he was too embarrassed. He still sends me a Christmas card every year, though.”

  “Tell them about your worst date, Luc.” Cash, who’s sitting on the end of my chaise, nudges Luc’s knee.

  “Hell no,” Luc says too quickly.

  “Oh ho!” I cry. “I smell a story!”

  He shakes his head forcefully, making Cash laugh so hard he has to grab his stomach.

  “Now you have to tell it, Luc, or I’ll have Cash do it for you,” I threaten. “And you know how he likes to embellish.”

  A muscle ticks in Luc’s jaw, deepening his dimple. I think I hear the sounds of two Disney princess sighs again.

  “Fine,” he eventually grumbles. “Long story short, I met a woman who lived outside Fort Bragg. We went out, then we went back to her place, and…” He clears his throat. “Things progressed as those things do. Afterward, when I was leaving, I noticed a picture on her mantel. It was old and yellowed. It showed two boys holding up a big catfish on a jug line. One of those boys was my father. I know ’cause my dad kept a copy of that same photo in an album.”

  “Oh my Lord.” My hand jumps to cover my mouth.

  “Apparently, her dad was my dad’s cousin,” Luc says. “I knew I had kin in North Carolina, but what are the odds?”

  Cash is laughing so hard he’s crying. He points at Luc. “He’s a bona fide, cousin-kissing redneck!”

  “Cousin-kissing?” Eva hoots. “More like cousin-fu—”

  “I beg your pardon,” Luc interrupts. “She was my second cousin once removed. I wanna get that on the record.”

  Now we’re all in stitches.

  “What in da world?” Jean-Pierre ducks through the open window. “What’s all dis rougarouin’ out here?”

  Rougarouing is the Cajun word that means something similar to raising a ruckus.

  “We’re telling worst-date stories.” Eva wipes a tear from her eye. Her makeup still looks perfect. How
does she do that?

  “Did you tell ’em yours, cher?” Jean-Pierre’s grin is evil.

  “Shut it.” I try to burn his face off with the fire shooting from my eyes.

  “Oh ho!” Luc swings around to pin me with a look. “Now who doesn’t wanna show and tell?”

  “Fine.” I lift a hand. Turnabout is fair play. “I may have gone out with a guy who showed up for our date wearing a T-shirt that read, ‘Call me Mr. Flintstone; I can make your Bedrock.’ He took me to Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers for dinner. And afterward he leaned over and said in what I can only assume was supposed to be a sexy voice, ‘The word of the day is legs. Let’s go back to your place and spread the word.’”

  “That didn’t happen.” Lauren shakes her head in horror.

  “Just like I told it.” I hold up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  Eva hoots and slaps her knee. “I’ve heard that story half a dozen times, and it never gets old!”

  “Wow.” Cash chuckles. “Please tell me you were drunk when you agreed to go out with him.”

  “There may have been Jell-O shots involved. It was Eva’s twenty-fourth birthday party. So I blame her.”

  “Oh, no.” Eva wags her finger. “You can’t blame that on me. He wasn’t my friend. He was Curtis Southerland’s cousin. And you know what they say about cousins.” She makes a face at Luc.

  I’m surprised my balcony doesn’t come crashing down there’s so much hooting and foot-stomping.

  “Okay,” Luc says. “That’s enough of that.” To keep us from giving him any more flack, he starts strumming, and Jean-Pierre pulls out his fiddle, coming in once he’s figured out Luc’s melody.

  I would point out that we never got around to hearing about Cash’s worst date, but I honestly don’t care to. I don’t want to listen to him talk about going out with another woman, even if it did end disastrously.

  Luc and Jean-Pierre play a slow, soft ballad. When Luc opens his mouth to sing, Lauren and Eva watch him reverently. Judging by the looks on their faces, they’re witnessing the rapture.

  “Hey.” Cash grabs my foot and leans close to whisper in my ear, “Come with me to the ball and bachelor auction tomorrow.”