Lennon lost her steam when she saw Auntie Q goggling like a pixie who'd been zapped by a lightning bolt. Apparently the thought of separating love and passion hadn't occurred to her.
But Auntie Q had a mind as sharp as a Cajun spice. Understanding quickly dawned upon her, revealed in her impish features, and she cut a gaze back to the portrait inside the entrance hall. "Give me strength, Joshua, please."
After fifty-five years of discussing all aspects of her life with Great-uncle Joshua, Auntie Q hadn't been able to break the habit after his death. She still talked to him whenever she felt the need, no matter where she was or whom she was with. Lennon wondered if he ever answered her.
She couldn't hear a thing but the drone of the museum's climate control system as it cycled on, which was truly a shame. She could have used an advocate about now.
Taking her great-aunt's thin hands in her own, she gazed down into that dear old face, needing Auntie Q to understand. Her great-aunt had been the mainstay of Lennon's life, the doting darling who'd pinch-hitted for Lennon's mother, who'd devoted her own life to chasing her Mr. Rights.
As usual, Mother was nowhere to be found to act as an advocate when Lennon needed one. She was currently residing in Monte Carlo chasing Mr. Right number forty-two.
But Lennon had long ago learned to make her own decisions, because sometimes her mother's affairs d'amour had easily accommodated a child in tow, at other times not. During those times Auntie Q had always stepped in, bringing Lennon back to the huge family house in the New Orleans Garden District.
By the time Lennon had been ten, jet-setting around the globe for her mother's wild affairs had lost its appeal. She'd longed for the stability of a home, a school and friends of her own, and the enduring love of her kind and fun Auntie Q.
Mother hadn't argued when Lennon had asked to stay in New Orleans. She hadn't asked Auntie Q if it was okay, either. She'd just kissed their cheeks on the veranda and departed with a breezy, "Call me when you're ready to come home."
Twenty years had passed and Lennon still hadn't called. Neither had Auntie Q. And never once had her great-aunt ever seemed to mind the lifestyle adjustments that assuming the responsibilities of a child had entailed. She'd been the most loving of surrogate parents, and Lennon wanted her approval.
"It all boils down to Mr. Wrong and Mr. Right," she explained. "A man who's right for an affair isn't what I want for my marriage."
Auntie Q sighed. "If this is about your mother and the choices she has made, Lennon, don't let her knack for choosing rogues frighten you off."
"Mother chooses rogues because she lives for that rush of lust. She's a junkie. As soon as the thrill wears off and her fantasy man starts to look real, she's gone."
Gazing into her great-aunt's face, Lennon frowned when she saw worry there. "I enjoy the rush of lust, too, Auntie. You know that. I may not have had a romance in a while, but I've had some wonderful ones. I'm not frightened of passion, just rational about it. I want a real marriage, not some up-and-down roller-coaster ride. I know what my needs are, and I choose to fulfill them."
"Love shouldn't make you rational. It should make you crazy, even a bit foolish. It should make you feel alive."
"That's fine for an affair. I want stability in marriage."
"Why can't you have both? Look at your great-uncle and me. We endured fifty-five years of the most wonderful relationship."
"You and Great-uncle Joshua lived a fifty-five-year love affair." Lennon couldn't bring herself to point out the obvious: Auntie Q had been Great-uncle Joshua's mistress. "You once told me that you felt lucky because you shared your life with the man you loved. Living the legend, you said, because your namesake, the real Guinevere, hadn't been so lucky. I always thought that was so romantic, but--"
"But we didn't have a real marriage," Auntie Q said. "No, dear, we didn't, but we shared our lives and never once regretted the difficult choices we were forced to make."
"I know."
What her great-aunt and -uncle had shared had been special, even more so because their love had endured though they hadn't met until years after he'd committed to an arranged marriage. At the time, a man didn't divorce simply because he'd found a more suitable partner--even if his wife had decided she wanted a marriage in name only after providing an heir.
Though Auntie Q and Great-uncle Joshua had made the best of the hand life had dealt them, and had fun in the process, Lennon didn't envision a future for herself even remotely similar.
She wanted home and hearth and babies. Lots of babies. Little girls to share tea parties with and little boys to help catch bugs in glass jars. She would work her writing schedule around her family's needs and revel in the joys of being a wife and mom.
Auntie Q must have recognized her resolve, because she said, "Your mind's made up." It was a statement.
"It is. I've given my future a great deal of thought. Mr. Right for a marriage is what's right for me. I don't want a husband I'm head-over-heels in lust with. I want a husband I like, love and respect. I want a life companion."
"A life companion?" Auntie Q rolled her gaze heavenward. "Old people have companions. I'm not even old enough for one and I'm eighty-two."
Lennon didn't point out that her assistant, Olaf, who cared for her in myriad capacities, could be considered a companion. She gently squeezed her great-aunt's hands instead. "Trust me, Auntie. I know what I want. And with the bachelor auction, you've provided me the perfect place to find him."
"You need grand passion."
Lennon peered back into the entrance hall at her great-uncle's portrait. Maybe it was the night lighting or staying up long past her bedtime, but Lennon recognized the underlying excitement in his green eyes, the zest for living that had been so much a part of the man she'd known. And admired.
Great-uncle Joshua had been the only steady male presence in her life while Lennon was growing up. A kind, fun and very noble man, he'd had the ability to make her great-aunt feel like the most important person in his world. And Lennon, too.
He'd been a part of every important step in her life, from dance recitals and graduations to helping her cope with her flighty mother. She'd always considered her great-uncle family-by-love. He may not have been officially related, but he'd always encouraged and supported her, and she still thought of him as her ideal, a man she modeled her romance heroes after.
"You had grand passion, Auntie," she said, guessing that if Great-uncle Joshua had been free to marry, Auntie Q would probably have considered life perfect. "Maybe if there was another man as wonderful I might consider a different sort of marriage. But Great-uncle Joshua was one of a kind."
Auntie Q regarded her from beneath a wrinkled brow. "I really wish you'd reconsider."
"I know what I want, and it's not a life full of emotional upheaval. I want to marry a man who'll help me create a stable, normal family. I wouldn't change a moment of my life with you, but we're not exactly normal, are we?" She smiled lightly, hoping to ease her great-aunt's concern. "Besides, I've had my share of affairs and romances. I'll settle down with a man I can love, and keep passion for my romance novels."
She kissed her great-aunt's cheek. "Now will you go to your office and try to catch a few hours of sleep? The museum directors will be here at the crack of dawn and we won't have a chance to slow down before the reception. I still don't know when we'll find time to check into the hotel."
"We'll manage, dear." Auntie Q squeezed her hand. "Why don't you come, too? A few hours wouldn't hurt you, either. You'll want to look fresh for the bachelors."
Lennon couldn't tell if this remark meant Auntie Q had accepted the game plan or not. Her bright eyes and easy smile didn't reveal a thing. Too late and too tired for more debate when she still had so much to do, Lennon let the matter drop and focused on settling Auntie Q in her office, before she herself returned to the entrance hall to tackle The Promise.
Smoothing the black velvet drape over the display, she maneuvered the pieces around like
men on a chessboard. The penis at a forty-five degree angle from the mouth. No. Too far apart, the pieces didn't appear like part of any yin-yang whole. She moved them closer and thought the penis looked as if it stood sentinel over the mouth.
The Promise was the first piece of artwork the guests would see after Great-uncle Joshua's portrait. Possibly the first, if their gazes didn't follow the lines of the room to the portrait. The arrangement had to be right.
One hundred eighty degrees southeast? Ninety degrees northwest? The penis lying on its side, its huge marble head touching the open mouth?
No, no, no. With a disgusted groan, Lennon snatched the penis off the base and dropped it into her lap. There, no penis at all. Worked for her. And displayed alone, the mouth looked sort of like a huge white rose. Rather attractive, really.
Laying an arm on the display base, she wearily rested her head on the crook of her elbow and decided Auntie Q was probably right. She just didn't like the sculpture because she hadn't seen the real thing in a while.
2
IF JOSH EASTMAN HADN'T known better, he'd have thought he'd walked into a storybook illustration of Sleeping Beauty. Security lights washed the new gallery's entrance hall with a pale gleam, illuminating the beauty asleep at the foot of his grandfather's portrait. This woman was a late-night fantasy, all long, long legs and sleek blond hair.
Her filmy skirt and clingy sweater drew his gaze to willowy curves curled around a low display case, and to smooth golden skin where her bare arm draped over the black velvet.But Josh knew better. She might be a sleeping beauty, all right, but not from any child's version of the tale. Not with a huge marble erection propped upright on her lap.
Sleeping Beauty could only be Lennon McDarby, all grown up.
Moving silently into the new gallery, he drank the espresso he'd picked up in the museum's security office and surveyed the woman before him. She'd been, what?--ten, maybe eleven the last time Josh had seen her, right before he'd headed off to college. A skinny girl, all arms and legs and conversation about things he couldn't have cared less about.
He hadn't thought much about her since, though he'd heard of her from his grandfather and Miss Q. But who'd have guessed that gangly kid would have grown into this golden vision? Not him.
Even if Josh had guessed, he'd never have pictured the erection--which wasn't, incidentally, the only erection around. A watercolor nearby showed a man servicing his own needs.
"Don't blame you a bit, pal." He rested his gaze on a sleeping Lennon. "She's definitely something to look at."
Definitely.
She was the best sight he'd seen in a long time. More sexy than all the art in the room combined. With her long slender curves, silky blond hair and gold-dusted lashes fanned out in half circles on her cheeks, Lennon couldn't look more delicious if she'd been spread out on a bed.
Unless she'd been naked.
Now there was an image to inspire more than a few late-night fantasies. Lennon, all gleaming gold skin and sleek curves, with her eyes closed and her lips parted as if awaiting his kisses.
An image that made Josh long to kneel down beside her, peel away her clothes and wake this sleeping beauty with a kiss right now, because the very idea of tasting those pouty lips and touching all that smooth golden skin clouded his thoughts and inspired an upsurge in his pulse rate.
Josh shook his head to erase the image. How in hell was he supposed to help Miss Q by protecting Lennon this weekend, when he'd spend his time protecting her from himself, instead of the bad guys?
A damned good question. This woman was passion personified. The closest he'd ever come to his perfect fantasy. And except for the unusual piece of art resting strategically on her lap, the only thing to mar the view was the portrait of his grandfather, which loomed above her head to remind Josh why he'd come. Guilt. Loads of guilt. Otherwise he'd never be in this new gallery wing at the crack of dawn. In the French Quarter during Mardi Gras, no less.
Josh didn't celebrate Mardi Gras, hadn't for years, anyway. When he'd been a kid, his grandfather had routinely commandeered him from his parents and grandmother, all of whom had believed the party in New Orleans proper was nothing more than a peasant festival. The real action, as far as they were concerned, took place uptown, in the mansions of the Garden District.
He hadn't partied with his grandfather at Mardi Gras since he'd been seventeen years old. A lifetime ago. Nowadays, Josh scheduled himself out of town during the first half of February, and he'd managed that task for the past five years running.
This year he hadn't been so lucky. A self-employed private investigator, he was just wrapping up a missing person case that had ended with a corpse, and he'd spent the past two weeks giving depositions to multijurisdictional authorities.
Just his luck. If he hadn't been in town tonight, his answering service would have fielded the call that had turned out to be the last person on the planet he'd expected to hear from--Quinevere McDarby, his late grandfather's mistress and the woman he'd known as Miss Q throughout his youth.
She'd worked him over in a big way, and here he was with the unenviable task of breaking the news to her great-niece.
"Lennon," he whispered quietly, not wanting to startle her. "Lennon, wake up."
She inhaled deeply, a soft sound that rippled in the quiet, and made the slight parting of her pouty peach lips seem as enticing as if she'd brushed that sexy mouth across his skin.
Josh swallowed hard. Without even opening her eyes, grown-up Lennon was having an absurd physical effect on him. An effect that had to be the combined result of his too-long-ignored libido and the giant phallus sitting in her lap. With that giant open mouth propped on the display case, firing his imagination with all sorts of tempting images, no wonder the seam of his jeans suddenly dug into his crotch.
She tipped her heart-shaped face up and blinked open whiskey-colored eyes. Eyes he hadn't thought about in years, but suddenly remembered with startling clarity.
Startling being the operative word, because Lennon shot bolt upright at the sight of him, inadvertently rolling the sculpture off her lap. It hit the carpeted floor with a thump.
"Penis envy, chere?"
She dragged her wide-eyed gaze down to the marble sculpture. Her mouth popped open. With jerky, panicked motions, she grabbed the huge phallus and lifted it off the floor.
Even with the low lighting, Josh could see the flush of color stain her cheeks as she repositioned the sculpture on the display base. But her flush was nothing compared to the heat rushing through him at the sight of her fingers wrapped around that smooth marble.
Taking another gulp of espresso, he barely noticed it scald his throat on the way down. "Long time no see, charity case."
He called her by the nickname he'd coined during a long-ago conversation where he'd lamented his grandmother's never-ending disapproval. Lennon had countered with her own tale of being quasi-orphaned and totally dependent on her great-aunt's charity. He remembered thinking that she'd had the better deal.
Shooting a startled glance at his grandfather's portrait, Lennon shook her head as if trying to shake off sleep, before turning back to stare at him.
"Black sheep!" She continued the name game, using a soubriquet he hadn't heard since the last time he'd seen her, and that she remembered it pleased him. "What are you doing here?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he extended a hand and helped her stand--a fluid movement that drew his attention to every curve between her head and her toes. Then he noticed her whiskey gaze glued to the cardboard travel cup he still held in one hand.
"Espresso, black," he said.
"Do you mind?"
He handed her the cup and watched as she sucked down an appreciative swallow. Her eyes shuttered briefly and she sighed as if she'd never tasted anything as good. "It's uncanny."
"What?"
"How much you look like your grandfather."
He gazed up at the portrait again. No denying it. The resemblance was nothing short of
remarkable--a fact that came as a mild surprise. His grandfather had been close to sixty by the time Josh had been born, so the only memories he'd had of the man in his prime had been from photos. No getting around the fact that besides their dark coloring and green eyes, the facial structures matched almost identically.
Though Josh had spent most of his adult life establishing himself independently of the Eastman family, he found it ironic that the shirt his grandfather had worn while sitting for this portrait some forty-odd years ago was the same green-gray shade Josh had on right now.
"Except for the hair," Lennon observed, gaze darting back at him. "You've got a ponytail."
He shrugged, unsure whether this was good or bad. The length of his hair had been a grooming concession for his latest investigation. When he went undercover with drug dealers, he looked the part. With all the red tape and police reports he'd been wading in lately, he hadn't found time for a haircut.
"Life been treating you all right?" he asked, deciding that if her luscious appearance was any indication, she'd been treated very well.
"Sure has, thank you. How about you?"
"Better than I deserve."
Except at the moment. Somehow when he'd agreed to help out Miss Q, he'd still thought of Lennon as a girl.
A big mistake, he now realized, but one that didn't surprise him. Bottom line was he hadn't thought much about Lennon, Miss Q or any of his own family since he'd gone to college and devoted his life to breaking away from his controlling grandmother.
She'd been hell-bent on grooming him to pick up the reins of the family art import-export business. The business hadn't interested Josh, but the art had, so his grandfather had encouraged him to explore where that path might lead. There'd been tension between his grandparents over which direction Josh's life should take. His parents had routinely swung back and forth between the opposing factions, wanting their son to be happy, yet wanting the demanding matriarch to stop making all their lives miserable with her efforts to get her way.
Thanks to youthful stupidity, Josh had simply walked away from the fight. He'd had a big chip on his shoulder at the time and felt as if he was disappointing everyone. Swapping the family mansion in the Garden District for a refurbished warehouse in the art district, he'd cut himself off so completely from his family's social circles he may as well have been living on another planet.
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