by Linda Conrad
So she clamped her mouth shut and turned away, running from the memories. Running from her heart. And running from the pain of accepting the consequences of her past.
Chase drove a hand through his hair and leaned back in the desk chair. He couldn’t seem to concentrate on the damn accounts when all he could think of were the deep-purple smudges that had been under Kate’s eyes and the bone-weary slouch of her shoulders this morning.
He’d come to Bayou City with the intention of hearing her beg…for the mill…for her home. And if the truth were known, to beg for his forgiveness.
But he hadn’t liked hearing her beg for a friend and that friend’s baby, or to see her looking so emotionally bruised. It didn’t sit well with his memories.
He was trying to reconcile what he felt now with all the built-up hatred from ten years of believing her to be someone he despised. To see her looking melancholy and fragile this morning had ripped big holes in his plans…and in his soul.
It was midafternoon and it was time to accept the fact that he really did need Kate to interpret some of the mill’s figures for him. He would have to give it up for today and begin again tomorrow when she could help.
He dismissed the secretary for the rest of the afternoon, put the convertible top down and climbed into his Jag. Intending to go straight back to the B&B to dress for dinner, he was surprised to find himself on the canal road and heading toward the shack where he had spent his youth.
Chase knew the house had stood empty for five years now, ever since he’d spirited his father away in the middle of the night and delivered the old man to a rehab clinic in Houston to dry out.
But something inside him must’ve wanted to see the old place. He needed to refresh his harsh memories, and what better place than the run-down house he had always hated.
That shack had forever been the bane of his existence. The kids at school teased him unmercifully about his dirt-poor circumstances and about his father the drunk. The other kids’ parents didn’t want them to hang out with such trash. Everything that had ever gone wrong in town had been somehow connected to Chase or his father, “that drunk Severin.”
Not that Chase had ever been in any real trouble. Just a few fights and a day or two suspension from school for those times when he’d not shown so he could sober up his father. But the word about him being bad to the bone got around anyway.
He had no family to fight for him. No brothers, cousins or uncles to cover his back like every other boy hereabouts in St. Mary Parish. So he learned early how to take care of himself—and how not to trust anyone.
Too bad his lessons hadn’t extended to Kate. Despite the fact that her father was the most powerful man in town and always had it in for him and his father, Chase had let her get under his defenses. The pain of her betrayal still stung after all these years.
Driving along in the sun, he noticed that nothing much seemed to have improved in the town of his childhood. If anything, the whole place seemed a little shabbier than in his memories. The businesses in town gave way to two-story clapboard houses and finally to what could easily be called shanties as he drove down the gravel and mud road that ran alongside the no-name canal.
He slowed as he passed by the last decent house on the road and saw his former neighbor Irene Fortier sitting on her front porch. She waved at him and stood, so he brought the car to a stop beside the yard in order to speak to her.
If it hadn’t been for Irene five years ago, Chase wouldn’t have known that his father had been lying comatose in his bed for twenty-four hours. She’d found his dad and had called to ask for help.
Chase had come at once. Nothing, neither bad memories nor business commitments, would’ve stopped him from helping his father. But he didn’t let anyone else in town know he was there, and he certainly hadn’t stayed long.
“Hello, cher,” Irene said as he stepped out of the car. “I heard the rumors that you were back in town.”
He nodded but eased away when she went to kiss his cheek. Her flower print dress and the homey smells of cooking lingered in his brain and reminded him of how much he’d always liked being around Irene as a kid.
“You’ve come home to move back in?”
“No, Irene. I’m not sure why I’m down on Canal Road this afternoon. Guess I just wanted to see how much damage the elements have done to Dad’s shack.”
“It’s about the same as always. I’ve been seeing to keeping the critters and the bums out.”
“Thanks.” He wasn’t sure he really thanked her for her efforts. Maybe he would’ve been happier to know the place had burned down and taken all the old hurts along with it.
“You plan on staying in Bayou City?” Irene asked.
“Only long enough to exorcise old ghosts.”
Irene studied him from behind the plastic-rimmed eyeglasses she wore. “You own the mill now, I’ve heard. You here to get even with people, son?”
He’d thought that’s why he had come home. But now… The memories of Irene’s goodness, finding the town in such sad straits and the odd tenderness he’d felt when Kate had asked his help for a friend and not herself made him want to reconsider his intentions.
Hell. Not sure of his own motivations anymore, Chase ignored Irene’s question and asked one of his own. “Did you ever meet my grandmother Steele? Did she ever come to Bayou City? I don’t remember meeting her or even hearing her name when I was a kid.”
Irene shook her head sadly. “No, child. Your mother, Francine, died believing her own mother hated her for marrying your father. I tried to encourage Francine to call Lucille when the time was getting close for your birth.” Irene hesitated and sighed. “I think she might’ve done it eventually…if she’d lived.”
Chase had no memory of his mother, only pictures and the stories that Irene had told him when he’d been little. He didn’t have any reason to grieve for a woman that he’d never known. But inheriting money and a family from her had made him rather sorry that they’d missed talking to each other.
“Why did my mother marry my father, Irene?” Knowing what he’d learned recently about Lucille Steele and her family, he couldn’t imagine now why a young woman from such a good home would run off and marry the town drunk.
Irene laughed. “Love would be my guess. But that’s a question that you should ask of your father.”
Chase remembered asking his father lots of family questions as a boy. Only he’d never gotten any answers. He’d learned early that simply asking the questions only made his father sink further into the drunken stupor that had been his old man’s constant companion back then.
Today, his father wanted to talk, but Chase couldn’t manage to listen. There was too much heartache in the past for him to forgive.
He shrugged off Irene’s suggestion. “Someday maybe.”
After he’d said goodbye to Irene, he spun the Jag around in her front yard and headed back to the B&B. There wasn’t time now to go look at the old shack.
And that was really for the best. Too much thinking and talk about his childhood unsettled him, and he wanted to be sharp for his confrontation with Kate tonight.
Something had snapped in him when he’d seen her out on the terrace last night. His whole body ached to touch her—to taste her—once again.
His gut clenched and his mouth watered at the mere thought of her. Those weren’t the reactions he thought he would have after all this time of hating her. But there it was. Nothing to do but make the most of it.
The best restaurant around was not in Bayou City but fifteen miles away at a country crossroads closer to New Iberia. A place where it was usually impossible to get a table at the last minute, the owner of Kizzy’s Café greeted Chase like an old friend and seated them in a private corner at a booth set for two.
Everything was so lovely. Kate marveled at the eclectic feel of the antique country store that had been turned into a modern Cajun fine dining establishment. Crisp, white tablecloths, mismatched chairs and cozy booths hidden
in secret corners. Heavy blue pottery dishes, and centerpieces of baby pink roses in shiny silver vases.
Her friend Shelby had first learned to cook as an employee of this restaurant before Madeleine was born. But Kate herself had never been in the place.
Looking around to see if she knew any of the other diners, Kate was pleased to see that no one else in the place had taken any notice of them. The gossip around town about her and Chase had already reached epic proportions. If anyone from Bayou City saw them out together it would only make things much worse.
The waiter brought a bottle of expensive sauvignon blanc at Chase’s request and poured a small amount into a glass, offering to let Chase decide if it was to his taste.
But Chase shook his head. “Give the lady the choice.” He turned to her as the waiter offered her the glass. “You’re the aristocrat. You know much more about wine than I ever will, I’m sure.”
Kate tried the wine and silently nodded at the waiter to pour and then leave the bottle. It looked as if Chase wasn’t going to miss any opportunity to embarrass her tonight. Well, she could take it.
She would take much more than embarrassment from him. But what exactly was it that he wanted—or expected?
Who was this Chase Severin? What had he become in the ten years since he’d left town?
Chase rejected the menus when the waiter offered them. Instead he knew exactly what he wanted. He ordered crawfish pie, red beans and rice and jambalaya for both of them. They were all typical Cajun dishes, but she’d heard that Kizzy’s served the very best in the world.
It made her wonder if the place’s fame had reached Chase’s ears in…wherever he’d been living.
“Uh…” she began hesitantly. “You know where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing for the last ten years. But I was wondering…”
“If the rumors were true?” he cut in. “If I had earned my fortune by gambling?”
“No…I mean…sort of. I was just curious to know what you’ve been doing all this time.”
He leaned back in the booth, stretched his legs and crossed his ankles under the table. The candlelight made it difficult to see his expression clearly. But she could feel the heat of his gaze—right through her clothes.
“I am a gambler, Kate. I’d say most of my life has been spent in one gamble or another.”
He let that thought hang in the air for a few moments. Did he mean that he’d taken a gamble on her years ago? A gamble that he felt he’d lost? She sensed the pink sting of a blush crawling up her neck.
“After I left…or was escorted out of…Bayou City,” he began again, “I hitched a ride to New Orleans. Found my way into a backroom poker game or two until I had enough for a real stake. Then I made my way to Las Vegas.”
He stopped and took a sip of water, ignoring his wine. “I turned pro, hit a couple of major pots and eventually won a casino in a high-stakes private game.”
“A whole casino? Wow.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, it was pretty wow for a twenty-one-year-old kid. I quit playing and decided to limit all my gambling to the business end of the casino.”
“You must’ve done fairly well with it,” she murmured as she took a sip from her wineglass.
“You could say that. After a couple of years, I doubled down and bought another house, then a few more in Reno and Atlantic City.”
“So that’s what you do now? You own casinos all over the country?” He was rich enough to make Kate nervous.
“Casinos, hotels, resorts, restaurants. A few of them I acquired in payment of bad debts. Most I bought for pennies on the dollar and turned them around.”
“Well, it’ll cost you a pretty penny to put the mill to rights, if that’s your newest gamble.”
“I’ve got a pretty penny, chère. In fact, I’ve just inherited enough pennies to make your beautiful head swim.”
“Inherited? Not from your father. He hasn’t died?”
Chase shook his head. “No, not my father. It turns out that I have a whole respected family on my mother’s side. My grandmother died recently, and I was one of the main beneficiaries to her rather vast fortune.”
“Oh, cher,” she said, genuinely happy for him. “I didn’t know you had any family except for your father.”
“Neither did I. Funny how things in life can turn around so suddenly, isn’t it?”
Was that another none-too-subtle hint about her new dire circumstances? It didn’t matter. She was glad he had found wealth, relatives and respect. Regardless of the fact that it meant he had control of her future now.
Chase had always been the one really good guy in town in her mind. The good guy who had protected her and towered over everyone else in her estimation.
She’d never doubted that he would do his best for the town. And soon the rest of the world would know it, too.
The waiter brought their salads, then their entrees, and the time passed quietly while they enjoyed their meals. After the chicory coffee was served and the candles on the table had burned low, Chase tried to clear his head of the congenial feelings and the sensual images that had been plaguing him during their dinner.
Kate was too bright—too soft—too everything. In her sleeveless black dress with the little shoulder straps and the dainty high-heel sandals, the woman made his insides ache with wanting.
He’d meant for this to be a fast meal where he could study her, find ways to get under her skin and make her want him. Instead, he’d opened his mouth and his heart and told her things about his past that few people had ever heard.
Dumb. Well, he would just have to begin again. After all, his original intentions were to have her squirm, right?
“You ready to leave yet, Kate?”
“Leave? Where are we going? Is the evening over already? I wanted to explain to you…”
“Nothing’s over. Get your things together. I’ll take care of the bill and then we’re going home.”
“Home? To the B&B?”
He stood back, studying her and waiting for the reaction. “To my home, chère. We’re going to Live Oak Hall. I have a game I think you might enjoy playing.”
He waited for the question. But though her eyes were wide, she raised her chin and didn’t say a word. The ache in his chest from wanting her and yet trying to remember that he hated her was beginning to make him irritable. Why couldn’t this be easy? Why couldn’t she just be the heartless witch of his nightmares?
“I’m going to give you the chance to gamble for what you want,” he muttered. “You want something from me, you have to win it.”
“I’m not much of a gambler,” Kate told him quietly.
“Ah, but this game will be so enjoyable.” He slid out of the booth and turned back, holding out his hand to her.
Finally she asked, “What game is that?” Ignoring his hand, she scooted out of the booth on her own.
“Let’s just see how badly you want your favor.” He took her arm and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “A little game of poker ought to tell us all we need to know. Don’t you agree, bébé?”
“Which poker? I’m not good at playing card games.”
“It’s better if you’re bad at it, Kate. This is the very best game to play between two old friends, and one I know I’ll enjoy—strip poker.”
Four
“That’s cheating, Kate.” Chase said the words with a low growl, but his eyes were dark with mischief and mirth.
“A shoe is an article of clothing,” she insisted.
After already removing her watch, a ring and the clip from her hair, shoes were the only things left to go before the consequences of being a loser in this game became much too intimate.
“Besides, I think you’re the one that’s cheating,” Kate argued. “The cards you’ve been dealing are just awful.”
Chuckling softly, Chase shook his head. “I don’t have to cheat. You’re terrible at this game.” He leaned back and leered at her through the flickering candlelight. “But the article of clothing
is a pair of shoes. You can’t lose only one of the pair.”
“Hmm. All right.” Kate grudgingly removed both shoes.
Trying to slow down the inevitable, she took a long, deep sip of brandy. Her hand was trembling, but she wasn’t afraid. Kate just didn’t want Chase to know how badly he was getting to her. After years of dreaming about his touch and his kiss, she desperately wanted to lose this game. But she didn’t want him to know his advantage. Her blood and her brain were sizzling by simply being this close to him.
They were sitting on the oriental rug at the foot of the massive hearth in the formal parlor of her ancestral home. Chase lit the fire to dispel the chill, and had insisted on candlelight and after-dinner drinks for their poker game.
She lowered her eyes and took one more sip, letting the warmth of the smooth liquid roll down her throat. But when she finally looked up, he was watching her with a wicked gleam and a shadowed expression. Cruel secrets entwined about them like a swamp full of tangled kudzu.
Chase dealt another hand. The cards lay facedown at her place. She could hear them silently call her name, taunting her to turn them up and learn her fate.
“Your action, Kate.”
Finally she forced herself to pick up her hand. She knew in an instant it was a winner—a full house, jacks high.
“Wha…” She cleared her throat and reminded herself to keep a poker face. “What stakes did you have in mind this time, Chase? There’s nothing much left for me to wager except the dress and my underwear.”
“The dress will do,” he said with a lazy drawl.
“Fine. But if I win I want your promise to consider letting Shelby and the baby stay in the guest cottage.”
“You’re not much on bluffing, chère. Have a good hand, do you? Remind me to teach you someday how to keep a straight face over a decent hand.
“But for now,” he added with a slow grin. “Let’s see what you’ve got. I’ll call.”
It was time to lay out her cards. She quietly fanned them open before her, trying hard not to gloat.
