by JoAnn Ross
Less than twenty minutes after arriving in town, with her son in Orèlia's competent care, Dani was sitting with Nate in a room that had served as the late Dr. Vallois's office. Like the rest of the rooms she'd glanced into coming down the hallway, it reminded her of Aladdin's magic cave.
There was barely enough room to move around in and seemingly less room to breathe. Pretty, delicate little English porcelain boxes shared crowded tabletops with plastic tourist alligators, candles of various shapes, and tacky souvenirs from all over the world.
The cypress-paneled walls were lined with shelves boasting an eclectic collection of books that ranged from worn leather-bound classics to the latest true-crime paperback. It was, she thought, skimming a glance over the spines, a marvelous collection. It was also in desperate need of cataloging.
Dani loved order. Ordinal order, cardinal order, alphabetical order, the world just made more sense when it was logically arranged. Lowell had often accused her of using the Dewey decimal system to organize her underwear. It was an exaggeration. But not by much.
“It's really great to have you back home again, Dani. Motherhood obviously agrees with you.”
Nate earned Dani's gratitude for not appearing to notice that she undoubtedly looked like a bedraggled stray cat. She could smell the stench of smoke in her hair and clothes.
“It does. It's the most fulfilling thing I've ever done.”
“Since I know you're temporarily strapped for cash, I want to assure you that the parish council will pay your salary even though you probably won't be able to open the library for a while.”
“That's very generous.”
“Hey, you left your home to come to work here. That fire puttin' a crimp in the timing certainly isn't your fault.”
“I appreciate the salary, because, quite honestly, as I told you on the phone, I need it.” She absently shifted a carved wooden giraffe across the table next to the matching lion. “But surely it won't take very long to repair the apartment. Since you're a contractor, you must know all the workmen around here. If you'll give me some names, I can start calling around first thing in the morning.”
Silence descended, like a stone falling into a deep dark well. “Nate?”
“It might be a problem finding someone to do the work, chère. Since nearly every carpenter, painter, electrician, and plumber in the parish is working on Beau Soleil.”
“Beau Soleil?”
Dani had assured herself that she'd gotten over the loss of her family home. If the way her mouth had gone dry was any indication, she'd been fooling herself.
“Hell, Dani, I'm sorry. I figured you knew. After all, you signed the sales contract.”
“Sales contract?” Needing something to do with her hands, she began straightening the magazines spread across the old mariner's chest in front of her. “Beau Soleil wasn't sold. My father lost it to taxes after he went to prison.”
The idea of her father as a common felon was still hard to contemplate and even more difficult to say out loud.
Nate tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, clearly puzzled. “It looked as if he was going to lose it to back taxes. Then he deeded it over to you and Lowell.”
“He did what?”
Seeming to read the shock Dani suspected must be written across her face, he poured a glass of tea from a ceramic rooster pitcher Orèlia had brought in when they'd first arrived, and held it out to her.
“I don't understand.” She took a sip of the tea and tried to steady her mind, which was spinning like the old Tilt-A-Whirl she used to ride on the midway during the annual Cajun Days festival. “How could Lowell own Beau Soleil without me knowing about it?”
“Beats me.” Dani hated the pity she thought she saw in his eyes. “My guess would be he didn't believe you'd be wild about him sellin' it to the Maggione family.”
“The same people my father went to prison for taking bribes from?”
Despite his hard-line legal stands, her father had always been an advocate of legalized gambling. After all, Andre Dupree had won Beau Soleil in a bourré game before the War Between the States. Still, Dani would never believe that her father had taken money to cast his parish council vote in favor of a casino run by one of New Orleans's most infamous mobsters.
“That's them. Though, for the record, I never believed your daddy took that bribe.”
“Obviously the grand jury that indicted him didn't see it that way,” Dani said dryly. It still hurt. Even after all these years. “Why would the Maggione family want Beau Soleil?”
“They figured it'd make a good centerpiece for their casino project.”
“Are you telling me that it's been turned into a casino?”
Dani hated imagining the home she'd grown up in filled with roulette tables with clouds of cigarette and cigar smoke staining the ceiling murals. The idea of the discordant jangle of slot machines drowning out the angel fountain in the courtyard was a nightmare.
“No. Before the sale closed, the family got busted by the Justice Department for some money-laundering scheme. Then Papa Joe died, and the family splintered into different factions. By the time they were ready to try to set up shop here, someone else outbid them.”
“When was that?”
“Last year.”
“Last year?” Grateful she was sitting down, Dani took another, longer drink of tea.
“People around here figured, when your husband showed up with that quit-claim deed you'd signed and put the place on the market, that it must've been part of a property settlement deal the two of you had agreed upon.”
“It certainly wasn't anything of the sort. And I never signed a thing.”
Dani had suspected Lowell had skimmed the legal boundaries of campaign financing laws. She'd known he was an adulterer and, unfortunately, had possessed all the paternal instincts of a tom cat. But to discover that he'd stolen her home out from under her was staggering!
“Who bought it?”
Obviously uncomfortable, he frowned down at his hands. “Nate?” She placed a hand on his arm. “Who bought Beau Soleil?”
“Aw, hell, Dani. I hate being the one to tell you this.” He hitched in a noticeable breath. “Jack bought it.”
“Jack?” The blood drained from her face. Drop by drop.
My Jack? she thought but did not say.
“Yeah.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you okay? You've gone dead white.”
“I'm fine.” That was a lie. She drew in a deep breath that was meant to calm. But didn't. “It's just that . . .” Her voice broke, forcing her to try again. “Well, it's certainly a surprise.”
“He's doin' some great work on the restoration.” He was studying her carefully. As if, Dani thought, he feared she might shatter into pieces at any moment. That made two of them.
“Isn't that nice?” If she didn't get out of here now, this horrible smile was going to freeze onto her face. “As much as I'd love to hear all about them, I really do need to see how Matt's getting along. It's been a long trip and an eventful day.”
“Sure. I really am glad you've come back, Dani. You've been missed.”
“I missed you, too.” That much, at least, was the truth. Ordering her legs to support her, Dani stood up. “More than I can say. You've no idea how much I appreciate you giving me this job. You saved my life.”
“It's you who've saved mine. To tell you the truth, Mrs. Weaver didn't exactly retire. I fired her.” He shook his head. “It wasn't that she didn't work damn hard, 'cause she did, but she just didn't have the people skills necessary to run a library.”
Dani wasn't particularly surprised Agate Weaver had been fired. The woman who'd been as hard as her name, had stomped around in heavy, sensible shoes, had pulled her hair back into a face-tightening bun, and was constantly shushing anyone who dared speak in the hallowed halls of the library. She was the quintessential stereotypical librarian, the only one Dani had ever actually encountered.
“Well, I'll try to do better.”
; “A gator on a bad day could do better than that woman. Drove me nuts how she was all the time telling the young readers' groups about me losing that Horatio Hornblower book back in sixth grade. Which wouldn't have been so bad, since at least it showed the kids that we can all screw up, and go on to live productive lives, but she was becomin' more and more difficult to deal with professionally.
“The parish council had a knock-down, drag-out battle with her when she initially refused to have the Harry Potter books in the library because she said they were nothing more than pagan propaganda designed to lead innocent children into witchcraft. I also hated the way she'd decide whether or not to waive late fees depending on how she personally felt about a person, but the last straw was when she decided not to let Haley Villard take any books home because of the cockamamie idea that since the Villards grew peppers, the books might get pepper residue on the pages and blind some other kid who might pick up the dried pepper from the paper, then rub his eyes.”
“Well, that's certainly a unique concern.” Despite all her problems, Dani was beginning to feel better. Nate had always had that effect on her, which had her wishing, just for a moment, that she could have fallen in love with him instead of his brother.
“How about having dinner tomorrow night? We can catch up.”
Was he asking her out on a date? This was definitely not the time to go jumping into the dating pool, especially with a man who'd charmed most of south Louisiana's women between the ages of eight and eighty. Before he was out of his teens.
No, when it came to men and relationships, Nate Callahan, as nice as he was, was definitely out of her league.
“Oh, Nate, I've love to, but I'm going to be so busy, what with this problem with the library, then there's Matt to worry about—”
“Bring him along.”
Relief. He wasn't talking about a date. “Can I have a raincheck until I get Dad settled in with us?”
“Sure. The judge can come, too. It'll do him good to get out and around again after all this time away. You know, it's a real nice thing you're doing, movin' him in with you.”
“He's my father,” she said simply. “I hope the apartment will be finished by the time he's released. You'll have to come visit.”
“It'll be great to see him. Jack says he's looking forward to gettin' sprung.”
“Jack?”
“Damn. This seems to be my day for screwing up.”
“Don't worry about it,” she murmured through her hurt. “Obviously it's my day for surprises.”
Jack was living in Beau Soleil. Jack had been visiting her father, the same man who'd sentenced the son of his housekeeper to a boot camp for delinquents and forbidden Dani to have anything to do with him after he'd been released.
What on earth did they find to talk about? Did they ever talk about that summer Jack had returned home? And more important, if so, what had her father told him about those months after he'd taken off again?
There was a roaring in her head like the sound of the sea, making it difficult to concentrate. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried to believe the icy air blowing through the wall vents was the reason she was chilled to the bone.
Nate gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “I'll set up a meeting with the fire marshal for tomorrow so we can see what we're going to need to do to get the library up and running again and the apartment fixed.”
“I'd appreciate that,” she heard herself say.
“I'm spendin' most of my time lately out at Beau Soleil, but how about we shoot for afternoon? About two?”
“That'll be fine. It'll allow me to enroll Matt in his new school in the morning.”
Dani managed one final smile and walked him out to his SUV, then returned to the house. She closed the heavy oak and etched-glass door, leaned back against it, shut her eyes, and assured herself that Jack being back in Blue Bayou, even living in her old home, had nothing to do with her.
She told herself that again as she entered the homey kitchen. But when she sat down at the table beside Matt and dutifully expressed delight over the bounty Orèlia had prepared, Dani wondered miserably when she'd become such a liar.
“Don't worry, sugar,” Desiree soothed as she ran a hand down Jack's bare chest. “It happens to every guy sooner or later.”
“Not to me.” Christ. What the hell was the matter with him? He hadn't had that much to drink. Yet. And God knows, Desiree had certainly done her part.
She hadn't bothered with preliminaries. They knew each other too well to need them. As soon as he'd entered her house, she'd pressed her herself against him, her nipples diamond hard against his chest, and kissed him with the smooth and clever tongue action she'd always been so good at.
Enjoying the slap of lust, Jack had swept her up and carried her up the Caroline staircase.
The bedroom, which, rather than the stereotypical velvet and gaudy gilt one might think a former New Orleans call girl might favor, was a sea of soothing white. As soon as they entered the room, she'd turned to face him and with her eyes on his, slowly untied the silk sash at the waist of the dress and let it slide down her lush body to where it pooled at her feet on the snowy carpet.
Beneath the robe she'd been wearing a skimpy bra and a matching pair of thong bikini panties so brief Jack had wondered why she even bothered with them. The scarlet lace added another splash of hot color to the cool white decor.
He'd watched, appreciating the view, as she went around, lighting a collection of fragrant beeswax candles.
“I truly have missed you, Jack,” she'd murmured once the room was glowing with a warm light.
She'd slipped out of the lace bra, revealing lush, round breasts he knew from their teenage days to be her own.
“Let me show you how much.” Engulfing him in a fragrant cloud of the white roses she had specially blended at a shop in New Orleans's French Quarter, she'd run her palm down the front of his jeans, stroking his rock-hard erection.
His entire nervous system had been aroused. Expectant.
“Oh, yes,” she'd murmured. Her smiling eyes had echoed the licentious approval in her throaty tone. “This is going to be a very good night.”
She'd drawn back the satin comforter and turned on the stereo. But before she could switch it to CD mode, a newsflash broke into the country radio station.
Jack's blood had instantly chilled at the news of a fire at the library where Nate had told him Dani would be living with her son. His erection had deflated like a three-dayold balloon and remained that way, even after he'd learned no one had been in the building when the fire had broken out.
Desiree had certainly done her part to turn things around. Pretending not to notice, she'd unzipped his jeans, pulled them down his legs, then retraced the path with sharp, stinging kisses designed to make any man rock hard.
She'd nibbled at his thighs; blown a warm breath against the front of his white cotton briefs. Then, with a clever practiced touch, she'd released his still-flaccid cock from the placket of the briefs.
They'd fallen onto the bed, rolled around on Egyptian cotton sheets that felt like silk and probably cost as much as Jack's first car. She'd murmured hot sexual suggestions. Things she wanted him to do to her, things she planned to do to him.
But even when her ripe red lips replaced her stroking touch, his mutinous body had refused to cooperate.
“Don't worry about it,” she repeated now.
She touched her lips to his, this kiss meant to soothe rather than arouse, then climbed out of bed and walked across the sea of white carpet. Her tousled hair fell halfway down her back; her bare ass was high and firm and appealing. But Jack didn't need to lift the sheet to know that even that seductive sight wasn't working tonight.
She didn't bother closing the bathroom door. When he heard the sound of water running into the tub, Jack dragged his hands down his face. The unpalatable fact was that he was a lost cause and the more she tried, the worse things were going to get.
“Jack, darli
n'?”
“Yeah?” He sighed. Glared down at the offending body part, which continued to defy him.
She returned wearing a short white robe that clung in all the right places. “Why don't you get your dog?”
“The dog?” This was the last damn thing he'd been expecting. “Why?”
“Because we're going to give the sweet thing a bubble bath.”
Two hours later, with the mutt smelling like a high-class brothel, Jack was sitting in the kitchen, eating his way through a steak Desiree had grilled and ignoring the bits of meat she kept slipping the dog beneath the table.
The mood was relaxed, even comfortable, and as he filled her in on Beau Soleil's progress, and his new book, Jack almost managed to convince himself that tonight's problem had everything to do with overwork and nothing to do with Danielle.
She couldn't sleep. Somewhere before dawn, after tossing and turning all night, Dani crawled from her rumpled bed and slipped out of the house. She sat out on the porch, looked out over the still, darkened bayou in the direction of Beau Soleil and wondered if she'd made a mistake coming home to Blue Bayou after all these years.
She'd thought she'd put the past behind her, believed she'd moved beyond the feelings of pain and loss. Oh, granted, every April when she'd write another birthday letter to the daughter who'd never read any of them, she'd sink into a depression that could last the entire month, but she'd always been able to hide it from her husband, her child, and the other librarians she worked with, and eventually it would pass.
But while she'd been lying alone in that single bed in Orèlia's guestroom, staring out the window, she'd found herself thinking back to other nights spent looking out another window, hoping against hope that Jack would come and take her away. Bygone scenes had flashed through Dani's mind, forcing her to consider the idea that she may have been fooling herself all these years.
She'd certainly been in deep denial after Jack had disappeared from her life. Despite the fact that the only sex education she'd ever received had been a short vague film about menstruation shown in her seventh grade all-girls gym class, Dani had done enough research on her own at the library to know exactly how unprotected sex could lead to pregnancy. But Jack had been so careful to protect her, always using a condom, she'd never thought it could happen to her.
