BornontheBayou

by Lynne Connolly

  He’d ordered a light prawn salad, steaks for two and a good pinot noir. She seemed to approve, because she set to as if she hadn’t eaten for a week. He grinned and offered her the breadbasket. She took a roll and broke into it, looking around for the butter.

  “I like a woman who doesn’t starve herself.”

  She grinned. “I’ll have to run this off, but I can’t resist. For some reason I’m famished.” She shot him a sly look and he laughed. He liked this Beverley, mischievous and teasing. Remembering what she’d said earlier, he decided she was definitely a Beverley, not a Bev.

  “I can help you work off the extra calories. Not that you need to.”

  “I always ate well but worked hard. I started to put weight on when I began the manager’s job. Too many hours behind a desk.” She put down the roll and cut into her steak, frowning a little.

  “Let me guess. You like your steak still mooing.”

  “No, just a little rarer than this. But it’s fine.”

  “Mooing.” He poured her a glass of wine. “This should help.”

  “Thanks.” She took a healthy sip and shot him a grin. “Much better.”

  His steak was underdone for his taste, if anything, so he guessed she’d want it rare. It seemed she wanted it rarer. It didn’t bother him. He’d eaten burgers that had probably never seen a chicken or a cow, snacked from roadside diners that gave roaches a reason to live. He ate his way through it, getting more pleasure from seeing Beverley enjoying her meal, which she did, with relish. “Keep eating.”

  “I suppose you’re used to the model type,” she said. Something in her eyes dimmed. He wanted that light back.

  “Some. Not many, but you can’t categorize them like that. Models are people too.” He paused. “I can’t think who said that.”

  “I thought you just did.”

  He grinned. “So I did. Anyhow, there’s the drug addict-thin type as well. Drugs change your personality, make you into somebody else. You end up hating yourself.”

  She put down her knife and fork and touched her napkin to her lips. He saw her hesitation but knew she’d speak. Already he knew she faced things head-on. “Did that happen to you?”

  “Oh yeah. Those marks on my arms cost far more than the tattoo. I gave up when I discovered that I didn’t like the person I was turning into. And the songs were getting tired and stupid. Just as well I did, because I found myself in time to stop my best friend killing himself.”

  She stared at him in shock. “Oh my God. Who?”

  Chapter Six

  Guess she hadn’t heard that one, the story that the media had relished. “Maxx Syccoraxx, the vocalist with Murder City Ravens, aka Matt Scott. He was lost. We were all finding out what we could do and learning different things, but Matt only sang. Didn’t write much, could play a guitar a little, sang like a fucking angel. A dark angel. He took the junk to pass the time at first. It became his art and like a lot of art, it nearly killed him. Eventually we had to fire him. I spent a weekend talking and talking with him. I wouldn’t give him up.”

  “But he was still taking drugs?”

  Would this kill what they had started today? Better sooner than later. If she stayed with him any longer, she’d hear the stories anyway, and none of what he was telling her was secret. “People were taking an interest in us and everything looked good. We could have played medium and smaller venues, support at festivals, and made a good living. The drugs nearly destroyed all that. Did for a time. Instead of a real second album with new material, we released a live one.”

  It had all happened in the full light of publicity. The band had nearly crashed and burned. Now they were climbing back up.

  “Matt shot up all one weekend, but not to excess. Or so I thought. I found him in the bathroom. Got him to the hospital and they pumped him out, got him back. I told him then that it was the shit or our friendship. You can’t stick around an addict if you want to survive. I’d already decided to stop because the stuff bored me. He was in deeper.”

  “But I thought he was your friend!” she said, as if that meant everything. In her world it probably did.

  “He wasn’t the person I knew. He’d changed, and I knew this was his last chance. He had to get himself back and find his direction. So he made his choice and went into rehab. Not for me, but for himself. You can’t give up for anybody else, it has to be for you.”

  She stared at him, those beautiful blues wide and full of pain. “What happened to him?”

  He grinned. “He produces our albums. After he came out of rehab, he opened a recording studio in Chicago and found his true calling. The new album is amazing, not least due to Matt. He also found a woman to love, and she’s our new sax player, V. It worked out for Matt. It doesn’t work for everybody.”

  Somberly he remembered people he’d known, watched become addicted to their drug of choice. They’d turned into shadows of themselves and then into shambling wrecks, losing direction and the joy of life. When that spark left them, that was the end. Nothing left. They existed until they died.

  Some people resisted for years, kept going, learned how to keep their habit on the edge so they could still function, but sooner or later it got to them all. He’d learned that people could walk and talk and still be dead.

  Shit, how had he got on to that subject? He’d never told anyone so many details about that lost weekend with Matt. There was much more, but that remained between him and his best friend, things Matt had told him, things he’d told Matt. He doubted Matt remembered half of it. Convinced their friendship would end with either Matt’s death or his anger when he discovered Jace had signed him into rehab, he shared stuff he’d have kept for another day if he’d thought there’d be one.

  Now he was telling a woman he’d met for the first time that day and fucked twice. He had no idea why. He needed to make one thing clear though. “Listen, as far as the public is concerned, we didn’t fire Matt, he chose to leave the band in order to go into rehab, then decided to follow a new career.”

  “Oh, I see. No, I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

  “I know.” And fuck, he did. They had something here. It could fade out or it could be the start of something important, but they both needed the time to find out. He wanted to keep this thing going a while longer, not wave her off on a flight to London and go on to Atlanta. “Stay with me.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Stay with me for a while longer. Come back to Great Oaks with me tomorrow. As my guest. You have unfinished business there, don’t you?”

  He saw the realization hit her when her eyes widened a little. “Yes I do. I have to fire Gaston Rebennac and find out what really happened to drive the chef away. It doesn’t make sense for him to leave just after he arrived, even somebody as temperamental as him. He’d have retreated to a hotel and waited for me to come crawling to him. It’s part of his game, and yes, I would have played it. But he left, actually left.”

  He knew that part, but if he told her, she might not stay and he wanted her to. “So that’s settled. We go back tomorrow.” He sent her a wicked grin. “I guarantee I’m going to get you screaming again. That’s too good a sound to waste.”

  * * * * *

  They arrived back the next morning in the Ferrari, with her new wardrobe packed into a top-of-the-line lightweight suitcase, delivered separately. The first thing Beverley saw when she walked into the reception area was her old case, familiar, battered, friendly, standing on its wonky wheels next to the gleaming reception desk. “Oh, Ms. Christmas.” The immaculately attired receptionist, every glossy hair in place, seemed surprised to see her. “Gaston delivered this. Said it was yours and he didn’t know where to send it.”

  “Right here is fine.” She’d insisted on wheeling the bigger case herself, but Jace wrenched it away from her and made a joke about his reputation. He’d promised not to make their affair overt, but he’d said he wouldn’t keep away from her either. She didn’t know whether to be flattered or a wor
ried, but decided flattered was less stressful.

  “I persuaded Ms. Christmas to return,” Jace said. “I’ll need a room of my own—I’m staying for a while. That okay?”

  “Yes,” the woman said without looking down. Then she blinked and hit a few keys to bring up the screen. Beverley knew what it said, and smiled when the woman named a room as far away from hers as the receptionist could manage. Using their prearranged code, something that had amused Jace a great deal, she told him no, extending one finger below the desk where the woman couldn’t see.

  “Do you have anything else?” Jace said. “No, wait. I probably know this house better than you do. There aren’t any guests here, are there? I’ll choose my own room and let you know.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  He leaned across the desk, got in her face. “I can. I’m here to see what Bell’s has done with my childhood home and to see if I like it. So you’ll be seeing me around for the next few days.”

  Beverley would have loved to take a photo then, to record the expression on the supercilious woman’s face. It sure wasn’t supercilious now. Beverley had just seen the side of Jace she hadn’t realized he owned. The dead serious, mess-with-me-at-your-peril side. It sobered her too. She wouldn’t like to cross him in that mood.

  Ignoring the receptionist, now silently watching them, he smiled at her and put his hand lightly on the small of her back to guide her to the stairs. Before she could do it, he grabbed her new case and lifted it without seeming effort. “We will have an elevator by opening day, yes?”

  “Of course.” She felt almost back to her efficient self until she realized that was why he asked. He was keeping his promise. Small talk until they got somewhere private. And he was easing her back. When she’d thought she was done with Great Oaks, she’d begun to shed the persona she’d assumed for this job. He was showing her the way back, whether he realized it or not.

  She led the way up the elegant, sweeping staircase that could have been the set for any number of old Hollywood movies, chattering about the new elevator, the pathways between the old building and the new, and the new kitchens.

  They reached the upper landing. The conference rooms would be here, but a few rooms had been set aside for the Plantation Experience. Bell’s had employed two historians to dig up what they could about this building in particular, and the whole experience, so people signing up for it could have an immersive experience or a tour.

  “What’s the difference? What happens during the Plantation Experience?” he asked.

  Shit, she found it so easy to talk to him, she’d not realized she was talking aloud. “They get to dress up and live for up to three days as someone who lived here in the nineteenth century. Most people want to play lord and lady of the manor, but there’s also the slave experience.”

  He shuddered. “Even the word makes me ashamed.”

  “Why? It’s not like you had anything to do with it. From all accounts, your family didn’t have many slaves, and they treated them well.”

  “As far as that goes.” He put down the case and stared at the elegant arched windows, at them and not the view outside. “It was still wrong, and I’m related to the people who did it. My mother’s family came over in the late seventeenth century and dug right in. They were connected to families in England. That made getting the slaves easier.”

  “So shouldn’t I feel ashamed too?” she demanded. “I’m British. I come from London, so maybe my family was involved. Maybe they manned the ships, handled the accounts, bought the cotton.”

  “Rice,” he said, smiling.

  “Rice?”

  “My family farmed rice. Or rather, the slaves did.” He still stared. She didn’t like it, didn’t like the sudden melancholy. It wouldn’t do him any good. He couldn’t change anything now.

  “You didn’t answer my question. We’re all complicit. It’s nobody’s fault and it’s everybody’s fault. All we can do is make amends.”

  He turned to her then, his ready smile back, but she didn’t believe it this time. He was putting it on for her. At least he was until he lost the smile and reached for her. Already it felt natural to go.

  Something lurked at the back of her mind, doubt or fear, a niggling worry that after only a day this shouldn’t come to her so easily, but it did. She kissed him because she sensed he needed it, and then because she needed it too.

  She didn’t know how long they stood there, but when they broke apart she gasped for air. He chuckled and rubbed his thumb over her lower lip. “I never thought of it like that before. You’re good for me, Ms. Christmas. Take me to the bedrooms, wench.”

  She was using a small room on the next floor, the main bedroom floor, so she led him there and let him wheel her case in. “Does this have any memories for you?”

  “This?” He shook his head. “This was a guest room.” He paused and frowned. “No, that’s wrong. In my time it was a storeroom. The rain had gotten in and you couldn’t have slept here.” He walked to the window.

  “The only place I can get my bearings is to look out the window and see where I am. Bell’s has done a helluva lot of work.” He turned back, leaned against the wide sill and regarded her. “You know why I’m really here?”

  That didn’t sound good. She gave him the story he’d given everyone, including her. “To see what Bell’s has done to your ancestral home.”

  He laughed shortly. “Yeah, some of it.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You’ve probably guessed my life here wasn’t a bundle of laughs. My mother worshipped the god of keeping up appearances, but the place rotted around us. When my father saw the state of the place, he refused to let me stay here after I’d finished school. I used to visit him on vacations but I went to university in France and lived with him. After that I only visited here, but I thought I’d never get the stink of rotting wood out of my nostrils. I couldn’t wait to get rid of this place.” He glanced out the window, then back at her.

  “Murder City Ravens has only hit the big-time with Nightstar. Before that, I got along, made some, sent my mother a little, but she never spent it on the house. Then she died and left the place to me. I sold the house before I got rich, but I had an attack of guilt.

  “James Bell thought he was being clever. When I got cold feet, he suggested an option clause. If I paid for the improvements, I could buy the house back. We had a date put on it, the end of this month.” He laughed. “Now he’s shit scared because I can afford it. We both saw the clause as a way for me to say goodbye slowly. He never dreamed I’d actually do it, or have the money to buy him out.

  “Murder City Ravens had a stroke of luck. Well, a few. Three new members who’ve brought the magic with them, made us more than we were before. A manager who doesn’t want to rob us blind, and a hit single. The album will do as well, I’m sure of it, and we’re on a world tour. That’s big money, Beverley. I could come back, take over and run the place as an independent concern. Or buy into a hotel franchise.”

  She knew about those, luxury hotels that promised a consistent level of service but had individual identities. It would work well for Great Oaks.

  “When I was a kid,” he went on, “that was my dream. To restore the house and then run it at a profit. When I sold the house I needed the money for the band.” He paused. “And fuck, I was sick of being poor. Sick of pretending all the time. That’s how my mother managed. Bought white gloves and closed rooms when they became inhabitable instead of spending the glove money on roof tiles.”

  “I worked that one out.” He quirked a brow so she told him. “When you said your mother shopped at that department store. It’s not cheap. You can get white gloves cheaper mail order, or somewhere else.”

  He bowed his head. “Clever woman.”

  “Not really. Not when I saw the house. By the time I arrived they’d finished most of the exterior work, but Bell’s took photos and videos before they started. You can see them if you like.”

  He shrugged. “My memory’s not tha
t bad. I know what it was like and I don’t want to revisit it in a hurry. One day. But you see what I mean?”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  He shrugged. “That part of the contract ends in a month, when the hotel’s ready to open. Bell’s management will have worked out why I’m here. After that, I’m just another shareholder. I get to stay here whenever I like, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  “Are you’re here to say goodbye?” She wanted to move closer but it was as if he had a ring of steel around him, something she couldn’t break through.

  “Or not.” He shrugged. “We’re writing material for the next album and doing the tour. I could leave if I wanted to. I don’t do much writing and I have a fan base of my own, so I could do something solo. Or I could leave the music business and chase my childhood dream of running this house.” He kept her gaze, his eyes as blue as the sky outside. “That’s why I’m really here. To make up my mind.”

  She swallowed. She’d given her dream up, or rather been forced to, so she knew what it felt like. As if she’d lost part of her heart and she’d never get it back, however hard she tried. Instantly, he saw her change of mood.

  He crossed the room and took her in his arms, holding her close. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have reminded you. At least I have a choice, right?”

  “Yes. It doesn’t matter. I made the decision to leave the kitchen a year ago. So far, so good.” She choked a laugh. “At least most of it.” She clutched his T-shirt at the back, but when she realized she was doing it, she deliberately relaxed her hold. “I know enough now to know where I need to learn more.”

  “Look, don’t take this the wrong way.” He drew away and gazed down at her face. “You’re twenty-eight and you’ve spent all but a year of your adult life as a chef, right?”

  “More or less. I’ve lived and breathed kitchens all my life. When I was little we lived in one of the best hotels in London when my father got his first Michelin star. Dad sent me away to France when I was eighteen and I worked with chefs there for two years. Then I came home and I thought I was set for life. But I wasn’t.”