French Quarter

by Stella Cameron

  Looking down, she smoothed her soapy tummy. How could she have thought anyone was likely to be fooled for much longer? How many people must already be whispering, “Have you seen Celina Payne lately? No? Pregnant, darlin’. Ι expect we’ll be hearin’ about the weddin’ any day, don’t you?”

  If Jack had his way, they’d be hearing about the wedding any day now.

  That man who put his hands on her must have been too…She bowed her head and let the water pound on the back of her neck. It could be that the other man, the one who had asked the questions, had realized she was pregnant and that’s why they hadn’t killed her. He had seemed more human than his disgusting companion.

  Neither of them was human. She was alive because, unlike Antoine, there were too many people who would raise the alarm if she disappeared—or she’d been taken in the first place only because she’d been elected to warn Jack for some reason.

  No relationship could survive dishonesty.

  She hadn’t been dishonest, wasn’t dishonest. Telling Jack or anyone else about Antoine and Rose hadn’t been her choice to make.

  Had it?

  She turned the water off hard and clung to the faucet. Her head felt muzzy. Several deep breaths didn’t make her feel better. Bad judgment couldn’t be wished away, and when it came to Antoine, it had been a bad call not to at least ask the advice of someone she believed in. Cyrus. Or Dwayne.

  Her eyes ached.

  She should have asked Jack. She must ask him now. The longer she delayed, the bigger the wedge between them was likely to be in the end.

  Tonight was as good a time as any. The towel she’d hung over the shower enclosure slid down the glass. She didn’t catch it before one end was soaked.

  “It’s been that kind of day and that kind of night,” she said to herself, and climbed out to walk carefully across the dark tiles to get another towel.

  Heaviness in her legs made her weak. She reached the sinks and braced herself on the counter.

  The baby. Could something be wrong with the baby?

  Stop. Be quiet. Think. It’s me, not the baby. I’m sick of thinking. And sick of trying to decide what’s best. And I’m tired, darn it, just so tired.

  She sat sideways on the lid of the toilet, folded her arms on the counter, and rested her forehead on top. So very, very tired.

  Water from the shower turned cold on her skin and evaporated, but sweat broke out along her hairline. All she needed to do was dry off and make it to the bed.

  Jack would be there.

  This was all so strange. Time seemed suspended. Her tummy fluttered inside. Like a little bird flapping fragile wings in there. She loved bread pudding, but it had probably been too heavy after not eating for so long—and suffering a shock that might have thrown her blood sugar into a spin.

  Her eyelids didn’t want to open.

  Little bird flitting in there.

  “Celina?” Jack was calling her.

  Bird? She sat up and stared at her belly again, and spread her fingers wide—and concentrated.

  Wasn’t it too early?

  The baby moved! Tears welled in Celina’s eyes, and her throat tightened. Faint, and unlike anything she’d ever known before, a tiny being moved inside her.

  Jack tapped on the door and she looked up. The door opened a fraction and he said, “Celina? Are you all right?”

  She remembered she was naked and took a towel from a pile on a hamper beside the toilet. “I’m okay,” she said. “Jack!”

  He slammed the door wide open. “What is it? You need help?” Dressed only in his white shorts, he was a long, leanly muscular expanse of male.

  Celina got to her feet and wrapped the towel around her.

  “The baby’s moving, Jack. I thought it was too early, but it did. Then it did it again—twice. Two times.”

  “You scared me. You’ve been in here so long.”

  “The baby moved.”

  “He did, huh? That must be really somethin’ to feel. Did it hurt or something? You should sit down.”

  She began to laugh.

  “What?”

  Celina couldn’t get a word out without laughing harder.

  “You’re hysterical,” he said. “Take some deep breaths.”

  She held her breath, choked, coughed, and laughed some

  more.

  “Celina?”

  “Yes.” More laughter. She’d lost control.

  He smiled, but with question in that smile. “Can you get it together enough to tell me what’s so funny?”

  “I…I’m amazed. And happy. I can’t stop laughing, but I want to cry.”

  Jack looked uncertain. “I guess it’s an emotional thing, feeling a baby move for the first time.” His hand on her back sobered her instantly, and she looked up at him.

  “Come on,” he said quietly. “I’m taking you to bed and you’re going to sleep as long as you can—preferably around the clock.”

  “It’s a miracle, isn’t it?” she asked him. “From something so awful, something wonderful happens, and you can’t blame that wonderful thing for the way…I mean I love this baby. I love her so much, it makes me feel filled up and overflowing. Tears and laughter. All muddled up. I am happy. I am so happy and I thank God for her.”

  She felt tears on her cheeks but didn’t recall crying them. When Jack held out his hands to her, she let him ease her gently against him.

  His breath moved the top of her hair. “A man never gets to feel what you’re feeling now,” he said. “Not in anything like the same way. But he has his own feelings about these things. Mostly he feels…a father feels proud and protective. I should speak for myself. I felt that way.”

  For an instant she felt envy. Envy for a dead woman? “That’s a lovely thing to hear you say.” No, not envy, wistfulness. But she was privileged to have him share what he’d felt for his own unborn child.

  Keeping an arm around her, he gathered the cotton nightgown she’d brought into the bathroom and walked with her into the bedroom again. “Put this on and climb into bed,” he told her, starting to walk around to the other side of the bed.

  “No, don’t leave me yet.”

  “I’m not leaving you, chère,” he said, returning. “You and I are going on together from here. I’m going to get into bed and go to sleep.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m being selfish. You must be as tired as I was.”

  “Was? What does that mean?”

  She clutched the towel. “How can I be tired? Something just happened to me for the first time.”

  “Yes, so it did.” Slowly he looked from her eyes to her stomach. “I’d like to touch it. They know it’s important to do that, for fathers to bond, as they say.”

  This time Celina felt the tears slip free. “Yes,” she whispered.

  Spreading the fingers of his left hand, he rested them on top of the towel, pressed carefully, and frowned. He added his right hand, and frowned even deeper.

  “I did feel it,” she told him. “Like a bird. But I did.”

  Celina took hold of his right wrist and moved his hand under the towel. His eyes flickered back to hers, and she saw him swallow. “Do you feel anything now?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I will though. Every time you feel him, tell me and I’ll listen.”

  “Listen?”

  “Yes. Sound funny, huh? I just think of it as listening.”

  She stood still and held her breath. “I feel her.”

  Jack went to his knees, parted the towel, and pressed his ear to her navel. Celina forgot to clutch her scant modesty. The towel fell to the floor. She stood naked and held Jack’s head against her.

  “Do you hear?” she asked, breathless.

  “I hear,” he told her. “Oh, I hear you in there, kiddo. How d’you think the Saints will do this year?”

  Celina squeezed her eyes shut and felt her baby moving within her again.

  Jack held her thighs and kissed her tummy lightly. “I will protect you,” he said. �
�You, and this child you love.”

  Twenty-nine

  He heard footsteps and got busy with the frying pan, preparing to appear engrossed in cooking breakfast. “Tote that baaarge,” he sang. “Lift that baaale.” He’d been told he had a pleasant enough baritone, but he caught Amelia’s frown, and the sight of her peach-laden spoon suspended on the way to her mouth, and wondered if he’d lost his touch.

  Celina pushed open the kitchen door and came in wearing a loose violet-colored cotton shirt over jeans. She hadn’t had nearly enough sleep, but she looked fresh and clear-eyed.

  “I heard you singing,” she said to him, but she smiled at Amelia. “You sounded happy. Didn’t he, Amelia?”

  He wished he were as happy as he’d like to have been. “Good,” he said. He should congratulate himself. He could almost hear a time bomb ticking, and the bomb bore his name and the names of everyone he cared about. “Amelia always tests me when I cook, just to see if she can make me feel inferior to Tilly. I insisted Tilly take the morning off. She looked so tired.”

  “She’s not used to gallivantin’,” Amelia said without a trace of a smile. “You two tuckered her out. She told me.”

  “Did she?” Jack asked.

  “No school?” Celina said. “I didn’t know this was a holiday.”

  He’d already prepared his excuse. “Conferences today and tomorrow.”

  Celina didn’t comment, but neither did she look convinced. His daughter studied Celina. “You slept in Daddy’s room.” Rather than do the expected and look to Jack for inspiration,

  Celina said, “Yes, I did. I expect that makes you feel funny, doesn’t it?”

  Amelia managed one of her famous frowns. “Why did you? Daddy said you’d sleep in the room next to me when you came here.”

  “Celina was very tired,” Jack said rapidly. “She had a very bad experience yesterday after she left you and Tilly. I want to talk to you about that. She slept in my room so that I could make sure she was all right.”

  “Like I sleep in your room sometimes if I have bad dreams?”

  “A bit like that,” Jack said. “Please take F.P. off the chair.”

  “I can sit over there,” Celina said, starting to pass behind Amelia.

  Instantly Amelia grabbed her frog and patted the seat of the chair beside her just as Jack did when he wanted Amelia next to him. “Tilly said you must be looked after. Just like when I’m sick and I have to be looked after. She said you need to be quiet and sleep a lot, and eat lots of good food. Tilly said you and Daddy will soon have something very special to tell me.”

  This time Celina wasn’t quick to answer, and she did look at Jack.

  “Sit down,” he told her. “Do you like French toast?”

  “Daddy only knows how to make French toast,” Amelia said, sounding smug while she scooped up another canned peach.

  “Then I’d love French toast,” Celina said, sitting beside Amelia. “Your frog is very handsome.”

  “He’s ugly. But it’s just a disguise.”

  “Because he’s really a handsome prince?”

  Amelia’s disgusted expression made Jack turn away to hide his smile.

  “That’s not our story,” she said. “That’s a fairy tale everyone knows. Frog Prince is a frog who is a prince. A prince who’s really a frog. And he’s really ugly. But that’s so he knows who to love, because if you love him when he’s ugly, it’s because you know he’s pretty inside. That’s the disguise. That’s right, isn’t it, Daddy?”

  “Oh, it certainly is.” This daughter of his caught every word he spoke and tossed it back. He would have to be more and more careful to weigh what he said.

  “Tilly said I couldn’t come in your room.”

  Jack busied himself checking slices of bread to see if they were cooked.

  “This is a time for all of us to get used to change,” Celina said. “I hope you’re going to like having me here with you.”

  Preoccupied with listening for Amelia’s response, he slid toast onto a plate.

  Amelia didn’t say anything.

  He set a plate in front of Celina. “Orange juice?”

  “You don’t have to wait on me.”

  “Orange juice?” he repeated.

  “Thank you.”

  “What’s the surprise?” Amelia asked. “Are we going on a vacation?”

  Jack met Celina’s eyes and raised his brows. “Not immediately, squirt.”

  “Can we go to Disney World?”

  It was Jack’s turn to frown. “What is this? Blackmail?”

  “Jack!” Celina said. “I’d like to go to Disney World, too. Maybe we can—next year, perhaps?” She glanced at him and he turned up his palms.

  “That’s a long time,” Amelia said, burying her nose in her juice glass. When she came up for air, she said, “So what’s the surprise, then?”

  “You never let anything go, do you, Miss Charbonnet?” He sometimes regretted assisting her to grow much older so much sooner than she needed to. “This Friday Celina and I will be married. The wedding will be here. We’ll have a party. A small party, but it will be nice.”

  Celina narrowed her eyes, and he didn’t blame her for disliking his overbearing attitude, but he had no choice.

  “What will I wear?” Amelia asked, moving right along. “Can I have flowers and stuff?”

  “Absolutely,” he told her, wishing Celina didn’t look vaguely sick. “Celina, while you were still asleep I called Dwayne for a recommendation. I thought he might know a good wedding coordinator. He insists you need look no farther than Dwayne LeChat. He wouldn’t hear of anyone else getting involved. He says he’s going to make this an event to remember. He knows exactly what has to be done.”

  She laughed, but then, to his horror, her eyes filled with tears.

  “Dwayne’s going to have some dresses brought over for you and Amelia,” he told her rapidly. “Something for Tilly too, but don’t tell her, she’ll say she doesn’t need anything.”

  “It’ll be like in the movies,” Amelia said in a hushed voice. “Am I going to be a bridesmaid? I never thought I’d be one, because you don’t know anyone, Daddy.”

  “Of course I do,” he said rapidly. “Just because I’m not a social animal doesn’t mean I don’t know anyone.”

  “Can I be your bridesmaid, Celina?” Amelia asked in her delightfully guileless manner. At least the thought of a celebration in which she would star was deflecting her from other thoughts.

  Celina had located a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “I’d like you to be my bridesmaid,” she said. “What kind of dress would you like?”

  Amelia looked down at herself as if visualizing. She draped F.P. over her lap and held out her arms. “Yellow. With lots of skirts that stand out.”

  “I thought you didn’t like yellow,” Celina said.

  “I was being a little toad,” Amelia said, matter-of-fact. “That was before I understood that Daddy needs someone for when I get married and go away. Tilly told me, and I know it now. Otherwise he wouldn’t have anyone. I like yellow, and it’s your favorite.”

  He hugged his daughter, and bumped heads with Celina, who went for the child from the other side. They held her between them, Celina with her eyes closed while Amelia smiled a wide, satisfied smile. He wouldn’t fool himself into thinking there wouldn’t be tough days ahead once the glamour of yellow frou-frou was over, but he’d take the break for the moment.

  “Today we should invite anyone who ought to be here,” Jack said. “It won’t be many. Your parents, my motherin-law—if it’s not asking too much of her. Cyrus. Dwayne and Jean-Claude. Your parents may want the Lamars here.” The idea didn’t please him.

  “Not them,” Celina said at once. “Just family. Dwayne’s family—so is Tilly, I’m sure.”

  “And the baby.”

  Jack straightened

  So did Celina.

  “What did you say?” he asked Amelia.

  She swung her feet, moved her plate aside,
and sat F.P. on the table. “We may ask Phillymeana if we can take it to the North Pole, and if it’s very good, we won’t leave it behind when we come home.”

  Jack looked at Celina over the child’s head. She screwed up her face and bit her lower lip.

  “Tilly said a lot of little-kid stuff about storks and how sometimes they come fairly soon when people get married.” Amelia raised her face to Celina. “You’ve got a baby in your tummy, haven’t you? That happened to Betty Smith at school. Her daddy got married and her new mommy already had a baby in her tummy. Betty told me how you tell.” Amelia bowed her head of soft black curls and looked closely at Celina’s belly.

  “Would you like to feel it?” Celina said, although she gritted her teeth. “I felt it move for the first time yesterday.”

  Amelia considered, then put a small hand on Celina, and removed it again very quickly. “That’s it, hmmm? Doesn’t feel like a baby, does it?”

  “I guess not,” Celina said.

  “You’d better have a lot of skirts on your dress for the wedding,” Amelia said, and before they could laugh, she bounced her frog and said, “The rude ghost came again last night. He wanted me to look out of the window, but I wouldn’t.”

  “Good for you.” The less he encouraged Amelia’s retreats into fantasy, the better.

  “The man you sent to the school told me I shouldn’t worry about things like that.”

  Jack slid his own plate onto the table very slowly and dropped into a chair. “Man? What man?”

  Amelia took off the bow Tilly had tied among her curls and attached it to her frog’s leg. “The man at school. Sometimes he comes to talk at break. He’s nice. He stands by the wall down at the bottom of the hill, where we roll. But he only talks to me. Not any of the others.”

  Jack didn’t remember feeling so cold. “You’ve been talking to a man you don’t know? A stranger who hangs out by the school?”