February Lover (2 page)

She smiled. “You can pose for a photograph for me.”

His gaze met hers and held her attention. With his red hair—really strawberry blond in most light—and green eyes, he had his mother’s Irish ancestry written all over him. She shuddered. How could he still be the handsomest man she’d ever seen? Shouldn’t the years of hard work and rough weather have aged him?

Yet his high, prominent cheekbones and strong cleft-filled chin still made her want to rush over and kiss him everywhere. At seventeen, she would have. Controlling herself would be the name of the game. But, sweet God, he was gorgeous. Her camera would eat him up.

There was no way they wouldn’t take her entry. Not with Aidan’s stunning face coupled with the story of how he’d saved all those children. She’d had nightmares for weeks when she heard about it. How close to death had he come, pulling all those kids from a raging fire and then treating their wounds with one nurse in the middle of a gun battle?

She took a deep breath. He sat in her car. He’d lived.

“You want to take my picture?” He squirmed. “Why?”

“For a calendar. Photographers from all over the world are sending in entries. A photograph of a hero. And then they’ll select twelve. It’s a very big deal to get your photo in there. A lot of exposure and bragging rights. My biggest competitor tries to get her stuff published by this company all the time. They always say no.”

“I’m sorry, Stacey.” He spoke very quickly and looked away from her when he did. The lack of eye contact bothered her more than his words. “But I have to say no. If there is anything else on the planet I can do for you, I’ll do it. I can’t have my photograph taken. And besides, I’m not any kind of hero. Not really. There are a million better-qualified soldiers out there. Go take one of their pictures.”

“No.” Her eye had captured her subject. There would be no letting go of it for her. She pulled back onto the street and headed toward his house. “It needs to be you.”

“I told you I wouldn’t do it. So you’re going to have to find someone else.” He stared at her, the set of his jaw saying he was finished with the subject.

They pulled up to his house. He turned to look at the structure, giving her the back of his head. She wanted to say something else about him owing her something for the years of pain and questioning her desirability, but she thought better of it. Aidan had apologized. She’d forgiven him. Saying those words meant she had to put his leaving to bed.

Somehow she’d have to get him to say yes to the photo without manipulating him.

“Stacey.” He looked at the floor. “Could you come inside with me? Please. I mean I know I said no to you but I….”

His voice faded and suddenly he looked young. For years, she’d watched him not want to go home. Aidan’s father had been a real son-of-a-bitch and he’d never liked her very much. She patted the steering wheel.

“I’ll go with you, Aidan.” She let out her breath. “If you’re sure you want a person you haven’t seen in fifteen years to be there with you when you have a reunion with your mother, whom you also haven’t seen….”

“Please.”

She put the car in park and turned it off. “Then let’s go say hello.”

Time seemed to melt away as she walked toward his front door with him. They’d done this stroll so many times together. Usually she talked and he listened. Had she been boring him to death? Back then, she’d been so excited to be part of the light surrounding Aidan Roux.

His family had money. Hers did not. Their financial differences hadn’t mattered because she’d gotten into Newman the same as he had. No one seemed to care very much she’d been there on scholarship. Or maybe they had. She probably hadn’t noticed because she’d concentrated so completely on Aidan. Whatever else had gone terribly wrong between them, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it hadn’t been because she wasn’t wealthy.

He couldn’t have cared less about being rich.

The house he grew up in fell into the classic Uptown New Orleans architectural scheme, the Garden District more specifically. Some of the homes in his neighborhood were still called by the names of the people who’d once built them. Flags for Mardi Gras had started to pop up around the neighborhood and would hang there prominently until after Easter.

Aidan’s family home was one of the largest on the street, but during their time together, it hadn’t been known as anything other than the Rouxs’. His father’s big personality had stolen away whatever the house would have at one time been called.

More recently, Stacey had heard it called the Widow Roux’s house. Tall and white with large, black shutters, it stood out from its brightly colored neighbors if for no other reason than the classic nature of its traditional silhouette. The Rouxs’ house had been made in the Greco-Roman style so popular in the Uptown neighborhood tourist brochures, but it was actually less common than the pamphlets would lead people to believe. When she thought of classic New Orleans, she thought of this place.

Aidan trudged up to the door and stopped. She waited for him to proceed, unsure of her moves in this situation even if her stupid heart wanted to reach out to comfort him. They didn’t have that kind of relationship anymore, and he’d given her no indication in the car, at least after he’d checked out her breasts, he wanted to rekindle with her at all.

“I don’t know if I should knock, see if the door is open, or ring the doorbell.” His words were spoken in a monotone voice.

“Tricky, isn’t it?” Stacey maintained such a close relationship with her parents. She couldn’t imagine not opening the door to their house and walking on in whenever the mood struck her.

“This was a mistake. I should never have come back here.” He sighed. “I’d moved on. And now I’m acting like I’m twenty years old and about to explode from needing to get out of here.”

“I never knew you felt that way. Not until the day you left.”

He threw his hands in the air. “For years I’d done a really good job of hiding it.”

“Right.” This moment couldn’t be about her and wondering why he couldn’t have let her in a little on his feelings. “Here’s the thing, Red. Everyone from New Orleans eventually comes back here. I left and here I am living here again.”

“I’m
not
living here again. I’m visiting. By March I’ll be somewhere else.”

So she had a very short amount of time to convince him to pose for her and to get his face out of her mind so she never needed to think of it again. “Fair enough. Tell yourself you had to come back sometime and get it out of your system.”

“Okay.” He laughed. “You must really think I’m pathetic.”

“I don’t.” She moved forward. “Just indecisive, which is why I had to ask you out when I was fifteen. Move.”

Stacey nudged him out of the way with her hip. Using the knocker, she banged loudly on the door. Then she grabbed the knob. It turned, and she pushed it open. “Your mother should
not
be leaving her door unlocked. Foolish woman. This town is loaded with criminals.”

“She never could manage the simple things.” He sounded better, easier, which made Stacey’s soul feel lighter.

“Hello, Miss Linda. We’re here. I’ve got your boy. Picked him right off the street.”

“Your accent. You really put it on sometimes, and then other times it’s like you have none at all.”

“Aidan, once upon a time I loved when you noticed me so completely. Today? I’m not going to explain to you all of the eccentricities of being me. There are too many to name.”

He laughed, and she smiled at him. Apparently, all he needed was for her to open the door for him in order to cheer him up.

“Miss Linda?” she called again. “I hear water running upstairs. She must be in the shower.”

“She got in the shower and left her door open?” He threw his hands in the air and stepped into the house. “Like I said, no common sense. Mom?” he called up the stairs.

“Do you need me to stay? Because I can go, if you’d prefer.” Her heart fluttered and she knew she should flee. No way, no how could she fall for
Doctor
Aidan Roux. He’d been impossible to resist even before they’d added the MD to his name.

“No, stay.” He took her hand and brought her to him. “At least until you can say hello to Mom.”

His mouth came down on hers. She gasped at the unexpected embrace and then closed her eyes. Aidan tasted like mint. Her mind flip-flopped and he deepened the kiss, pulling her to him by the back of her neck.

“Aidan?” his mother called down the stairs.

Stacey pulled back from him, hitting the wall behind her. Her heart raced. “I’m sorry, Aidan. I’m suddenly remembering an appointment. Tell your mom I say hello for me, won’t you? And think about the picture.”

She fled out the door, knowing she had no other choice. The past was in there, and it couldn’t have a place in her future.

Aidan took a sip of his Abita beer and longed for a cigarette. Oh, he would never smoke one. But the last time he’d drunk Abita, he had. Of course, he’d been drinking illegally back then. Not that anyone cared about drinking laws in New Orleans.

Laissez les bons temps rouler
.

His mother approached him, coming up on his right side. She’d aged since he’d last seen her, but other than the few wrinkles, he couldn’t find one way the woman had altered at all. She could still hostess a party like no one’s business, still tell everyone around her what to do and make it sound so genteel they didn’t care she was being invasive, and with her every look and deed, she could still make him feel guilty for not being a perfect son.

But at least he didn’t have his drunken father beating on him to make it worse.

Stacey laughed at something Rob Steiner said, and he resisted the urge to punch the guy out. What had taken over his brain? Actually, he didn’t have to think too hard to figure it out. His brain should have been in charge but his cock had other ideas. But ever since he’d kissed her, he’d hardly been able to think of anything else.

“Having fun, darling?” His mother’s voice killed his sex drive, and he turned back to look at her.

“No.” He took another sip of his beer. “When I agreed to come home, it wasn’t to be paraded around like a prize to show off to your friends.”

“What a thing to say to your mother.” She huffed. “I’m not parading you around. I simply want everyone to see how good you are doing. And I invited your friends over, too. Why aren’t you talking to them?”

He had spoken to them when they’d all arrived, except for Stacey, who’d scooted by him with a quick
hi
before making her way to the back yard. And he wasn’t fooled by his mom’s nice words. She wanted her friends to see how well he’d turned out so they could all get over what had happened fifteen years ago, so they could all finally decide to accept her completely back into her mix.

He owed her enough to play this game for her, for a little while anyway.

“I talked to my friends.”

They weren’t really his friends anymore. Other than Stacey, who had been so much more than friends to him, he’d barely liked any of them. They were lawyers, businessmen, politicians, and parents.

“You’re standing by yourself.” Her words were said through gritted teeth.

“I’m aware of that.” He took a deep breath to stop himself from saying something nasty. Just then, Stacey approached. She had the most impeccable bail-out timing of anyone he’d ever known.

“Hello, Miss Linda. This is such a lovely party. The crawfish are so in season.”

“Yes. Stacey, dear, you look lovely.” Unlike his father, his mother had adored Stacey, one of the reasons he could forgive her for some of the other things that had happened during those years.

“Thank you.” She smiled back warmly. “You look well. I swear you never age. I was just saying that to my mother the other day. ‘Miss Linda never ages.’”

“Oh, you.” His mother patted Stacey on the shoulder, and Aidan took a deep pull from his drink. Why couldn’t he people please? Where was his innate ability to know what to say? He did it with his patients. Why not his own mother?

“It’s very nice of you to say so.” His mother sighed. “Because I’m afraid I’m not feeling very well.”

“You’re not?” Stacey and Aidan asked at the same time. With her words in his head, Aidan set down his drink to look at his mother.

“I have to have this minor heart surgery. I guess I’ve got a blockage.” She shrugged and started to move away from them. Stacey grabbed her arm, and his mind whirled as he quickly assessed what he could tell of her ailments by looking at her. Why hadn’t he thought to do this earlier?

Her respiration was fast, and her color had a tinge of gray. His mother didn’t look healthy, and he hadn’t even noticed. What the fuck was wrong with him?

“Maybe you’d better tell us more about this blockage.” She gestured to Aidan. “He’s a doctor. I’m sure he’ll be able to understand.”

Stacey ushered his mother to a chair and sat down next to her. He listened intently while his mother described having to undergo open-heart surgery. Her years living with a smoker, his father, coupled with her really horrific eating habits, had caught up with her. At sixty-five years old, she had to have a blockage removed in the most invasive way possible.

Aidan withdrew into himself, a trick proven to be beneficial on the battlefield. How did he feel about what his mother said? He wanted to feel something, anything, about the fact the woman who had given him life had to have this massive operation. But all he could do was focus on the manipulation of the thing. Not only had she wanted him to come back in order to perform social reparations for him but also to take care of her because she had to have heart surgery.

All of that would have been fine if she’d come out and told him what she needed instead of playing through some kind of drama about missing him.

“When is the surgery, Mom?”

He’d interrupted her storytelling, and both her and Stacey’s looks told him he’d barely risen above the rank of ape in terms of manners. But when he wanted answers, he was going to get them. Screw the dictates of Uptown nonsense.