by Leann Harris
“Good afternoon, Mr. Mason,” she said, pointedly ignoring Jean-Paul.
“Call me Jock, chère.”
Her smiled looked forced. “Jock. Thank you for responding so quickly.” She reached for the back door and got into the car.
“You better ask her now, Jock,” Jean-Paul prompted.
Turning and resting his arm along the top of the seat, Jock asked, “I hate to be so rude, mamselle, but Jean-Paul claims that you don’ have any cash to pay my fee. Is that so?”
“Temporarily,” she murmured, blushing down to her toes. “In a few days I should have money and can pay you then.”
The sheepish expression on Jock’s face almost made Jean-Paul laugh. “I—uh—that is—”
Angeline raised her hand, stopping Jock’s tripping excuse. “It’s all right. I understand.” After shooting Jean-Paul a killing glance, she slipped out of the vehicle. “Thank you for coming.” She walked back into the house, her spine straight, her head held high.
“I think that little fille is gonna cook your goose, Jean-Paul, and have it for dinner.”
Jean-Paul feared Jock was right.
He waited until the station wagon had disappeared around the bend of the driveway before he headed for the house. He found Angeline sitting in the rocker. She didn’t look at him but simply continued to slowly rock.
Guilt hit him hard for shaming her. He went down on one knee in front of her and pried her hand away from where it was wrapped around her waist. Holding her delicate fingers in his, he rubbed the back of her hand.
“I’m sorry, Angeline, for embarrassing you in front of Jock. But I simply couldn’t allow you to drive off with him. Someone in this town is out to hurt you, and I won’t let you go out unprotected. If you want to go to the historical society this afternoon, I will take you. All you had to do was ask.”
She looked at him then. “I didn’t want you to take me.”
He cupped her cheek with his free hand. “Ah, chère, I know I behaved badly with Guy. I’m sorry.” He leaned toward her and lightly brushed his lips across her cheek. Her skin was as smooth as the petal of a magnolia flower and as flawless. “The only defense I have is that I worry that Roger will use Guy to hurt you. The old bastard isn’t above doing that.”
He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her toward him. “I have this driving need to protect you. I don’t know its source, but I can’t deny it any more than I can stop the Mississippi from flowing into the Gulf. And I don’t want to. To go against that flow would be to drown.”
His gaze locked with hers and he allowed the passion inside him to show. He wanted her to see what he felt for her. He wanted to seduce her with the heat that burned him each time he saw her, touched her, thought of her.
The stiffness in her posture melted under the flames of his stare, as a candle melts under the heat of fire. The sky blue of her eyes turned dark and stormy as they focused on his lips. The invitation was exactly what Jean-Paul had been waiting for.
He lowered his head and covered her waiting mouth with his. An explosion of sparks and lava engulfed Jean-Paul. Her lips were warm satin, molding to his, seeking his, begging more from him. He tilted her head back to gain a better angle to the sweetness of her mouth. She moaned and his tongue slipped inside to taste heaven.
Her arms slid up around his back, bringing her breasts flat against the wall of his chest. The exquisite feel of her pebble-hard nipples touching him through the fabric of her blouse and his shirt bordered on pain.
She broke off the kiss and pulled back as a wave of coughing overtook her. When it subsided, she gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry—” she began.
“Non, chère, it was my fault. In the heat of the moment—” he gave her a very Gallic shrug “—I simply forgot.”
A smile played around her kiss-swollen lips. “You’re not the only one.” She glanced down.
He caught her chin, forcing it up. “I meant what I said, Angeline. I don’t want to see you hurt by Roger—or by me. I’ll try to behave around Guy.”
“Only try?”
His heart sank at her stern tone, but then the corners of her mouth quivered. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, stopping her from grinning. Jean-Paul’s jaw dropped open as the implications of her action hit him. She was teasing him. And if she could tease him, then hallelujah, she wasn’t mad at him.
“I’m afraid so. It would take a saint to promise to behave around the Boudreaux. And I am no saint, as you well know. And I refuse to make promises I can’t keep. So the best I can do is to tell you I’ll try. Is that enough?”
She ran her finger along his lower lip. In one quick movement, he caught the pad between his teeth and lightly bit it. Then his tongue stroked over the abused flesh. The surprise in her eyes quickly turned to hunger. With a final swipe of his tongue, he freed her.
“You didn’t answer my question, Angeline.” Purposely, he murmured her name, giving it the full silky French pronunciation.
“Question?” Her eyebrows crinkled. After a moment her mouth opened silently in an O. “Yes, Jean-Paul, your trying will be enough.”
The tension seeped from his spine with her answer. He rose and held out his hands to help her up. She placed her palms on his, and he gently pulled her to her feet.
She walked to the front door.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Since you sent Jock away, I assumed you were taking me to the historical society.”
She was in no condition to be running around the countryside. Jean-Paul glanced at his watch, praying it was too late in the day to go. “It’s four now. By the time we get there, we’ll have less than twenty minutes to begin looking.” He crossed the room and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Besides, you have had too much excitement today and need your rest.”
“But you said the historical society was closed on Thursdays. It would be Friday before we could begin. What would we do tomorrow?”
He had an answer for that—one he didn’t think she wanted to hear.
Make love all day. Slow, glorious, heart-stopping love.
The same thoughts must have occurred to her, because suddenly there was a riot of color in her cheeks. He wondered if she was embarrassed that the thoughts occurred to her, or if she was mortified by the fact that she wanted to make love with him. It was food for thought.
“If you will lie down and take a nap now, I promise that tomorrow morning I will drive you out to M’sieu Colton’s houseboat. Together we’ll try to talk him into letting us into the society on Thursday.”
“You said he never came off his houseboat.”
“I swear that’s true. But if anyone can charm that old Cajun into opening up, it’s you, chère.”
Her index finger tapped lightly against her pursed lips as she studied him. He tried to keep his expression honest and open in an effort to convince her. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that the old codger would reconsider his position, but Angeline needed rest more than she needed honesty.
“All right. But I’ll hold you to this promise.”
A grin spread across Jean-Paul’s face. “It’s one I’ll gladly keep.”
* * *
When Angie woke, darkness had settled around her. It was amazing what a little sleep could do. Her body felt restored, her mental balance reestablished. If she had ever doubted what a clever lawyer Jean-Paul had been, his manipulation of Jock left no doubt of his skill. The poor man had been putty in his hand.
The analogy made her smile. If anyone was putty in Jean-Paul’s capable hands, it was she. The memory of his earth-shattering, ground-moving kiss came roaring back in all its intensity. Her behavior was mortifying. It was as if an alien had invaded her body and had taken control of it. Suddenly, she didn’t know who she was and didn’t have a clue how to act as each new situation arose.
She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was a little after nine. Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since br
eakfast. She threw back the crocheted afghan and sat up. The room tipped and swayed. It took a moment before things settled into their rightful places.
She was grateful Jean-Paul had promised to take her to Mr. Colton’s tomorrow, because she didn’t think she would have made it to the historical-society building and back without swooning or disgracing herself in some other way.
The hum of the window-unit air conditioner drowned out the other sounds of the house. After a quick trip to the bathroom to wash her face and finger-comb her hair, Angie went looking for Jean-Paul.
The lights were on in the living room and the kitchen beyond. “Jean-Paul?” she called.
Nothing.
She walked into the kitchen. The table was set for dinner. Several pots sat on the stove; the fire was on underneath the huge silver-colored pot.
“Jean-Paul?”
Still nothing.
Curious, she peeked into the pot. Potatoes and ears of corn were cooking in the boiling, spicy water. She lifted the lid on one of the other pots. Red beans. In the other was rice.
A sound—a whistled note—came from the yard. She stepped out onto the porch. She could hear a man whistling but couldn’t see him.
“Jean-Paul? Is that you?”
“Yes, Angel.” He came striding into the light cast from the outside floodlight, carrying a mesh sack.
“What do you have there?” she asked, pointing to the bag.
He held it up in triumph. “Crawfish. Jock felt so bad about what happened this afternoon that when he went out in his boat and caught these bébés, he brought some by for us. So you and I are going to have fresh crawfish for dinner.”
He looked pleased with his treasure. Setting the bag on the porch, he pulled out a truly ugly creature that looked like a small lobster.
“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful, hein? And taste—” He closed his eyes, brought his fingers to his lips, and blew a kiss. The look of rapture on his face caused her heart to beat faster. “The taste is outta this world.”
Personally, the thought of eating those nasty, little things didn’t bring rapture to her heart or stomach. But for Jean-Paul, she’d give it a try.
Careful, a voice in her head whispered. Remember when Richard wanted you to try dirt biking and you fell and broke your arm? This time it will be your heart.
He transferred the crawfish from the sack into a pail sitting by the back door, then took it inside. Angie sat at the table and watched him scoop out the potatoes and corn, then throw the crawfish into the pot.
“Is there anything I can do?” Angie asked.
He shook his head. “Just sit there and relax.” He put the lid on the pot and turned off the fire. “All that we have to do is let the crawfish steam.”
As he put the bowls of food on the table, he looked right at home.
“You’ve done this before.”
He laughed. “All my life. When I was a boy and my maman was working all day long, I would go down to the bayou, catch some of these critters and have dinner waiting for her.” He shook his head. “She hated crawfish, but they were free, and when we didn’t have anything else—” He lifted one shoulder.
Angie could see the small boy in ragged jeans running down to the bayou to catch his dinner.
“Did your father like them?”
“He didn’t like anything that wasn’t whiskey.”
The starkness of his statement ripped at her heart. So his father had been an alcoholic. What had it been like for him, growing up poor with a mother who worked and a father who drank? It shed a new light on his personality.
He placed bowls of rice, beans, potatoes, corn and a salad on the table. Then, with a flourish, he set a platter of cooked crawfish before her. They were beet red and utterly unappealing. She glanced up at him.
He waved at all the foods. “I started the beans and rice before Jock hailed me from the river. And you can’t have crawfish without the potatoes and corn.”
He retrieved the newspaper from the other room and opened it out on the table. “When you finish with your crawfish, just toss the remains on the newspaper.”
He put several of the little creatures on his plate, pinched the head off one, then peeled away the shell from the tail. He pulled the small amount of meat from inside and popped it into his mouth.
“Ah, that’s good. They don’t cook them this way in Boston.”
“I’m sure they don’t,” she agreed, wondering why anyone would bother.
“Try it.”
She reluctantly picked up one and followed his lead. The meat tasted like lobster.
He then picked up the head of the crawfish and sucked out the insides.
Angie’s eyes widened and her stomach threatened to rebel. “Yuk.”
“It’s the way we eat them,” he explained, as if that would convince her of the wisdom of the action.
At that moment, she reached the end of her adventurous spirit. She wasn’t going to follow his lead, no matter what. “I believe that’s quite enough seafood for me.” She daintily placed her discarded pieces on the newspaper.
He threw his head back and laughed. “That Yankee upbringing is showing, Angel. But don’t worry. Stay here long enough, and we’ll take the starch out of that pretty body.”
Her heart leapt at the thought of staying. Did he want her to stay? Was he asking her to? Visions of how he would take the starch out of her crowded into her mind’s eye, causing her to blush.
She filled her plate with salad and began munching on a lettuce leaf.
“How are you feeling, chère?” The concern in his voice wrapped around her heart, comforting her.
“Better. My headache is almost gone.”
He paused, the head of a crawfish in one hand, the body in the other. “You look wonderful. That soft peach color is back in your cheeks.”
If he only knew the real reason she had color in her cheeks! She latched onto the first thing that she could think of. “You’ve been to Boston?”
He stilled and she could read nothing in his face. “Yeah.” Brushing the broken shell from his plate, he reached for another crawfish.
“Did you visit the city?”
He sighed. “No. I went to boarding school in a little town north of Boston.”
“B-but, I thought you said...” Her voice trailed off as she realized what she’d been about to say.
“Oh, yes, we were dirt-poor. After my dad took off, my mother vowed that I would be a success. So she took as many cleaning jobs as she could get, to make enough money to send me away to a fine school where I could learn to speak like an ‘educated’ man. She even worked for Catlin Boudreaux, to pay for my tuition.” He paused, lost in some memory. “She got what she wanted. My grades were good enough that I won a scholarship to Harvard.”
As he talked, his entire being seemed to change from that of the passionate man she knew into a cold, shuttered stranger. “You hated it, didn’t you, Jean-Paul?”
His eyes locked with hers, and the burning intensity of his gaze gave her her answer.
“With every breath I took. The winters were bitter cold beyond anything I had ever imagined. And the other students had no use for a poor Cajun boy. But I knew if I ever wanted to return and win against Roger Boudreaux, I needed to be educated.”
“The oil on this land. Roger owned the rights.”
“You got that right, chère. It ate my dad up. To deal with the pain, he drank.”
She laid her hand on his arm, her heart aching with his. “I’m sorry, Jean-Paul.”
“Maybe now you’ll understand why I feel the way I do about the Boudreaux.”
“You can’t hold Guy responsible for his father’s sins.”
“Guy has enough sins of his own. Deserting Marianna, for one.”
“That’s not fair. He didn’t know.”
“So he says.”
She wanted to leap to her father’s defense, but Jean-Paul had just given her a part of himself, and she didn’t want to throw it ba
ck in his face. She stood. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”
“Angeline,” he said, catching her before she could take a step. “I’ve done it again. Forgive me.”
Peering down into his handsome face, his dark hair falling over his forehead, Angie knew much to her despair that she’d forgive him anything. She leaned over and placed a soft kiss on his lips. “Good night, Jean-Paul. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” She hurried out of the room.
“‘Night, chère,” he called after her. “Sleep well because tomorrow we’ll go see M’sieu Colton, and you’ll need all your wits about you.”
M’sieu Colton wasn’t the only male in this town that she needed all her wits to deal with. A handsome Cajun mechanic was at the top of the list.
Chapter 13
The pounding headache woke Angie. She moved her head to the side, but the lump behind her ear protested the movement. It was obvious she needed something for the pain.
Throwing back the sheet, she carefully got out of bed, slipped on her robe and went into the bathroom for the aspirin she knew were in the medicine cabinet. After retrieving two pills, she walked to the kitchen for a glass since there wasn’t one in the bathroom.
As she tiptoed into the living room, she glanced at the couch. Jean-Paul wasn’t there, but from the wrinkled condition of his pillow and sheet it looked as if he’d tried to sleep and failed.
The moment she entered the kitchen she saw him through the screen door, sitting on the porch steps. After she got her glass of water and swallowed the pills, she padded to the side door.
He didn’t turn, move or in any other way indicate he had heard her walk up.
“Couldn’t you sleep?” she asked.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Non. What about you, chère?”
“A headache woke me.”
He clucked his tongue in sympathy. “Come and join me.”
She really didn’t want to go back to bed and stare at the ceiling, trying not to think about her throbbing head until the aspirin kicked in. Instead, she took his invitation and pushed open the screen door. She froze halfway across the wooden deck. All Jean-Paul had on was a ragged pair of cutoffs. She swallowed. The previous time she’d been in no condition to appreciate the well-honed muscles of his chest and arms. If she had a lick of sense, she would turn around and march right back to bed, headache be damned. Her only problem was how she was going to explain her sudden urge to go inside. Sorry, Jean-Paul, it’s just too much for my nervous system to sit next to your beautiful body so amply displayed.
