by Kari Gray
She had four broken ribs, a badly sprained right wrist, a bandaged cut up her left forearm and a stitched wound in her thigh where a large piece of glass had embedded itself. All things told, she looked awful. But she was alive. And scared.
“So somebody did this on purpose,” she murmured to Veronique, “and I’m completely confused. Do we have enemies, Ronnie? Do you?” Lily’s eyes burned as she examined her aunt’s pale, quiet face. “Was there something you weren’t telling me?” The thought that Ronnie might have been keeping something from her hurt almost more than the fear.
“Lil?”
Lily turned at the voice in the doorway and saw Bennett standing there, one shoulder braced against the frame. He took her breath away as much as he ever had, maybe now even more. He’d lost the younger look to his features that she’d remembered; his face was a tiny bit leaner, the angles and planes more defined, and if anything, he seemed taller, broader. When had that happened?
“Hey,” she said to him and tried to smile. Tears formed in her eyes instead and she pursed her lips, trying to hold them back.
He moved toward her, taking her shoulders in his hands. “It’ll be ok,” he murmured to her and thumbed away a tear that escaped and fell down her cheek. The tenderness opened the floodgates and she choked back a sob, wrapping an arm around her broken ribs and trying not to gasp in pain.
“Oh, Lil.” Bennett placed his hand over hers against her side and caught her eyes with his. “Why are you even out of bed?”
“I convinced the doctor to discharge me,” she said through her tears. “I need to think, I’ll get a hotel room and call Mimi, I just need to think.”
Bennett looked at her for a long moment. “You really need to stay here for at least one more day.”
She shook her head. “I have to figure this out. I can’t just lay here, Ben, someone tried to kill me. Or her.” She motioned miserably to Veronique. “And may have succeeded.”
“Hey now, none of that.” He lightly traced his knuckles against her cheek. “We’ll figure this out. Ok?”
Lily nodded.
“I’ve never seen you cry before, baby doll. You’re breaking my heart. Let me take you home, you can get some rest.”
“Ok.” Lily tried to take a deep, cleansing breath and winced. “I keep forgetting about my damn ribs,” she muttered. She reached for Veronique’s hand, placing a kiss on it. “I’ll find out who did this, Ronnie. And so help me, if you’ve been hiding something…”
“I like your scrubs,” Bennett said to her as they left the room.
Lily grimaced. “The nurse gave them to me since my other clothes were ripped to shreds.” She was glad he couldn’t see the serviceable underwear she wore beneath the scrubs—they were a far cry from her usual matched sets of bras and panties. “I need to do some shopping—at least I had my purse on me when the freaking shop blew up. Probably a good thing it was my turn to buy.”
Bennett laughed and grasped her hand, intertwining his fingers with hers as they made their way down the hall to the elevator. “Now there’s the practical Lily I remember.”
They reached the elevators and he glanced at her as he punched the button. “And just so you know, there’s no way in hell I’m taking you to a hotel.”
“Bennett, come on. You have a one bedroom condo.”
“I’m house sitting for my parents, they’re in Italy for the month,” he said and put his hand on her back as the doors opened and people filed out of the elevator. They entered and he pushed the main floor button and then took her hand again. “You know the house is huge—there’s plenty of room for you, even Mimi and Dahlia and Poppy if they come down.”
“You remember my sisters names,” she said with a smile. “A mind like a steel trap. That’s what your mom told me once. You never forget anything.”
He grinned at her and held their hands to his mouth, kissing the back of hers. “I never forget anything I want to remember.”
Her heart skipped a beat. He’d hugged her before, thrown a friendly arm around her shoulders, but had never kissed her, never laced his fingers with hers. “You want to remember my sisters’ names?”
“Anything connected to you.” He leaned against the back of the elevator and pulled her closer, rubbing his thumb along her hand. His brows drew together as he studied her face, making her breath hitch. Intense…everything about him was so much more intense. “Lil, when I saw you there on the ground, realized it was you, I—”
He cut himself off as the elevator doors dinged and opened. With a sigh, he straightened and guided her into the hallway. He clasped her hand again and her head spun, wondering when her world had flown so completely out of her control.
“Wait,” she said and stopped just inside the main doors. “I need to just sit for a minute, go somewhere…” She frowned and rubbed her aching head. “Bennett, I need to think.”
His face softened and he briefly closed his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said, and the ghost of a smile hinted at the corners of his mouth. “I’m calling the shots for someone who likes to be in control.”
She scowled a little. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. And I need a Diet Coke.”
He nodded, his smile returning in force and then fading again. “Lily, I thought you were going to die. You have to let me—” He paused. “Please let me help you figure this out. The police want to talk to you—my friend, Jeremy Ambrose, is a detective. He came by earlier this morning but you were still out like a light. Let’s get some dinner and we can decide what you should do next. You can have your Diet Coke, and I can plead my case.”
“What case would that be?”
“The one that insists you stay with me instead of a hotel. Something’s going on, and I don’t like it.”
She glanced at him as he took her hand again. Gone was the grin, the familiar wink, and her heart beat a little faster in trepidation as fear snaked its way up her spine. She had a feeling her well-ordered days were behind her.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lily stirred her soup around in the bowl but couldn’t make herself take more than a few bites. It was a shame—she usually loved the Crab Hut’s clam chowder. The old restaurant had been one of their favorites in school, and not much had changed, right down to the live jazz band. It was familiar and comfortable—even the smells were reminiscent of a simpler time.
If only she could summon her appetite, the evening wouldn’t be so bad. Bennett was right—she probably should have stayed another night in the hospital, but the thought of lying there and getting disturbed every two hours to have her temperature taken was more than she wanted to deal with.
“How’s the Diet Coke?” Bennett smiled at her over his giant bowl of gumbo and she wished for a moment that they could jump backward a few years. No worries beyond the next final, dreams where not even the sky was the limit—it had been a pretty idyllic time. Now they had to be adults.
She tried to smile and felt the crack in her lip split. She sucked it into her mouth and lifted her napkin to it. “Wish I could put a band-aid on this thing,” she muttered.
Bennett opened his mouth to say something and abruptly cut it off.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes at him as she dabbed at her cut. “Come on. You can’t do that.”
“There were just so many things I wanted to say to that.”
The corner of her mouth quirked in a smile, this time with the napkin held to her lip. “By all means, let’s hear it.”
He cleared his throat and started messing with his own napkin and she choked on a laugh.
“Bennett Duschesne, are you blushing? You’re blushing!”
“This isn’t blushing, I’ve been out in the sun.”
“Mmm hmm.” She paused. “You never used to hold back, our conversations were full of ‘that’s what she said.’”
“It was safer then. You were my best friend—I didn’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing to you.”
He took a bite of his food, his gaze holding hers. He smiled as he finished chewing and raised a brow. “Wasn’t I yours?”
“Well yes, but I never, you never said as much, we never…”
“No, we never. And I’ve regretted it ever since.”
She opened her mouth but found herself at a loss for words. “Bennett, I…” What did she want to say? She’d loved him since she was a freshman in college, that it had killed her when he started dating someone else? That she’d pretended she hadn’t cared, had dated a successive string of guys in hopes of finding one she cared for as much as him?
He dropped his eyes to his plate and waved a hand at her. “I’m sorry, Lil. You have all this going on and I don’t mean to make things weird.”
“No, it’s not weird. I mean, ok, someone’s trying to kill me, that’s weird, but you and me…” She felt her eyes burn again and she cleared her throat, straightening in her chair. “I’m glad it was you who found me lying all bloody in the street.” She smiled and blinked away the potential tears. “It’s been way too long, and I’ve missed you.”
“And you’ll stay at my house where I can keep an eye on you.”
She sighed and frowned, feeling like an idiot. “I would feel…dumb.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just, I don’t know.” She ran a hand through her hair and sat back gingerly in her seat, her entire body protesting every movement. “I take care of myself. I have worked so hard, so damned hard. I’ve put everything I learned to good use and have helped Ronnie bring the boutique to a whole new level and now it’s gone. I was going to live with Ronnie for another six months or so and then look into getting a place of my own. I was in complete and total control of everything in my life—I was right on the track I designed when I left Boston after high school.”
His lips quirked. “I remember you sitting at the kitchen island and my mom telling you specifically that you can’t just map your life out like that. Unexpected things happen all the time. I think that was the same conversation where she told you to develop your aura-reading skills and you all but ran out of the house.”
Lily shook her head. “Freaked me out that she knew…” She stopped, feeling the blood drain from her face.
“What is it?” Bennett leaned forward in his seat.
“My mom.” Lily put her palm to her forehead and closed her eyes. “I saw my mom.”
“Your…dead…mom?”
She nodded, her eyes still closed. She braced her elbow on the table, head in her hand, reliving the adrenaline rush she’d felt after the explosion had blown her into the street. “She talked to me right before you got there.”
Bennett exhaled and she opened her eyes. He sat back slowly in his chair and tossed his napkin next to his gumbo. “Oh, Lil.” He shook his head. “It was as bad as I thought. You were almost gone.”
“That’s not the worst of it!” Lily felt a surge of anger. “She told me to embrace my freaking family gifts. I hate that crap, it doesn’t do anyone any good. Ever.” Lily turned her attention to the band, not really seeing them, not seeing anything but desperately wanting a distraction. How could she have forgotten a visit from her dead mother?
He was quiet for so long that Lily finally looked back at him to see him regarding her with an expression she couldn’t read.
“What?”
He shrugged.
She folded her arms across her chest. “No, really. What?”
“Seems coincidental, doesn’t it? This crazy thing happens at the shop and your mom pays you a visit from beyond, telling you it’s time?”
Lily exhaled slowly, trying to rein in her temper that really only ever flared dangerously when she discussed this one issue. “Bennett, you grew up with a very positive impression of your mom’s ability to read auras and have premonitions. And my mom’s abilities are the reason she’s dead. People killed her and my dad trying to get what she had, and I want nothing to do with it.” The air around her pulsated ever so slightly as a result of her heightened emotions and she winced. “Dammit.”
Bennett moved his food out of the way and braced his arms on the table. “Lily,” he said, his voice low, “you may not like it, but you may not have a choice. What if someone wants the same thing from you, or Ronnie?”
“Seriously, most people think paranormal abilities are nothing but crazy new-age crap and I’m at dinner with the one guy who believes otherwise.”
A muscle worked in his jaw, a tic she recognized as a signal of his own building temper. “You’re with the one guy who knows otherwise. Have you called Mimi yet?”
She sighed. “No. I slept most of the day, went upstairs to see Ronnie, and then you came.”
“And you’re putting it off. You have to call her, Lil. Her daughter is lying in the hospital.”
She scowled at him, knowing he was right and feeling like a spoiled kid. She hadn’t wanted to call Mimi for so many reasons she couldn’t count them all. The worst of them was that Ronnie was in a coma and she was Mimi’s last living child. She wanted to protect her grandmother, let her remain in happy ignorance for as long as possible. “Stop telling me what to do.”
“You call her or I’ll do it.”
“You don’t know her number.”
He gave her a flat stare. “I can find it.”
“She’ll just tell me the same thing. She’s been saying it for years and now she’ll have the satisfaction of seeing me cave.”
“Ok. First of all, you’re not caving. And secondly, even if what happened at the shop has nothing to do with anything weird,” he waved his hands in the air, “it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to be able to use what you have. Help keep you safe.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Do you know what happened the last time I read an aura?”
“No.”
She leaned forward. “I’ll tell you what happened. I had been seeing colors everywhere my whole life and just accepted it, never realized that not everybody does. I was nine years old, at the mall with my mom. There was this teenage couple that met in the food court, and as they walked toward each other, these red tendrils reached from the guy’s groin, straight toward hers.”
Bennett’s lips twitched, but to his credit, he remained silent.
“I told my mom, and that night she started teaching me how to turn the aura read on and off. And I’ve intentionally kept it off. It’s overwhelming, it’s too much! And who needs to see groin auras all over the place?”
He lightly cleared his throat. “So, you’ve never read mine, right?”
“Oh geez.” She put her head in her hand again and closed her eyes, feeling all kinds of sorry for herself that she was a descendant of witches.
“I mean, I’m just asking. No particular reason.”
Ugh. The thought that she might have seen his underlying attraction for Steph made her want to puke. “No. I’ve never read yours. I’ve never read anyone’s. I’ve turned off the visual, the emotional, all of it. It’s too much, Bennett.” She looked up at him. “I don’t want it.”
Bennett signaled for the check. “You may not want it, baby doll, but I’m afraid you’ve got it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
By the time Bennett pulled into the circular drive and stopped at the front of the grand antebellum house in one of New Orleans’ beautiful old neighborhoods, Lily was fighting to stay awake. She couldn’t discern much in the dim light of the tall lamp posts that graced the walkway to the door, but his family home looked just as it had the last time she’d been there. The porch that ran the length of the house and circled the whole of it around to the back was mirrored on the second floor with a balcony that embraced the family’s and guest’s rooms. Sets of large French doors led out onto the balcony from several suites on the second floor, and as much as Lily had wanted to stubbornly maintain her independence and stay in a hotel, she was re
lieved at the thought of sinking into one of the soft beds and maybe leaving the balcony doors open to smell the magnolias that grew in profusion around the yard.
“Now. Just sit still for a minute while I grab your shopping bags. Then I’ll help you into the house. Ok?”
Lily nodded, exhausted and aching too much to argue. She’d fight for her independence tomorrow. Tonight it was enough to be with someone who cared about her, who wanted to help her. She and Ronnie had other casual friends, but over the last several months, Lily had kept herself so busy growing the business that she’d cut out much of her social life. She wasn’t sure who she’d have been comfortable calling if Bennett hadn’t stepped in and taken control of everything, much to her chagrin.
Her phone rang as Bennett opened the trunk and she frowned, fishing for it in her purse. The number wasn’t listed, and she considered letting it go to voice mail. But the thought that it might be the hospital prompted her to unlock the screen and answer it.
“Miss Bordeaux, how is your aunt?” The voice was deep, smooth, rich. And entirely foreign to her.
“I’m sorry?”
“You survived, I see. The message, of course, was for her; she might lose one niece, but then risk the other two? And yet how fortuitous for me that you are still here, as she is now entirely out of commission. It was to have been her morning to go for tea, your morning to open the shop, no? But you went together, both of you, and twenty minutes early. Very much a break in routine.”
Lily’s heart pounded in her throat. Cultured accents, precise and exotic. A blend of Creole and something else she couldn’t identify. “Who is this?”
“Veronique knows the location of something that belongs to my family, but she has been most stubborn in sharing that information. I will now need you to find it, naturally.”
Her hand shaking, Lily lowered the phone and put it on speaker as Bennett opened her door. The terror must have been evident on her face; he froze immediately and looked at the phone as she put her finger to her lips.
