by Hailey North
Tony selected a beignet from the stack and lifted it toward her. “Take a bite.”
She did and her mouth smiled at the succulent blend of sweet fried dough and the luscious coating of sugar.
Tony lowered the beignet to the saucer, then leaned doser. With his thumb, he patted her upper lip and showed her how much sugar decorated her face from only one bite.
“Messy but delicious,” she said.
Tony raised his thumb to his mouth and slowly licked the sugar he’d taken from her lips. “Definitely delicious,” he said, his eyes darkening in a way that signaled he wasn’t describing only the sweet treat.
Watching him lick his finger in such a sensuous manner played funny tricks on Penelope’s insides. She took another bite of the pastry. Tony sipped his coffee, watching her as if he wanted her for dessert.
Feeling braver and more desirable than she could recall ever experiencing, Penelope dabbled her forefinger in a pile of sugar on the saucer and lifted it to Tony’s lips.
His eyes widened and he smiled, a look both gentle and wicked, as he accepted her offering. He circled her wrist with one hand and oh so slowly worked her finger in and out of his lips. All the while he held her gaze in his.
When he finished, he leaned closer and whispered, “Let’s take our café au lait to go.”
Shivering again, this time from the sensations Tony had created within her, Penelope nodded. He corralled the waiter, dumped the liquid from the thick crockery mugs into paper cups, then piled some dollar bills on the table and rose.
Penelope followed him out to the car, excited by the way she trembled with anticipation. Tony handed her into the car and walked around to the driver’s side. She saw him whisk a paper off the windshield, crumple it, and toss it into the backseat as he got into the car.
He drove quickly and they didn’t talk. Penelope sipped her coffee. Within ten minutes, they were clear of the French Quarter traffic and only blocks from her apartment building. Suddenly Penelope realized she’d forgotten about Mrs. Merlin’s presence. She couldn’t invite Tony up with a chaperone!
She choked on her coffee and he glanced over quickly.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. Donkeys and dumbbells! Should she say something? Or maybe he’d simply drive them to his place. She finished her café au lait in one quick gulp.
The radio barked.
Tony slapped at it with one hand.
Penelope looked from Tony to the radio and back.
“It’s nothing,” he said, then the radio blared again. “Nuts,” he said, and grabbed the microphone. He radioed in.
Penelope gazed over at him, curious, but too far gone with passion to worry about anything other than where the two of them would end up.
“I’ve gotta take you home,” he said. “Gotta work.”
“Oh,” she said, relieved to learn he hadn’t been planning to.
He stopped at a light, then reached over and pulled her close. “If it weren’t for work,” he said, “nothing would keep me from finishing what we just started.”
She blushed, then found the nerve to whisper, “Me neither.”
They roared the next few blocks through the Warehouse District. Tony said abruptly, “Have dinner with me tomorrow night?”
“Dinner?”
“Yeah, you know, in a noisy restaurant full of happy people? The place Primo’s chef used to work.”
“You did follow me tonight, didn’t you?”
“Is the Pope Catholic?” He grinned and shot through a light more red than yellow.
“You’re impossible.”
“Thanks. Seven?” He paused, keeping an eye on her, obviously assessing her reaction. “Great seafood. Right on the lake.”
She pursed her lips, placed one finger against them, feeling his kiss once more. Did he want to see her again or was he being polite? Whatever the answer, she lectured herself, she shouldn’t run away from adventure, even if she ended up with a heartache. “All right,” she whispered.
“Cheer up, we may not have slugs wrapped in grass, but I predict you’ll like it even better.”
“You really did follow me, didn’t you?”
“Into the kitchen,” he said, squealing to a stop in front of her apartment building. Leaning over, he thrust her door wide. “Forgive me for not seeing you up?”
She was surprised, but nodded. “Busy night for the unemployed?”
He grinned in answer; then, suddenly looking much more serious, he called her name as she stepped from the car.
“Yes?” She wet her bottom lip and turned toward the man with bedroom eyes, the man who’d turned her world upside down.
“Don’t ever marry a man who doesn’t make you feel like you do right this minute.”
Eyes wide, Penelope feathered the tip of her little finger over her lips and backed inside her door. It wasn’t until she was on her way up in the elevator that she regained her senses enough to worry about her missing car.
Rushing into her apartment, Penelope almost stepped on Mrs. Merlin. The tiny woman lay flat in the center of the living room on the rectangular Persian carpet Penelope had picked up for a song at a flea market. Her arms and legs were spread loosely from the side of her body, her eyes closed.
Was she dead?
Penelope set down the bag from the Bayou Magick Shoppe and knelt on the floor. With relief, she saw Mrs. Merlin’s chest slowly rise and fall.
Just as well her miniature houseguest wasn’t paying attention. Tiptoeing into the bedroom, Penelope hugged her arms to her sides, savoring the taste of Tony’s lips on hers.
Who would have thought he could make her feel so . . . oh, so magical, like a hot air balloon sailing toward the moon? Arms circling an imaginary dance partner, she swayed toward her bed, then dropped down, her hands pressed to the insides of her thighs.
I’m trembling, she realized. Well, it wasn’t every night a woman had her car disappear, escaped a mugging, then got kissed by the man with bedroom eyes.
The trembling in her legs increased as she relived him saying to her in his low, rough voice, “Tell me what you want.” Ooh, the power of that suggestion!
Despite her hours of fantasy life with her mystery man Raoul, Penelope had never once envisioned the incredibly intoxicating concept of a man holding her close and uttering such a phrase in her ears.
She heard a rustling noise in the other room, just in time to keep herself from curling up on her bed and going off into a long, long, fantasy about what might have happened between her and Tony Olano had he not had to whisk off to work.
Then she frowned.
She’d never seen any evidence that he even had a job.
So where was he going?
Penelope dragged herself off the bed, her energy drained by the notion that Tony had misused her, and badly. He’d kissed her, dumped her at her door, then run off to somewhere more exciting. Or someone, more than likely.
A tear welled in her eye and she commanded it to evaporate.
“Penelope?” Mrs. Merlin called her name from the living room and Penelope forced herself to move. He’d only been using her. How could she even have thought that he wanted her, desired her, couldn’t live without seeing her again?
She shook her head, trying to rattle some sense back into her brain. Then she sighed and went to see what Mrs. Merlin had been doing playing dead.
The woman sat cross-legged on the floor. Looking amazingly refreshed, Mrs. Merlin surveyed Penelope from her position in the living room. “You have the materials, don’t you?”
Penelope nodded. She sat on the sofa, then pointed to the shopping bag. “Everything you need.”
Mrs. Merlin made a slight tch-tch noise.
“What?” Penelope spoke more sharply than she’d intended, but she was just so darned depressed. Tony Olano would kiss anything in a skirt. Why had she even let herself feel special?
“My, my,” murmured Mrs. Merlin. “Maybe you should try some creative visualization of your
own.”
“What’s that?”
Mrs. Merlin stretched her hands over her head, then bent forward, rolling into a pose that resembled a bedbug. When her head resurfaced, she said as she rose from the carpet, “One of the steps in candle magick is to prepare oneself with creative visualization.”
“Planning the outcome?”
“Very good. But then you already know you’re smart, don’t you?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Penelope wanted to be cross with Tony, but since he wasn’t there, she took it out on her houseguest.
Mrs. Merlin regarded her steadily. “Why don’t you tell me what’s happened to you since you left Mr. Gotho with this bag of goodies?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your aura is very, very clouded. Mr. Gotho never would have entrusted these supplies with you if you’d been in that state in his shop.”
Penelope made a face, then caught herself. Mrs. Merlin had been right before about the question of her ego. Perhaps she truly could see something different about Penelope. Certainly Penelope would never be the same, not since that kiss, and not since reality had set back in.
“Oh, Mrs. Merlin,” she said, tucking her feet under her on the couch, “maybe you have a spell to help me. I mean, what do you do when you want someone to want you, only he doesn’t really want you, he’s just toying with you?”
“Hmmm”
“Or at least I’m pretty sure he is.”
“I take it you’re not referring to the pretty boy who gave you the ring.”
“Him?” Penelope waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll send that thing back via messenger. Maybe I’ll insure it, maybe I won’t. No, I’m talking about . . .” she paused and felt herself blush, “I’m talking about Tony.”
“Olano?”
Penelope nodded.
“Well, thank the stars,” Mrs. Merlin said, hopping from foot to foot. “I thought you’d never wake up and smell the coffee.”
“What do you mean?” Penelope dropped her feet to the floor and leaned forward, anxious to hear what Mrs. Merlin had to say.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Penelope lunged toward the shopping bag and held it high. “Still want my help?”
“Feisty creature, aren’t you? Very well, put the bag down and I’ll tell you what I mean.” Mrs. Merlin climbed onto her incense stick launcher and the next thing Penelope knew, the miniature magician was settling next to her on the couch, folding the skirts of her brightly colored caftan around her calves.
“Do you think he likes me?” Penelope couldn’t help the question from slipping out.
“Do you?”
Penelope laughed. “You would have made a good lawyer, Mrs. Merlin.”
“Too many of them as it is. No offense,” she added quickly. “But do you like him?”
“Sometimes yes and sometimes no.”
“Well, that’s a start.”
“Sometimes he drives me nuts, then others he’s so . . . so . . .”
“Irresistible?”
Penelope nodded. “And cocky.”
“Charming?”
“And overbearing.”
“Sexy?”
“Most definitely!” Penelope made a noise that was half-sigh, half-moan.
Mrs. Merlin chuckled. “All right, so he’s the man for you. But somehow you’re not convinced he thinks you’re the woman for him. What’s the problem?”
“Problem?” Penelope hated the squeaky way her voice rose. “Why would a man who could have any woman on the street, in the entire city, want me?”
“Oh, now, that is a problem. Could you tip that bag over, dear, and let me look in it while we chat?”
“Oh, of course.” Penelope spilled the contents, but gently, onto the sofa. No telling what Mr. Gotho had put in there. The only thing she was sure they wouldn’t find was frog’s testicles.
Mrs. Merlin walked up to the cherry-red candle that stood as high as her breastbone. “Have you ever been with a man?”
“You mean . . . ?”
She nodded and walked in a circle around the candle.
“Um . . . well, no, not exactly.”
“So, you have doubts about your sexuality?”
“Do you mean about whether I’m attracted to men?” Again, her voice squeaked and Penelope blushed, thankful that had never happened to her in the courtroom.
“Or whether they’re attracted to you.”
“Oh, that. I don’t think much about it,” she lied.
Mrs. Merlin stroked the side of the cherry-red candle. “But you’re thinking now about whether Tony Olano is attracted to you?”
Penelope nodded. She couldn’t lie about that.
“Did Mr. Gotho mention anything about this candle when he included it in the supplies?”
Penelope thought back, but with all the excitement she’d undergone, she couldn’t remember what he’d told her about the candle. She shook her head.
“I want you to lie on the floor, exactly as you found me lying,” Mrs. Merlin said, suddenly sounding very, very bossy. “And don’t ask ‘Now?’ in that little voice of yours. Do it.”
Penelope stared at her. She thought of objecting, reminding Mrs. Merlin of the heavy schedule she had the next day, starting off with an important breakfast meeting at eight o’clock at the Windsor Court.
One more glance at the tiny woman and Penelope held her tongue. Obediently, she slipped off the sofa and onto the floor, stretching out as she’d seen Mrs. Merlin do earlier.
Goodness only knew, none of this stuff made sense, but she might as well give it a shot. Wanting Tony Olano to want her as badly as she wanted him, she’d almost sell her soul, let alone light a candle, to accomplish that goal.
Attempting to pick up the prostitute had been a predictable move on Hinson’s part. His next move had been much more diabolical, Tony thought, his stomach roiling as he watched from the sidelines as a rookie street patrolman roped off the bloody crime scene on the other side of town from where Hinson had headed for his rendezvous with some unlucky hooker.
They hadn’t killed Squeek, but he’d be in the hospital for a good long while by the looks of him. Tony dropped his head to his hands and cursed himself.
He wanted to drop to the sidewalk and throw up the dinner he hadn’teaten, but he stood rock-still, forcing himself to watch as the paramedics strapped Squeek to the stretcher and lifted him into the waiting ambulance.
And you thought you were clever, he mocked himself. And careful. You aren’t worth silt from the river, Olano. Fear, genuine fear, pricked a line across his scalp as he thought of what Hinson’s men had done to his informant.
Because, of course, he thought of Penelope. And what they’d do to her if she didn’t agree to marry Hinson. They’d handpicked her, brought her to New Orleans, wanted her working for them, set up so she wouldn’t testify against the man she’d married. And as a bonus, no doubt her law firm would have to resign from the huge case opposing Hinson’s boss.
The siren wailed and Tony wanted to howl along with it. Nothing he’d found indicated Penelope knew anything about Hinson; nothing indicated she was in with them in their dirty money schemes, their drug rings, their automobile chop-shop operations, their legitimate businesses dressed up to hide their ill-gotten gains.
She’d shoplifted, true.
But a momentary impulse didn’t equal criminal intentions.
Or did it hint at what lay under the iceberg and he wanted to blind himself to that possibility?
Especially after that kiss.
Talk about heat bubbling under the surface. Tony took in a sharp breath and felt her again in his arms, her lips opening under his hungry kiss.
More officers than either usual or necessary milled about the crime scene. Squeek had worked for lots of them, not just Tony, and they’d all be wondering who he’d taken the hit for.
Tony knew.
And he was pretty sure someone else walking around the dark alley
lit only by the lights from the officers’ cars knew, too. Someone who worked for two bosses, someone who’d veered over the line of duty into the gutter of corruption.
And whoever that was knew about Penelope, might even know Tony had kissed her. In this game, everyone was following everyone else.
Dammit, Olano, you’ve gotta leave her alone, he argued with himself.
I can’t.
Got to.
Just one date.
Date? Are you kidding. You don’t want a date. You want her in your bed.
Well, that’s part of a date. Dinner first, then bed.
And what’ll Hinson do if he finds you jumping the bones of his intended?
Dinner only?
Maybe.
Nope. No way.
He tugged his hands through his hair.
In the morning, he’d leave a message with her secretary that something had come up. She’d figure him for the playboy he had been, but no longer wanted to be.
Chapter 15
Reluctantly at first, battling her mental objections, Penelope followed Mrs. Merlin’s instructions for the process she called creative visualization. The first step, hissing and chuffing and blowing out air from deep in her belly to expel what Mrs. Merlin described as negative energies, left Penelope feeling extremely foolish and wondering how she’d stay awake during her important breakfast meeting the next morning.
But as Mrs. Merlin, in a voice much more soothing than her usual caustic commentary, guided her to choose a safe place within herself where she could return again and again when life closed in around her, she quit fighting and eased into the experience.
It wasn’t too different from her tendency to escape straight into her fantasies in the midst of her day-to-day routine.
Letting her mind drift free at last from the anchor of self-consciousness, Penelope saw the image of a riverbank in her mind. Mrs. Merlin instructed her to find a place of peace, and as the vision swam full-blown into her mind, she knew instinctively this place of peace was one she’d visited many times before.
She walked along the bank, beside the murmuring stream just past sunset. That was the same hour of the evening she’d escaped from the trailer park during her childhood, running off to the creek that bordered the property, the creek that hinted of a cosmos that lay beyond the borders of her world.
