Bourbon Street Blues (5 page)

“Fine. Be fair. Tell me.”

“Not much more to the story,” she admitted, though her heart felt a tiny ping of pain, just an echo of what she’d once lived through. “The night I told him I loved him, he caught the first jet out of town. Didn’t quit running till he hit Europe. Last I heard, he was still in Paris.”

“He was an idiot.”

“True,” Holly agreed, letting the old hurt slide from her. The signs had all been there. She just hadn’t wanted to see them. Jeff had never taken her to meet his family, his friends. They’d always met at her place. Had dinner down in the Quarter, away from everyone he knew. Lessening the odds of stumbling across someone who might recognize him and wonder what he was doing with a jazz-singer nobody.

At the time, she’d told herself he did it because he wanted her all to himself. She’d needed to believe that. She’d wanted so much to belong to someone. To finally matter.

So who was the idiot, really?

“It was just as much my fault as his,” she finally said. “Maybe more. I paid no attention to the differences between us. Didn’t take into account that my world just never really bumps up against the kind of world he lived in—the kind
you
live in. I mistook heat for caring, lust for love. I won’t do that again, Parker. I
can’t
do that again.”

This time, he came toward her and didn’t stop when she eased back. This time, he kept coming, until his hands were on her shoulders, fingers tight. “Nobody said anything about love, Holly. And I’m not asking you to do anything.”

“Didn’t say you were.” Holly lifted her chin to meet him head-on. She had to prove, at least to herself, that she was still strong enough to say no to him, even when looking into those eyes of his. “I’m just letting you know that I won’t be swept away again. I won’t let heat rush me into a situation I know can’t go anywhere.”

“So, what you’re saying is, you don’t trust yourself with me?”

“Oh, please.” She scowled at him and only then noted the humor glinting in his eyes. “Fine. Make jokes. But I’m not going to be the easy girl from the wrong side of the tracks for you, Parker James. I
won’t be another man’s secret. His little time-out when his own world gets too stuffy.”

“Who the hell said you were?” His hands on her shoulders tightened as he pulled her in close to him. “You’ve got a lot of ideas in that head of yours, Holly Carlyle, but the ones you’ve got about me are dead wrong.”

“That right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” He planted a quick, hard kiss on her mouth, then let her go abruptly. “You’ve got a problem with my family’s money? Then I’d guess that makes you the snob, not me.”

She laughed out loud. “Darlin’ I don’t have enough money to be a snob.”

“I’m not the one breaking off a kiss to compare checking accounts.”

“I wasn’t doing that,” she argued, feeling just a little aggrieved now. She was only trying to be honest. To let him know that her attraction to him didn’t mean that she would lose herself in a fantasy. Not again.

“Sure you were,” he said, shoving both hands into his pockets. “And you ought to know, it doesn’t take money to look down your nose at somebody, Holly.”

Her mouth dropped open. He couldn’t have surprised her more if he’d burst into song and dance. “I wasn’t doing anything of the sort.”

“Weren’t you? Weren’t you so busy lumping me in with some jerk who hurt you that you weren’t bothering to see me at all?”

“I see you just fine, Parker,” she told him. “That’s the point.”

“No. All you see is the James family. Well, I won’t deny I’m a part of that world. But it’s not all I am, either.”

“I don’t know why you’re making this so hard.”

“I’m not the one who started this,” he pointed out.

“I was just trying to tell you how I feel.”

“And I’m just saying, why don’t you wait a while, see what happens. See if your warning is even necessary.”

“No point in waiting if nothing is going to happen,” she countered.

“I think something already has and that’s why you’re running scared.”

“I’m not scared, for heaven’s sake,” she argued, wondering when she’d lost the high ground. Honesty clearly wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She pulled in a deep breath in an attempt to bring her rising temper down a notch or two. “We hardly know each other, Parker. I was only trying to be honest with you.”

“Thanks very much,” he said. “Consider me warned.”

“I didn’t mean to start a battle.”

“You did a damn fine job accidentally, then.”

She shrugged. “It’s a gift.”

“You’re not an easy woman to know, are you?”

“Well, now,” she acknowledged, “that’s not the first time I’ve heard that said.”

He shook his head, pulled his hands from his pockets and headed to the front door. After he opened it, he paused and looked back at her. “Tell you what. Why don’t I walk you back to the Hotel Marchand and you can start figuring out which one of us is doing the most thinking about the ‘right’ side and the ‘wrong’ side of the tracks?”

Irritated because there was just the slightest possibility he might have a point, Holly swept past him, then stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “You’re a puzzling man, Parker James.”

“And you, Holly Carlyle, are a hell of a lot of work.”

Despite herself, she smiled. “Maybe, but I’m worth it.”

Anger vanished from his eyes, replaced with rueful good humor. “I guess I’ll have to find that out for myself, won’t I?”

“If you’re lucky.”

“W
AIT FOR ME HERE
,
Jonathon.” Frannie LeBourdais James took the hand her driver offered to help her out of the car. Shaking her short, perfectly trimmed blond hair back from her face, she smiled briefly then slipped on a pair of designer sunglasses. “I won’t be long.”

She wouldn’t be here at all, she thought with disgust, if only Parker would cooperate. For pity’s sake, she’d been his wife for ten long, very lucrative years. And now he was going through with a divorce? Why? There had to be a reason.

She checked the slim, diamond-studded gold watch on her left wrist, then smoothed one hand down the front of her well-tailored gray slacks. She’d chosen her outfit carefully. Her long-sleeved, dark blue silk shirt hugged her curves and made her blue eyes look like the sea in the morning. She ran her tongue across her lips, moistening the deep pink color she’d so recently applied.

This was an important meeting for her. She’d wanted to look both beautiful and approachable. The one sure way to reach a man—any man, she told herself with an inner smile—was to make him want, to make him need. And then to deny him.

It had been a long time since she and Parker had shared a bed. She frowned, remembering the first couple of years of their marriage, when she’d submitted to his lovemaking and just managed to avoid shuddering.

Not that Parker wasn’t a handsome man. He was. She never would have married a troll, no matter the size of his checkbook. But, handsome or not, he simply wasn’t what Frannie desired. Not his fault, certainly. But there was no reason she shouldn’t remain Mrs. Parker James.

Hadn’t her own parents had a very “civilized” arrangement for more than forty years? They both took their pleasure wherever they wanted to—as long as they were discreet. Of course, she thought as she waited for traffic to pass so she could cross the street, she’d made her mistake early on in her marriage. She should have allowed him to make her pregnant. Then she’d have had a chip in the game. He would have stayed with her if she’d only given him a child to carry on the precious James family name.

“Idiot,” she muttered, aiming the insult at herself. Such an easy thing and she’d never once considered it.

Why any woman was willing to distort her body and then chain herself to a needy, whimpering child for God knew how long was something she’d never really understood. But if that was what it took to keep Parker married to her…to keep the James family fortune handy…then that’s exactly what she would do.

It wasn’t too late. She’d just seduce Parker—men really were so easy to handle, after all—get him into bed and let him plant a seed in her. Then she would have a monetary tie to the James family forever. And nowhere was it written that she’d actually have to raise the child herself.

Wasn’t that what nannies were for?

Boarding schools?

She smiled at the thought and tapped the tip of one finger against her chin as she imagined how easy it would be to slip herself back into Parker’s life.

A break in traffic came just as that last thought skittered through her mind. Frannie grinned. It’s a sign, she thought.

She stepped off the curb, glancing at the window that proclaimed Parker’s Place, and stopped dead. Shock rippled through her and had her blinking to clear her vision.

But there was nothing wrong with her eyes.

Parker was coming out of his ridiculous little café with a short, curvy redhead. Frannie scrutinized the two of them. Intent on each other, they hadn’t noticed her watching.

The woman looked vaguely familiar, but why was that? She leaned into Parker and he smiled at her. That slow, easy smile that Frannie hadn’t seen since the first year of their marriage. She could damn near feel the sexual tension pooling around them.

Red-hot anger flared within her, but somehow she kept from storming across the street and tearing the little bitch away from her husband. Instead she stepped back onto the curb and blended into the pedestrians bustling along the sidewalk.

She didn’t want to be seen, but she couldn’t turn away from the couple. The woman was looking up at Frannie’s husband like he was a fresh beignet, and she had to fight the urge to run right over and slap them both senseless. How dare that little bitch go after Parker James? And what in the hell was Parker thinking, smiling and flirting on a public street with a woman who wasn’t his wife?

They might be separated, but they were still married. And Frannie wouldn’t be humiliated publicly by anyone.

Her breaths came shallow and fast, and a hard knot settled in the pit of her stomach. Her brain raced. Was this the reason Parker was finally demanding a divorce? Had the little redhead somehow latched onto the walking bank account that should be Frannie’s?

Just who the hell was she?

How long had this been going on?

And just how involved were they?

Parker and his tramp walked away, and Frannie hissed in a breath. Foolish man. Did he think Frannie LeBourdais would just disappear quietly? Have her life disrupted because all of a sudden he had an itch that needed scratching?

Well, if that was the plan, he didn’t know the first thing about her. Still steaming, she turned back to her car. Jonathon reacted instantly, opening the back door and closing it quietly after her. Once he was behind the wheel, Frannie ordered, “Take me to the Café du Monde.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, steering the sleek, black car into traffic.

Ignoring his presence, Frannie flipped her cell phone open, hit number one on the speed dial and waited while the phone rang. At last, a woman answered.

“Justine?” Frannie said. “It’s me. You will not believe what I just saw.”

Justine rattled off a stream of questions, but Frannie cut her off.

“I’ll tell you when I see you. Meet me at du Monde in fifteen minutes, will you?”

Without waiting for an answer, she hung up on her best friend and sometime lover. Then she settled back into the plush leather seat and stared furiously out the window as the city of New Orleans flashed past.

P
ARKER SPENT
the rest of the day at the office.

He wasn’t happy about it. He’d rather have been at the jazz café. He’d rather have been with Holly. Hell, he’d rather have been anywhere else but where he was.

Idly, he wondered exactly when the dissatisfaction with his life had begun taking root. He had grown up knowing that one day he would take his place in the family business. He’d worked at the coffee plant as a teenager, starting with a broom and a dust pan. His father believed that the only way a man could understand how a business worked was to do every job at least once.

He hadn’t minded working his way up when he was a kid, and getting a corner office at company headquarters was particularly satisfying since he’d known he’d earned it.

Leaning back in the oxblood-leather desk chair, he
swiveled away from the paperwork awaiting his attention, and stared out the window at the harbor. Longshoremen worked steadily on the docks, unloading the latest shipment of coffee beans bound for the James family roasting plant.

And suddenly Parker had the answer to his question. The dissatisfaction had begun when he’d taken over this office. When he’d first studied the view outside this window. It was ten years ago, right before his marriage to Frannie. Parker’s father had made him a vice president and presented him with this office.

Parker remembered it all so clearly.

“I’
M PROUD OF YOU
, boy,” his father said, flipping the edges of his suit jacket back to stuff both hands into the pockets of his slacks. “You’ve done good work here. You’ve earned this promotion.”

“Thanks.” Parker wandered around the plush new space. A wet bar sat on one side of the room, and on the other, two leather couches faced each other across a coffee table. A huge desk sat in front of the wide windows that provided a view of the harbor. The gulf stretched out forever and huge ships crawled across its surface. Sunlight glittered on the blue water, reflecting up and into the tinted windows
.

“Your mother wanted to redecorate,” his father was saying, “but I thought Frannie would get a charge out of doing it for you.”

Parker laughed shortly and laid one hand on the cool window glass. “I don’t know if Frannie’s interested in decorating, but I’ll be sure to ask her.”

“Son, I know you’re going through with this wedding for the sake of the family, and I want you to know, it’s appreciated.”

“Uh-huh”

“But,” his father added, then waited until Parker turned to look at him, “I also know Frannie loves you. Hell, boy, she can’t hardly keep her hands off you. And many successful marriages have started with less.”

“Don’t worry,” Parker said with a shrug. “I’m sure Frannie and I will get along fine.”

“Sure you will. Your mother and I started out much the same, you know.” The older man sat on one of the visitor’s chairs pulled up in front of the desk. “Her father and mine negotiated the wedding. Wanted to merge our coffee business and their shipping firm. Worked out fine, I must say.”

“I know,” Parker said, sitting for the first time in the chair where he’d be spending the rest of his life. And while his father continued to reminisce, that
little phrase repeated itself over and over again in Parker’s mind.
The rest of his life. The rest of his life.

This was it.

This office.

This life
.

He would be a part of the James family coffee business. He would do what his father had done before him. He would come to this building, this office, every weekday from now until eternity. He would stare out the same window. He would watch the gulf and the ships coming and going.

And here he would stay.

Something cold and tight fisted around his heart.

“Your sister’s taking over the marketing department next year, so I’m thinking the company is in good hands.”

“Seems to be,” Parker muttered thickly, reaching to loosen his tie in an attempt to ease the tightness in his throat. His breath came short and fast as his father talked, building plans for the future even while Parker fought valiantly to survive the present.

P
ARKER LAID ONE HAND
on the window glass. Below him, on the wharf, it was business as usual. Except he no longer felt part of it.

He was different now.

He’d put in his time. He’d tried. He’d done his best. Hell, he’d even married the woman his parents had asked him to. Look how well that had turned out.

But now he had something else in his life. The jazz club was something he’d long dreamed about. For his sanity, for his happiness, he would have to turn his back on the dynasty built by his ancestors.

All he had to do now was to break the news to his father.

B
Y TEN THAT NIGHT
, Holly was in the zone.

The crowd at the Hotel Marchand was responsive and she fed off the energy pulsing at her from the shadows. Tommy’s talented fingers danced across the piano keys and Tommie Junior was sitting in on bass fiddle. Holly stepped off the stage, taking her cordless mike with her, and walked slowly through the crowd. Easing her way around the tables, she stopped every now and again to lean into a customer and sing solely to him.

She smiled and moved on, then stopped again, listening to the beat, feeling the swell of music fill her, rush through her blood. Every note was like a lover’s touch. Every word a promise, and as the spotlight followed her through the room, its heat on her skin felt more natural to her than sunlight.

She caught Leo’s eye and he winked at her just before she stopped at a table with a couple celebrating their fiftieth anniversary. The man and his wife leaned in close to each other and smiled up at Holly as she serenaded them briefly before moving on again.

The music continued, one song flowing into the next in a medley that spoke to the heart. This was Holly’s favorite part of every evening, mingling with the crowd, smiling and nodding at familiar faces and greeting newcomers.

Wineglasses tinkled and voices murmured just below the swell of the music, and Holly knew she was home. This was where she belonged. The place where she felt most at home. She knew how to work a crowd. She knew how to finesse every chord from a song. She knew how to make every person in the room feel as if they were her guest at a private party.

So many faces turned to her, yet even in the dim light she could distinguish the one she’d least expected to see. Parker James was sitting at what she’d come to think of as “his” table. Alone. At the back of the room.

Watching her.

A jolt of pleasure shot through her, but her voice never faltered. She moved slowly, deliberately, sliding one hand along her waist and over her hip, smoothing the clingy, red-satin dress she wore. Wending her
way through the tables, she headed toward him with single-minded determination, the spotlight marking her progress. But all Holly could see was the intensity of Parker’s eyes as he watched her.

A
LTHOUGH HE HAD SAT
in on her rehearsals twice, this was the first time Parker had come to a performance, and it was a completely different experience.

Holly’s dress looked as though it had been painted over her curves, the deeply cut neckline emphasizing her breasts, and he could feel his body tightening like a bow string. The music washed over him, but all he could hear was her voice, melodic, hypnotic, reaching deep down inside him to tremble at his core.

When she stopped at his table and smiled down at him, he was lost in the soft light of her eyes, in the sway of her hips, in the sultry sigh of her voice. His heart hammered in his chest and his hands itched to grab her, to pull her onto his lap and hold her there.

As if she could read his mind, she gave him another smile, reached out and trailed the tips of her polished fingernails across his cheek. For one brief, tantalizing moment, time seemed to stop. Something incredible hummed between them, electrifying the air until just drawing a breath spread fire throughout his body.