His heartbeat thundering in his chest, Parker fought to find the control that had long been his mainstay. He wasn’t a man to jump into anything without careful thought. Without looking at every option from every possible direction. But now…all he wanted was to stalk across the room, sweep her into his arms and carry her off. He wanted…
The song ended, the last note quavering in the stillness as if it had a life of its own. He watched her as she turned to the pianist and whispered something that Parker had no hope of overhearing. The older man frowned slightly, shot a quick look at Parker, then glanced again at Holly. Whatever he said to her wasn’t welcome, because she stiffened slightly. But an instant later she was kissing the man’s cheek, then stepping off the stage to walk toward Parker.
He stood as she approached and hoped to hell the light in the room was dim enough that she couldn’t see for herself just what kind of effect she had on him.
“You came back,” she said unnecessarily.
“Couldn’t stay away,” he said, though he hadn’t planned to admit that.
“I’m glad.”
He looked past her to the stage. “I don’t think your friend’s real happy about it.”
Holly sighed, glanced back over her shoulder briefly, then turned to Parker again. “He’s…worried.”
“About me?”
“No,” she said with a laugh. “About me. Tommy thinks I should keep my distance from you.”
That stung. “And what do you think?”
“I’m standing right here, aren’t I?”
“So you are,” Parker said, avoiding looking at her friend again. “You were great, by the way.”
“Thank you, but singing those songs, it’s easy to be great.”
Parker shook his head. “No, it’s not. Jazz needs heart. And your voice is filled with it.”
Her eyes widened and a small smile curved her mouth. “I think that may be the nicest compliment I’ve ever been given.” She waved a hand at the table beside them. “Would you like to sit? Have a drink?”
“Actually…” Parker chanced a quick look at the man still sitting at the piano. If looks could kill, he figured his body would already be cold by now. “I would. But not here.”
She nodded, clearly understanding. “Okay, where’d you have in mind?”
“Willing to take a walk with me?”
Tipping her head to one side, she considered him for a couple of heartbeats. “I guess you look trustworthy enough.”
“Thanks—even though you did have to think about it for a minute.”
“A girl can’t be too careful.”
“What happened to the ‘follow your instincts’ approach to life?”
“That still holds. I’m going on the walk, my instincts are only insisting that I step a little cautiously.”
His smile slipped away. “You’ll be safe with me,” he said, then nodded in the direction of Holly’s accompanist. “Trust me, I don’t want to do anything that would make your friend over there come after me.”
“Good plan,” she acknowledged. “You should see what he puts his daughters’ potential boyfriends through.”
Parker held out one hand toward her, and when she took it, he felt a slow burn start within him. Maybe it was a good thing for both of them that she had such a fierce guardian angel.
Outside the hotel, she pulled him to a stop. “So where are we headed?”
“I want to show you something,” he said, and realized that this was what he’d had in mind all along. He wanted to show her his café. Wanted to talk her into singing for him at his place.
Now that the notion was front and center in his brain, he loved the idea. He could already see her on the small stage, hear her voice soaring over the crowd. And he could see more, too. Could see himself, leaning over her, kissing her, tasting her…
“That gleam in your eyes interests me,” Holly said, interrupting his fantasy as she hooked her arm through his. “So let’s go. Show me something.”
They took their time, acting like tourists, mingling with the crowds of pedestrians jamming up the sidewalks. A tour group strolled by, led by a thin, pale man dressed all in black and looking like an extra in an Anne Rice movie. Holly and Parker trailed behind, listening to the well-rehearsed patter about a powerful voodoo queen, Marie Laveau, who’d lived in New Orleans a century ago. Most of the tourists were so busy taking pictures and chatting with each other, they missed the tour guide’s story, but Holly was listening.
As the group turned onto a side street, she glanced up at Parker. “Do you think Marie Laveau knew that a hundred years later, people would still be talking about her?”
“They say she could predict the future,” Parker mused, “so I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“It’d be nice, wouldn’t it?” she asked, “Being remembered, I mean.”
“For being a voodoo priestess?” He frowned. “I don’t know that that’s the claim to fame most people would go for.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Holly smiled. “Marie was powerful at a time when most women had no power at all. And, she wasn’t only about voodoo, you know. She nursed hundreds through a Yellow Fever epidemic—and lost seven of her own children to the outbreak. She helped the soldiers after the Battle of New Orleans and had a lot of influence over the leaders of the city.”
“You seem to know a lot more about her than most people,” he teased.
Holly shrugged. “She’s fascinating. In fact, I think the whole ‘she’s evil’ thing was started up by men who resented her.”
“Possibly.”
“The point is, though, she made an impact on this city…on the people. So much so that she’s remembered more than a hundred years later. That’s pretty impressive.”
“True.” He steered her around a woman taking a picture of her husband. “And you want to be remembered?”
She laughed. “Doesn’t everybody?”
“Never really thought about it.”
“I have.” She was silent a moment. “But then, with your background I can see why you haven’t.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Easy, big fella,” she said, laughing at his defensive tone. “I only meant that the James family’s already put their stamp on the city. And you’re a part of that.”
Parker frowned slightly. He loved his family, but he’d never really been interested in the coffee business. His father lived and breathed the import/export company that Jedediah James had started way back in 1806. He’d done all he could to take James Coffees and build on it—expand it. Parker admired his father for all he’d done, but he just didn’t share the same commitment. He didn’t want to spend his life working for the family business. He wanted something different. Something that was his and his alone.
He’d worked for his father because it had been expected, but he’d never really put his heart into it. Hell, he’d even gotten married because the family expected it. Frannie’s family and his had both wanted the match to cement their partnership, something that had never happened.
It shamed him now to remember how lightly he’d entered into the marriage. Frannie was beautiful and charming. She’d made it easy for him to go along with what the families wanted. She’d done everything she could to show him that she was the right woman for him.
At least until they were officially married. Then she’d slowly changed, and Parker had learned just how lonely a man could be.
His marriage had failed and his heart wasn’t in his work. The thought of continuing just to be another rung on the James family ladder was a little disquieting.
Frowning, he said, “You’re right. Being remembered is important. But more important is what you’re remembered for.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“IT’S GREAT,” Holly said, moving closer to the wide front window. Cupping both hands around her eyes, she leaned into the glass and peeked past the gold letters spelling out Parker’s Place.
“You don’t have to stare through the window.�
� Parker laughed, took her arm and tugged her toward the front door.
“Good, because I’ve been dying to get a look at the inside.”
Holly stepped across the threshold and paused. Framed prints of old New Orleans dotted the walls. Bare wood floors shone beneath a protective plastic tarp, and overhead, chandeliers made out of antique carriage wheels hung from the ceiling on silver chains that glinted in the late-afternoon sunlight spilling through the window.
Grinning, she weaved her way through the tables toward the stage and stepped onto it to survey the place from an entertainer’s perspective. Looking out over the room, imagining throngs of people crowding the small tables, Holly sighed.
“This is going to be wonderful.”
“Thanks,” Parker said, and she saw the real pleasure on his features. “We’re almost ready for opening night.”
“Looks like you’re ready to roll right now.”
Right after she said that, she heard a muttered curse from somewhere in the back, followed by the thunk of something heavy hitting the floor.
Parker winced and shouted, “Everything okay back there, Joe?”
“Fine, fine,” a man shouted back, disgust ringing clearly in his tone, “just these blasted copper pipes running from the damn sinks—”
Holly laughed and the sound caressed Parker like a warm summer breeze. Her eyes were shining and the curve of her mouth enticed him. He had to force himself not to go to her. Not to give in to the urge to hold her.
But he wasn’t going to get caught by a beautiful woman again. Even one who seemed as guileless as Holly.
“So,” she said, “not quite as ready as it looks then, hmm?”
Swallowing back the knot of need clogging his throat, he joined her on the stage. “Joe’s the best contractor in the city. He’ll get it all done in time.”
“When’s the opening?” she asked, scanning the room again.
“Saturday night,” he said, trying to see his place through her eyes.
“Planning a big show?”
He shrugged and stuffed both hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Sort of,” he admitted with a half-smile. “I’m not looking for big names to play here. I want it to be more of a neighborhood showcase, you know?”
He glanced at her, caught her nod of understanding and kept talking, enthusiasm coloring his words. “There are so many great jazz musicians in the city, and most of them will never be famous. These are the artists that slip beneath the radar. They play at weddings or birthdays, or on street corners. They deserve a chance to be heard.”
“They do,” Holly said, her voice soft, dreamy. She stepped off the stage and sat on the edge of it. Crossing her arms atop her knees, she looked up at him. “This is really a great thing you’re doing, Parker James.”
“Yeah?” He sat beside her.
“Oh, yeah.” She sighed and rocked to one side, giving him a friendly nudge with her shoulder. “When I first started singing, I’d have given anything to play at a place like this.”
“When did you start?”
“I can’t remember not singing, you know?” she mused, tipping her head back to stare up at the stage lights. “But officially, I was sixteen when I first started singing for my supper.”
“Sixteen?” He shook his head, trying to remember his own life at sixteen. He’d been the privileged son of a wealthy family, living in a boarding school in England. He’d hated being so far away from home, but every other son in the James family had attended that same boarding school, and tradition was something his family believed in.
He’d never really thought about the advantages his family’s wealth had given him. Now that he did, he felt almost guilty.
“At sixteen,” he said, “I was playing cricket on a public school field outside London.”
She laughed. “London. I’d like to see it sometime myself. When I was sixteen, I got my first long-time gig singing to the late-night drunks at Frenchy’s over on Bourbon Street.”
“Frenchy’s?” Parker gave a low whistle and shook his head slowly. He couldn’t imagine someone who looked as delicate and…fresh as Holly working in a dive like Frenchy’s. “I know grown men too scared to go into that joint.”
“Didn’t say I wasn’t scared,” she pointed out. “But all in all, it wasn’t so bad. Frenchy looked out for me. And he let me live above the bar.”
“You lived alone? In that neighborhood?”
She shrugged. “I’d have been alone anywhere—and that apartment over Frenchy’s was cheap. I had Tommy and Shana, too. I spent a lot of time at their place.”
“You’re amazing.”
“Thanks, but I’m not, really.” Holly spoke with a forced lightness. “Trust me. Being out on my own was way better than living in the foster system.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be. It was a long time ago. And I’ve done just fine.”
“How old were you when—”
“I was two.” She blew out a breath, rubbed her palms across her knees. “I have no idea who my parents were, but I used to make up some great stories about them.”
“Like what?”
“You know, like they died saving me from a fire. Or a crashed plane. Or…”
“You poor kid.”
She looked at him warily. “Hey, no point in getting all sympathetic on me. I’m fine. I like my life just the way it is. Wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Right. No sympathy.” It impressed him that she could dismiss a background that a lot of people would use to garner sympathy. But despite what he’d said, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for the abandoned child she’d once been.
Pushing herself to her feet, Holly spun in a slow circle and lifted both hands to encompass the entire room. “Enough about me, Parker. I want to hear more about why you did this. Why it means so much to you.”
He stood, too. “Remember what you said earlier? About being remembered?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to be remembered just for great coffee.”
“Makes sense to me.”
“Is that right?” he asked, one eyebrow lifting. “Aren’t you the one who just yesterday said that I shouldn’t quit? Shouldn’t just walk away?”
“Well, yeah,” she admitted, “but I didn’t know that you had this place to turn to. That you had a plan. A dream. I mean, I just thought you were, I don’t know…just quitting in general.”
“That makes a difference?”
“Does to me,” she said. “I understand dreams.”
“So quitting something as long as you have another goal is okay?”
“Sure, then it’s just starting over. That’s not walking away, it’s walking to. Makes perfect sense.”
He grinned ruefully. “It won’t to my parents.”
“Not happy about your new venture?”
“They’re waiting for me to stop playing at this and concentrate on work again.”
“And are you going to?”
“No.” He inhaled sharply, deeply, then released the breath on a sigh. “I’ve been planning this for too long to give it up.” He looked from the wide front windows to the espresso machine, to the stage behind them. “This is what I want to do. Run my own place. Maybe sit in on some jazz occasionally.”
“You sing?” she asked.
“God, no.” He laughed, holding both hands up in surrender. “But I do play the sax a little.”
“I’d like to hear you. Nothing like the sound of a good saxophone.”
“That could be arranged.”
“I like the shine in your eyes when you talk about this place.”
“I like the shine in your eyes, period,” he said, meeting her gaze and holding it as seconds ticked past unnoticed. It was as if everything else in the world drifted away. All he could see, all he wanted to see, were her eyes. Like the soft, dreamy gray of fog spilling in off the ocean, they held depths that a man could get lost in.
He knew it was
dangerous.
Hell, stupid, even.
But Holly Carlyle was the kind of woman a man would find hard to ignore.
Holly held her breath.
There was something here, between them. Had been right from the start. Something electric. Elemental. And if she moved the least bit, she was half-afraid she might shatter whatever spell was holding them in place.
A danger bell started clanging inside her head, but she silenced it.
He lifted one hand to stroke her cheek and Holly felt the heat of his touch sizzle deep within her. She inhaled slowly, hoping the calming breath would steady her. It didn’t.
As if from a distance, she could hear the contractor working in the other room. But he might as well have been on Mars. To Holly, it was as if she and Parker were alone on the planet. Her knees went a little wobbly. Her heartbeat quickened in anticipation.
Oh, what she needed at the moment was a freezing-cold shower to douse the flames licking at her insides.
Holly knew better than to give in to the urges that were tearing at her. She’d learned the hard way that she had to be careful when a man made her feel this way. Much more careful than she was being at the moment.
Because right now, all she could think about was Parker James’s mouth—and wonder if it tasted as good as it looked.
She licked suddenly dry lips. “Are you fixin’ to kiss me, Parker James?” she asked, deepening her Southern drawl.
One corner of his mouth tipped up briefly. “I’m thinkin’ about it, Holly. How d’you feel about that?”
Well, she was feeling like a fireworks display was going off inside her chest. Nothing she’d experienced before had ever come close to what she was going through right now.
Looking into Parker’s eyes, she wanted things she’d never imagined before.
Hot, delicious, needy things.
She swallowed hard, slowly reached out and slid both hands up his chest and over his shoulders. She shouldn’t. She knew she shouldn’t. And she knew just as well she couldn’t help herself.
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