Easy For Keeps: A Boudreaux Novella (The Boudreaux Series)

by Kristen Proby

  “You’re so eloquent.”

  “I know.”

  “Headed home?” she asks as she reaches for her bag.

  “Nah, I’m gonna hit the gym for a bit before I call it a day.”

  “I’ll see you later then.”

  I glance at the door, relieved to see that Declan has returned to pick Callie up, rather than have her walk through the Quarter to her car alone at this time of the morning. I toss him a wave, then gather my keys and wallet from the safe in my office and look forward to a sweaty hour on the treadmill.

  * * * *

  The sun is just starting to throw some light into the sky when I leave the gym two hours later. I spent an hour on the treadmill, and then helped a guy with some weights for a while. Working out clears my head.

  When I realize that I forgot my water bottle at the bar, I pull my car into the parking lot of a nearby grocery store, intending to run in and out quickly, then head home to shower and sleep for about a week.

  But when I wander down the cold drink aisle, there’s a little girl clutching a ratty stuffed bear to her chest as big tears teeter on her lower eyelids, ready to fall.

  And I’m sure there are more where those came from.

  “Hi there,” I say kindly and look around the quiet store. There aren’t many people in here. “Where’s your mommy?”

  “Lost,” she replies, her lip quivering.

  Oh, God. Women’s tears, no matter their age, are my Kryptonite.

  “You lost her?” I ask and squat next to her, still keeping a good three feet between us. If Mom walks up, I don’t want to look like some kind of creep.

  She nods.

  “What’s your name?”

  She’s adorable, with black hair and blue eyes. Her cheeks are still round, like a baby, but she has to be close to school age.

  Then again, I know absolutely nothing about kids, so she could be twelve for all I know.

  “Belle,” she whispers and sways back and forth, making her yellow dress swoosh around her legs.

  “Okay, Belle, let’s find your mom.” I don’t take her hand, but I lead her to the front of the store to the customer service desk. “Can you please page Belle’s mom?”

  “Sure,” the older lady says, winking at Belle. “We’ll find your mama, sweetie.”

  She picks up the phone and pages Belle’s mom over the sound system. I glance down at the little girl, who’s now whispering to her bear, and wonder who on earth would bring their daughter to the store this early in the morning. And lose her in a mostly empty store.

  After two more pages and no sign of the mother, I’m starting to get antsy. This can’t be one of those situations where the mom just drops the kid off and splits, right?

  No way.

  Suddenly, a gorgeous woman with dark brown hair and worried eyes comes rushing into the store. “I can’t find my— Oh! Hailey, I couldn’t find you!”

  “I thought your name was Belle,” I say without thinking.

  “Who are you?” Mom asks, scooping Hailey up and propping her on her hip.

  “I’m Adam,” I reply and step back, my hands up in surrender the same way they were earlier when Darcy wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I was helping Belle, I mean Hailey, find you.”

  “Oh.” She takes a deep breath and kisses her kid’s head, then offers me a shaky smile. “Thanks. She loves Belle, from Beauty and the Beast. I can’t get her to wear anything but this dress.”

  “It’s pretty,” Hailey says with a grin.

  “Very pretty,” I reply, smiling back at the sweet little girl. “What’s your mama’s name?”

  “None of your business,” the girl’s mom says before Hailey can answer. “Thanks for your help.”

  And with that she walks out of the store.

  “Well, that was fun,” I mutter and smile at the lady behind the counter. “I can’t remember what I came in here for.”

  “I think you were down the drink aisle,” she says with a laugh.

  “Yes!” Rather than go back, I pull a bottle of water out of the cooler near the checkout and pay, then walk out to my car. Before I can get inside, I hear an engine trying to start, but it just keeps clicking. It won’t turn over. I poke my head around the side of the building, and sure enough, there’s Prickly Mom trying to start her newer model Honda.

  “Having trouble?” I ask and grin when she looks up at me in surprise. Hailey is buckled into the back seat now and waves at me with a big smile, and I wave back.

  “It was running fine when I left the apartment and came here.” She sighs and lays her forehead against the steering wheel. She’s a pretty woman. She has curves in all the right places, but doesn’t wear clothes that hug them. Her hair is long and just begging for fingers to thread through it.

  And her lips are plump and damn kissable. Especially when she bites them the way she’s doing right now as she lifts her head and looks up at me.

  “Sounds like your battery is dead.”

  “Great,” she replies and blows out a breath.

  “Do you have someone you can call?”

  She hesitates and then shakes her head no. She’s not quick to trust, that’s for sure, and for some reason, that makes me want to try to help all the more.

  It’s been a while since a woman was a challenge.

  “We just moved here,” Hailey informs me.

  “Hailey—”

  “It’s okay,” I reply. “I can call you a tow truck. I know a guy.”

  She nods.

  “But I have to tell him your name.”

  “Sarah,” she replies. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude.”

  “Hey, stranger danger. I get it.” I nod and text my friend, then stare at the two girls for a moment. I can’t just leave them here.

  “I can take you wherever you needed to get to.”

  “No,” Sarah replies immediately.

  “Look, let’s start again. My name’s Adam. I’ve never been arrested for anything, and I’ve received two speeding tickets in my life. I co-own a bar in the Quarter, and that’s why I haven’t been to bed yet today. I can give you references to call if you really want them.”

  Her lips twitch into a slight smile and her eyes calm. They’re not just brown. They’re rich, dark chocolate.

  And she has a kid. Just be a Good Samaritan and go home to bed.

  “Okay, Adam,” she begins and pulls herself out of her car so she can square her shoulders and look me in the eye. Or the best she can, anyway, since I’m still a good six inches taller than her. “I’ll be honest. I just started a new job. The nanny can’t start until Thursday, and Hailey’s kindergarten doesn’t start until nine. I have to check in on a family before that. So, I’ll take you up on your offer of a ride, but I need you to understand this: if you so much as breathe the wrong way toward me or my daughter, I will rearrange your junk into a bloody, pulpy mess that even a surgeon won’t be able to fix. Understood?”

  Is it wrong that said junk is now rock hard from her steady stream of badass?

  But I don’t laugh, or even crack a smile, because I believe every word of it.

  “Perfectly understood,” I reply with a nod. “I promise to get you where you’re going and back home safely.”

  She narrows those amazing eyes on me and with her arms crossed, she looks me up and down, then nods once. “Okay. Hailey? Come on, baby girl, Adam’s going to give us a ride.”

  “Our car’s broken?” Hailey asks as she climbs out of the back seat.

  “Just a little broken, honey,” I reply and lead them to my car. When we’re all inside and buckled up, I turn to Sarah. “Where to?”

  She rattles off an address, and I frown down at her. “That’s in the Basin Street Projects.”

  “Okay,” she replies, as if it’s no big deal.

  “You were about to take your daughter to that neighborhood by yourself.”

  It’s not a question, and for reasons that I can’t even fathom right now, I’m worried and
half-pissed. That’s one of the worst neighborhoods in the city. It’s certainly no place for this fancy woman and her daughter.

  “I know exactly what I was about to do,” she replies and smooths lip-gloss on her lips. “This is what I do for a living.”

  “You hang out in the projects for a living?”

  She sends me an annoyed glance. “Sometimes, yes.”

  “So you’re aware that going anywhere near that address puts both you and your daughter at risk?”

  “You know, you’re awfully nosy for someone I just met.”

  “Yeah, lady, well you can it’s none of your business me all day long, but when you’re being foolish with your safety, I’m going to call you out on it.”

  “Look,” she says and turns in the seat so she can look at me when she talks. This is quickly becoming one of the things I like about her. She’s not a game player. She says it like it is. “My daughter is my business.”

  “Right.” I nod. “Except when you lose her and I find her in the store all by herself at just this side of the ass-crack of dawn.”

  “Adam said a curse!” Hailey announces.

  “Bloody. Pulp.” The words are spat out from between her teeth and when I glance over she’s throwing daggers out of those gorgeous eyes at me.

  It’s both impressive and terrifying.

  Chapter Two

  ~Sarah~

  “Do you need me to repeat the address?” I ask, my voice bitchy to my own ears. I should probably be kinder to the stranger doing a favor for me, but it’s already been the morning from hell and I just can’t.

  “No ma’am,” he replies, the sound of New Orleans dripping thickly from his deep voice. Honestly, now that the absolute terror of not being able to find Hailey has cleared, I can see that Adam is hot. Like, ridiculously, dangerously hot. Not handsome. Not nice-looking.

  H-O-T.

  But of all of the people in the world, no one knows better than I do that hot doesn’t make a man good. Hot men hurt, just the same way that ugly men do. So while I will sit here and admire the way his forearms flex as he grips the steering wheel, I will not forget that he’s a stranger.

  I should have asked for the references he offered.

  Except, I don’t have time for that. I have work to do, and I need to get Hailey to school on time. I haven’t managed to do it yet, and I’m quite sure the teacher isn’t terribly impressed with me.

  I can’t blame her.

  This single mom stuff isn’t for pansies.

  “So what do you do?” Adam asks.

  “Mommy saves kids,” Hailey says from the back seat. Adam looks over at me in surprise, then returns his gaze to the road.

  “Is that right?”

  “No, I—”

  But Hailey is on a roll. “Yep! She saves little kids and mommies from daddies who are mean.”

  “Hailey,” I say with my stern mom voice.

  “What? He asked.” Hailey says reasonably.

  “I did ask,” Adam agrees with a grin. Oh Jesus, that grin.

  “I’m a social worker,” I admit and look out the passenger window, hoping that he’ll drop the subject. But the man is nosier than Mrs. Kravitz on Bewitched.

  “How did you get into that?” he asks and turns down the street to the address I gave him. He was right. This neighborhood has seen better days. The buildings are run-down. Many of them were never repaired after Katrina. Cars are on blocks. Kids in dirty clothes are walking to school.

  “It’s a long story,” I reply absently as he pulls up to the curb and I stare in silent shock at the house that my client is living in with her three children. “Come on, Hailey. We have to go inside.”

  “No,” Adam says, surprising me. “You don’t want to take her in there, Sarah.”

  I definitely don’t want to take her in there. But there is no choice.

  “I’m not leaving her in the car with a stranger,” I reply simply. “Not today or any day. Ever.”

  He shakes his head, looks at the house that looks like something out of a horror movie, then back to me. “I’m coming with you.”

  “This is a confidential meeting, and trust me when I say the woman in there wants absolutely nothing to do with any man right now.”

  His eyes soften in sympathy.

  “I’ll stay on the porch if need be, but you are not getting out of this car in this neighborhood alone. Take it or leave it. And if you leave it, I’m driving away right now.”

  Part of me bristles and wants to tell him exactly where he can shove his ultimatum, but the other part can’t help but admit that he makes sense. I can handle myself in any neighborhood, but I have Hailey, and I won’t be able to watch her as carefully as I should while I interview the client.

  Finally, I cave. “Okay. You can come. But you will stay on the porch if there is any sign from this woman that she’s afraid of you.”

  “Of course.” He blows out a breath. “Any man who makes a woman afraid should be hung up by his balls.”

  “Agreed,” I mutter and open my door, help Hailey out of the car, and lead us up the steps to the porch. Whether the rotten wood is stable enough to hold all of us is questionable. The boards creek under our weight as I ring the doorbell.

  I can hear footsteps running in the house, and a little voice yells, “Mama! Someone’s here!”

  “Don’t you dare open that door!” Good girl, I think to myself when the client shouts at her kid. Restraining orders are just a piece of paper. It doesn’t mean that the ex-husband won’t show up at the door.

  I glance up at Adam, who’s holding Hailey’s hand as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. His eyes—green—are on mine when we hear the client approach the door.

  “Who are you?” she calls through the door.

  “This is Sarah Cox, Ms. LaCroix. I’m just stopping by to check on you.”

  “Don’t need no checkin’,” she mumbles as she unlocks several deadbolts and opens the door. Her eyes squint against the sunlight as she looks me up and down. I’ve only spoken to her on the phone. This is our first meeting.

  When she glances at Adam, she pulls the door tight against her, in case she has to shut us out quickly. “Who that?”

  “This is Adam. He’s going to stay on the porch if it makes you more comfortable. And this is my daughter Hailey.”

  “Girl, you be stupid to bring your baby in this neighborhood. I wouldn’t have mine here if’n I could afford to move away.”

  “I think that’s something we can talk about today,” I reply with a smile. I glance up at Adam and am surprised to see that his jaw is clenched shut, his muscles working hard as he gnashes his teeth.

  I don’t know him at all, but it’s easy to see that he’s pissed. And for good reason. One of Ms. LaCroix’s eyes is swollen shut, three days after her ex-husband attacked her. Her jaw is bruised. Her left arm is in a cast.

  What he can’t see are the bruises and broken ribs under her clothes.

  “You one of those men who likes to prove a point with his fist?” she asks Adam.

  “Not unless I’m throwing some idiot out of my bar, ma’am,” Adam replies with a half-smile. “But I’m perfectly fine out here on the porch.”

  “It’s hot outside,” she says finally and steps back to allow us all inside. “And that baby ain’t gonna sit on the porch. Come on in. My oldest is getting the youngest ready for school. They’ll be leavin’ in a few.”

  The children all come clamoring down the stairs, their footfalls loud on the hollow wooden steps, and rush in the room to kiss their mother. All three, two boys and one little girl, are clean and seem happy. Their clothes, although not expensive, are clean.

  “This here’s Miss Sarah. I ain’t raisin’ ya to be rude, so you’ll say hello.”

  All three turn to me. “Hello, Miss Sarah.”

  “Hello,” I reply with a smile. Hailey, who’s been remarkably quiet up until now, leaves Adam’s side and walks over to the other little girl.

  “I
love your pretty hair things,” Hailey says, admiring the braids and barrettes in the little girl’s black hair. “I’m Hailey.”

  “I’m Jasmine,” she replies.

  “Like Princess Jasmine!” Hailey exclaims. “I like Belle.” And with that, the two little girls sit on the steps and begin chatting about Disney movies.

  “She’s a sweet little thing,” Ms. LaCroix says. “Come on in. I suppose you want to make sure I’m taking care of my children proper like.”

  “I can see that already,” I reply with a soft voice. “Your children are beautiful and well-mannered.”

  “Of course they are,” she says with a sniff. “I ain’t raisin’ no trash.”

  “No, ma’am,” I reply, shaking my head. “I want to make sure you’ve been back to the doctor, and that no one has been harassing you.”

  “He can’t harass me,” she replies, her voice hushed so the kids can’t hear. “He’s in jail. But when he gets out, I ’xpect he’ll come back to whoop my ass some more.”

  “There’s a restraining order—”

  But she starts to laugh. “Do you really think that piece of paper is gonna keep him away?”

  She’s right. It won’t. I sigh and shake my head. “You’re not a stupid woman. And I’m not going to stand here and lie to you. But I can help you get out of here before he gets out.”

  This intrigues her. “How’s that?”

  “We have programs to help you, ma’am.”

  “I don’t need your damn charity.”

  “This is not charity. You’ll have to work for it, but in return, you’ll have a safe place for your children.”

  Just then, all of the kids rush in to kiss their mom’s cheek and wave good-bye as they set out for school and Hailey returns to my side. After they leave, Ms. LaCroix stares at the closed door they just left through. She’s a tough woman, all of thirty-five, but has seen more than anyone ever should. Finally, she looks up at me with tear-filled eyes.

  “You just tell me what I hasta do. I don’t want my babies to live scared no more.”

  “I don’t want any of you to be afraid anymore,” I reply and pat her shoulder softly. “Let’s get you all out of here.”