"Josh Eastman."
One look at Louis's open mouth confirmed the type of reaction Josh could expect from Miss Q's guests this weekend. In polite New Orleans society, his grandfather's relationship with Quinevere McDarby had been accepted, even respected for its endurance. But his grandfather's life with Miss Q had not crossed over into his life with the Eastman family.
Never the twain shall meet. Josh's classical education must be failing him because he couldn't remember who'd said that, but with regard to his family, truer words had never been spoken.
Louis finally found his voice. "You're Joshua's...?"
"Grandson," Josh supplied.
"Isn't it wonderful he's here to open the gallery?" Lennon jumped in, and he could tell by her strained smile that she hadn't anticipated this reaction.
"Wonderful," Louis agreed. "But I can't believe you're keeping him to yourself. You simply must bring him over to meet Grant and everyone, or you'll be banished from the literati."
Lennon laughed lightly. "Banished, Louis? I didn't realize I was part of your set."
"We're all holding out hope for you yet." Louis smiled. Motioning them toward the path, he said, "Come, Josh, let me introduce you around. Perhaps you'll have better luck at convincing Lennon to write something real."
"Real, as opposed to what?" Josh returned Lennon's glass, gauging her reaction to the objectionable comment.
She smiled benignly. "As opposed to genre fiction."
Louis didn't seem nearly so compassionate as he hurried them down the path toward the piazza. "So when will you give in?"
"When a publisher offers me a six-figure advance and enough promotion for a shot at a sixty-percent sell-through."
"Writing isn't about money, Lennon. It's about producing something of lasting literary value with a worthy message."
"What was the message of your last book--how far into depression you could possibly drive your reader?" A smile accompanied her question, but Josh heard the bite below. So did Louis Garceau, if his frown was any indication. "After I finished that story, I walked around for three days feeling like someone had murdered my best friend."
"I evoked your emotions, didn't I?"
"Mission accomplished." When Louis turned a corner, she caught Josh's gaze and rolled her eyes. "But I prefer to leave my reader with a smile and a satisfied sigh."
"It's not real satisfaction." Louis glanced back at them.
"That's the whole point. I get my fill of real every time I pick up the New Orleans Daily Herald or turn on the news. I'll take fantasy in my leisure reading, thank you, and leave you literary heavyweights to mourn the state of the world."
"You should always have a moral to your stories."
"'There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written,'" Josh quoted, deciding he'd never make it through the night if all the guests proved as annoying as this pompous ass.
"Oscar Wilde." Garceau looked surprised.
"He was in good company. My grandfather thought art embraced all forms of expression. You have another opinion."
Garceau gave a nervous laugh. "No. No, not really."
"No? I must have misunderstood you then." Josh stared the man down, indicating that this topic of conversation had just ended.
Then he segued into interrogation. "What brings you to the opening? The Eastman Gallery of erotic antiquities doesn't exactly fall into the conventional classical category. Erotica seems related to Lennon's romances, don't you think?"
Though he looked as though it pained him to admit it, Garceau agreed. The man even went so far as to rationalize his participation in the gallery opening, and to qualify the existence of erotic artwork among the classics.
Josh listened without comment, mostly because Garceau didn't pause long enough to draw breath. He ranted, once flinging his arm around in a display of such exaggerated eloquence that only the agile movements of a waiter saved them all from being covered in champagne.
Lennon caught Josh's gaze above her glass, a slight lifting of her golden brows that accused him of instigating this diatribe.
Josh only smiled. A short-lived amusement, because the rest of the literati set showed up, and they multiplied Garceau's rant by five. Not good.
With Lennon's help, Josh wrestled the conversation back to the gallery opening and everyone's motive for attending. Eventually, the group answered all his questions, before degenerating into a debate on the pros and cons of literary fantasy versus literary reality.
Josh cast his vote for fantasy--the reality of this party was killing him. Interrogating this crew wasted time he could have spent questioning other suspects. As far as he could tell, Louis Garceau and his chums circulated among the philanthropists only to drum up readers for their writing.
Lennon's frown suggested she was just as unhappy with the conversation. Pausing as they returned to the piazza, she handed her empty flute to a passing waiter and refused another.
"Listen, Josh, I appreciate what you tried to do back there, but defending me from literary elitism isn't part of your job description. Just keep me safe from the bad guys, okay?"
"Ah, chere, you're asking me to stand by and do nothing when a man is impugning a lovely lady's art. My grandfather would expect better from me."
Folding her arms across her chest, Lennon gifted him with a glimpse of the gleaming skin above her cleavage. His heart began a tempo similar to the impatient tapping of her strappy sandals on the cobbled path.
"Unfortunately, there are too many people who don't consider what I write to be of any literary value," she said. "They're entitled to their opinions. I choose to ignore them."
Josh chose not to. The idea of anyone ragging on Lennon's work didn't sit right. "Garceau's entitled to his opinion. But not at your expense."
"I was only teasing about the knight in shining armor business." She frowned again, a slight dipping of her brows that warned him she was gearing up for an argument.
After being forced to listen to Louis Garceau and his chums, Josh wasn't in the mood. The only logical thing to do was grab two glasses from a passing waiter and ply Lennon with champagne to distract her.
But Josh didn't feel logical.
He grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips, instead. "Do you need a knight in shining armor, chere?"
5
JOSH PRESSED HIS MOUTH to Lennon's skin. Not quite a kiss, but a preface to a kiss. A slow, sweet sort of beginning that introduced passion to the moment. The way he imagined a knight might try to charm a lady.
She gasped, a soft, surprised sound that couldn't compete with the buzz of voices and strains of jazz music, yet hummed right through him. Her slim fingers molded around his hand like it had been modeled for a perfect fit.His breath burst gently against her skin, then gusted back against his lips with her taste upon it, warm and just spicy enough to make his pulse rush hard. To block out the noise of the party around them. To make it seem as if they were the only two people in the world.
Josh had never been this aware of a woman. Then again, he'd never been any woman's knight in shining armor before.
It was an absurd idea for a man who spent his life hunting down criminals, and he had to force back a laugh. Only Lennon could make him feel this way. And that shouldn't surprise him, since Miss Q had reared her.
Miss Q had always had a way of bringing out a lighter side of life. He remembered the fun-loving woman who'd always been game to try her hand at deep-sea fishing, or to hop an airboat for an impromptu tour into the bayou. She was as opposite his stern grandmother as Mardi Gras was to a funeral.
In his youth Josh had responded to her ebullience, had often felt daring and gallant in her presence. Which didn't really explain why he was caught up in the feeling now. His life currently involved computer searches, long stake-outs and even longer stints undercover. He didn't have time to pursue women from a world he'd left behind.
But at this moment, with his mouth touching Lennon's sweet skin, wor
k was the last thing on his mind.
"Do you need to be rescued, chere?"
Catching her gaze above their hands, he smiled when her kissable lips parted. Her gold eyes were wide with surprise, and Josh knew--man, he knew in his gut--that he wasn't the only one feeling the chemistry between them.
"No." He heard the alarm in her voice as she tugged her hand from his. "I don't need to be rescued."
She took a step back, a clear retreat from the moment, from the intensity of them, but Josh pulled her back toward him when she almost collided with a passing waiter.
"Josh!" She caught sight of the impeccably dressed waiter and turned around hastily. "Oh, excuse me. I'm so sorry."
The waiter inclined his head in dignified acknowledgment, and Josh let her fingers slip away, then felt curiously bereft of her warm touch.
Finally deciding to do the logical thing, he grabbed two champagne flutes and dragged her back into the crowd, not giving Lennon a chance to recoup. He didn't want to deal with her reaction when he needed to analyze his own and figure out why she affected him this way.
They drank. They ate. They mingled. After a few tense exchanges, Lennon finally recovered enough to chat with guests, commenting on and debating the various pieces in the gallery.
Josh recovered enough to discuss his own appearance there, a fact that attracted more interest than either his grandfather's collection or Miss Q's risque events. Putting that interest to good use, he grilled guests about their reasons for attending and gauged their reactions to Lennon.
Slowly--too damned slowly for his taste--he mentally drafted a sketch of the guests and potential suspects. The bachelors participating in the auction were high up on his list, but not because they had means, opportunity or motive for threatening Miss Q. No. Something else was going on. Josh could tell by the way they honed in on Lennon like gorgeous-blond-seeking missiles.
And this latest one was a winner.
Lincoln Palmer, a cosmetic surgeon who apparently ran a highly successful practice in Kenner, took Lennon's hand and brought it to his mouth in a move reminiscent of Josh's own a short time earlier. Only this guy didn't inspire a reaction from her that even remotely resembled panic.
"Finally, a woman I can't improve with my medical tricks."
If Lennon knew he was feeding her a line, she didn't let on. "Now, Linc, if that woman existed, you'd risk going out of business."
"But think how beautiful the world would be."
With an attention to detail honed by years as a P.I., Josh summed the man up with a glance. Doc Linc must be making a dent in prettying up the world himself, judging by his knife-creased profile and chiseled jaw, which suggested he was familiar with both the executing and receiving end of a scalpel.
"Josh Eastman." He stepped in front of Lennon and thrust out a hand.
Doc Linc didn't look pleased by the interruption, and Josh got the impression he'd been trying to ignore that Lennon had an escort, but he recovered quickly enough. "The man of the hour. Everyone is talking about your surprise appearance."
Apparently Doc Linc wasn't the only one displeased. Lennon stepped in front of him, leaning back on a high heel to tread painfully on Josh's toes in the process.
"Wouldn't have missed it," he rasped. "How'd they rope you into the auction?"
Doc Linc raked another leering gaze from the top of Lennon's shiny blond hair to her strappy sandals. "You can actually stand next to this exquisite woman and ask me that? I'm hoping Lennon will bid for me."
Lennon's smile suggested she might consider it, which meant Josh had better figure out whether Doc Linc was on the suspect list. None of the other bachelors had withstood his interrogations long. Time to see how the doc held up... "So tell me, what's your connection to erotic art and the McDarbys? Are you an enthusiast or a collector?"
In an apparent attempt to impress Lennon with his art world connections, Doc Linc generously spilled his guts. To hear the man tell it, art appreciation ran in his blood like plasma, compliments of some Palmer ancestor who'd picked up a brush to paint a mural on a church wall several centuries ago. While money didn't seem to factor into this appreciation, Doc Linc's knowledge of the McDarby women seemed extreme for their casual social acquaintance.
He had an impressive recall of exactly which art pieces in the gallery Miss Q had donated herself and which she'd owned with Josh's grandfather. He knew how much Lennon had been helping Miss Q with the gallery, the date of her next book release and that she'd first been published in the fourth grade, when her teacher had submitted an essay Lennon had written to a local historic organization.
Doc Linc had done his homework, and his diligence made Josh suspect he was doing more than just his bit to fund-raise. Exactly what, Josh couldn't say, and before he could find out, Lennon ended his interrogation, cornering him in a grotto sheltered from the piazza by a hedge and a low stone wall.
"What's your problem, Eastman?" she hissed, tapping a strappy sandal impatiently on the cobbled path. Temper made her cheeks flush and her eyes flash--a potent combination.
"You mean aside from becoming the self-appointed Eastman family representative?"
"With me. You've commandeered my last five conversations."
"I'm here to investigate. That means asking questions."
"We were asking questions fine--and a lot less obviously, I might add--until I started talking to the bachelors."
Okay, so she'd nailed him. Driving a finger into his collar, Josh eased aside fabric that suddenly had a viselike grip on his throat. As long as she was calling a spade a spade... "I got tired of watching you hone your flirting skills on every male below the age of sixty."
"Flirting?" Her eyes widened, and she sputtered indignantly. "Flirting? Are you talking to me?"
He had the urge to kiss the angry words from her lips. Damn. If he made more time for sex in his life, he wouldn't be caught with a hard-on when gorgeous blond romance writers got in his face.
Regrettably, he hadn't. Time to deal with the consequences, which meant a pulse zipping through his bloodstream like class five rapids. "Yeah, I'm talking to you, chere. We're here to question suspects, not play The Dating Game."
Her lashes flew wider, and she stared up at him as if he were a stranger. "The Dating Game?"
The squeak in her voice told him she didn't expect a reply. To Josh's amazement, she thrust a fingertip into his chest.
"You're here to interrogate the guests, black sheep. I've got my own agenda. And even if I was flirting--which I wasn't--it's none of your business." With a huff, she spun on her heel and stormed off, leaving him to dodge the handbag that swung wildly in her wake.
Technically, she was right. Josh couldn't say why her flirting grated on his nerves. This wasn't a date. This wasn't even a real job. Not the kind he normally took, anyway. Lennon attracted him, sure, and he attracted her--even if she refused to admit it--but that in no way implied exclusivity.
Ego, maybe? No one had asked, but Josh would lay odds that more than one person tonight was wondering why he and Lennon were working the crowd, stuck together like peanut butter and jelly.
Pushing away from the wall, Josh followed her, smiling as her rounded backside swayed with each quick step she took. This might not be a real job, but it sure was a sweet one.
She slowed when he caught up to her. "Okay, Josh, truce. I'm sorry you've had to field questions about being here."
Her tone had lost its edge of annoyance, and this lightning-quick mood swing revealed another dimension to his protectee. Her anger blazed hot and fast, but appeared to burn out just as quickly.
"I didn't realize you being here would raise so many questions. Auntie Q must not have, either."
Josh wasn't so sure about that. But the word was out and he couldn't do a thing except hope his family didn't hear about his participation in the gallery opening.
"No problem."
He hoped. This wasn't his family's way. What balanced the Eastman-McDarby connection in high societ
y was that each faction respected the boundaries--and never crossed them.
His grandfather and Miss Q had swung with one circle of friends--the cultural, fun set--while his grandfather and grandmother had swung with another.
Josh hoped those circles never intersected. He also hoped the newspapers would gloss right over his involvement here, or else his grandmother would get wind that her family had just endorsed an erotic memorial to her late husband, and Josh would have some serious explaining to do.
Never the twain shall meet.
A credo to live by, Josh knew. That fact, combined with struggling to keep his hands off Lennon, was giving him the makings of a killer headache by the time the party moved back to the hotel.
"I've had enough, Lennon. Let's go out to the suite." He had a long night ahead of him running database checks on the guests.
She resisted his efforts to haul her from the hotel bar, where the guests had congregated to continue their discussions of watercolor paintings and marble sculptures. "But I really should stay and--"
"Let's go." Wrapping an arm around her waist, Josh steered her toward the door. He wasn't in the mood to watch her shine that high-beam smile on any more bachelors tonight.
She waved a rushed goodbye, but jerked away from him as soon as they stepped into the cool night air of the courtyard. "Josh, I need to socialize with those people. This weekend is the only opportunity I'll have to really get to know them."
"I'm running background checks." He slipped his fingers around her elbow, halting her retreat. "You'll know more about them than you want to. Trust me."
She stopped resisting. "Really?"
"Really."
His revelation seemed to override her objections, because she fell into step beside him.
"What kind of information do you check?"
"The usual--DMV violations, credit reports, tax status, employment history, medical records, arrests."
He could practically see her brain working, and wondered whom she wanted inside information on. She didn't say, but that glint in her eyes hinted that he'd find out soon enough.
One-Night Man Page 6
