by Zoe Dawson
Beth chuckled and nodded. “For sure.” She looked down at the mess on the floor. “Do you want me to clean this up?”
“No, I made it. I’ll clean it up.”
“I’ll start laying silverware and checking the tables, then. Sunday mornings are always a crush.”
“Thanks, Beth,” I said. As she left, I looked down at the demolished cake, splattered over more than just the floor, and sighed. Dammit. I bent down to pick up the earthenware pieces. I loved this cake plate. It was one of the treasures I picked up from Evie Sutton’s shop, an antique navy blue transferware plate featuring a bird sitting on a branch with bundles of grapes below. The border was a white embossed lattice weave design trimmed in gold. Well, that would give me an excuse to see what new stuff she had in stock. I set the pieces down on the counter.
My hand brushed against something.
I looked down.
There was a small bag lying near the shards of the cake plate. I hesitated and glanced up to where the woman had been standing. Still gone. Then back down at the bag. I reached out and touched the fabric. There was something in it. It was made out of red chamois, gathered and tied with a drawstring.
With trembling fingers, I pulled it open, releasing a strong balsamic-spicy, lemony-evergreen scent I recognized as frankincense. Among the contents were a pungent eucalyptus leaf, an acorn, and a sigil with a sun inside a triangle with three slashes that looked like claws at the top, and one tiny star in each corner of the lower portion, a German iron cross at the bottom, and all the symbols were enclosed in a circle. There was something at the bottom that glinted in the light, but I couldn’t see what it was. I dumped out the contents and my heart stopped beating.
My hand went reflexively to the necklace Jeff had given me.
It was gone.
I never took it off. He’d given it to me as a wedding present, saying: I started wishing upon a star then I found you, and wished no more.
Yet on the table was the small silver star. I remembered I had it on last night when I got into bed. I know I did, because I played with it whenever I thought about Jeff. And, after that physical connection with Chase, I’d been feeling a bit guilty and conflicted and sad all week. I’d wanted to kiss more than Chase’s scratchy cheek, and the scent of him had me lingering and breathing deep, until I came to my senses with a strong case of embarrassment.
I had been wondering about moving on, afraid to even think it. But wait. This couldn’t be the same star. Mine had an engraving.
Backing up, my heart in my throat, the hair on the back of my neck rising, I stood there just staring at it. I had to have lost my necklace. That had to be it.
But when I turned it over, there in one of the points was the heart he had engraved into it the day he bought it.
“Samantha?”
I jerked upright when I heard Evie Sutton’s voice just outside the kitchen. I scooped everything back into the bag and pocketed it in my apron just as she came through the door.
“There you are.” She took one look at my face and rushed over, setting two weathered, leather-bound books and an old piece of square-cut wood on the table next to me. “Cher. What’s wrong?” She took my arm, wrapping her free arm around my waist. “Here, sit down.”
We sidestepped the cake disaster as she helped me over to one of the chairs. I folded down onto the seat.
“Must have been the heat,” I said, fanning myself. She rushed over to the sink and grabbed a glass, filling it with water. Hurrying back, she put it in my hand.
“Drink all of this.” She sat down next to me, her anxious eyes on my face.
“I’m all right, sweetie.”
“I wouldn’t want to lose my best customer,” she murmured and felt my forehead. “Are you sure you’re okay? You were positively white when I came in.”
“Yes, I’m fine.” I finished off the water.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Usually people get flushed from the heat. You looked like you’d seen a ghost.” I was touched by her concern. “Should I call Doc Rust?”
My stomach jumped and my heart jolted. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. “No. I’m really okay. No doctor needed.”
We sat for a few minutes while I worked on gathering my composure, in spite of frantic thoughts still running through my head. “What brings you here? The brunch isn’t until 10:30.”
“Oh, I wanted to check to make sure everything was all set, and to bring by these journals I found. I thought you would be interested in them.” She rose and went over to the table and reached for the musty books she’d set down, then she spied the shards. “Oh, no. The transferware. I’m sorry about that.”
“Yes, my clumsiness. I hope you have more.”
“I think I do, in one of the boxes in the back. Come by and we’ll look.” She came over to me and sat down again.
“I’m so sorry about the cake. I’m going to have to substitute crème brûlée. Are you okay with that?”
“Oh, that’s a good choice. I’m sorry about the cake, too. It’s the one with the raspberry?”
“Yes.”
“That is a shame.” She pulled her eyes from the demolished cake and said, “Anyway, I went to an estate sale the other day, and the owner had an extensive library. I picked through all the books and found some gems, including a couple of first editions.”
“That’s great. What did you find?”
She waved her hand. “Frankenstein, Poe’s Raven, Charlotte’s Web, and Gone with the Wind.”
“No kidding?”
“Yes, I’m over the moon, but I found these, too.”
“What are they?”
“One is a journal by AnnClaire, and the other is Imogene’s. Growing up in Vermilion Bayou, I had a granny who knew a lot about voodoo, so I find the stories about Imogene fascinating. Looks like her personal voodoo handbook.”
Cold iced down my spine. What were the odds? “I’ll take them.”
“I thought you might.” She turned the wooden board around. “And, look, this must be Imogene’s original sign. I thought you would want that, too.”
The sign was beautifully made, but the blue paint was weather-beaten, and the lettering faded. “I do! It will look great on that pie safe you found for me. Did you notice it’s now displayed at the entrance? It’s so thoughtful of you to remember my fascination with Imogene and find these for me. If you come by anything else, please do let me know.”
She nodded.
“Everything is all ready for the brunch. Except for the poor cake.”
Evie gave me a sympathetic look. “Crème brûlée will be fine. Your cooking is amazing, but if you ever tell Brax I said that, I’ll deny it.”
I chuckled.
After she left, I fingered the gris-gris bag. I didn’t have time to decipher what it meant, since I had a limited knowledge of voodoo and no time to look up anything. I had a brunch to prepare, and with many of my regular and favorite customers attending, not to mention the exacting Braxton Outlaw, it had to be superb.
***
The cake mess a memory, I started on the two appetizers: Choice of Creole cream cheese Evangeline, a traditional Creole breakfast starter—a sugared Creole cream cheese with seasonal fruit—or shrimp bisque. Entrees: Savory Crabmeat Cheesecake—lump crabmeat, Brie and cream cheese, eggs, cream, fresh vegetables, herbs and spices and served with a sherry-infused cream sauce—or Poached Eggs over artichoke bottoms and creamed spinach with Hollandaise sauce. Then there would be eggs and bacon for the little ones. Beverage would be mimosa.
Beth came back into the kitchen. “Sandy just arrived, and he’s getting stuff ready behind the bar.”
Chase came through the door with one of his coolers. For a moment I just stared at him, caught off guard. Why was he here? When it was evident I was surprised, he looked at Beth.
Beth smiled at him warmly, and I felt a twinge. She was pretty and younger than Chase. “Oh, I totally forgot to tell you,” she said. “We were short on crab, so I cal
led Chase for you last night.”
“Thanks, Beth, that was very thoughtful. Could you go help Sandy get everything ready? Once the crowd hits we’re going to be running full out.”
“Sure,” she said, and, giving Chase another quick, hopeful smile, she left.
Chase set down the cooler. His eyes had never left mine. His gaze was narrow, fierce, piercing in its intensity, his brows drawn, his normally sensuous mouth tight, framed by the smooth lines of his cheekbones above the faint beard stubble along his strong jaw.
He came around the butcher block table, close, but he didn’t touch me. “What happened?”
“How do you know something happened?”
“I don’t know. You look…upset.”
“I dropped your raspberry cake and in the process broke one of my favorite plates.” It popped out of my mouth instead of blurting out I’d seen a ghost and had found a strange voodoo bag which was now stashed in my apron pocket.
His face softened. An unsettling, heavy feeling unfolded in my chest, making me restless. I got a dose of his musky, male scent, and my pulse went haywire. Slipping my hands into my apron pockets, I tried to will away the heaviness. I didn’t know why I felt so exposed, so pressured to tell him about the Black woman and the bag my hand brushed against. Especially the mystery of how my silver star necklace got inside.
“Shoot, girl. That’s a damn shame, but I didn’t realize you were making me a raspberry cake,” he said, his voice earnest. “You trying to make me fat and happy? Or do you have something for me to do, and you’re buttering me up?”
“I’m a cook…so, yes—fat and happy is good. I wouldn’t say no to help with installing my bathrooms.” I said before I could stop my stupid mouth. Stepping back, my insides jangling, getting totally distracted from the conversation, I wanted to run my hand down his arm to make some connection, and it shook me. I fought the inclination to touch him. I refused to give in to these feelings, although I knew Chase was a good man, the best. I never understood why some smart, local woman hadn’t snapped him up already.
It had been two years since I lost Jeff and Scott. Two years of loneliness and guilt and grief. Yet I couldn’t shake the sense of betrayal I felt for even thinking about getting involved with another man. The anguish and terrible sense of loss had been completely disabling and thoroughly overwhelming. How could I even consider another relationship when losing Jeff, losing my child, had torn me apart? I wasn’t sure I had the strength to handle it again.
But even while my common sense told me not to get involved, my irrational heart was not listening.
I wasn’t sure where our…attraction was going to go. But the pressure building in me would eventually need some kind of release, because I was already feeling so unsettled and frustrated and needy. I stepped back again, trying to put distance between us, so I could breathe.
He tensed, as if my retreat was in reaction to what he’d said. He watched me with an intent, steady look, as if assessing the situation. His voice was quiet and low when he said, “I wouldn’t want you to feel…uncomfortable, Samantha.” His eyes went over my face.
“I don’t,” I said hurriedly, softly. “I truly don’t.” I could barely handle his concern. It was the reassuring look in his eyes. It was too much. My knees went weak, and my breath jammed up in my chest. It was all I could do to keep from folding into his arms. And all those feelings I’d tried to hold at bay came rushing through, sending a fountain of need surging up from my core. As if trapped by his gaze, I stared back at him, unable to break away—not really wanting to. I was so lost in his eyes, in the pulse-racing weakness…
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him the truth. And the desire to tell him, to get his take on this unsettling incident made me nervous. The pressure to confide in him was almost unbearable. Maybe I wanted the reassurance I wasn’t going bonkers.
The timer for my oven chimed and I jumped. This would have to wait. “Chase, look at us wasting time when we’re both very busy today. I’ve got to get to cooking, and I’m sure you need to get home and change.”
He nodded, his eyes flashing. “River will skin me alive if I miss the christening and the freaking fish fry afterwards. What is it you’re not telling me?”
My heart suspended, then thundered on with such ferocity I felt it might explode from the sudden intensity of it. Not to mention the spooky connotations of what had happened.
“Chase…I can’t go into it now—”
“I can come back later. After all this is over. It might be late.”
“That’s all right. Please do come. I need to tell someone or I might go crazy.”
I felt immediately foolish, but couldn’t shake this unsettling feeling. Only now there was no way to take it back. It had been reckless to say it, words that took us from a friendly comfort zone to a not-so-comfortable zone of intimacy.
And it had become intimate. Because finally, after years of avoiding the truth about my interest in Chase, I was going to confide in him and lean on him. It was scary.
Where would we go? I didn’t know, and that terrified me almost as much as seeing a ghost who was part of a mystery that I desperately wanted help in unraveling.
Wherever that led us.
Chapter 3
CHASE
The church was packed, every available space in every pew taken. With the Outlaw and Sutton clans and guests, the scales tipped at about forty people. I hovered in the back, tugging on the collar of my white dress shirt, feeling as if the tie was choking me. It had been a long, long time since I put on a suit. River stood up and searched the crowd. When she spied me, she motioned me forward vigorously.
I took a fortifying breath and wended my way through the mass of people who’d gathered for both the congregation service and my nephews’ christening.
When I approached the front pew where my family was sitting, my uncle Win smiled at me and stood so I could get into the already-crowded pew. His wife, my aunt Evie, patted my shoulder, her smile just as welcoming. I ended up wedged between my brother Jake—who didn’t even acknowledge me—and my dad, who gave me a stiff nod.
Great. This was just peachy. The universe really had it in for me. But all that dissipated when River turned around, her arms full of one of her sons and said, with joy vivid in her words, “I’m so glad you made it.”
Brax turned around, too, with the other two triplets nestled comfortably within each arm. His hands looked so big next to those tiny bodies. “Yeah, you look vaguely familiar,” he said, with a sarcastic tone and narrowed eyes. Typical Brax.
“Hush,” I said. “Pay attention.” Verity’s father, Preacher Fairchild had opened the service.
“Brothers and sisters in Christ: Through the sacrament of baptism, we are initiated into Christ’s holy church. We are incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvation, and given new birth through water and the Spirit. All this is God’s gift, offered to us without price. Who is presented for baptism?”
Those words struck a chord, and made me wish I could start all over with my family, but so much water had flooded under that bridge, I was afraid it had been washed away. Jake seemed bent on not forgiving me for leaving him to suffer in the role of the second—and often, in his eyes, the lesser—son taking over. He hadn’t opened up to me…in fact, hadn’t actually spoken to me…in years.
His stiff and unrelenting shoulder as it pressed to mine was cold and resolute. My dad, on the other side of me, stared straight ahead, not exactly stiff, but more resigned…disappointed.
River and Braxton rose. Together they said, “We present Beckett, Bane, and Brody Outlaw for baptism.”
They approached the preacher at the baptismal cistern, where River and Brax professed their faith in response to the revver’s questions. Once the Apostles’ Creed was recited, Boone and Verity, and Booker and Aubree rose, and approached as well. Both couples were going to act as godparents. Verity’s father poured water into the cistern while the congregation stood up.
&nb
sp; Pastor Fairchild raised his hands and said, “Eternal Father: When chaos reigned, You brushed across the dark waters and made light. Your servant Noah, through your grace built an ark against the rush of water. And when the waters receded, you brought forth a rainbow. In Egypt, Your enslaved people walked into freedom through a channeled sea You wrought. Your promise steadfastly kept to their children in the land beyond the Jordan.”
The congregation responded, and the pastor continued with the service as he cupped the water and let it run from his hands. He blessed the three boys, then said, “Beckett, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” He did this while he scooped up water and poured it over Beckett’s head, then laid hands on the baby’s head. The infant made a soft sound, but didn’t cry. Then he repeated the actions for Bane and Brody, who were both also tolerant about getting wet.
The preacher then traced the sign of the cross on their heads, spoke some more. Candles were offered to the godparents. After this, Reverend Fairchild said, “Now it is our joy to welcome our new brothers in Christ.”
At this time, Boone’s voice raised in song, completely a capella, singing “I Surrender All.” As the last notes died, Braxton’s clear, deeper-toned voice sang, “Something in the Water,” while his brothers, wife, and sisters-in-law joined in the chorus.
After the rest of the service, people started moving out of the pews. Jake still hadn’t greeted me when I exited, but River was there with her hand on my arm. “Chase, we’re all going to brunch. It’s just for immediate family, and is private. You’re coming.”
“What?” I said, caught off guard. “You didn’t say anything about this last week.”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t agree.”
“No. I’ll come to the reception, but I’m not—”
“Yes, you are, huckleberry,” Brax said, curling his arm around his wife’s shoulders. The babies were in a stroller. “I saved your life on the bayou, and you’re standing here because of me. River has her heart set on you being there. Besides, I have something I want to talk to you about.”
