Dallas turned to me. “You do look a great deal like her, Nicci.”
Then I saw his eyes travel across the room to the portrait of a rather stern-looking older gentleman on the far wall.
“Lionel Beauvoir,” I stated as I watched Dallas admiring the painting. “My grandfather.”
My father frowned. “Yes. That’s the old bastard himself.”
Dallas looked over at my father. “You didn’t care for him, I take it?”
“He was a cold-hearted man. He left Lance and me this business. But little else.”
“Is that the one you said you were like?” Dallas asked me.
My father nodded to me. “There is a lot of my old man in Nicci. She has his practical nature and his—”
“Cold heart,” Dallas interrupted.
I frowned at Dallas. “Gee, thanks.”
“No, Nicci.” My father looked from Dallas to me. “You do have some of your grandfather’s…aloofness perhaps is a better word.”
I finished signing the papers, threw the pen back on the desk, and then turned to confront my father. “I thought you were on my side?”
“I am,” my father assured as he folded his arms across his chest, “but sometimes it takes the people closest to you to point out the areas in need of change.”
“Like your cold heart,” Dallas added, grinning.
I turned my nose up at Dallas. “Well, you’re the expert on cold hearts, Mr. August, considering yours is frozen solid.”
My father uncrossed his arms and laughed. “And to think I was worried you were actually interested in each other.”
Dallas looked over at me, the annoying grin still plastered on his face. “Oh, I’m interested, Bill. It’s just your daughter is a little more stubborn than I thought she would be.”
My father took his seat behind his desk and shook his head. “Stubborn? Boy, have you got a lot to learn.”
There was a knock on the door and the lovely Betty glided into the room and toward my father’s desk. I noticed how his eyes followed her as she moved.
“There’s a Mr. Reynolds here for you, Mr. Beauvoir.” She smiled sweetly. “Your three o’clock.”
My father’s eyes lingered on the woman’s face. “Thank you, Betty.”
We all watched as Betty gracefully stepped out of the room.
“Bill,” Dallas grinned at my father, “Nicci isn’t the only one in your family that’s stubborn.” Dallas walked over to me and grabbed my hand. “Come on, sweet cheeks. Let’s leave your father to his work.”
Chapter 15
The following day Dallas took me up on my offer to show him the French Quarter.
“Why don’t we go down to the French Quarter today, sweet cheeks?” he suggested after he barged into my bedroom unannounced while I was working at my desk. “We need to be seen spending time together in public.”
“No, we don’t,” I argued without raising my eyes from my laptop.
“Yes, we do. We need to practice looking infatuated with each other for the New Year’s Eve party this weekend.”
I shook my head without looking up. “That will never be a possibility.”
“All right then,” he muttered as he grabbed my arm. He then yanked the laptop from me, practically flinging it down on my desk. He pulled me out of my chair and dragged me to the door. “I need to get the hell out of this house for a few hours. How does that sound?”
I wrestled free of his grip and raced back to my desk to switch off my laptop. When I turned around, he was standing at my bedroom door, watching me with his unsettling eyes.
I angrily marched back to him and reached for my purse sitting on a chair by the door. “Fine. But you’re paying for the parking, the food, and whatever else might strike my fancy.”
He smiled his sly smile, the one he seemed to share only with me. “Excellent, sweet cheeks. I’ll buy you a see-through negligee at some naughty shop on Bourbon Street.”
“You’re the most irritating…” I rushed through the door letting my words disappear with me.
* * *
I pulled into a parking lot next to the Jax Brewery shopping complex by the Mississippi River located across from Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter. The parking lots located at this end of the French Quarter were usually full throughout the year, but on that day, there were only a handful of cars in the lot.
I parked in a spot close to the street and handed Dallas the ticket.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked.
“Use your imagination,” I growled, turning for my car door.
He grabbed my hand and held it, keeping me from making a hasty retreat.
“Remember we are a loving couple, Nicci.” He let go of my hand. “So try to act the part and stop being such a pain in the ass.”
“Me?” I yelled as I rubbed my hand. “You are the one being the pain in the ass.” I glared at him, feeling a sudden surge of courage to broach a nagging question. “Why did you tell my father you were interested in me?”
He grinned. “I was wondering when you were going to mention that. I told your father that because I am interested in you. I’d like to get to know the woman hiding behind all of those principles.” He looked out of the window toward the riverfront. “I thought I was being completely transparent.”
I tried not to laugh. “I don’t think you have ever been transparent a day in your life.”
He turned back to me. “Perhaps I should have painted my intentions onto canvas for you,” he said, raising his voice.
“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You have been wrapped up in your feelings for David for so long, you’ve forgotten to let anyone else in. You’re going to have to start over again one day, Nicci. Why not today?” He leaned in closer. “Why not with me?”
“You!” I yelled. “I could never trust you.”
He gazed back out at the riverfront. “Maybe one day you’ll enlighten me about how David earned your precious trust.”
I sat back in my seat and weighed the necessity of telling him anymore about me than he already knew.
“I would think,” I began as I kept my eyes on him, “that someone like you would understand—”
“Someone like me?” he interrupted as he turned to me.
I sat in silence for a moment as I tried to find the words to express exactly how he made me feel.
“You are a cold man who cruelly teases people with hopeful glimpses of the genuine warmth you hide away, but like a groundhog afraid of his own shadow, you turn tail and run whenever you show your true nature to others. You don’t want anyone to see the real you because it hurts too damn much when you are betrayed by the ones you thought you trusted.”
He furrowed his dark brows together. “I’m confused. Are we talking about me or you now?”
“There you go again. You turn everything I say around and avoid any conversation that would allow anyone to get too close. That’s my point.”
“So you think you have me all figured out, do you?” His voice deepened with anger. “Don’t believe that a few days of playful teasing can give you any dramatic insights into my nature.” He opened the car door and stepped out. “Stop analyzing me, Nicci.” Dallas slammed the door in front of me.
* * *
The French Quarter was the only section of the city spared significant damage from Katrina. Physical damage, that is. No one was prepared for the financial and emotional repercussions after the water had abated. The French Quarter looked nothing like its former hedonistic self. Gone were the multitudes of intoxicated revelers parading through the narrow streets covered in Mardi Gras beads and carrying go cups. Now only National Guard troops soberly patrolled the old-world alleyways, with the occasional resident, activist, or altruist mixed in.
“Looks quiet,” Dallas said as he spied an empty Decatur Street. “None of the shops are open.”
I gawked at him for a moment. “Really, Einstein. Who are the stores going t
o open for? There are no tourists here.”
He stared at me. “I know that. Why are you being so damn hostile?”
“Maybe I was enjoying working on my new book and then you barged into my bedroom, without knocking, I might add, dragged me from my desk, and wanted to come down here to look at empty streets and vacant buildings.”
“I know.” He took my hand and pulled me out of the parking lot. “You need a drink.” He stopped and examined the street signs. “How do we get to Bourbon Street? I bet somebody there is open.”
“Somebody there is always open.” I sighed and pointed up the block. “That way.”
He pulled me along until we came to Jackson Square. There he stopped to admire the intricately detailed wrought-iron rails on the balconies of the Pontalba Apartments and to take in the architecture of the Cabildo. He also paused in front of St. Louis Cathedral and gazed upward to the tall spires.
I stood by and watched him drinking in the old cathedral, wondering what he could have found so fascinating.
“What are you, an architectural historian today?” I asked.
“No. I’ve never been here before. Just admiring the beauty of the place.” He pointed at the cathedral. “David painted here, didn’t he?”
I nodded to an alley on the left of the cathedral. “Over there. Pirates Alley. The first time I saw his paintings was here.”
“And told him you didn’t think he had yet found the right subject to paint,” he added with a cocky grin.
I peered into the alley. “You and David shared a lot, didn’t you?”
“Like I said, he spoke about you constantly and I listened.”
I walked over to the front of the cathedral. “That must have gotten old. Listening to him go on and on about the girl he left behind?” I turned and waited for his reaction.
There was none. Instead, he just strolled past me and into the alley.
“Show me where you saw his paintings.”
“What, are you scouting movie locations?” I asked, following behind him. “Why do you need to see where I went with him? Where we spent our time together? What good will any of this do?”
He stopped ahead of me several feet into the alley and turned. His eyes were all over me, filled with what seemed like intense frustration.
“Do you want to catch David’s killer?”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Of course I do!”
“Then don’t ever question my motives again!” he shouted. “Do you understand?”
“No!” I stomped my foot on the ground defiantly. “You are going to tell me your motives, you self-righteous ass, and you are going to tell me why any of this is necessary.”
He started laughing at me. “You are a little terror, aren’t you? You are going to have your way no matter what.”
“Well, I haven’t had my way with you yet.” I clamped my hand over my mouth, instantly regretting what I had just said.
He quickly moved toward me. “Is that what’s eating at you? You want to have your way with me?”
I shook my head and started to walk away, feeling my face begin to blush. “Stop twisting everything I say around. That’s not what I meant.”
But just as I came alongside of him, he reached out for my arm and pulled me to him. “I know what you meant.” His face was inches from mine. “All I need to hear is three words, Nicci, and I’m yours.” He moved his lips closer to mine. “Repeat after me. I…want…you.”
“Let go of my arm.”
“That’s five words and definitely not what I had in mind.” He let my arm go and I stepped away from his side.
I immediately started down the alley toward the street. “Bourbon Street is this way,” I shouted over my shoulder.
He laughed behind me. “Yes. I think we could both do with a drink, sweet cheeks.”
* * *
We made our way down Royal Street, and I felt my heart skip a beat as we passed the little diner on the corner of St. Anne. It was a spot where David and I had spent some time together drinking coffee and talking. I smiled to myself as I remembered him carrying me out of the place over his shoulder because he wanted for us to go and have some fun, but I had been obstinate, as usual.
The diner was closed up now, as were most of the stores and restaurants in the French Quarter. I wanted to stop and peer through the eatery’s dirty windows and linger in my memories. But the piercing gaze of Dallas was right beside me.
“What are you looking at?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I mumbled, feeling I had shared enough of my past with him. “I just wanted to see if it was open. They had good coffee.”
“I need more than coffee right now, Nicci.” Dallas waved his hand down the street. “Lead on,” he ordered.
The first open bar on Bourbon Street was filled with an amusing mix of National Guard officers, police officers, and college students dressed in dust-covered jeans and grimy T-shirts.
Dallas walked into the barroom and found a table in the back. He pulled out a chair for me next to him, but I took a seat in the chair across the table from him.
He sat down and scowled at me. “Why are you being so difficult?” he asked. “Now that we have cleared the air about your intentions for me, we should be able to drink, relax, and have a good time.”
I folded my arms over my chest and leaned back away from him. “Do my intentions involve the use of pliers and a blowtorch, because anything other than that is strictly your imagination.”
A round blonde waitress dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with the name of the establishment printed across her ample bosom came up to our table.
“No mixed fruit drinks, no daiquiris, no hurricanes, no cream or milk-based drinks, and no fancy liqueurs.” She sounded as if she had repeated the same sentence at least a hundred times. “We got beer, hard liquor, water, and soda.”
“Two vodka and sodas,” Dallas said to the waitress.
But I jumped in. “Do you have orange juice?”
The blonde smiled at me. “Orange juice we got, sweetheart.”
“Make mine a screwdriver then.”
“Sure thing.” She paused. “By the way, it’s cash only. Credit card machines aren’t working yet.”
“No problem.” Dallas nodded to her and instantly the woman disappeared. He turned his attention to the other patrons in the bar. “Slow recovery,” he commented.
I looked around the place and shrugged. “I wouldn’t call this a recovery. It’s more like a cease-fire. Nature pulled back her elements and has allowed us time to try to regroup, but I don’t think any of us will ever recover.”
Dallas glanced over at me and took a deep breath. “It changes you, doesn’t it?”
“What?”
He grinned. “Survival.”
I nodded slightly. “Once you’ve been through something like this, I don’t think you can ever go back to the way you were. Always planning ahead, keeping up extra supplies, plotting out the worst case scenario over and over again. Living on the edge day in and day out.” I searched his face. “Has it always been that way for you?”
He rested his arms on the table. “In a way. You learn to live with that ever-present twinge of apprehension. You never can completely relax.”
I moved in closer to the table. “You were right, you know.”
The comment made him smile like a kid in a candy store. “Really, and what was I right about, sweet cheeks?”
“David was not at all like you. He never had your coldness.”
He dropped his smile and leaned back from the table. “That is because David never did what I do.”
I studied him as I rested my arms on the table. “Ah yes, you’re the precision instrument hired to get the job done, no matter the cost. And are you ever going to tell me what exactly it is you do?”
He looked down at the table. “Do you really need to hear this?”
“Yes.”
Dallas sat back in his chair and watched me for a moment or two before he spoke aga
in. “I’m called in to extract information from people when all other measures have failed.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “Satisfied?”
“No.” I paused. “Do you have a conscience, Mr. August?”
He appeared amused. “About what I do?”
“About whom you kill?”
The sly smile was wiped clean from his face. “What makes you think I kill people, Nicci?”
“What else would a precision instrument be used for?”
The waitress arrived with our drinks. Dallas took out a fifty-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to her.
“Run a tab until this is used up.”
The girl’s green eyes lit up at the sight of the money. “Sure thing, hon!”
He took his drink and eagerly sipped it down. I watched as he swiftly drained his glass. I lifted my drink to my lips and smiled to myself. I had hit a nerve.
“I’m not a hit man,” he said when he finally put his empty glass down on the table. “I don’t kill people, Nicci. I told you I merely extract information by any means necessary.”
“Torture and maim?”
He waved to the waitress and lifted his glass, indicating he was ready for another. Then his eyes were back on me. He leaned toward me and cocked his head slightly to the right.
“You ask too many questions,” he growled.
“No, I’m asking the wrong questions, aren’t I?”
“Don’t push me, Nicci.” His voice was almost cruel.
“Now you see how it feels, Dallas.” I smiled at him, nursing my drink in my hands. “You’ve been pushing me since the moment we met. I figured it was about time I pushed back.”
He shook his head. “You were never like this with him, were you?”
His eyes suddenly made me feel very uncomfortable. “David was playful, not hurtful.”
“But he did hurt you?”
“I forgave—”
“Yes, you forgave him,” Dallas cut me off. He sat back again in his chair and glared at me. “But I’ll bet you’ll never let yourself forgive anyone else like that again, will you?” He folded his arms across his chest. “Perhaps you don’t want me close, is that it?”
I slammed my drink down on the table. “I don’t want you at all.”
The Nicci Beauvoir Collection: The Complete Nicci Beauvoir Series Page 45
