Needing Nicole (The Cantrelle Family Trilogy Book 2)

by Patricia Kay

  He guessed he’d never know.

  * * *

  Nicole decided she couldn’t trust herself to see Jack again. And if he called her today, as he said he was going to, she would firmly refuse any invitation he might extend.

  All Saturday morning she repeated this vow. While she cleaned the bathroom. While she did the laundry. While she dusted and ran the vacuum. While she helped Aimee pick up her toys.

  She said it again while she prepared lunch. And again while she and Aimee ate their macaroni and cheese. She said it one more time as she settled Aimee in for her nap and prepared to take a long, relaxing bubble bath. This was the first day she’d had off in a while. She might as well enjoy it.

  The phone rang just as she had stripped off her clothes and put one foot into the tub. She grabbed for her robe and raced to the phone, hoping its ring wouldn’t wake Aimee.

  “Hello,” she said breathlessly.

  “Hi.”

  Jack. Just the sound of his voice, low and husky, caused her insides to flutter alarmingly. “Hi.”

  “Are you busy?”

  “No. I-I was just getting ready to soak in the tub.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Shall I call you back?”

  “No!” She softened her voice, embarrassed. So much for good intentions. “I can talk now. In fact, it’s a great time. Aimee’s taking her nap. What’re you doing?”

  “Oh, nothing much. I spent the morning going over my notes. Trying to decide what approach to take next.”

  There was a short silence, then he said, “Would you let me take you and Aimee to dinner tonight?”

  “Oh, Jack...”

  “I thought about you all night.”

  Her heart teetered alarmingly. She wanted to say yes. “Jack, we agreed—”

  “I know what we agreed. But I don’t have much time left here, and... well, Aimee’ll be with us.”

  She had absolutely no spine. No sense. “Okay, what time do you want to pick us up?”

  Nicole knew she’d always remember the evening. Everything about it was perfect. Jack showed up dressed in a dark suit that complemented his blond good looks and set her heart to racing. She knew the three of them looked nice together. She was wearing a matching lightweight wool skirt and sweater in a soft peach shade, and Aimee was dressed in a blue dress with eyelet ruffles.

  Jack took them to The Court of Two Sisters. Aimee behaved like an angel. The food was to die for. And Jack was a charming host.

  Nicole knew how dangerous it was, but she pretended they were a family. She watched Jack and Aimee together. She saw how much pleasure he seemed to derive from Aimee’s company and her obvious affection for him. Like mother, like daughter, Nicole thought. We know a good thing when we see him.

  Later, when he brought them home and carried a sleepy Aimee to the door, Nicole’s heart twisted as she saw how Aimee had curled into his embrace, how her little arms had instinctively twined around his neck. A fierce longing shot through Nicole. If only things could be different. If only Jack wasn’t Jack. If only he didn’t have the kind of career he had, the kind of lifestyle he had. If only he wanted the same things Nicole wanted.

  She swallowed over a sudden lump in her throat.

  Jack even helped her get Aimee ready for bed. And after Nicole tucked her in, he bent over the bed and kissed Aimee’s forehead. “Good night, honey,” he murmured.

  “’Night, Jack Rabbit,” Aimee said. “I love you.”

  Nicole saw his shoulders stiffen. She couldn’t see his expression. “I love you, too, sweetheart,” he said, so low Nicole hardly heard the answer. She bit her bottom lip, blinked furiously to keep tears from falling. Suddenly she couldn’t stand it anymore. The knowledge hit her like a bat slamming into a ball, hard, powerful, undeniable.

  She was falling in love with Jack Forrester.

  And she didn’t know if she could let him go without ever having known what it was like to make love with him.

  * * *

  Nicole didn’t see Jack for the next three days. On Saturday night, he’d left soon after helping her put Aimee to bed, because Nicole, shaken and afraid, had said she was tired. Then she took a sleeping pill. She didn’t want to lie in bed thinking. She didn’t want to examine her feelings. She didn’t want to try to decide what to do. Not that night.

  But all day Sunday she thought about him. And when Guy called her Sunday afternoon, she hardened her heart. She might not know what to do about her feelings for Jack, but she knew exactly what she had to do about her feelings for Guy. So she invited Guy to come for dinner, and somehow she got through the evening.

  As soon as the kitchen was cleaned up and Aimee settled, Nicole said, “Guy, we’ve got to talk.”

  Then she took him into the living room, and as kindly and gently as she could, she told him she didn’t think they should see each other again. When he asked why, she told him that, too.

  “I just don’t feel about you the way a woman contemplating a serious relationship with a man should feel. I like you. I respect you. But I’m not romantically interested in you. I’m sorry.”

  After Guy left, she sank down on the couch and cried. Monday was an awful day, but then most Mondays were. Nicole didn’t have much time to think, and when her thoughts did stray in Jack’s direction, she pushed them away.

  Monday night they talked by phone, and he was solicitous. He brought her up to date on his activities that day and told her he had now contacted all the attorneys on his list. He sighed. “I sure had hoped to come up with something. I wish there was someone else I could talk to.”

  Nicole thought fleetingly of her Uncle Justin in Lafayette. But he was retired now, and she knew he had no knowledge of Elise Arnold. So she didn’t say anything.

  “I’ve got a couple of other things to check out tomorrow and Wednesday, and then I guess I’ll be done.”

  Pain squeezed Nicole’s heart. Thursday was Thanksgiving. Was he going to go home Wednesday night? She was afraid to ask. She was afraid not to ask. “I...” She cleared her throat. “I guess you want to be home Thursday.”

  “Thursday?”

  “You know, for Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh, yeah... Thanksgiving.”

  He sounded uncertain, which surprised her. “Won’t you be spending Thanksgiving with your family?”

  She heard him sigh. “No. My parents left Saturday for a two-week Mediterranean cruise.”

  “But your sister—”

  “Is going to Boston with her husband. His family lives there.”

  “You mean you’ll be all alone for Thanksgiving?”

  “It’s no big deal. I’m used to spending holidays by myself. I hardly ever think about it.”

  Nicole was appalled. She couldn’t imagine spending a holiday without family around. How could he bear it? No one should be alone on a holiday. She didn’t even have to think about what she should do. “Jack, I’m going home to Patinville for the four-day weekend. Would you like to come with me?”

  When he didn’t immediately answer, Nicole wondered if he was trying to come up with an excuse, an easy way to say no without hurting her feelings. But then he said, “I can’t think of anything I’d like more,” and her heartbeat escalated.

  She smiled. She knew it was foolhardy to take him with her. She knew she was asking to get hurt. She knew she would probably regret this decision.

  But she didn’t care.

  She could hardly wait until Wednesday.

  * * *

  Jack offered to drive to Patinville. Nicole asked him if he’d mind driving her car since his didn’t have a back seat. “Your car isn’t designed for children,” she said.

  He agreed with her suggestion, so, early Thursday morning, after moving her Geo out of the garage and putting his car in its place, they left for Patinville.

  “Tell me about your family before we get there,” Jack said.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Oh, you know, some history. Hit the high spots. I know yo
u have two brothers. Start with them.”

  Nicole got more comfortable in the passenger seat. “Why don’t I start with my parents, instead?” When he didn’t disagree, she said, “My father is seventy-three years old, retired from the family business but still very active physically. He’s energetic and enthusiastic about life. You’ll like him. My mother just turned seventy. She’s a lot like my father, but she’s more stubborn and bossy than he is. She’s a typical Cajun mother—loves her children to distraction, tries to tell us all what to do, feeds us until we’re miserable.”

  “You love them,” he said softly.

  “I adore them. They’re wonderful parents.”

  “What about your sister and brothers?”

  “Well, Denise is the oldest. She’s forty-three, she’s married to Jett Hebert, and they have two children, Jeannine, who is fifteen, and Justin, who is ten. Denise and Jett own a little restaurant in Patinville—I’ll take you there this weekend—and they both work in it.”

  “What kind of restaurant?”

  “Cajun. What else?”

  He chuckled. “Suits me. I love the food.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Continue... after Denise comes, who... Neil?”

  “Yes. You remembered. I’m impressed.” She knew it was silly to derive so much pleasure from the fact that she was important enough to him that he’d remember her brother’s name. Then she realized it probably wasn’t just her that was important, but any Cantrelle. She knew Jack was still convinced there was some connection between her and Elise Arnold. That was one of the reasons she was glad she was taking him home to meet her family. Maybe he’d finally accept that there was no connection.

  “How old is Neil?”

  “He’ll have his forty-first birthday in just a few weeks. Gosh, that’s hard to believe.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “You and Neil will probably hit it off. He’s an ex-cop, was on the Baton Rouge Police Force for twelve years. He’s quieter than most of my family, more introspective, more thoughtful. He’s had some hard knocks, but he’s survived them. He had a disastrous first marriage, but now he’s married to a wonderful woman. Her name is Laura, and they’re wild about each other. They have a little girl, Celeste, who’s four. She and Aimee are like this.” Nicole held two fingers close together. “And Laura is expecting their second child in May.”

  “And after Neil...” Jack prompted.

  “Comes Norman, who is thirty-seven. He’s totally different from Neil. Norman’s outgoing, physical, rarely takes life too seriously, thinks the best of everyone. His biggest fault is his tendency to want to take care of everybody, including me. He’s an amputee, has an artificial right leg.”

  “Oh? How’d that happen?”

  “A bad automobile accident five and a half years ago.” Nicole sighed, remembering the trauma of those days when the entire family was afraid Norman might lose his life as well as his leg. “He’s bounced back, though. He’s married to one of the nicest women you’ll ever meet. Her name is Alice. She has two children from her first marriage—Lisa, who I think is ten, and Jimmy, who’s about sixteen. And Alice is also expecting a baby about the same time as Laura.”

  “And then there’s you.”

  “Yes, and then there’s me.”

  “It’s kind of intimidating—”

  “What? My family?”

  “The sheer size of your family.”

  “I haven’t even mentioned all my uncles, aunts and cousins. We counted them up once, and I think there are close to one hundred Cantrelles and DesJardins—my mother was a DesJardin—and that’s just counting the first cousins!”

  Jack whistled. “Incredible. My entire family consists of my folks, my sister and her husband, and my mother’s one brother who never married.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  Nicole couldn’t imagine the kind of family Jack described. She loved the feeling of belonging to so many people—the roots and traditions and settled feeling it gave her. No wonder Jack had chosen his nomadic life-style. No wonder he didn’t seem to mind when he spent holidays alone. No wonder he seemed to have no desire to establish a home. He’d never known anything else but what he had now.

  Poor Jack, she thought. And poor me. Just my luck to get interested in a man like him.

  She wondered what her family would think of him.

  * * *

  Jack’s first impression of Patinville was that it was a nice little town, if you liked nice little towns.

  He had always preferred cities. Exciting, noisy, invigorating cities like New York City, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Singapore, London. Of course, he was unencumbered and had always had enough money to travel first-class, stay in the nicest places and avail himself of everything these cities had to offer. He knew that made a difference.

  If he were to ever settle down in one place—a very unlikely occurrence—he supposed it might be nice to live somewhere similar to Patinville.

  It seemed to him they had no sooner entered Patinville than they were arriving at Nicole’s parents’ home. It was a modest brick ranch house set at the edge of a wooded area on a dead-end street. When he pulled Nicole’s Geo into the driveway, an older couple emerged from the front door.

  Amid a flurry of hugs and kisses and exclamations on the part of Nicole and her parents, he watched quietly from the sidelines. An unfamiliar feeling crept into his chest as he saw how much these people all loved one another, how obvious it was that Nicole’s parents missed her terribly.

  Then Nicole turned to him, and smiling, beckoned him forward. “Jack, I’d like you to meet my parents, Réne and Arlette Cantrelle. Mama, Papa, this is Jack Forrester, a friend of mine.”

  Her father, a robust-looking man with thick salt-and-pepper hair and lively dark eyes very like Nicole’s, extended his hand, saying, “Hello, Jack. It’s very nice to have you come to our home.” His handshake was surprisingly strong for a man of his age. He smiled, and Jack thought he must have been a real lady-killer in his younger days.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Cantrelle.”

  Réne frowned. “We’re not so formal around here, no. Call me Réne.”

  Jack smiled. “Réne.”

  Now Nicole’s mother, a short, plump woman with short gray hair and eyes as dark as her husband’s, smiled and welcomed him. Jack noticed that she gave him a very close inspection, and he wanted to smile again. Arlette Cantrelle was definitely a protective mother hen who wondered if her chick was in safe hands around Jack. He wished he could reassure her, but lately, he wasn’t sure if it was safe for Nicole to be around him.

  He looked at her now, as she walked arm in arm with her mother up the walk toward the front door. She wore snug-fitting jeans that hugged her long legs and shapely rear end. The jeans were paired with a bright red sweater, and she’d tied a red ribbon around her head. She looked young, gorgeous and deliciously sexy. No. Her mother was right to look him over. He only hoped he’d disguised his baser tendencies.

  The inside of the house matched the outside: simple, homey, welcoming. After showing Jack the room he’d be using for the duration of their stay—“This used to be our sons’ room,” explained Arlette—he unpacked his few things, then joined the family in the big kitchen at the back of the house.

  Delicious smells surrounded him. Some he recognized; others he didn’t. There were several pots simmering on the stove, and he knew there was a turkey roasting in the oven. His mouth watered. He hadn’t eaten breakfast.

  As if she were a mind reader, Nicole’s mother said, “Are you hungry, Jack?”

  He grinned. “Always.”

  “We’re not goin’ to have our dinner for a couple of hours yet, but I’ve got some snacks.” She gave Réne a mock frown. “I’ll bring the snacks into the livin’ room. Why don’t you two go watch the football games or somethin’ so Nicole and I can talk?” She gave Jack a sly grin. “Woman talk, you know.”

  Soon Jack was comfort
ably settled into a big easy chair, a cold beer in one hand, and something Arlette called a sausage ball in the other, one eye on college football and the other on Aimee and her grandfather. She was sitting on Réne’s lap, and he was whispering in her ear. She giggled, the sound causing that funny little ache right around Jack’s heart. It struck him that within just a few days, he would be back in Houston, back to his sterile life, and he wouldn’t see enchanting Aimee or her equally enchanting mother again.

  Sterile? Why had he thought of his life in those terms? It wasn’t sterile at all. It was exciting and... The thought trailed off. It was exciting, yes. It was also lonely a lot of the time.

  A feeling almost like depression settled into his chest, but he didn’t have long to wallow in it because a few minutes later the front door burst open and a little blonde about Aimee’s size came racing through. “Aimee, Aimee,” she cried, and Aimee tumbled off Réne’s lap. The two little girls stood there grinning at each other, then Aimee said, “Celesse! Come see my new doll!” and they dashed out of the room, squealing and laughing. Jack grinned at Aimee’s mangled pronunciation of her cousin’s name.

  He stood, turning toward the couple who had entered the living room. Réne said, “Neil, Laura, I want you to meet Nicole’s friend, Jack Forrester.”

  Neil Cantrelle, sharp eyes assessing Jack, held out his right hand. “Jack,” he said.

  “Neil.” Jack turned to Neil’s wife, a lovely, delicate-looking blonde with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. “Hello, Laura.”

  She smiled and reached for his hand, too.

  Then Nicole and her mother were in the room, and there was more hugging and kissing. Within ten minutes, more family arrived. This time it was Nicole’s older sister, Denise, her friendly-faced husband and their two children. And fifteen minutes later the other brother, Norman, accompanied by his pretty little wife, Alice, and two more children came in. By now people were sitting all over the place—some on the floor, some on arms of chairs.

  Never in his life had Jack seen so much hugging and kissing or heard so much talking at once.

  Soon the women all drifted off to the kitchen, and Jack could hear their laughing, chattering voices accompanying the clink and rattle of pots and dishes.